Happy Birthday, Walt Whitman!
As many of you already know I’ve been immersing myself over the last few years in a number of projects surrounding Walt Whitman’s bicentennial, which is today, May 31, 2019. It’s been a thrilling and rewarding time, and has connected me with an extraordinary group of Whitman scholars and fans, foremost among them Karen Karbiener, a Professor at NYU, and Greg Trupiano, a local Brooklyn Whitman fan.
My interest in Whitman began eight years ago with an idea for a book that combined Whitman’s poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” with a handful of my pinhole photos of NYC ferries and several essays by artists and Whitman scholars speaking back to the visionary poet. I’m still working on the book, and on finding a publisher for it.
To help support and promote my book I developed a national public reading of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” a project I called “Happy Birthday, Walt Whitman!” The project celebrates Whitman’s bicentennial by inviting people to read his inspiring poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” throughout 2019, and out loud. For poetry and book groups, public libraries and bookstores, scholars and teachers who want to celebrate the anniversary “Happy Birthday, Walt Whitman!” provides a simple, accessible, and meaningful way to do so. By joining in the reading participants are not only encouraged and guided by the national project, but will contribute to a conversation about Whitman and the barbaric yawp he sounded over the rooftops of the world, particularly in regards to our interconnectedness and our American democracy.
I’ve been delighted by the response my project has generated, both from organizations already reading the poem and others inspired to do so by HBWW. Locally, the Brooklyn Public Library is hosting simultaneous readings of the poem on May 31st at all 58 of their branch libraries. Other partners and participants in the include: Brooklyn Poets, The Brooklyn Historical Society, The Walt Whitman Initiative, The Walt Whitman Project, The Fort Greene Park Conservancy, Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop, The Academy of American Poets, The Missoula Public Library, The Evergreen State College, Canadian Whitmanites, New York Harbor Channel, and Parachute Literary Arts.
Check out my Facebook page for the project,
And be sure to watch this inspiring and deeply moving video that the Brooklyn Public Library produced for their own Whitman bicentennial efforts. The video, which I am honored to be in, shows people across the borough reading “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.”
A few months ago I designed pro bono a publication and calendar of events for the Walt Whitman Consortium, a group of cultural organizations around the country celebrating Whitman’s bicentennial. It was a thrill and an honor to work with the Consortium members, including: The Academy of American Poets, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Poets, Brooklyn Public Library, The Center for Book Arts, The Folger Shakespeare Library, The Fort Greene Park Conservancy, The Grolier Club, The Morgan Library, The New York Public Library, New York University, Poetry Society of America, Poets House, University of California, LA, University of Virginia, The Walt Whitman Birthplace, The Walt Whitman Project, and The Walt Whitman Initiative.
Two years ago I photographed the cast and creatives of “Crossing,” an opera by composer Matthew Aucoin based on Whitman’s Civil War diaries and performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The photos were used on BAM’s social media and blog to help promote the opera: “Last week, we partnered with pinhole photographer Stefan Killen to capture unique, dreamlike portraits of Crossing’s cast and creative team. The deliberately lo-fi process engages the camera obscura phenomenon to create images with a nearly infinite depth of field—all without the use of a proper lens on the camera box. After the photoshoot, we asked each of them to answer Whitman’s prompt—to define, in their own words, what it is then between us, and what that phrase might mean presently in 2017.”
And lastly, I recently submitted a proposal for a mural in Dumbo, Brooklyn located, as I learned in my research, at one of the addresses Whitman lived at as a young child when his family first moved to Brooklyn from Long Island. The submission was in response to a request for proposals from the NYC Department of Transportation, which owns the property and opens up a submission process for a new mural every few years. My proposal included a quote from “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” and a fractal pattern that expressed in a contemporary way Whitman’s idea of our interconnectedness. Unfortunately, and in spite of the location-specific strength of my proposal, I didn’t win the commission.
Some upcoming Whitman events I’m involved with:
On Sunday, June 2nd, I’ll be participating in Karen Karbiener’s annual marathon reading of “Song of Myself” in Brooklyn Bridge Park.
On Saturday, June 8th I’ll be photographing (with my pinhole camera) competitors in a Walt Whitman Beard Competition that the Brooklyn Public Library is hosting in Fort Greene Park
And on June 15 and July 15 I’ll be wearing a tour guide hat alongside the amazing Greg Trupiano. We’ll be leading a fun and informative walking tour of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”, commencing at Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn and ending at the Dumbo branch of the Brooklyn Historical Society, which is organizing the tour. Greg has been leading Whitman walking tours in Fort Greene for years and has been generously supporting a number of my Whitman projects since I first went on one of his tours six or seven years ago.
Needless to say, it’s been a busy time!
Happy Birthday, Walt!