Walking With Whitman featuring Barbara Ann Branca and Bryan Gallo, part of WWBA’s poetry in performance signature series.
Event Video Link: https://youtu.be/rBQGOGwMyow
WWBA is delighted to present the 11th season of Walking With Whitman, hosted by Writer-in-Residence George Wallace. (All links mentioned in this video are below). The signature series continues to bring the most intriguing figures in contemporary literature on the national scene paired with local poets on WWBA’s Virtual Stage. November’s event spotlighted Long Island poet Barbara Branca and featured poets Jennifer Wenn, Howie Faerstein, Emily-Sue Sloane, Mark Donnelly, and Glenda Bates. Live performance by Long Island Singer-Songwriter Bryan Gallo!
Barbara Ann Branca is a writer and performer who straddles the arts and sciences, creating musical and poetic works based on her lifelong passions for the environment, music, and family history—and who is happiest when those themes intersect. Branca was born in Brooklyn and grew up on Long Island walking distance to Walt Whitman’s Birthplace. Formally educated in the sciences, she has been a classroom teacher, college adjunct, textbook author, and science editor at prominent New York publishing houses. Most recently, she retired as Communications Manager of New York Sea Grant, where she promoted vital research along our coasts, writing articles and even songs to bring the message home.
In pre-pandemic days, Branca has read on National Public Radio, at Cornelia Street Café, Bowery Poetry Club, Parkside Lounge, Greenwich Village Bistro, the Huntington Poetry Barn, and Walt Whitman Birthplace where she won first place at “Super Poem Sunday” 2010 with her poem Flash Flood, the title poem of her chapbook published by Nino’s Wine Press. George Wallace, Writer in Residence at Walt Whitman Birthplace, notes of Flash Flood, “Branca’s poems are instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever heard her in performance—indelible moments retold in a signature musical style and punctuated by gourd-rattle and a smile… These are iconic remembrances, playfully retold, unforgettable once heard.” Her original poetry has been published in several anthologies including Polarity eMagazine, Paumanok (II and III), Grabbing the Apple, Long Island Quarterly, Silver-Tongued Devils Anthology, and No Distance Between Us—The Next Collection. Branca is currently working on a collection of short stories.
Bryan Gallo is a Long Island based singer-songwriter who is inspired by the pressures and consequences of living life romantically. Intrigued by both the sounds of alternative country-rock and wistful pop music, he embarked on a career as a performing singer-songwriter and began to pen songs that would be deeply personal but still readily accessible. Steeped in reflective heartache, the lexicon of Gallo’s lyrics stands as a testament to his raw talent as a musician while weaving a flush and relatable.
In 2014, he self-released The Party Guest, a debut full length album of all original material produced by Pete Mancini which featured the Roots-Rock band Butchers Blind who served as the album’s session musicians. At the tail end of 2015, Gallo recorded and released an EP of Christmas themed original songs and standards titled Santa Songs, that was self-produced with production and engineering assistance from Mick Hargreaves. Bryan is currently at work on new recordings which he hopes to release to the public in 2021. For all further information, including performance dates, recordings, social media links, and more, please visit Bryan’s official website at bryangallo.com
