The Long Island Poetry Archival Center

Seeking Village's Help For Poetry Center

The Independent
http://www.indyeastend.com/
By Carey London

Groups of poets are scattered sporadically across the North and South Forks, meeting at various locales, such as coffee shops or private homes, to share their work and encourage and teach their peers. The local poetry scene has been gaining momentum, but still its members have no formal meeting place they can call their own. Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan is looking to change that.

The Southampton poet has been approaching local officials to help her establish a resource center in town for writers and artists alike. Next Tuesday, Nuzzo-Morgan is expected to make her case before the Southampton Village Board of Trustees. She will be asking them to donate a building and the start-up funds for a Long Island Archival Center.

A proposal has already been submitted to Southampton Town Supervisor Patrick Heaney.

Morgan is the founder and president of The North Sea Poetry Scene and created a 501 (c) (3) for TNSPS six years ago, which makes it eligible for certain grants, "but because we don't have an actual building, a lot of grants don't give start-up costs." She primarily operates the corporation out of her home.

Rather than rent space, she believes a building would be more appropriate to house the multi-functional research center she envisions.

"I think it deserves its own stand-alone building," said Morgan. "And it wouldn't just be a reference library, it would also encompass music as well as art and poetry."

The library would be made up of work by poets who have lived on Long Island, video and audiotapes, photographs of poetry events on the island, as well as essays and articles about Long Island poetry and poets. Morgan would also be able to give a permanent home to the more than 500 books of local poetry she has collected from yard sales, the Internet, used bookstores, donations, and book sales. The facility would have extra space for workshops, art shows and book signings, among other artistry.

If the village could donate a building, Morgan estimates her start up costs for the first year would range between $200,000 and $400,000. Without that donation, rent, she believes, would cost her an additional $100,000 per year.

Morgan imagines the archival center would become a venerable structure on the East End much the way the Walt Whitman Interpretive Center is in West Hills on the North Shore. "We could be like an education center."

Southampton Village officials are also in need of more space for their own archives, which are currently stored in the basement and in vaults on the first floor in village hall. As part of the building's renovation project, the archives will be gradually transferred to the second floor after a state grant is secured.

THE SAG HARBOR EXPRESS
ISSUE DATE: 1/5/06 January 2006

Poetry and a Poet for a New Year
By Beth Young
In earlier days the members of the North Sea Poetry Scene may have been farmers or baymen, preachers or schoolteachers, with stacks of scribbled journals squirreled lovingly underneath beds and in spare corners of their archetypical Long Island farmhouses.
New Year's morning, though, they were searching for a clean slate, a starting line by which to judge a year's work, as 16 of their most hardcore members gathered in the warmth of the North Sea Community House to share poems and stories of their lives.
Graham Everett was the featured speaker at the event, and he's no stranger to the working class roots of Long Island poetry, from the days of Walt Whitman to current writers like Vince Clemente and Allan Planz, both of whom have been honored as the North Sea Poetry Scenes' poets of the year over the past two years.
Everett will receive the honor this year. He's a prolific poet, and also the publisher of Street Press, which began 30 years ago in a print shop in Smithtown where Everett first began welcoming local poets and publishing chapbooks and broadsides.
Then, as now, a working class ethos combined with a yearning for a bohemian lifestyle was something that bound his group of writers together.
Everett brought a scrapbook of the history of his involvement in the poetry scene on Long Island to Sunday's reading, as poets gathered to reminisce over the Street days in Smithtown, Everett's printshop's membership in the International Workers of the World - the forerunner of modern day unions - and a series of poetry workshops he'd led with the help of some poets who are still on the scene at the progressive New Lane Elementary School in Centereach.
"We'd have the kids do things like draw a picture of a poet sleeping," Everett said, gesturing to show the wild disheveled drooling pictures that came out of the outdoor poetry sessions the kids would embark on. "We were going to loaf and invite the soul."
"That's how we should be taught," butted in Tom Stock, a gregarious science teacher turned farmer. "I got Ds in English in college. My mother said 'you can't write for *&$%.' My mother wrote for a newspaper. She would say 'clarity is next to godliness.'" Stock then held up a giant, double-yolked freshly laid organic egg to show the group.
"I have not loved the world nor the world loved me. That's Lord Byron," he said, his other hand embracing a copy of the portable Jack Kerouac. He was planning to give the Kerouac book to the North Sea Poetry Scene's founder, Tami Nuzzo-Morgan, for an archival center that she hopes to find a building for somewhere on eastern Long Island.
Nuzzo-Morgan found out recently that the poet Vince Clemente had sold his collection of papers to the University of Rochester, and decided that it was time to find funding and a location to house the works of local poets on Long Island.
"When history leaves the community, it's gone forever," said Stock. "Younger people will never go for it if it's far away."
Mary Gardner from Sag Harbor has been writing since the 1970s, and though she's belonged to many writing and poetry groups over the years, she feels that Nuzzo-Morgan has created something unique with the North Sea Poetry Scene.
"She's a dynamic person on this scene," Gardner said of Nuzzo-Morgan, " It's a level playing field. She's not a snob; she's not leaving anyone out. It can be a closed world."
All afternoon, waiting for the reading, huge volumes were tucked lovingly in the pockets of tweed coats. Hand-knit fisherman's sweaters were poised over flesh twitching to write, or to speak or to be heard. After two hours of socializing, Graham Everett read a poem called "Resolutions," for the people from the scene who were making them for the New Year.
"I believe this is a bohemian statement....blue dust," he said...."Don't let people get you on their side....don't let friends convince you that it's time to grow up."
Daylight nearly ending, the poets carried on. Their voices were lights to carry them through the dark winter days ahead.

Donations to LIPAC by Vince Clemente

Nuzzo-Morgan Plans a Poetry Archive

By Pat Rogers

If poet Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan has her way, the East End will become home to the Long Island Poetry Archive. Though it is currently a mere twinkle of an idea, the archive may become a reality due largely to a flurry of planning activities currently underway.

Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan, the founder and president of the North Sea Poetry Scene, formed a committee, launched a capital campaign drive and is writing grant proposals. The goal of the non-profit group is to establish a permanent home for Long Island poets where poetry rules.

“There’s a history of poetry on Long Island that’s being lost,” Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan said during an interview at East Enders Coffee House in Riverhead, where poetry readings are held regularly. “The Poetry Archive would be a place where you could find poetry written on Long Island from the historical to what’s going on right now. It would be an important resource.”

Building or no building, Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan has already started collecting books to stock the planned center’s bookcases. For about five years, she has combed through internet sites, used books stores, yard sales, library book sales, historical society book sales, garages and basements to locate poetry books containing Long Island verse.

These efforts have produced stacks and stacks of poetry collections that include slim verses by solitary poets, hardcover, soft cover and paper cover books by reknowned and little-known poets who have lived (or currently live) on Long Island.

One writer who will be well represented is the late David Ignatow, the award-winning poet who lived in East Hampton and produced around 16 volumes of poetry and three prose collections, garnered fellowships, taught extensively at universities and was the poet emeritus of the Poetry Society of America. Other poets from earlier times include the artist Fairfield Porter, Anne Porter, Walt Whitman, Kenneth Koch and others.

Modern poets, like beat poet Ray Freed and award-winning poet and fisherman Allen Planz, are also represented in the collection. Works by Robert Long, Philip Appleman, Siv Cedering and Vince Clemente also appear.

Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan discovered books with the poetry of Graham Everett, plus recordings featuring his poetry band, Middle Class. Her collection also contains works by former Suffolk County Poet Laureate George Wallace, as well as her own poems. Nominated recently as the Suffolk County Poet Laureate for her work in bringing poetry to the masses, Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan has released a compact disc of her recorded poetry and several books of poetry.

Her latest release, “One Woman’s Voice,” was published this year by the North Sea Poetry Scene Press and features 62 poems written between 1989 and 2005. The North Sea Poetry Scene Press also released “Long Island Sound 2005: An Anthology of Poetry from Maspeth to Montauk”—a collection slated for the much-hoped for Poetry Archive Center.

“[I’m] collecting the works of all the poets who read for the North Sea Poetry Scene,” Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan said. “We’re creating our own history of poetry on Long Island.”

The planned center will also include compact disc recordings of Spoke Word artists, videotapes of poetry readings starting from the year 2000, and photographs of poets who appeared at North Sea Poetry Events. “It wouldn’t be just books,” Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan said. “I videotape all our readings, so I have a video history too. Students could come and learn about poetry that was written right here on Long Island. It would be a valuable resource for research.”

For now, the hard work of raising money and finding land or a building has just begun. Within the last three weeks, a committee of four has been appointed, letters of support for the center have been collected and the search for a possible land donor is in the works.

“That’s my ultimate dream,” Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan said. “That someone would donate a piece of property so we could have the Archive Center here. Southampton would be a great location. But if someone donates property in Patchogue, I’ll take it.”

For information on the effort to establish a Long Island Poetry Archive Center, visit http://groups.msn.com/TheNorthSeaPoetryScene or call 204-1240. The North Sea Poetry Scene, which is spearheading the effort, is a non-profit organization.

Issue Date: Southampton Press 10-06-05


	Seeking Village's Help For Poetry Center The Independent http://www.indyeastend.com/ By Carey London Groups of poets are scattered sporadically across the North and South Forks, meeting at various locales, such as coffee shops or private homes, to share their work and encourage and teach their peers. The local poetry scene has been gaining momentum, but still its members have no formal meeting place they can call their own. Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan is looking to change that. The Southampton poet has been approaching local officials to help her establish a resource center in town for writers and artists alike. Next Tuesday, Nuzzo-Morgan is expected to make her case before the Southampton Village Board of Trustees. She will be asking them to donate a building and the start-up funds for a Long Island Archival Center. A proposal has already been submitted to Southampton Town Supervisor Patrick Heaney. Morgan is the founder and president of The North Sea Poetry Scene and created a 501 (c) (3) for TNSPS six years ago, which makes it eligible for certain grants, "but because we don't have an actual building, a lot of grants don't give start-up costs." She primarily operates the corporation out of her home. Rather than rent space, she believes a building would be more appropriate to house the multi-functional research center she envisions. "I think it deserves its own stand-alone building," said Morgan. "And it wouldn't just be a reference library, it would also encompass music as well as art and poetry." The library would be made up of work by poets who have lived on Long Island, video and audiotapes, photographs of poetry events on the island, as well as essays and articles about Long Island poetry and poets. Morgan would also be able to give a permanent home to the more than 500 books of local poetry she has collected from yard sales, the Internet, used bookstores, donations, and book sales. The facility would have extra space for workshops, art shows and book signings, among other artistry. If the village could donate a building, Morgan estimates her start up costs for the first year would range between $200,000 and $400,000. Without that donation, rent, she believes, would cost her an additional $100,000 per year. Morgan imagines the archival center would become a venerable structure on the East End much the way the Walt Whitman Interpretive Center is in West Hills on the North Shore. "We could be like an education center." Southampton Village officials are also in need of more space for their own archives, which are currently stored in the basement and in vaults on the first floor in village hall. As part of the building's renovation project, the archives will be gradually transferred to the second floor after a state grant is secured. THE SAG HARBOR EXPRESS ISSUE DATE: 1/5/06 January 2006 Poetry and a Poet for a New Year By Beth Young In earlier days the members of the North Sea Poetry Scene may have been farmers or baymen, preachers or schoolteachers, with stacks of scribbled journals squirreled lovingly underneath beds and in spare corners of their archetypical Long Island farmhouses. New Year's morning, though, they were searching for a clean slate, a starting line by which to judge a year's work, as 16 of their most hardcore members gathered in the warmth of the North Sea Community House to share poems and stories of their lives. Graham Everett was the featured speaker at the event, and he's no stranger to the working class roots of Long Island poetry, from the days of Walt Whitman to current writers like Vince Clemente and Allan Planz, both of whom have been honored as the North Sea Poetry Scenes' poets of the year over the past two years. Everett will receive the honor this year. He's a prolific poet, and also the publisher of Street Press, which began 30 years ago in a print shop in Smithtown where Everett first began welcoming local poets and publishing chapbooks and broadsides. Then, as now, a working class ethos combined with a yearning for a bohemian lifestyle was something that bound his group of writers together. Everett brought a scrapbook of the history of his involvement in the poetry scene on Long Island to Sunday's reading, as poets gathered to reminisce over the Street days in Smithtown, Everett's printshop's membership in the International Workers of the World - the forerunner of modern day unions - and a series of poetry workshops he'd led with the help of some poets who are still on the scene at the progressive New Lane Elementary School in Centereach. "We'd have the kids do things like draw a picture of a poet sleeping," Everett said, gesturing to show the wild disheveled drooling pictures that came out of the outdoor poetry sessions the kids would embark on. "We were going to loaf and invite the soul." "That's how we should be taught," butted in Tom Stock, a gregarious science teacher turned farmer. "I got Ds in English in college. My mother said 'you can't write for *&$%.' My mother wrote for a newspaper. She would say 'clarity is next to godliness.'" Stock then held up a giant, double-yolked freshly laid organic egg to show the group. "I have not loved the world nor the world loved me. That's Lord Byron," he said, his other hand embracing a copy of the portable Jack Kerouac. He was planning to give the Kerouac book to the North Sea Poetry Scene's founder, Tami Nuzzo-Morgan, for an archival center that she hopes to find a building for somewhere on eastern Long Island. Nuzzo-Morgan found out recently that the poet Vince Clemente had sold his collection of papers to the University of Rochester, and decided that it was time to find funding and a location to house the works of local poets on Long Island. "When history leaves the community, it's gone forever," said Stock. "Younger people will never go for it if it's far away." Mary Gardner from Sag Harbor has been writing since the 1970s, and though she's belonged to many writing and poetry groups over the years, she feels that Nuzzo-Morgan has created something unique with the North Sea Poetry Scene. "She's a dynamic person on this scene," Gardner said of Nuzzo-Morgan, " It's a level playing field. She's not a snob; she's not leaving anyone out. It can be a closed world." All afternoon, waiting for the reading, huge volumes were tucked lovingly in the pockets of tweed coats. Hand-knit fisherman's sweaters were poised over flesh twitching to write, or to speak or to be heard. After two hours of socializing, Graham Everett read a poem called "Resolutions," for the people from the scene who were making them for the New Year. "I believe this is a bohemian statement....blue dust," he said...."Don't let people get you on their side....don't let friends convince you that it's time to grow up." Daylight nearly ending, the poets carried on. Their voices were lights to carry them through the dark winter days ahead. Donations to LIPAC by Vince Clemente Nuzzo-Morgan Plans a Poetry Archive By Pat Rogers If poet Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan has her way, the East End will become home to the Long Island Poetry Archive. Though it is currently a mere twinkle of an idea, the archive may become a reality due largely to a flurry of planning activities currently underway. Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan, the founder and president of the North Sea Poetry Scene, formed a committee, launched a capital campaign drive and is writing grant proposals. The goal of the non-profit group is to establish a permanent home for Long Island poets where poetry rules. “There’s a history of poetry on Long Island that’s being lost,” Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan said during an interview at East Enders Coffee House in Riverhead, where poetry readings are held regularly. “The Poetry Archive would be a place where you could find poetry written on Long Island from the historical to what’s going on right now. It would be an important resource.” Building or no building, Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan has already started collecting books to stock the planned center’s bookcases. For about five years, she has combed through internet sites, used books stores, yard sales, library book sales, historical society book sales, garages and basements to locate poetry books containing Long Island verse. These efforts have produced stacks and stacks of poetry collections that include slim verses by solitary poets, hardcover, soft cover and paper cover books by reknowned and little-known poets who have lived (or currently live) on Long Island. One writer who will be well represented is the late David Ignatow, the award-winning poet who lived in East Hampton and produced around 16 volumes of poetry and three prose collections, garnered fellowships, taught extensively at universities and was the poet emeritus of the Poetry Society of America. Other poets from earlier times include the artist Fairfield Porter, Anne Porter, Walt Whitman, Kenneth Koch and others. Modern poets, like beat poet Ray Freed and award-winning poet and fisherman Allen Planz, are also represented in the collection. Works by Robert Long, Philip Appleman, Siv Cedering and Vince Clemente also appear. Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan discovered books with the poetry of Graham Everett, plus recordings featuring his poetry band, Middle Class. Her collection also contains works by former Suffolk County Poet Laureate George Wallace, as well as her own poems. Nominated recently as the Suffolk County Poet Laureate for her work in bringing poetry to the masses, Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan has released a compact disc of her recorded poetry and several books of poetry. Her latest release, “One Woman’s Voice,” was published this year by the North Sea Poetry Scene Press and features 62 poems written between 1989 and 2005. The North Sea Poetry Scene Press also released “Long Island Sound 2005: An Anthology of Poetry from Maspeth to Montauk”—a collection slated for the much-hoped for Poetry Archive Center. “[I’m] collecting the works of all the poets who read for the North Sea Poetry Scene,” Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan said. “We’re creating our own history of poetry on Long Island.” The planned center will also include compact disc recordings of Spoke Word artists, videotapes of poetry readings starting from the year 2000, and photographs of poets who appeared at North Sea Poetry Events. “It wouldn’t be just books,” Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan said. “I videotape all our readings, so I have a video history too. Students could come and learn about poetry that was written right here on Long Island. It would be a valuable resource for research.” For now, the hard work of raising money and finding land or a building has just begun. Within the last three weeks, a committee of four has been appointed, letters of support for the center have been collected and the search for a possible land donor is in the works. “That’s my ultimate dream,” Ms. Nuzzo-Morgan said. “That someone would donate a piece of property so we could have the Archive Center here. Southampton would be a great location. But if someone donates property in Patchogue, I’ll take it.” For information on the effort to establish a Long Island Poetry Archive Center, visit http://groups.msn.com/TheNorthSeaPoetryScene or call 204-1240. The North Sea Poetry Scene, which is spearheading the effort, is a non-profit organization. Issue Date: Southampton Press 10-06-05 Copyright, The Southampton Press

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