Neighbors

A woman of words

Wantagh resident is Nassau County poet laureate

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By day, Lorraine LoFrese Conlin, of Wantagh, works as a U.S. Customs broker at John F. Kennedy International Airport. But in her private life, Conlin dedicates herself to the discipline of poetry, described by 19th Century poet Percy Shelley as the “expression of the imagination.” It is Conlin’s ability to reconcile feelings and ideas with words that garnered her the honor of being named the 2015-17 Nassau County poet laureate.

“It was a big surprise,” said the 67-year-old Conlin, who didn’t know she had been nominated. “I don’t have a lot of formal education in poetry. I’m not a professor or anything like that. I’m in the trenches, just writing away.”

She learned about the honor from Paula Camacho, president of the Nassau County Poet Laureate Society and a fellow poet. Camacho, who was Conlin’s first poetry instructor, introduced her to the larger Long Island poetry community.

“In 2003 I was membership director for the Long Island Writers’ Guild and working on a novel,” Conlin recalled. “But I met a lot of poets who convinced me to try poetry, and it worked for me. I guess you could say I was dragged over to the dark side.”

She began publishing her poems in various anthologies and online publications, and will publish her first book of poetry, “Collage,” at the end of the summer. She also reads her poems in a number of venues. She is on the board of directors of the Bards, the events coordinator of Performance Poets Association and hosts poetry readings at Sip This in Valley Stream and the Bellmore Bean Café. She also hosts poetry readings the last Tuesday of every month at the Bellmore Memorial Library for Poets in Nassau.

When she is not hosting, she attends the Long Island Poetry Collective workshop and is an active member of the East End Poetry group in Southampton. Conlin also founded Long Island Poets for Darfur and held readings at Hofstra University and at the Conklin Barn in Huntington to raise awareness of war and genocide in Darfur.

“We hold a number of events to raise awareness on different topics,” Conlin said, including assisting people in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and more recently, an event to help address hunger on Long Island. “We asked a fellow poet from Nepal, Yuyutsu Sharma, what we can do to help there. Maybe we can adopt a family or even a village. We help and we give voice to various people without a voice.”

Beginnings of the position

The Nassau County Poet Laureate Society was formed in 2005 after it asked the Nassau County Legislature to endorse its efforts to have a poetry representative in the person of a poet laureate. Shortly thereafter, the society picked Maxwell Corydon Wheat, of Freeport, as its first poet laureate, but the Legislature was unhappy with the society’s choice because of some of Wheat’s political poems.

“We claimed Maxwell and decided to keep going,” Camacho said. “Our mission is to select and support the Nassau County poet laureate, to encourage discovery of the poetic voice, to elevate appreciation for the written word and to enrich the lives of poets and residents of Nassau County and the great Long Island community through the art of poetry.”

Conlin is the fifth Nassau County poet laureate. The others were Maxwell Corydon Wheat (2007-09), Gayle Teller (2009-11), Linda Opyr (2011-13), and Mario Susko (2013-15).

“It is always difficult to pick a poet laureate,” said Frank McKenna, Poet Laureate Society board member and director of the Seaford Library. McKenna, who got involved with the organization in 2006, said there is “an embarrassment of riches here when it comes to poets, but Lorraine is well deserving of this honor.”

In addition to naming a poet laureate, the society holds an annual poetry contest to raise funds for a small scholarship for a graduating high school student interested in the written word. The society has also published two collections of poetry and is looking to publish “on an annual basis,” Camacho explained. “We are also here to help support the poet laureate’s efforts in the community.”

For example, Conlin said as poet laureate she will reach out to public libraries to create more poetry readings and programs. “I want to create a model to take to the libraries that will connect us with people in the community,” she said. “I also want to reach new poets, young people and encourage them to write and read. The library is a perfect place to do that.”

McKenna agrees. “The library is an educational institution,” he said, “so this is a good fit.” He added that his time on the Poet Laureate Society board has helped him develop his poetic sensibilities. “I read a lot of non-fiction, but I do enjoy poetry — Billy Collins, Mark Strand, Shakespeare’s sonnets,” he said. “It’s good to read other things.”

Conlin will be inducted as poet laureate on June 20 in Farmingdale. She has already begun reaching out to libraries for poetry programs. On April 30, she led other Nassau County poets at a reading at the Wantagh Library. Susko and Teller read their poems. Others participated in the open-mic session that followed, and close to a dozen shared their work — including Arnold Hollander, of Wantagh, who read a poem about the Road Taken, (instead of “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost). And one of Long Island’s grand dames of poetry, Wantagh resident Lois Walker, who founded the Long Island Poetry Collective in Wantagh, read “Lost to Found,” which she called a tribute to the poet E.E. Cummings.

“Poetry is a special way of seeking and listening,” Conlin said in her opening remarks at the reading. “There is no right or wrong way to interpret a poem. We ask that you listen and enjoy.”