In the fall of 2021, Bernadette Mayer, with the help of family and friends, was planning to create a residency program at her home in upstate New York inspired by the workshops, readings, and gatherings that had taken place there for over twenty years. Soon after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and the fundraising shifted to support her care. Bernadette received a huge outpouring of support and was amazed by the generosity of her community, which made her last year a lot more comfortable.
Bernadette, who passed away in late-2022, was the author of over 27 collections, including most recently Works and Days (2016), Eating The Colors Of A Lineup Of Words: The Early Books of Bernadette Mayer (2015) and The Helens of Troy (2013), as well as countless chapbooks and artist-books. She received grants from The Guggenheim Foundation, Creative Capital, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. She also received the 2014 Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. From 1980-1984, she served as the St. Mark’s Poetry Project director and edited and founded 0 to 9 journal and United Artists books and magazines. She has taught at the New School for Social Research, Naropa University, Long Island University, the College of Saint Rose, Miami University, and the University of Pennsylvania as a Kelly Writers House Fellow. Her influence in the contemporary avant-garde is felt widely.
To honor Bernadette’s legacy we are asking for help to preserve and restore her home in East Nassau, NY– known as the Poetry State Forest. Her house and the surrounding woods will become the Poetry State Forest archive, library, and residency and make sure that Bernadette’s home is open to poets, artists, and researchers for years to come.
Visitors and residents of the PSF will be able to access Bernadette’s personal library and to stay for periods of time to conduct research on Bernadette or work on writing projects. There will be events, opportunities for workshops, and many other ways of engaging with Bernadette’s work and the creative community in the area. Repairs to the PSF will also ensure that the house will continue to be a comfortable home for Bernadette’s partner Phil Good and a place to remember the much beloved poet Bernadette Mayer.
1. Library
Phase one, the Poetry State Forest Library will focus on restoring Bernadette’s winter office which includes her poetry collection and the reference library for her own poetry. Funds will go toward repair of the floor, construction of floor to ceiling bookcases, repainting the room, cataloging and shelving books. This will also include restoring the Bernadette’s Spring/Summer Office, the desk on the back porch of the house and repair to the Porch School of Poetry. The goal is to open the library to visitors in Fall of 2024!
2. Bungalow
Phase two, the Bungalow studio, located on the edge of a hayfield along two creeks will become housing for residents of the Poetry State Forest.
3. The Attic and Online Archives
Bernadette’s ephemera and writing will be archived to be viewed in the Poetry State Forest attic and made public online.
Bernadette Mayer’s home, library, and archives in the Poetry State Forest will be open to poets, artists, and researchers to visit by spring 2025.
The first 4 people to donate $250.00 or more will receive a free gift – 1 quart of Poetry State Forest Maple syrup, made from the sap of the trees that inspired Bernadette’s spring journals.
Please donate online at https://poetrystateforest.com/. All donations are eligible as tax-deductible by request from the Committee on Poetry.
