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Walt Whitman and Chinese Poetry | Wang Jiaxin 王家新

Discover the Role Whitman Played in the Chinese Modern Poetry Revolution
Poet, essayist, and translator Wang Jiaxin presents Whitman’s influence in China and introduces contemporary Chinese poetry. He reads his own poetry along with Chinese/English readings by Wang Yin, Jialu Mi, Jiaoyang Li, Liang Jing, Xie Jiong, and Zhang Shiran. “During the era of the May Fourth Student Movement in 1919, a group of Chinese youth were studying in Japan and there they were attracted by the poetry of Whitman, ‘the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel the world over’ as Whitman called himself.  The Chinese youths found his ideas especially congenial to the iconoclastic spirit which characterize their turbulent time.  Years will not stop the appeal of the great immortal poet.  Whitman made his debut in China when he was a hundred years old.”   – XiLao Li, “Whitman in China.” Msr-archives.rutgers.edu

Power Point Presentation:

This is a FREE, in-person event and will be live streamed on our YouTube channel:  @WaltWhitmanBirthplace 

Experience Whitman in China, featuring eminent Chinese Poet, Wang Jiaxin Parts 1, 2 and 3

Link to Power Point Presentation with Chinese and English translations: https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:7aa9132b-48a0-37b8-a9ec-df0569f7cec6 

Featured Poet Bios:

Wang Jiaxin 王家新  is a poet, essayist, critic, and translator. He was born in 1957 in Hubei Province and enrolled in Wuhan University, studying Chinese literature in 1978. In 1985 he moved to Beijing and began working as an editor for the influential Poetry journal. Since 2006 he has been a Professor of Literature at Renmin University of China. Wang has published numerous books of poetry: Commemoration; Moving Cliff; Poetry by Wang Jiaxin; Unfinished Poems; Tarkovsky’s Tree; Rewriting an Old Poem; Marginalia; Memory of the Future. Collections of literary and critical essays include A Meeting of Man and the World; A Nightingale in Its Own Time; Poems Without a Hero; Finding a Perch for the Phoenix; The Snow’s Regalia; Before Your Late Face; Translations as Recognition; The Master Who Taught My Soul to Sing; The Poet and His Time. His translations include Selected Poetry and Writings of Paul Celan; With the Book from Tarussa: Translations by Wang Jiaxin; New Year’s Greetings: Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva; My Age, My Beast: Poems by Osip Mandelshtam; Died at Dawn: The Selected Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca; Deaf Republic: Poems by Ilya Kaminsky; Door in the Mountain: Collected Poems by Jean Valentine (forthcoming). Wang has also edited many poetry anthologies: 20th Century Foreign Poets on Poetry; Collected Works of W.B. Yeats (3 volumes); Poems from Modern European and American Poets (3 volumes); Chinese Poetry in the 1990s; An Introductory Guide to Modern Poetry around the World.

Wang is one of China’s most eminent contemporary poets. He is highly regarded not only for his poetry but also for his essays, criticism and translation. “Since beginning his writing career, Wang Jiaxin has exerted a far-reaching influence over contemporary Chinese poetry not just as a poet but also for his role as a critic and translator. Wang’s poetic voice stands out for the gravity, clarity, and resolve with which it explores the individual’s relation to history, destiny, cultural inheritance, and humanity. His authoritative critical and editorial work has subtly but powerfully guided the development of Chinese poetry, while his celebrated translations of Russian and Eastern European poets have, like his poems, expressed a deep-rooted identification with universal themes of existence and marginalization.” (John Crespi, “Wang Jiaxin,” in Chinese Poets Since 1949, eds. Christopher Lupke and Thomas E.Moran (Gale: A Cengage Company, 2021). He has been invited frequently to attend international literary festivals and hold readings in different countries. A collection of his poems in German, Dämmerung auf Gotland, was published in Austria in 2011 and Nachgereichte Gedichte, published in Austria in 2017; Night Train, was published in Croatia in 2017 in Croatian translation. Een asgrauwe dageraad was published in the Netherlands in 2021 in Durtch translation. His collection of poems in English, Darkening Mirror, Translated by Diana Shi and George O’Connell, with a foreword by Robert Hass, was published in the United States in 2017 and was shortlisted for the 2018 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize.

Wang has received various domestic and international poetry awards. He has also been a poet-in-residence in several countries, such as Solitude Schloss Akademie in Stuttgart (1998), Villa Walberta Literature House in Munich (2001), Colgate University in New York State (2007), The International Writing Program at the University of Iowa (2013), Dutch Literary Foundation in Amsterdam as Poet-in-Residence (2022). Wang retired in 2021 and now shares his time between Beijing and New York. His poetry has been published in The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, and Chinese Literature Today (Oklahoma University Press). In recent years, Wang has led poet translation workshops at the Hudson Valley Writers Center and has given talks at Wellesley College and other American universities.

 


 

Wang Yin is a poet, photographer. His photography has been exhibited both in China and internationally and he has curated the international “Poetry Comes to the Museum” reading series at the Minsheng Museum in Shanghai since 2012. Wang Yin’s 2015 collection, Limelight, won two of China’s top poetry prizes, and his poetry has been translated into French, Spanish, Japanese, and Polish, among other languages. In 2022 NYRB Poets published his A Summer Day in the Company of Ghosts. This collection was longlisted for the inaugural National Book Critics Circle Award for a translated book. He lives in New York.

 


 

Jialu Mi is an Associate Professor in the departments of English and World Languages & Cultures at The College of New Jersey where he teaches Asian American Literature, Chinese Language cinema, cyberpunk technoculture and cultural study of music and media . He is the author of Self-Fashioning and Reflexive Modernity in Modern Chinese Poetry, 1919-1949 (2004) and Chinese Ecocinema in the Age of Environmental Challenge (2009, co-edited with Sheldon Lu) and the editor of  Poetry Across Oceans: An Anthology of Chinese American Diaspora Poetry (2014); works in Chinese include The Dao and the Routes: Mirage and Transfiguration in East-West Poetics (2017) and The Dao and the Routes: Enchantment and Spectrality in East-West Poetics (2017), Deep Breaths (2018), and  Poetics of the Body (2021). His Chinese-English bilingual collection of poems Deep Breaths was published in 2019. He is completing a book project in English titled Heteroscape: Topography and Poetics of Navigation in Modern Chinese literature, Art and Film to be published by Brill. He lives in Princeton with his family.

 


 

Jiaoyang Li is a poet and interdisciplinary artist. Her book project, Gatsa 乳牙, is forthcoming from Accent Sisters in October 2023.

 


 

Liang Jing, was born in March 2002. Chinese poet, and New York based artist. currently studying at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He has published poems in Chinese literature journals such as Shi Kan, Xing Xing and Poetry Monthly. Published poetry collection Long Night (2022, Unity Press). He won the 8th Youth Literature Award and the First Prize of Anhui Province, 2021.

 

Date: Sunday, August 6, 2023
Start Time: 3:00 pm EST

Celebrate Harry Potter’s Birthday at Walt Whitman Birthplace

The Hogwarts Express is making a special journey this July to the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association. This Harry Potter-themed tour takes place in the home Walt Whitman himself was born on May 31, 1819 (come to think of it, Walt does look suspiciously like Dumbledore, doesn’t he?). The house has Quidditch brooms, the “real leaky cauldron”, Flourish and Blott’s books, “The other Mirror of Erised”, and a Vanishing Cabinet to name a few! Take a trip up the Weasley family’s staircase and peer into the creepy attic.

Answer questions on the Harry Potter series as you go, to earn a certificate and bag of Walt Whit’s Beans, and learn from Walt’s own sorting hat which House you belong in! Bring in your poem about Harry Potter and we’ll display it!

We solemnly swear you will have a great time!

Date: Monday, July 24, 2023
Start Time: 11:00 am EST
Children 15 and under free with adult admission

WWBA 2023 Series: Legacy of Long Island’s First Peoples, Program 1 – Walt Whitman & Native Americans

Join us on Sunday, July 16th, on ZOOM for our first program in WWBA 2023 Series: Legacy of Long Island’s First PeoplesWalt Whitman & Native Americans featuring Ed Folsom, Whitman Scholar and Sandi Brewster-walker, Executive Director of the Montaukett Indian Nation & Government Affairs Officer.

This is a ZOOM only event. 

Walt Whitman’s relationship with the Native American community of Long Island will be discussed. Whitman often referred to Long Island by its Native American name of Paumanok, and his reverence for the natural world was very much in keeping with the ethos of Long Island’s first inhabitants.

 

 

Ed Folsom is the Roy J. Carver Professor of English at The University of Iowa, editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, co-director of the online Walt Whitman Archive, and editor of the Whitman Series at The University of Iowa Press. He is the author or editor of numerous books and essays on Whitman and other American writers. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Archives.  His work has been chosen four times as a Choice “Outstanding Academic Title,” and he has been featured on numerous national radio and television programs about Whitman. He was a Senior Fulbright Professor at the University of Dortmund in 1996, and he has taught seminars and lectured on Whitman in numerous countries, including Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Israel, China, Brazil, Canada, and Mexico.

 


 

This event is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by The Huntington Arts Council, Inc.

Date: Sunday, July 16, 2023
Start Time: 1:00 pm EST

Gwenn A. Nusbaum / WWBA “Poets To Come” Award Ceremony

Join Us on ZOOM for the 2023 Gwenn A. Nusbaum/WWBA Poets to Come Award Ceremony on Wednesday, July 12 at 7:00PM EST to celebrate Scholarship Honoree, Susan Nguyen.

Susan Nguyen is a poet currently based in Arizona whose debut collection, Dear Diaspora, won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in 2021. As a full-time Senior Editor for the literary journal Hayden’s Ferry Review, Susan currently spends her days publishing writers and mentoring students on the journal’s staff. As a poet, she adds her voice to the literary landscape of Vietnamese diasporic authors and poets. Last year’s honoree, Hua Xi, will be joining the celebration and will speak of how the Scholarship has supported her poetic endeavors.

THIS IS A ZOOM EVENT ONLY!

For more information on the Gwenn A. Nusbaum/WWBA Poets to Come Scholarship visit: waltwhitman.org/poetstocome

 

Date: Wednesday, July 12, 2023
Start Time: 7:00 pm EST

2024-2026 Suffolk County Poet Laureate Award Ceremony

Join us in-person on Sunday, June 25th at 3:00PM to celebrate Deborah Hauser, the newly appointed Suffolk County Poet Laureate. 

The ceremony will include the passing of the “Poet Laureate‘s twig” from the current Suffolk County Poet Laureate, Dr. Richard Bronson. It will also include a poetry reading by Deborah Hauser.


 

Deborah Hauser

Poet, feminist, activist, certified ennui therapist, and fairy tale revisionist. Deborah Hauser is the author of Ennui: From the Diagnostic and Statistical Field Guide of Feminine Disorders. Her poems and book reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Ms. MagazineWomen’s Review of BooksKenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Bellevue Literary Review, and Calyx. Her work explores the intersection of poetry and activism. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she has taught literature and writing at Stony Brook University and Suffolk County Community College. She has featured at the Northeast Modern Language Association, New York University, Newman University, KGB Bar, Walt Whitman Birthplace, and Bowery Poetry Club. She has presented her academic work at conferences including the Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference and graduate conferences at The City University of New York and Stony Brook University. She curates and hosts a monthly reading series at Jack Jack’s Coffee House for the Babylon Village Arts Council, is an Associate Editor at Poetrybay, the Secretary of the Suffolk County Chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and a Long Island Poetry and Literature Repository Board Member. She leads a double life on Long Island where she works in the insurance industry.

Date: Sunday, June 25, 2023
Start Time: 3:00 pm EST

New York State’s Path Through History

Join us Saturday, June 17th, and Sunday, June 18th, for New York State’s Path Through History! Walt Whitman Birthplace Association will have old fashion toys from the era of Walt’s childhood for children to play with as well as videos showcasing the way of life from that time.

 


 

The Whitman family roots on this part of Long Island date back to the early 17th century. Walt Whitman’s ancestors were farmers, served in the militia, and were active members of their community. Some time after Walt’s parents Walter and Louisa had married in 1816, they set up housekeeping in this simple, Federal-style home. They had three children here. Their second son, Walter Jr., who was to establish a great literary career, was born in 1819.

When the Whitman family moved to Brooklyn in 1823, Walter Sr. sold the property to Carlton Jarvis whose descendants retained it throughout the 19th century. After 1899 the house exchanged ownership several times. The kitchen wing was torn down prior to 1908. Recognizing the structure’s vulnerability, the Huntington Historical Society spearheaded local interest in protecting the property. Attracted to its historical associations, John and Georgia Watson purchased the house and lived there for over 30 years.

In the 1940’s, plans were made to purchase the house and turn it into a historic site. In October 1951, the newly chartered Walt Whitman Birthplace Association acquired the house and grounds. In April 1957, Governor Harriman signed a bill for the state to assume ownership, and on September 28, 1957, it became New York’s 22nd state historic site.

Date: Saturday, June 17, 2023
Start Time: 11:00 am EST
Tour Pricing

Father’s Day Exhibit Opening – Walt’s Father, Walt Whitman Sr.

Stop in on Wednesday, June 14th, between 1:00 and  4:00PM, for the opening of our new Father’s Day Exhibit. 

Many Whitman biographers have portrayed Walt’s father as a drunken, cruel and financially unsuccessful man who forced his family to relocate all over Long Island and Brooklyn as he found building work. They believe that Walt himself suffered from his father’s behavior, typically casting him as  a “mean father” character in his fiction, and writing descriptions of his threatening behavior into his poetry. But is it true?  We will explore the few historical clues we have about Walter Whitman, Sr. which hint that the true story may be something different.

The exhibit will include books, pamphlets, photographs, letters, and other rarely seen items from the WWBA’s historic collection.

Date: Wednesday, June 14, 2023
Start Time: 1:00 pm EST

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES Series 2, June 2023 – Cleveland, Wales, Somerville MA/Cervena Barva

George Wallace and Walt Whitman Birthplace proudly present season two 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. THIS IS A ZOOM ONLY EVENT.

Season One triangulated groups by location — from the US, UK, Italy, South America, the Balkans, the Near East and India.

(47) Poets Building Bridges: A World Poetry Day Triangulation Project – Day 1 – 5Mar2022 – YouTube

In Season Two, 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.

Live on zoom. archived on Youtube.

 

Cleveland: John Burroughs  |  Doc Jenning  |  Christine Howey  |  Shelley Chernin

John Burroughs is the author of John Burroughs of Cleveland is the author of Rattle & Numb: Selected and New Poems, 1992-2019 [2019, Venetian Spider Press], and more than a dozen chapbooks. He has curated several regular reading series in the Greater Cleveland area and currently moderate [2019, Venetian Spider Press], and more than a dozen chapbooks. He has curated several regular reading series in the Greater Cleveland area and currently moderates the northeast Ohio literary calendar at clevelandpoetry.com. Since 2008, John has served as the founding editor of Crisis Chronicles Press. From 2019 to 2021 he was Ohio’s Beat Poet Laureate and in September the National Beat Poetry Association named him the U.S. Beat Poet Laureate.

Doc Janning is the 80-year-old inaugural Poet Laureate of the city of South Euclid, Ohio. He has created Ekphrastic Poetry for Heights Arts and for Cleveland Photo Fest. Doc is Moderator of First Wednesday Poets, Creator-Host of Awenites, and a featured reader for poetry events around the world, is included in twenty-five anthologies, has had individual poems published on La Hermosa Bruja, and by PoemHunter.com, and videos on YouTube from a variety of readings.

Christine Howey is a performance poet, stage actor and director, playwright, theatre critic and the former executive director of Literary Cleveland. Her one-person play about her transgender journey, Exact Change, consists of 40 poems. It premiered at Cleveland Public Theatre and was an official selection of the 2015 New York International Fringe Festival. She then adapted the play into a film, which was an official selection of the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival in 2018.Christine has had four chapbooks of poetry published and was named Poet Laureate of Cleveland Heights, Ohio for 2016-2018. She is also a slam poet and competed in the National Poetry Slams in 2013 and 2017, as a member of the four-person Cleveland team  Christine was awarded a Creative Workforce Fellowship in 2014 from the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture, and an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council in 2016. She was honored to receive both the Illumination Award as the Transgender Leader of the Year in northeast Ohio for 2015, and the Torch Award for leadership on transgender issues from the Cleveland chapter of the Human Rights Campaign in 2017. 

Shelley Chernin  is an environmental activist and ukulele enthusiast who has been writing poetry on and off for most of her life. She is the author of The Vigil, published by Crisis Chronicles Press in 2012. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Great Lakes Review, Scrivener Creative Review, Guide to Kulchur Creative Journal, Rhapsoidia, Durable Goods, Big Bridge, and Oct Tongue-1. She was awarded Second Place in the 2011 Hessler Street Fair Poetry Contest and received Honorable Mentions twice in the Akron Art Museum’s New Words Poetry Contest. Shelley has read her poems and played ukulele in many venues, including Mac’s Backs, Visible Voice Books, Mahall’s, The Beachland Ballroom, numerous libraries, coffee shops, parks, bars and street corners.

 

Wales: Ian Griffiths  |  Amanda Rackstraw |  Rhian Edwards

Ian Grifffiths was born in Swansea Wales and lives in Shotley, county of Suffolk UK. Former chairman of the Suffolk Poetry Society, his first poetry collection was Conversations with Birds, published by Eye Wild Books. He lists his poeticinflurnces as Dylan Thomas, John Done, Robert Browning, Russian poets Afanasy Fet and Sergei Yesenin, and George Wallace. 

Amanda Rackstraw comes from London. She trained at RADA and worked as an actor until relocating to Wales.  Following an MA at Cardiff, she taught for the university until 2017.  Her work has been published in Planet, Mslexia, New Welsh Review, Acumen, and Poetry Wales. She has been longlisted for the National Poetry Prize for five years and shortlisted for the Bridport in 2019. Amanda has written and performed her own work programmed at Chapter Arts Centre. She has also worked as a storyteller in various venues across Wales. She is working on a collection of her poetry.

Rhian Edwards is a multi-award winning poet. Her first collection of poems Clueless Dogs (Seren 2012) won Wales Book of the Year 2013, the Roland Mathias Prize for Poetry 2013 and Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice 2013. It was also shortlisted for the  Forward Prizefor Best First Collection 2012. Rhian’s second full collection The Estate Agent’s Daughter (Seren 2020) was a National Poetry Day Recommended Read for 2020. Rhian also has two pamphlets of poems Parade the Fib, (Tall-Lighthouse 2008), which was awarded the Poetry Book Society Choice for autumn 2008. Brood (Seren 2017) is an illustrated pamphlet of bird poems, containing beautiful and original charcoal magpie drawings by artist Paul Edwards. Rhian is also the current winner of the John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry, winning both the Judges and Audience award. She was also the first Writer in Residence at Aberystwyth Arts Centre from March to June 2013. Rhian’s poems have appeared in the Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, Poetry Review, New Statesman, Spectator, Poetry London, Poetry Wales, Arete, Prague Revue, the London Magazine, Stand, Planet Magazine, the New Welsh Review and the Lampeter Review. Rhian is a poet and musician and has delivered over 400 stage, radio and festival performances world-wide. She lives in South Wales with her daughter Megan.

 

 

Somerville Ma/Cervena Barva:  Gloria Mindock  | Andrey Gritsman Russia-USA  |  Flavia Cosma Romania/Canada

Gloria Mindock  is editor of Červená Barva Press. She is an award-winning author of 6 poetry collections, 3 chapbooks and a children’s book. Her poems have been published and translated into eleven languages. Her recent book, Ash (Glass Lyre Press, 2021) has received 6 book awards and was translated into Serbian by Milutin Durickovic and published by Alma Press in Belgrade in 2022. Gloria’s work recently has appeared in Gargoyle, The James Dickey Review, 10 x 10, Ibbetson, Growth: Journal of Literature, Culture, & Art (Macedonia) and others. Gloria was the Poet Laureate in Somerville, MA in 2017 & 2018. For more information, visit her website at: www.gloriamindock.com

Andrey Gritsman A native of Moscow, Andrey emigrated to the United States in 1981. He is a poet, essayist and a physician. Gritsman have published ten volumes of poetry and prose in Russian and six in English. He received the 2009 Pushcart Prize Honorable Mention XXIII and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize several times. His poems, essays, and short stories in English have appeared and forthcoming in over 90 literary journals, including Nimrod International Journal, Cimarron Review, Notre Dame Review. His work has also been anthologized. Andrey received MFA in poetry from Vermont College and runs the Intercultural Poetry Series in New York City.

Flavia Cosma is a Canadian writer, poet and translator. Flavia is also a producer/ director for television documentaries. An author with more than 50 books, she has been published in various countries. Cosma’s poetry books Leaves of a Diary, Thus Spoke the Sea and The Latin Quarter were studied at Universities in Canada and USA. Flavia received numerous distinctions and awards for her literary work. Flavia Cosma is a member of the League of Canadian Poets, Union des Ecrivains du Quebec, Writers’ Union of Romania. She is the director of The Biannual Writers’ and Artists’ Festivals at Val-David, QC, Canada. www.flaviacosma.com

Support Our Literacy Programs

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES is produced by Poetrybay Productions for the Walt Whitman Birthplace.

Date: Saturday, June 10, 2023
Start Time: 12:00 pm EST

Staged Reading – AMERICAN POET: WHITMAN’S WARNINGS

You are invited to a special event! Come see a staged reading of AMERICAN POET: WHITMAN’S WARNINGS, a bold new play revealing Walt Whitman’s creative genius amidst national crises.

Register to attend staged reading at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1KWDcs68iOqsOv21e5heGaEKXkB4SkmhKADsSx-Uq92M/edit

Producer Jared Hershkowitz will present a staged reading of the new play AMERICAN POET: Whitman’s Warnings in Huntington on June 10, 2023. Directed by Academy Award winner Milton Justice, the script by Sarah Vander Schaaff follows provocative poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) and his drive to create his legendary collection of poetry, Leaves of Grass, during a dangerous time for American unity and politically driven censorship. The staged reading will be held at the Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site, where Walt was born in 1819. Situated amidst the nature that influenced Whitman’s sensibilities, the tented outdoor stage offers a rich historic context to the dynamic professional presentation of the play. Broadway veteran Erik Lochtefeld (King Kong, Misery, Metamorphosis) will play Walt Whitman with additional professional actors to be announced.

Now recognized as a significant voice in American poetry, Whitman was a literary outsider, challenging the conventional style and inhibitions of his era.  Much of his work reflects his interrogation of American democracy as it was tested, particularly surrounding the Civil War. Personally, he faced financial failure, mockery, censorship and heartache. “Whitman did not come easily to his truths,” director Milton Justice said. “He fought hard for his understanding. This play leads us through his journey, rather than just showing us the result of it.”

Producer Jared Hershkowitz said the play strikes a deep chord with the issues of today. “Whitman’s writing was marked by his admiration for the American experiment in democracy, which he believed was under threat from the divisions that were tearing the country apart.” While these challenges are not new, “Watching a play can be a transformative experience, allowing us to see the world through the eyes of others and gain a deeper understanding of our shared humanity,” Hershkowitz said.

Producer Michael Prywes said, “It’s easy to forget just how iconoclastic, prophetic, and brave Whitman was, especially during the most violently divisive time in American history.” “I think we give audiences a new way to confront Whitman’s ambition,” Vander Schaaff said. “The man behind the poetry, the journalist, the son, the friend who made hot toddies or comforted wounded soldiers—we bring him to life as he grapples with the tensions between idealism and reality and his hopes for us—the future.”

The June 10th, 2023 reading has been funded in part through a grant from LitNYS, (Literary New York State) Advancement Regrant.  The Birthplace historic site is operated by the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association and New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

Date: Saturday, June 10, 2023
Start Time: 4:00 pm EST