Poetry reading and awards ceremony for 2021 Long Island Poet of the Year Cliff Bleidner.
Event Video Link: https://youtu.be/aX72R5spKGw
The Long Island Poet of the Year Award is an annual award given by WWBA to honor a notable and distinguished local poet who actively promotes poetry on Long Island. This year Cliff Bleidner was nominated and selected as WWBA LI Poet of the Year. (All links mentioned in this video are below) WWBA Trustee President Jack Coulehan, MD presented Board salutations, WWBA 2019 LI Poet of the Year J R Turek offered personal remarks, and Trustee Richard Bronson, MD, introduced Honoree Cliff Bleidner who will offered a live virtual poetry reading.
Cliff Bleidner writes haiku poetry and has received recognition among local writers as a distinguished poet and organizer in the Long island poetry community. He was a cofounder and coordinator of the Performance Poets Association (PPA), Long Island’s largest poetry organization. He also manages the annual PPA poetry contest, now in its 25th year. He has co-hosted PPA poetry events at more than a dozen different locations across Long Island. Due to his dedication for the PPA, it has been a successful outlet for the many Long Island poets. Cliff also assembles the PPA Literary Review manuscript from the judge’s decisions of submissions; the most recent publication in 2020, its 24th consecutive year. Cliff Bleidner has presented lectures on Dante and has held Haiku workshops, and formalist poet seminars. Cliff’s poems have been published in, 24 issues of the PPA Literary Review, The Haiku Calendar, Long Island Sounds, Paumanok I: Poems and Pictures of Long island, Paumanok II: Interwove and Writing Outside the Lines, among many others.
