Coming Up Monday, August 17, 2009

Wow. Twenty years of education and that's the best word I can come up with. Wow.

Monday night another great crowd, on another beautiful evening, heard poetry from three incredible poets--Joan Marg, Frank VanSant and Adrianna DiGennaro. Completely different in style and subject, they each moved the crowd with their funny, insightful and intense poetry; Teri Coyne read a wonderful scene from her highly acclaimed new book; and then Tom Schaudel brought the house down with excerpts from his hilarious book. The crowd would not let Tom go--demanding another then another story of his experiences dealing with "difficult" restaurant patrons. In a scene which made veterans of the Gazebo recall the dearly missed Robert Dunn, Tom had to read by flashlight as the light gave out on us.

We also collected more books for our troops--please bring down your gently used paperbacks (try to steer clear of romance, childrens, how-to manuals, etc.)--Kiwanis of Oceanside will box and ship them out, in coordination with Operation Paperback. So far we have sent boxes of books to over 20 of our troops--with more shipments ready to go!

This week we are lucky to have the present Nassau County Poet Laureate; her immediate predecessor; and one of the Gazebo's favorite people--as well as a great assortment of Long Island poets in our first modified open read. It promises to make for another splendid evening.

The Readings start at 7pm at Schoolhouse Green, located on Foxhurst Road, just east of Long Beach Road, Oceanside NY. For more information, directions, etc. go to http://summergazeboreadings.blogspot.com/

This Monday, August 17, 2009, we feature:

Max Wheat

Max Wheat, named two years ago by his fellow poets as Nassau County Poet Laureate, handed over the reins to Gayl Teller, another reader this evening. Max is extensively published, and is beloved by the Long Island poetry community. His tenure as Poet Laureate was capped with a Nassau County-wide poetry contest for students--which lead to hundreds of students participating, and culminated with the publication of an anthology of the winning poems: Young Voices, An Anthology of Poetry by Nassau County Students (which was edited by our other reader this evening!)

For his teaching and writing work Maxwell Corydon Wheat Jr. received in 1980 the first Herman Melville Annual Award from the New York State Marine Education Association whose journal, "Ripples," he edited for many years. In November he was given the Art and Literary Award of the New York State Outdoor Education Association, whose former journal, "The Communicator," he co-edited. He is a teacher for Taproot Workshops, Inc., writing for people 55 and older. Spring and fall he teaches a Continuing Education course Monday nights for the Farmingdale schools, "You Can Write Poetry!"

Maxwell Corydon Wheat, Jr. has taken his seventh and eighth grade students in the Farmingdale Public Schools on writing field trips to Long Island's salt marshes in Fire Island National Seashore and Robert Moses and Caumset State Parks. For three years he has conducted an October salt marsh (when the marsh's Spartina grasses turn golden) round-robin participatory poetry reading program at Cedarmere, Roslyn Harbor, home of the 19th Century poet, William Cullen Bryant, where he volunteers in programming. People take turns reading stanzas, particularly those of America's great 19th century work about the East Coast's salt marshes, Sidney Lanier's "Hymns of the Marshes." Check out Max's website for news about Long Island's poetry scene: http://www.maxwellcorydonwheatjr.com/poetry_/Home.html

Gayl Teller

Appointed as the Nassau County Poet Laureate for 2009-2011, Gayl Teller received an MA from Columbia University and another MA from Queens College, CUNY. Her poetry collections are At the Intersection of Everything You Have Ever Loved, Shorehaven, Moving Day, and One Small Kindness. Her most recent poetry book, Inside the Embrace, was selected in national competition to be published by WordTech/Cherry Grove. Director and founder of the Poetry Reading Series, under the auspices of the New York State Council on the Arts, at the Mid-Island Y JCC, in Plainview, NY, for the past fourteen years, she has been teaching in the English department of Hofstra University since 1985. Finalist for Nassau County Poet Laureate in 2007, she has conducted numerous poetry workshops and seminars and been the feature reader at many universities, poetry centers, and libraries. Her work has received the Edgar Allan Poe Prize, the Peninsula Library Poetry Prize, a National Federation of State Poetry Societies Prize, a National League of American PEN Women Prize, and The Connecticut Writer Prize; One Small Kindness was a finalist for the Blue Light Poetry Prize. Her poems are widely published and anthologized, and her review of poetry books have appeared frequently in Small Press Review.

J R Turek

J R (Judy) Turek has been writing since she was 5. She is in her 11th year as Moderator of the Farmingdale Creative Writing Group, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, winner of the Conklin Prize for Poetry, and awarded 1st place in The North Sea Poetry Scene 2009 Poetry Contest. Poetry awards include: Mid-Island Y JCC (1st place 2008), The North Sea Poetry Scene (2nd place 2008), Writer’s Digest 74th Annual Competition (2), Princess Ronkonkoma Productions (2004 - 2008), Towe Auto Museum, Live Poets Society, Lake Ronkonkoma Historical Society, and The Huntington Historical Society. J R is the author of They Come And They Go, who strives to write a poem a day and mostly succeeds.

She is a member of Maxwell Wheat’s Nassau County Poet Laureate Committee, serving as Chairperson for the Nassau County Poet Laureate School Poetry Project, and Editor of Young Voices An Anthology of Poetry by Nassau County Students, which evolved from the contest and includes all 195 award-winning poems. In addition, she has edited and co-edited several poetry anthologies, short stories, and novels.

J R has been published in: 2009 Haiku Calendar; The Poets Art; Grassroot Reflections, Volumes 3 through 11; Long Island Sounds: 2008, 2007, 2006; Performance Poets Association Literary Reviews #8 through 12; primal sanities!; Asbestos; Free-Wheeling: Towe Auto Museum Poetry Collections, 2007 and 2006; Soul Fountain; Friends of Hempstead Plains 2007 Poetry Anthology; The Meadowlark; Long Island Quarterly; For Loving Precious Beast; The Long Islander; the East Meadow Herald; Long Island Expressions Autism Awareness; 2001: A Long Island Odyssey; and the Farmingdale Poetry Chapbook.

Her poetry will appear in: PAUMANOK: Poetry and Pictures of Long Island; Long Island Sounds 2009; Performance Poets Association Literary Review #13; The Long Islander; and Writing Outside The Lines.

She is a lifetime Long Islander who resides in East Meadow with her soul-mate husband, her dogs, and her extraordinarily extensive shoe collection. If you see the license plate MSJEVUS, follow her; chances are, she’s going to a poetry event.

The Summer Gazebo Readings are sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Oceanside and are held each Monday evening in June, July and August, featuring 4 readers each evening. Scheduled readers include some of Long Island's most prestigious poets, and fiction and non-fiction writers. The Summer Gazebo Readings are held outdoors; seating is limited, so bring a lawn chair, a blanket, a picnic table. The grounds are open, and the public is encouraged to come early and have a quiet summer's picnic on the grounds. Admission is free.

Sponsors include:
Home & Hearth Real Estate
Herb & Marian Brown
Bonbino's Pizza
North Sea Poetry Scene
Max Wheat NC Poet Laureate Comm.
Maryanne Lehrer
Mary Jane McGrath, Attorney
Gary & Sandie Schoell
Philip Reinstein, CLU
Diversion Press
Oceanville Mason Supply
Kiwanettes of Oceanside
21st Century Appraisers
Village BookShoppe
Long Island Pulse
Westron Lite Bulb
Tower’s Funeral Home
Michael Schamroth and Family
Councilman Anthony Santino
Jay R. Myers & Co., Inc.
Childs Murphy Kuehn & Cesiro,
Municipal Credit Union
Bondi & Iovino, Attorneys-at-Law

Upcoming Schedule

8/17/2009 Gayl Teller Max Wheat J R Turek Open Read (must sign up in person at a prior evening's readings)

8/24/2009 Barbara Hoffman Herb Siegel Christine Timm Joan Dupre Tom Phelan

8/31/2009 Sonya Russell Yolanda Coulaz Paula Curci Theresa Rosario- Berzner Christine Kehl O'Hagan

For more information:

Tony Iovino
68 Yorktown Street
Rockville Centre, NY 11570
H 516 763-1667
C 516 459-3262
W 516 741-8585
http://summergazeboreadings.blogspot.com/
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