About the Festival

This will be the 4th Annual Walt Whitman Festival.
The festival is held in historic Auditorium Square Park adjacent to the Great Auditorium in the unique Jersey Shore beach town of Ocean Grove. The Festival begins at 9:30am and ends at 5:30pm and the event is free and open to the public.

Kevin Chambers and Gloria Rovder Healy, co-founders and co-hosts of this Walt Whitman Poetry Festival, have guided the festival from a gathering of ten Monmouth County poets reading in the open air Auditorium Pavilion four years ago.

About Ocean Grove, NJ

Founded in 1869 as a Methodist summer retreat, Ocean Grove is home to the longest-lasting active camp meeting in the country. These camp meeting roots are reflected in the 114 tents which surround the Great Auditorium. These seasonal residences, occupied from May to September, have adjacent cabins provided with electricity and plumbing and are much in demand - so much so that those seeking to lease one for a summer may have to wait 10 years.

As a result of these unique origins and the many Victorian homes which scatter the streets, the town has been in the National Register of Historic Places since 1977.

Besides the town's many Victorian homes, the formidable Great Auditorium, constructed in 1894, is Ocean Grove's most prominent building, as it covers an area larger than a football field. It faces Ocean Pathway (once listed as one of the ten most beautiful streets in America) and serves as the centerpiece of the summer programs.

In the more distant past, Theodore Roosevelt was the first of several presidents to speak in the Auditorium. Tenor Enrico Caruso, singers Tony Bennett, Mel Torme, and Ray Charles, and organist Virgil Fox, who gave his last solo concert in the building, are among the legendary performing artists who have appeared there as well.

Those looking for other things to do will find a one-block business district packed with many interesting shops and cafes - and of course the beach.

WALT WHITMAN in OCEAN GROVE

Whitman came to Ocean Grove in September 1883 to visit his friend, essayist John Burroughs.

Both stayed at the Sheldon House. Located on Central Avenue, it was the most exclusive hotel in town and possessed modern amenities such as elevators and hot water. It was destroyed in a fire in the early 1900s.

After Burroughs left, Whitman stayed on for an additional two weeks, spending the majority of his time on the beach.

Whitman wrote the poem "With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!" while there (published in the so-called "death bed edition" of Leaves of Grass, which was published after his death. Two sections of the original manuscript written on Sheldon House letterhead are still in existence, one at the Library of Congress and the other at the University of North Carolina.

According to several Whitman scholars, the poet's favorite photo of himself was taken in the Grove. It' shows Whitman with a paper butterfly alighted on his finger. The butterfly, which had a poem by a Methodist minister written on the underside of its wings, was found in one of Whitman's diaries.

Walt Whitman Poetry Festival
P.O. Box 192
Ocean Grove, NJ 07756

Whitmanfestival@aol.com