Winning teens to join poets Terri Muuss and Matt Pasca in April 30 reading at Walt Whitman Birthplace
On Thursday, April 30, the Huntington Town Board will recognize teen poets from the community selected for participation in the Town’s Poetry for the HART Public Art Initiative. The event will begin at 7 p.m. at the Walt Whitman Birthplace (246 Old Walt Whitman Rd., Huntington Station).
The winning teen poets will receive certificates in an award ceremony with members of the Huntington Town Board. Immediately following conclusion of the award ceremony there will be a poetry reading led by husband and wife poets Terri Muuss and Matt Pasca at which each of the teen poets selected for the program will read their winning poems. A brief reception will follow. The award ceremony, reading, and reception are free and open to the public.
Terri Muuss is an author, director, performer, social worker and motivational speaker. She earned her BA in Theatre from Kean University; trained at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City; and studied for several years at Michael Howard Studios. In 1998, Muuss wrote the one-woman show Anatomy of a Doll, named “Best Theatre: Critics’ Pick of the Week” by the New York Daily News, which she has performed throughout the US and Canada since. Terri has directed numerous Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway productions, including Rich Ryan's Lemon Meringue, Deborah Ortiz’s Changing Violet, Veronica Golos’s A Bell Buried Deep, Athena Reich’s rock opera Athena Under Attack and Lisa Ramirez’s Exit Cuckoo. Her first book, Over Exposed, was nominated for the 2014 Pushcart Prize in Poetry. As a licensed social worker (MSW, Hunter College), Muuss specializes in the use of the arts as a healing mechanism for trauma survivors and teaches a course at Rutgers University to social workers entitled "Youth Development Through the Written Arts." She also performs with fellow poets/social workers Susan Dingle and Maggie Bloomfield as the “Poets of Well-Being.” The trio recently ran a workshop at the Expressive Therapies Conference in NYC and served on a panel about the therapeutic utilization of writing at the 2015 AWP Conference in Minneapolis. As a motivational speaker and life coach, Terri keynotes at conferences and works extensively with addiction/abuse populations. She recently left her position as Communications Coordinator of the Bay Shore School District in order to return to a school Social Work position with the Farmingdale School District. This new job, along with her private life-coaching/therapy practice, enables Terri to more fully use her passion to help motivate and support students/clients to move forward in exciting, new directions.
Matt Pasca is an author, teacher and editor. After earning a BA in English from Cornell University and MAT in English from Stony Brook University, Pasca signed on at Bay Shore High School, where he has taught since 1997. A 2003 New York State Teacher of Excellence, Pasca curates a Visiting Writers Series at his school and advises its literary-art magazine, The Writers’ Block, named Most Outstanding High School Literary-Art Magazine for both 2010 and 2011 by the American Scholastic Press Association. He has served as a keynote speaker for both the Nassau Reading Council and Long Island Language Arts Council and been a repeat presenter at the New York State English Council’s annual conference. Pasca serves as a reviewer and copy editor for the Long Island Authors Group and is frequently asked to facilitate creative writing workshops and classes at conferences, colleges and continuing education programs around the tri-state area. His first book, A Thousand Doors, was nominated for the 2012 Pushcart Prize in Poetry and his second collection, Raven Wire, is forthcoming.
Terri and Matt are the parents of two boys, Rainer and Atticus, who are former political correspondents for The Ellen Show. They can be reached at www.terrimuuss.com, @rainattmom, www.mattpasca.com and @Matt_Pasca
Poetry for the HART is a Public Art Initiative project developed by the Town’s Public Art Advisory Committee in conjunction with Teenspeak, Co-Lead Agency, who suggested the project to the Town. Teens in the community from ages 14-18 were invited last fall to submit poems for consideration in the program. This spring a selection panel comprised of the poets Terri Muuss and Matt Pasca, joined by Jim Metcalfe (Huntington Station), a member of the Town’s Public Art Advisory Committee, will review the 236 different submissions from 202 different teen poets and narrow the choices to the winning poems. Additional partners in this project include Heckscher Museum of Art; Huntington Arts Council; The Long Islander, which has pledged to publish the winning poems; REACH CYA; Town of Huntington Youth Bureau; Tri-Community Youth Agency; the award reception host – Walt Whitman Birthplace Association; and Youth Directions & Alternatives CYA, as well as numerous area teachers who actively encouraged their students’ participation. Subsequent to the ceremonies, colorful placards, each bearing a winning poem, will be placed in the interior advertising spaces on buses throughout the HART system. Information on previous winners of the Poetry for the HART program and their winning poems can be found at www.HuntingtonNY.gov/HARTpoetry.
The names of the winning teen poets and text of their winning poems will be available following the April 30 event. For further information on Poetry for the HART or other Town of Huntington Public Art Initiative projects, contact John Coraor, Director of Cultural Affairs, at 631-351-3099 or via e-mail: jcoraor@HuntingtonNY.gov.