Nassau County Poet Laureate for 2009-2011 and the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association 2016 Long Island Poet of the Year, Gayl Teller received an MA from Columbia University and another MA from Queens College, CUNY. Her poetry collections are At the Intersection of Everything You Have Ever Loved, Shorehaven, Moving Day, One Small Kindness, Inside the Embrace, and Hidden in Plainview, and Flashlight: New and Selected Poems (WordTech/ Cherry Grove, 2019). (WordTech/Cherry Grove, 2015).
She is the editor of Toward Forgiveness, an anthology of poems (Writers Ink Press, 2011).
She is the editor of Corona: An Anthology of Poems (Walt Whitman Birthplace Association, 2020).
Director and founder of the Poetry Reading Series, under the auspices of the New York State Council on the Arts, at the Mid-Island Y JCC, in Plainview, NY, for the past thirty-five years, she reviews the works of feature poets and has judged the annual poetry contest for adults, teens, and children. She has been teaching in the English department and Writing Studies and Composition department of Hofstra University since 1985.
As Nassau County Poet Laureate, she originated “Stray Feet,” a roving poetry show visiting high schools and middle schools, nursing homes, senior and rehab centers, and libraries in Nassau County, and in 2010, her workshops/anthology project “A Poetry of Forgiveness” was awarded a New York State Council on the Arts’ LI Decentralization Grant for the Arts, which has culminated in her editing Toward Forgiveness, a poetry anthology of 99 LI poets, including five LI poets laueate, published by Writers Ink Press, in 2011.
She has conducted numerous poetry workshops and seminars and been the feature reader at many universities, poetry centers, and libraries.
She has served as a judge in the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest, which encourages the nation’s youth to learn about great poetry through memorization and performance.
Her work has received numerous national and international awards: the 2023 BACCA Arts Center "Ekphrastic and Back" Poetry Award for "Jellybean Lady"; the Artists Embassy International Award for "Off to Work" in the 2021 Poetry Contest, the Westmoreland Arts & Heritage Festival 2013 Poetry Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Prize, the Peninsula Library Poetry Prize, a National Federation of State Poetry Societies Prize, a National League of American PEN Women Prize, and The Connecticut Writer Prize.
She was the February 2022 Poet of the Month on the SEVENTH QUARRY PRESS website www.seventhquarrypress.com (Swansea, Wales, UK). Her work was featured in the Poets in Nassau Storycorps Event Sandy Project in 2014. One Small Kindness was a finalist for the Blue Light Poetry Prize.
In 2011, she received The North Sea Poetry Scene Recognition Award. In 2012, she received the Mid-Island Y JCC Service Award.
Her poems are widely published and anthologized, and her reviews of poetry books have appeared frequently in Small Press Review and other journals.
Her website is www.gaylteller.com.
Her e-mail is poetry@gaylteller.com.
LI Decentralization Grant For the Arts Awarded To Local Artist
