Poetry Street, the Riverhead-based group that grew out of the East End Arts JumpstART program, celebrated its 10th anniversary last Saturday at Riverhead Free Library.
The gathering brought together founders and original participants with newcomers and supporters, both in person at the library and via Zoom.
The public art project was founded in 2014 as a collaboration between Robert “Bubbie” Brown of Riverside and Susan Dingle of Southold, in partnership with Nancy Kouris of Blue Duck Bakery, which hosted the monthly Poetry Street readings and open mic sessions at her Riverhead bakery/café until it shut its doors in 2019.
Kouris was on hand for last week’s event — and brought along freshly baked chocolate cake for the occasion.
Poetry Street “opened up a new world for me too,” Kouris told the group. “There were poems of adjustment, of freedom, of sadness, of joy, of empowerment, and people finding things within themselves. It was just amazing,” she said.
Kouris also read a poem called “We Are All Connected,” written by Dingle in August 2014, which she said she keeps framed in her home. It is a poem about the JumpstART program’s vision and impacts on downtown Riverhead.
Patricia Snyder, former executive director of East End Arts, who initiated the JumpstART program in downtown Riverhead also attended last week’s celebration.
Poetry Street’s current hosts Maggie Bloomfield and Chip WIlliford emceed the event. Claire Lundberg managed the Zoom portion of the event, which allowed poets from the various parts of the country and even New Zealand to share their work.
“We are thankful for our founders Susan Dingle and Robert A. “Bubbie” Brown for having an amazing vision to create such a beautiful space where all people are welcome and encouraged to share,” Williford said. He thanked them and Lundberg and the Riverhead library for hosting Poetry Street.
Last week’s gathering was an open mic event and more than a dozen people took the mic at the library with an equal number sharing their poems via Zoom. They read — and in one instance, sang —poems and prose, original creations and the works of others.
Among the presenters were cofounders Brown, who attended in person, and Dingle, who attended on the video call from her home in Washington State, where she relocated in 2020.
Watch a video of the 10th anniversary celebration event produced by Poetry Street’s Chip Williford:
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Denise Civiletti
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