In the 1980’s, Barbara and I taught weekly workshop at the Jefferson Market branch of the New York Public Library. Barbara worked with the children. The adults studied Greenwich Village poets and publishers of the early Twentieth Century.
After 1910, the Village began to assert itself as the cultural cauldron for American artists and writers. The Masses, whose editorial offices were once located in the Village not far from the library, was in the forefront of a series of publications that presented a community of poets and artists.
A creative community of writers emerged out of the Jefferson Market library workshop which continued for fifteen years. The participants were open to new work by new writers with different values. There was a willingness to look for the experience that makes a poem work whether in a group or as an individual.
Many of the participants in my workshop were older than me. The participants in Barbara’s workshop were children, although many of our friends who were senior residents of the community would sit in and listen to poetry the children wrote. As facilitators, We’d learn from the community of writers that came to our workshops, which were open to the public in a public place where all might be comfortable and feel included.
Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol. 2 No. 2 Jefferson Market branch NYPL
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