Walking With Whitman: Poetry in Performance

An evening of poetry with Puma Perl and Barbara Southard, with musical guest Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) presents Walking With Whitman: Poetry in Performance, hosted by Writer-in-Residence George Wallace. The signature series, now in its 16th season, continues to bring the most intriguing figures in contemporary literature on the national scene paired with local poets on the Walt Whitman stage. On Thursday, October 11, poets Puma Perl and Barbara Southard will perform their poetry; musical guest Josie Bello will perform as well. Puma Perl: Puma Perl is a widely published poet and writer, as well as a performer, journalist, photographer, and producer. She is the author of two chapbooks, Ruby True and Belinda and Her Friends, and three full-length poetry collections, knuckle tattoos, and Retrograde, (great weather for MEDIA), and Birthdays Before and After (Beyond Baroque.) She was the creator, curator, and producer of Puma Perl’s Pandemonium, which launched at the Bowery Electric in 2012 and, until 2020, brought spoken word together with rock and roll. She wrote for The Villager from 2013-2018,and received two honorable mentions and one first place award from the New York Press Association in recognition of her coverage of the arts. Since 2019, she has been a staff member of ChelseaCommunityNews.com and, in 2020, started a weekly column called "Writing the Apocalypse," in which a new poem was published in each edition. In 2016, she received the Acker Award in the category of Writing. In May of 2021, she was honored to be the HOWL Happening! artist in residence. Barbara Southard: Barbara Southard is a visual artist and writer living in Miller Place, New York. She’s worked as a printmaker, free-lance artist, factory worker, teacher, and served as Poet Laureate of Suffolk County from 2019-2021. Josie Bello: Josie Bello has been musical from an early age. At 7 years old she expressed a desire to learn guitar, however, her Italian-American family directed her to take accordion lessons, where she learned enough musical structure to maintain her interest in making music. In the past few years, she’s recorded and released two albums with songwriter and producer, Mike Nugent. Beyond “The Boss”, her musical inspiration runs the gamut, including Emmylou Harris and Mary Chapin Carpenter. She has performed live in the NY area, including a show at Hope Lodge, a hotel in mid-town Manhattan run by the American Cancer Society.