Friday, May 31, 2024
12PM-5PM
Annuals will be planted on the grounds in front of the Interpretive Center and Walt’s house. Feel free to bring some planting tools if you have them available.
A birthday cake will be provided in honor of Walt!
Art in the Barn: Storytime and hands-on art project for Pre-schoolers is a new workshop for pre-schoolers at Walt Whitman Birthplace. Taught by Lena Massari Sawyer, former Museum Educator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Come and join us every week as we read various stories including the award-winning Caldecott books. Learn about artists of the past and create your own artwork.
May 25, 2024
May 25th- Let’s travel to Monet’s Garden!
We will be planting our own herbs in the Art Barn and reading Christina Björk’s book “Linneas’s Windowsill Garden”.
Register NOW for the full series and SAVE! (Space is limited)
Members: $13 Non Members: $15
(Per workshop, tickets can be purchased at the door)
Click here to register >>
See Spring Calendar below.
Picture Books are a crucial tool for developing a child’s literacy and language skills in their early years. They help build self-confidence as the child learns to read through visual thinking. The children will read a book, then tell their own story through collage and other multimedia materials. They will look at the different elements of art such as changing perspective, scale, as well as multiple points of view through drawing and using collage materials. In addition, each child will be given a small plastic magnifying glass to explore a tinker box filled with objects from nature such as seashells, rocks, etc.
Lena Massari Sawyer has been an educator for over 25 years. She taught Art History and Studio Art to children for over two decades at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While at the Met, she specialized in early childhood education, creating and teaching numerous art history and children’s literature classes. Lena has been a long-time resident of Long Island. She teaches art history, painting and other multimedia classes both at the Birthplace at the Little Studio in Northport Village. Lena holds a bachelor’s degree in art history and performed her graduate studies in Museum Education at New York University.
April 6th – Come and celebrate National Poetry Month at Walt Whitman Birthplace!
Explore the work of British Textile designer, poet and artist William Morris. We will be reading “Beautiful Useful Things: What William Morris Made” by Beth Kephart and end the session making your own print designs.
April 13th – Spring has arrived! Celebrate National Garden Month with us at the Birthplace.
We will walk through Walt’s Garden and find some Whitman Lilacs blooming. Back in the Art Barn, we will explore the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany. The session will end with a stained glass inspired project and “In the Garden” by Carin Berger.
April 20th – Come and explore the work of Architect Frank Loyd Wright!
In the Art Barn, we will be building with wood and reading “My first Shapes with Frank Lloyd Wright” by Mudpuppy and L. Ortiz.
April 27th – “The Wave” by Hokusai!
Let’s explore how the world of Japanese prints affected Nineteenth Century artists. We will be painting and reading “Hokusai: He saw the world in a Wave” by S Hodge and K. Ekdahl.
May 4th – The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
Get ready, get set, we will be looking at The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh and reading Vincent’s “Colors” by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bring your smock and lets paint!
May 11th – No Class
May 18th – Cezanne’s Apples!
Put on your smocks and grab a paint brush. We will be painting in The Art Barn and reading “Orange Pear Apple Bear” by Emily Gravett.
May 25th- Let’s travel to Monet’s Garden!
We will be planting our own herbs in the Art Barn and reading Lena Anderson and Christina Björk’s book “Linneas’s Windowsill Garden”.
June 1st – Summer has arrived!
Let’s go sailing with the artist Edward Hopper and look for Lighthouses. We will be painting and reading “Edward Hopper Summer at the Seashore” by Deborah Lyons. Makeup class for May 11th.
Art in the Barn: Storytime and hands-on art project for Pre-schoolers is a new workshop for pre-schoolers at Walt Whitman Birthplace. Taught by Lena Massari Sawyer, former Museum Educator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Come and join us every week as we read various stories including the award-winning Caldecott books. Learn about artists of the past and create your own artwork.
May 18, 2024
May 18th – Cezanne’s Apples!
Put on your smocks and grab a paint brush. We will be painting in The Art Barn and reading “Orange Pear Apple Bear” by Emily Gravett.
Register NOW for the full series and SAVE! (Space is limited)
Members: $13 Non Members: $15
(Per workshop, tickets can be purchased at the door)
Click here to register >>
See Spring Calendar below.
Picture Books are a crucial tool for developing a child’s literacy and language skills in their early years. They help build self-confidence as the child learns to read through visual thinking. The children will read a book, then tell their own story through collage and other multimedia materials. They will look at the different elements of art such as changing perspective, scale, as well as multiple points of view through drawing and using collage materials. In addition, each child will be given a small plastic magnifying glass to explore a tinker box filled with objects from nature such as seashells, rocks, etc.
Lena Massari Sawyer has been an educator for over 25 years. She taught Art History and Studio Art to children for over two decades at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While at the Met, she specialized in early childhood education, creating and teaching numerous art history and children’s literature classes. Lena has been a long-time resident of Long Island. She teaches art history, painting and other multimedia classes both at the Birthplace at the Little Studio in Northport Village. Lena holds a bachelor’s degree in art history and performed her graduate studies in Museum Education at New York University.
April 6th – Come and celebrate National Poetry Month at Walt Whitman Birthplace!
Explore the work of British Textile designer, poet and artist William Morris. We will be reading “Beautiful Useful Things: What William Morris Made” by Beth Kephart and end the session making your own print designs.
April 13th – Spring has arrived! Celebrate National Garden Month with us at the Birthplace.
We will walk through Walt’s Garden and find some Whitman Lilacs blooming. Back in the Art Barn, we will explore the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany. The session will end with a stained glass inspired project and “In the Garden” by Carin Berger.
April 20th – Come and explore the work of Architect Frank Loyd Wright!
In the Art Barn, we will be building with wood and reading “My first Shapes with Frank Lloyd Wright” by Mudpuppy and L. Ortiz.
April 27th – “The Wave” by Hokusai!
Let’s explore how the world of Japanese prints affected Nineteenth Century artists. We will be painting and reading “Hokusai: He saw the world in a Wave” by S Hodge and K. Ekdahl.
May 4th – The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
Get ready, get set, we will be looking at The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh and reading Vincent’s “Colors” by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bring your smock and lets paint!
May 11th – No Class
May 18th – Cezanne’s Apples!
Put on your smocks and grab a paint brush. We will be painting in The Art Barn and reading “Orange Pear Apple Bear” by Emily Gravett.
May 25th- Let’s travel to Monet’s Garden!
We will be planting our own herbs in the Art Barn and reading Lena Anderson and Christina Björk’s book “Linneas’s Windowsill Garden”.
June 1st – Summer has arrived!
Let’s go sailing with the artist Edward Hopper and look for Lighthouses. We will be painting and reading “Edward Hopper Summer at the Seashore” by Deborah Lyons. Makeup class for May 11th.
George Wallace and Walt Whitman Birthplace proudly present season three of POETS BUILDING BRIDGES: A TRIANGULATION PROJECT, inaugurated in March 2022 with the purpose of enhancing dialogue between communities of writers across the US and internationally. Based on a shared small-group experience, these Saturday zoom sessions engage three distinct and well defined communities of poets with each other to share work and foster further interaction. In Season Three, POETS BUILDING BRIDGES will build on that experience, triangulating national and international groups based not only on location but additionally offering key small press publications an opportunity to form a participating group.
THIS IS A ZOOM ONLY EVENT.
Live on zoom. archived on Youtube. For Season 2 visit our YouTube Channel >>
Jane Ormerod is an artist and the author of the full-length poetry collections Welcome to the Museum of Cattle and Recreational Vehicles on Fire (both from Three Rooms Press). In addition, her work has appeared in anthologies and journals including From the Inside: NYC through the Eyes of the Poets Who Live Here (Blue Light Press, 2022) and From Somewhere to Nowhere: The End of the American Dream, A founding editor of great weather for MEDIA, Jane is the recipient of a 2020 NYC Acker Award in publishing for her contribution to the avant-garde community.
David Lawton is the author of Sharp Blue Stream (Three Rooms Press) and the chapbook Inspiritive (Moonstone Arts), and has had his work published in numerous journals and anthologies. David is a graduate of the theatre program at Boston University, where he was also a Guest Artist in the graduate play writing classes taught by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott. For ten years he was a background vocalist in the New York underground band Leisure Class. At the band’s de facto headquarters in the Chelsea Hotel, he befriended Beat godfather Herbert Huncke and San Francisco poet Marty Matz, and was inspired by their embodiment of the written word. David also collaborates with poet Aimee Herman in the poemusic collective Hydrogen Junkbox on their album Pixie Dust.
Thomas Fucaloro is a poet. He is the winner of numerous grants from the Staten Island Council of the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, NYC Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, and the NYC Commission of Human Rights to name a few.
L.A. poet/spoken-word performer Rich Ferguson has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, Moby, and other esteemed poets and musicians. He is a featured performer in the film, What About Me? featuring Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, k.d. lang, and others. His poetry and award-winning spoken-word music videos have appeared in numerous anthologies and festivals. Ferguson is the lead editor of an anthology of CA poets entitled Beat Not Beat (Moon Tide Press). He has been selected by the National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc. (NBPF), to serve as U.S. Beat Poet Laureate (Sep 23 to Sep 24).
Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Verse Daily, The American Journal of Poetry, Plume, Diode, and elsewhere. She’s authored ten poetry collections, most recently EROTIC: New & Selected (NYQ Books), and DUETS (Small Harbor Press) an ekphrastic chapbook written with Virginia poet, Cynthia Atkins. BRAZEN , an erotic, full-length collection, the follow up to EROTIC, published in 2023, again from NYQ. A coffee table book of Alexis’ photographs of Southern California poets will be published by Moon Tide Press in 2024. She lives in the Mojave Desert with her husband, Fancher.
Kathleen Florence writes, directs and performs for film and stage. Her poetry and visual art has been featured in Maintenant 10 – 17, Arteidolia, AIR Gallery and The Poetry Collection at the University of Buffalo. More: https://kathleenflorence.blogspot.com
Conney D. Williams is a Los Angeles based poet, actor and performance artist originally from Shreveport, Louisiana where he worked as a radio personality. His latest poetry collection entitled “The Distance of Observation” was released on World Stage Press in August 2021. He is also the co-founder of World Stage Press. He released two critically acclaimed cds (2015) of his poetry accompanied by music: “Unsettled Water” and “River&Moan.” A community activist, he has worked with youth for over 35 years and was an ordained minister and Youth Pastor in the Church of God in Christ.
Deema Mahmoud, is an Egyptian poet with a BS degree in Computer Sciences and Statistics. She has published five books of poetry, all in Arabic, and is winner of the “Helmi Salem Prize for New Poetry 2021.” Many of her poems have been translated into other languages.
Nour Nasra is a poet, writer and translator who studied translation at Literature College, Tishreen University. She is based in Dubai and works as the Literary Programs Manager at Kutubna Cultural Center in Dubai. Winner of the first prize for poetry creativity at New Delmoun Publishing House in Damascus in 2017, she is third-place winner of a short story competition at the culture center in Tartous, Syria. Author of two poetry books and seven translated books, many of her poems have been translated into Spanish, Romanian, and English languages, and published in international magazines in many European countries.
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Support Our Literacy Programs >>
POETS BUILDING BRIDGES is produced by Poetrybay Productions for the Walt Whitman Birthplace.
Join us on Sunday, May 5, 2024 at noon for our 2024 Student Poetry Contest Awards Ceremony.
Art in the Barn: Storytime and hands-on art project for Pre-schoolers is a new workshop for pre-schoolers at Walt Whitman Birthplace. Taught by Lena Massari Sawyer, former Museum Educator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Come and join us every week as we read various stories including the award-winning Caldecott books. Learn about artists of the past and create your own artwork.
May 4, 2024
May 4th – The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh – CANCELLED
Get ready, get set, we will be looking at The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh and reading Vincent’s “Colors” by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bring your smock and lets paint!
Register NOW for the full series and SAVE! (Space is limited)
Members: $13 Non Members: $15
(Per workshop, tickets can be purchased at the door)
Click here to register >>
See Spring Calendar below.
Picture Books are a crucial tool for developing a child’s literacy and language skills in their early years. They help build self-confidence as the child learns to read through visual thinking. The children will read a book, then tell their own story through collage and other multimedia materials. They will look at the different elements of art such as changing perspective, scale, as well as multiple points of view through drawing and using collage materials. In addition, each child will be given a small plastic magnifying glass to explore a tinker box filled with objects from nature such as seashells, rocks, etc.
Lena Massari Sawyer has been an educator for over 25 years. She taught Art History and Studio Art to children for over two decades at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While at the Met, she specialized in early childhood education, creating and teaching numerous art history and children’s literature classes. Lena has been a long-time resident of Long Island. She teaches art history, painting and other multimedia classes both at the Birthplace at the Little Studio in Northport Village. Lena holds a bachelor’s degree in art history and performed her graduate studies in Museum Education at New York University.
April 6th – Come and celebrate National Poetry Month at Walt Whitman Birthplace!
Explore the work of British Textile designer, poet and artist William Morris. We will be reading “Beautiful Useful Things: What William Morris Made” by Beth Kephart and end the session making your own print designs.
April 13th – Spring has arrived! Celebrate National Garden Month with us at the Birthplace.
We will walk through Walt’s Garden and find some Whitman Lilacs blooming. Back in the Art Barn, we will explore the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany. The session will end with a stained glass inspired project and “In the Garden” by Carin Berger.
April 20th – Come and explore the work of Architect Frank Loyd Wright!
In the Art Barn, we will be building with wood and reading “My first Shapes with Frank Lloyd Wright” by Mudpuppy and L. Ortiz.
April 27th – “The Wave” by Hokusai!
Let’s explore how the world of Japanese prints affected Nineteenth Century artists. We will be painting and reading “Hokusai: He saw the world in a Wave” by S Hodge and K. Ekdahl.
May 4th – The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh – CANCELLED
Get ready, get set, we will be looking at The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh and reading Vincent’s “Colors” by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bring your smock and lets paint!
May 11th – No Class
May 18th – Cezanne’s Apples!
Put on your smocks and grab a paint brush. We will be painting in The Art Barn and reading “Orange Pear Apple Bear” by Emily Gravett.
May 25th- Let’s travel to Monet’s Garden!
We will be planting our own herbs in the Art Barn and reading Lena Anderson and Christina Björk’s book “Linneas’s Windowsill Garden”.
June 1st – Summer has arrived!
Let’s go sailing with the artist Edward Hopper and look for Lighthouses. We will be painting and reading “Edward Hopper Summer at the Seashore” by Deborah Lyons. Makeup class for May 11th.
Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) announces a day of poetry featuring our 2024 Poet in Residence Linda Gregerson on Saturday, May 4, 2024
Linda will facilitate a three-hour Master Class in poetry writing and a one-hour poetry reading at the Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site, located at 246 Old Walt Whitman Road, Huntington Station, NY, 11746.
Master Class Lead by Linda Gregerson
ECOPOETICS: TEMPORALITY AND THE NATURAL WORLD
It is the premise of ecology in general and ecopoetics in particular, of course, that we live neither “in” nature or “with” nature but as an indissoluble part of nature. And yet, our distinctive capacities for doing harm, like our distinctive responsibility for stewardship, point to the profound paradox of “being human.” Nowhere do we experience this paradox more vividly than in the realm of time. For the most part, we experience time on a human scale: the heartbeat, the cycle of sleep and waking, our individually allotted time on earth. But what is our lifespan compared to that of the mayfly? Of the giant sequoia? What insights do we gain from such differentials of temporal scale? What terrors do we encounter when we contemplate such differentials? What sources of comfort or consolation?
I’ll bring in some poems for us to discuss, and I’ll ask you each to bring in one of your own: any poem that involves an encounter with nature will be welcome. We’ll also spend a portion of this workshop generating ideas for future poems and ecopoetical projects.
This class and reading will take place on May 4, 2024 in person at Walt Whitman State Historic Site
Master Class: 1:00PM – 4:00PM | Poetry Reading: 5:00PM – 6:00PM
Workshop: Members $55/Non-members $65
Class Audit: Members $20/Non-members $25
Reading: Members $10/Non-members $15
To purchase tickets visit: https://www.waltwhitman.org/product/kwame-dawes-workshop/
Linda Gregerson is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently of Canopy (Ecco/HarperCollins 2022). Her second collection (The Woman Who Died in Her Sleep, Houghton Mifflin 1996) was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Prize; her third (Waterborne, Houghton Mifflin 2002) won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Prize; her fourth (Magnetic North, Houghton Mifflin 2007) was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has also published two critical monographs and numerous essays on early modern English and contemporary American poetry. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, London Review of Books, Poetry Review, and a host of other literary journals. Among her honors are awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Poetry Society of America and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Humanities Center, the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Mellon Foundations, and the Institute for Advanced Study. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Gregerson is the Caroline Walker Bynum Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan, where she directs the Helen Zell Writers’ Program. She divides her time between Ann Arbor, Michigan, and London.
Supported by: New York State Parks, Suffolk County, & The Claire Friedlander Family Foundation.
This program is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and administered by The Huntington Arts Council.
Friday, May 3rd, Walking With Whitman will feature poet Lucilla Trapazzo, accompanied by sound artist Alessandro Olla, and poet Maria Lisella. The evening will also feature live music by Singer-Songwriter Linda Sussman. Join us for this exciting event!
Refreshments will be served starting at 6:30, music and readings start at 7:00.
There is a $10 entry fee for this event that will be collected at the door. (No registration is required)
Lucilla Trapazzo (Switzerland/Italy) is an award-winning poet, translator, artist and performer. After years spent abroad, studying and working (DDR, Brussels, Washington DC and New York City), she now lives in Zurich, Switzerland. Her poems, translated in 18 languages, have won numerous prestigious awards (among which laureate poet of Naji Naaman Literary Awards, Lebanon 2021 and of Korca Poetry Nights, Albania 2023), and have been published on important International magazines and anthologies. She is regular guest of International poetry festivals, among which Struga Poetry Evening 2021 (N. Macedonia), Princeton Festival, 2021,2024 (USA), Babylon Festival of Arts 2022, 2024 (Iraq), Rockport Poetry festival, 2023 (USA). Convinced supporter of human rights and the planet, her social and feminine point of view is reflected in many of her writings.
Maria Lisella is a travel writer by trade and often use outtakes of her official assignments to tell other people’s stories. Her collections include: Thieves in the Family (NYQ Books), Amore on Hope Street (Finishing Line Press) and Two Naked Feet (Poets Wear Prada). Recently featured on The Poet and the Poem at the Library of Congress, she is the sixth Queens Poet Laureate and an Academy of American Poets Fellow. Her new collection, The Man with a Plan is pending publication. Lisella is the poetry editor for VIA – Voices in Italian Americana, she leads poetry workshops for the Queens Public Library’s and for the Writer Guild Initiative with The Body Politic; she is a Board member and a curator for the 33-year old Italian-American Writing Association (IAWA) literary series in NY and is a charter member of the online poetry circle, Brevitas. Recent work won Honorable Mention for the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award and has been published several times on New Verse News among other publications.
Linda Sussman (LindaSussman.com) is an award-winning singer-songwriter whose versatile vocals and guitar style incorporate both folk and blues. Her music spans universal topics—from heartache, triumphs, social justice and others just for fun—and has ranked #1 on the Roots Music Report’s weekly Alternative Folk Album Chart. Her music is played on radio programs internationally (including here at home on WFUV, WUSB, WSHU, and WLIW), and the many stages she has played include the iconic New York City venue The Bitter End, the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in Stony Brook, the Jeanne Rimsky Theater at Landmark on Main Street in Port Washington, and smaller stages such as Radio Bean in Burlington, Vermont. Earlier this year (2024), Linda released her fifth album, titled “Win or Lose,” which she has on hand today. Linda’s music is also available on all streaming platforms, such as Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, etc.
Make a meaningful gift to support our poetry programs: https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2197152
This program is made possible with funds from Poets and Writers, The Claire Friedlander Family Foundation, NY State Parks, Suffolk County, Town of Huntington, and NYS Council on the Arts through Huntington Arts Council.
Announcing the 2024 Long Island Poet of the Year – Nancy Keating
2024 Long Island Poet of the Year Award Reception & Reading will be held on April 21, 2024, 2PM – 3:00PM, in-person at Walt Whitman Birthplace Association.
The Long Island Poet of the Year Award is an annual award given by Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) to honor a notable and distinguished local poet who actively promotes poetry on Long Island. Each year, the board of trustees selects a notable poet as the WWBA poet of the year. They are a nationally known and well-respected poet who champions poetry through their writing, teaching, and support of the Long Island community of poets and their events.
For more information visit https://www.waltwhitman.org/li-poet-of-the-year/.
Summer Hours (starting June 15th)
Monday – Friday 11am-4pm
Saturday/Sunday 11am-4pm
Winter Hours (starting Labor Day)
Wednesday – Friday 1pm-4pm
Saturday/Sunday 11am-4pm
Closed on: Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day
Adults: $10
Seniors, military, and groups: $9
Students: $8
Children ages 5 and under: Free
246 Old Walt Whitman Road
Huntington Station, NY 11746
Copyright © 2024 Walt Whitman Birthplace Association. All Rights Reserved.