Babylon Village Arts Council Event Spotlights Local Author

Babylon Village resident Tom Stock, poet and longtime naturalist, will introduce his new book, "Hidden Agenda: A Poetry Journal," at a reception Sunday, March 11 sponsored by the Babylon Village Arts Council.

The event, which will be held at 20 Willow Street in Babylon, will feature a reading and book signing from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Also on view at the reception will be a substantial portion of Pine Barrens-themed art that Stock owns, some of which he commissioned. In addition, “Pine Barrens Suite,” an original composition by Kevin Twigg also commissioned by Stock, will be played. Light

Stock lived in Manorville for 11 years in the core area of the Central Long Island Pine Barrens, Long Island’s largest preserved ecosystem.

The retired high-school science teacher has served on the founding committee of the Long Island Greenbelt Trail conference, and led hikes and published essays and poems in their quarterly newsletter.

As a member of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, Stock attended and gave testimony at public hearings, and participated in demonstrations to save open space. He has led numerous hikes, field trips and programs for the Pine Barrens Trail Information Center, Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, Northeast Organic Farmers Association, the Custer Institute, the Huntington Audubon Society, Hofstra University’s continuing education program, the Ashokan Field Campus Winter Weekend, and others.

To draw attention to the large amount of public open space in the county, Stock, now 72, hiked the 125-mile Paumanok Path (which stretches from Rocky Point to Montauk Point). He has also walked the entire North Shore and South Shore of Long Island.

Stock and his wife, Nancy Keating, are active on the Long Island poetry scene and, separately and together, have given numerous readings at various local poetry venues sponsored by the North Sea Poetry Scene, the Performance Poets Association, the Long Island Poetry Cooperative, and the Huntington Poetry Barn

About Hidden Agenda, present Suffolk County Poet Laureate Ed Stever wrote, “Tom Stock’s poems are a divining rod that beckons us on, beyond all techno-garble, to our first and abiding reality – Nature.”

 The late and legendary Allen Planz has this to say: “Barrens! The name itself conjures up a belated romanticism … These poems are often witty, often relevant, often rough with disregard of conventional poets – which I admire. Tom Stock’s discovery of the Pine Barrens is that of a lover’s and his poems are his progeny, raising the land and the things in it.”

And from Linda Opyr, the Nassau County Poet Laureate: “’Does God stay inside?’ Tom Stock asks. ‘Never,’ these poems answer. These poems are a loving tribute to Stock’s home – a tender last kiss offered at the close of a very beautiful story.”

Stock is also the author of The Nissequogue: A Journey (1986) and five self-published chapbooks of essays and poems including “The Ecology of Four Harbors” for the Harbor Hills Audubon Society.