Timeline Of Nick’s Life In Poetry
There are poets and visionaries—souls who write to reveal the truth hidden in the ordinary,
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Attention teachers and students interested in our Haiku Society of America Virgilio scholarship contest: We have just posted to our YouTube channel a workshop led by Tom Painting on writing contemporary haiku. Tom is an American junior high school humanities teacher and haiku poet, teaching at the Paideia School in Atlanta, Georgia. His students have had winning haiku in blind judging of thousands of entries in the Nicholas Virgilio Memorial Haiku Contest since 2000.
Tom’s online workshop is tailored to introducing modern haiku to students. It explores the basics of composing and crafting haiku in English, the power of image to evoke emotion and the ways artful juxtaposition can create the haiku “ah-ha” moment. Attendees explore excellent examples of haiku in English by students in junior high to learn what to expect from students of different age groups. Discussions explore seasonal awareness and the understanding of kigo to further enhance haiku knowledge, as well as haiku and senryu relationships to nature and human nature in ways both serious and humorous.
Tom’s own haiku have appeared annually since 1998 in the Red Moon anthologies of English-language haiku as well as in Baseball Haiku: The Best Haiku Ever Written About the Game (2007), A New Resonance 2: Emerging Voices in English-language Haiku (2001), and Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (2013), among others. Painting has also received recognition in the Haiku Society of America’s haiku, senryu, and haibun contests and is an associate editor for The Heron’s Nest haiku journal.
We encourage any students who would like to submit to our annual haiku and senryu contest to view this online workshop! There’s so much for teachers and students of the craft, alike. Take a look at Tom Painting’s recorded session here.
There are poets and visionaries—souls who write to reveal the truth hidden in the ordinary,
New Jersey’s Camden. A city that had been a titan of shipbuilding and industry, more
Words that will reverberate over time were once written by a quiet voice amid the
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Alfred taught English to junior and senior high school students in New Jersey and Massachusetts prior to working for the municipal government of the City of Camden, New Jersey. He began working with the City of Camden Department of Planning & Development, Division of Housing Services, as a Cost Estimator for Property Improvement in 1984.
He spent the next thirty-eight years working in both the Division of Housing Services, and the Finance Department Bureau of Grants Management, helping the City administer state and federally funded affordable housing projects in Camden.
Alfred spent ten years working with the Bureau of Grants Management, where he reviewed and evaluated grant applications and proposals for funding from non-profit and for- profit housing developers. These agencies included St. Joseph’s Carpenter Society, Heart of Camden, Camden County OEO, Habitat for Humanity,
Camden Lutheran Housing, RPM Development and others. He also worked with social service agencies such as Dooley House, Respond Inc., Sikora House, Center for Family Services, and Volunteers of America, that applied for grant funding.
He also played a significant role in the planning and implementation of the Annual Consolidated Plan grant application submitted to the Department of Housing and Urban Development each year. The Bureau holds an annual grant funding seminar along with public meetings and technical assistance sessions concerning the C-Plan.
Working for the City of Camden Division of Housing Services Alfred also served as the coordinator of the federal funded HOPWA housing Program for 14 years.
HOPWA funds provided safe, affordable, secure, housing for persons with HIV/AIDS, by issuing housing vouchers to their participants. He managed the delivery of services to 80-90 clients a year, covering Camden, Burlington and Gloucester counties.
During his time working for the City of Camden Mr. Dansbury was a member of the CPAC Homeless Network Planning Committee, the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant Advisory Committee and United Neighbors of Whitman Park.
Outside of his work with the City of Camden, Alfred worked as an Adjunct Instructor of Reading Skills and Writing Skills at Camden County College, teaching at both the Camden and Blackwood campuses. In 2022 Alfred published,
“The Strength of Courage” a novel he embarked on as a graduate student in Rowan University’s M.A. in Writing program in 2014-2018.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and Journalism from Rutgers University, a Master’s of Arts degree in Business Administration from Eastern University, a Master’s of Arts in Education from Eastern Michigan University and a Master’s of Arts in Writing from Rowan University.