Staten Island OutLOUD

Autumn 2021 – Spring 2022

For the 12th consecutive year, the National Endowment for the Arts has chosen Staten Island OutLOUD to present The Big Read in our community! From Autumn 2021 through Spring 2022, we are proud to present a series of events exploring “An American Sunrise” – a volume of poetry by Joy Harjo, the first Native American writer to be appointed Poet Laureate of the United States – She has been renominated to serve three terms, an honor given to only one other poet in 80 years. Though some may think of her as a shy, virginal recluse, she was a daring pioneer in American poetry. We’ll examine her life in American letters, her essays and other volumes of poetry, her work as a musician and composer, her poetic themes and adventurous forms, and the work of writers who have been influenced by her work.

Throughout our series for the NEA/Big Read, we’ll feature An American Sunrise, Harjo’s poetry collection published in 2019.

Saturday, May 15, 2pm. This is a free online event with the St. George Library Center & Staten Island OutLOUD. To participate, please visit the Facebook Page for the St George Library Center: www.facebook.com/StGeorgeNYPL – There you can RSVP for this event. Then the library will email you the link you’ll need on May 15. Thanks!

In partnership with Staten Island OutLoud, the St. George Library invites you to “Open Me Carefully: A live reading of the letters of Emily Dickinson.” Emily Dickinson’s letters are as prolific as her poetry, and this event will honor that. Participants are invited to read letters of their choosing , or can listen.Copies of “The Essential Emily Dickinson” are available for free at the St. George Library.

Digitized copies of Dickinson’s Letters can be found at these sources:

Emily Dickinson Museum: https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org

Archive.org:http://archive.emilydickinson.org/wkintronew.htm

Saturday, May 22, 2021, 2pm at the Greenbelt Nature Center, 700 Rockland Ave, SINY 10314

NYSAI Press and Staten Island OutLOUD co-host this fun & free workshop

Mail art is for everyone, whether you’re a trained artist, or if you’re just starting to explore your creative interests. It’s not art hanging in a gallery, it’s art that anybody can share via regular mail. It’s free. It doesn’t hang in a gallery, and you don’t have to buy a ticket. Mail art is whatever you want it to be.

Our workshop will show you how! We’ll provide paper, pens & markers, images, scissors & glue, you name it: we’ll even have a stack of junk mail, or bring your own! We’ll keep everything COVID safe & sanitized.

This spring and summer, NYSAI joins Staten Island OutLOUD to present a series of free community events celebrating the life and work of Emily Dickinson. A renegade poet and mail artist, Dickinson wrote with “found paper”, whatever scraps she happened to find. She distributed her poetry via mail — sometimes tucking her verses into a basket of baked goods, or other whimsical delivery modes. In this spirit, we invite Islanders to respond to Emily‘s poetry with 21st century found paper: junk mail.Here’s your chance to share your poetry and save the planet by recycling your junk mail.

Here’s how it works: Grab a piece of junk mail and an Emily Dickinson line or poem. Write an Emily quote on your junk mail. If you feel like it, or cut out some printed words or pictures, and glue them together. Get creative!

Bring your piece of mail art to one of our drop-off locations: Stapleton Library, St. George Library, ETG Book Cafe, Greenbelt Nature Center, or the Conference House Visitors Center.

Then email your name and mailing address to wecarryus@gmail.com.We’ll send your mail art creation to some lucky Staten Islander, and you in turn will receive a piece of mail art yourself.