Walt Whitman: Librarian & Printer's Devil

Jeffrey Croteau will talk on the Brooklyn printers that Walt Whitman came into contact with during his apprenticeship years and how these connections directly led to his appointment as acting librarian of the Brooklyn Apprentices' Library in 1835. The Apprentices' Library evolved into the Brooklyn Institute and eventually into the Brooklyn Museum which houses many books collected by the Apprentice's Library.

Jeffrey Croteau is a librarian and a poet. Prior to his current position as Public Services Librarian at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, MA, he worked at the Brooklyn Museum's Libraries & Archives. His article on 19th-century Brooklyn libraries recently appeared in the journal Library History. His poetry has recently appeared in The Paris Review and Fence.

Brooklyn Museum Library Reading Room
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn
Admission: Suggested Contribution: $8; Students with Valid ID: $4;
Adults 62 and over: $4; Members: Free; Children under 12: Free
Information: (718) 638-5000; TTY: (718) 399-8440

Walt Whitman's Brooklyn Heights
A walking tour sponsored by the Brooklyn Historical Society

You are invited to walk in the steps of Brooklyn's great poet Walt Whitman in celebration of National Poetry Month. Explore locations significant to Whitman's life and consider the places that inspired him as you listen to readings of his prose and poetry. This tour includes visits to the former sites of Rome Brothers Print Shop, the Brooklyn Eagle, Fulton Ferry, and more. Your guide is Greg Trupiano, Artistic Director of The Walt Whitman Project.

Meet at the Brooklyn Historical Society
128 Pierrepont Street at the corner of Clinton Street, Brooklyn Admission: Brooklyn Historical Society members $10/non-members $15/children $5

Information & Reservations: 718-222-4111

Walt Whitman's Fort Greene & Clinton Hill
A walking tour sponsored by Fort Greene Park Conservancy, Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership, and The Walt Whitman Project

Continue your exploration of Whitman's Brooklyn with a walking tour that takes you from Fort Greene Park (which owes its existence in large part to Whitman's editorials written for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle), up Myrtle Avenue, and concludes at 99 Ryerson Street, the last existing building in Brooklyn that was a residence of Walt Whitman. The tour includes readings of his prose and poetry and discussions about the park, the Wallabout Martyrs and the monument dedicated to their memory, and Brooklyn Hospital. Your guide is Greg Trupiano, Artistic Director of The Walt Whitman Project.

Meet at the Visitors Center
Top of the Hill, Fort Greene Park
Enter at Myrtle Avenue, Washington Park, or DeKalb Avenue
Brooklyn

FREE event
Information & Reservations (limited to 25 people): 718-391-8824

The Fifth Annual Walt Whitman Birthday Bash

Presented by Theater Ten Ten and Judith Jarosz, Producing Artistic Director Come and celebrate this great American author's 189th birthday with The Walt Whitman Project in a joyous evening of poetry, prose, and music. The evening includes a performance of the Whitman-inspired song When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd by composer Jack Perla with Reyna Carguill, soprano, and Kelly Horsted, pianist. This song was developed by American Opera Projects' Composers & The Voice workshop.

Readers participating in the event include Jonathan Ned Katz, Karen Karbiener, Karin Coonrod, Matt Gold, Glenn Reimer, Hakim Williams, Lon Black, and Greg Trupiano. And yes, there will be birthday cake! Special thanks to Ed Centeno for providing Whitman memorabilia for the raffle prize.

The Birthday Bash will be preceded by from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. by:
Leaves of Grass on Slabs of Pavement
Actors from ActorCor (Darren Lougée, Artistic Director) recite the words of Walt Whitman on street corners in the mid-80s on Park Avenue. Readers include Marcy Amell, Liza Binkley, Betsy Jilka, Briel Pomerantz, Peter Schmitz, and Elena Zazanis.

Theater Ten Ten
1010 Park Avenue on the corner of East 85th Street, Manhattan

Admission: $10 (cash only at the door, the day of the performance)
and includes readings and refreshments! (TDF not accepted)

Reservations: 212-288-3246 ext. 3 (24 hrs)

The Walt Whitman Project recommends
Whitman Birthday Celebration at the Whitman Birthplace
Alicia Ostriker, Featured Poet

Please join the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association in celebrating Walt Whitman on his 189th birthday – at his birthplace! 2008 Poet-in-Residence Alicia Ostriker will read and sign her work from 5–6 p.m. Special tours of Whitman's house will be given from 3–4:30 p.m. Your donation to the Birthplace includes the reading, book signing, tour, and a wine and cheese reception.

Alicia Ostriker, a major American poet and critic, has been twice nominated for a National Book Award and has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. She is the author of eleven volumes of poetry, most recently, No Heaven (2005). She has written two path-breaking volumes on women’s poetry and published two books on the Bible. Ostriker’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Antaeus, The Nation, American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, and many other journals. Her most recent prose book is Dancing at the Devil’s Party: Essays on Poetry, Politics and the Erotic.

Sponsored by Walt Whitman Birthplace Association.

Walt Whitman Birthplace,
246 Old Walt Whitman Road, West Hills, NY
$10 donation

Info: (631) 427-5240
wwbamedia@optonline.net

And That Night I Was Happy: Whitman's Calamus Poems

For Gay Pride Month, The Walt Whitman Project reads from Whitman's 1860 "Calamus" poems, a celebration of men loving men from the poet's Leaves Of Grass. The reading also includes the description by Whitman's loving partner Peter Doyle of his meeting the writer for the first time.