PATTI TANA grew up on the Hudson River in Peekskill, New York, and since 1968 she has made her home on Long Island. She is Professor of English at Nassau Community College (SUNY) and the Associate Editor of the Long Island Quarterly since it was founded in 1990.

Join us in celebrating the Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site and Interpretive Center's selection of
Patti Tana as 2009 Poet Of The Year
For more information, click here.

Patti is the author of seven books of poetry:

• How Odd This Ritual of Harmony (1981)

• Ask the Dreamer Where Night Begins: Poems & Postscripts (1986)

• The River (1990)

• Wetlands (1993)

• When the Light Falls Short of the Dream (1998)

• Make Your Way Across This Bridge: New & Selected Writings (2003)

• This Is Why You Flew Ten Thousand Miles (2006)

• Patti is the editor of a new anthology of 119 poems by 63 poets:
Songs of Seasoned Women (Quadrasoul, Inc., 2007)

•The Walt Whitman Birthplace Association has selected Patti Tana as Long Island Poet of the Year 2009. Patti will read her poems and receive the 2009 Long Island School of Poetry Award at the Walt Whitman Birthplace Interpretive Center on Sunday, October 18th, at 2 PM. Find directions under "Contact Info" at http://www.waltwhitman.org

Click on HEAR MY POEMS to hear Patti read "Post Humus," which was reprinted in When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple (Papier-Mache Press, 1987) edited by Sandra Martz, and in many other anthologies.