As they do every Thursday from September to late May, a dozen graduate students from NYU and their Director, Jennifer Kelly, gathered Thursday afternoon in the Goldwater Hospital Community Center to meet with a dozen patients enrolled in the hospital's Creative Poetry Writing Program.

The program is now over 20 years old. Its story begins with Ursula Beau-Seigneur. A school librarian, she was always on the move - her husband worked for PanAm. In the early days of the Roosevelt Island Community Library she was a volunteer, then a part-time librarian at Goldwater, commuting from Brooklyn. Eventually she became Goldwater's Head Librarian.

In September, 1999, BeauSeigneur and her husband returned to live on Roosevelt Island.

Excitement Moving Itūs 2 am, a small amusement park in Texas, empty as a coffee cup itūs lit up like a Christmas Tree, a carousel plastic and steel, red and pink, white. I hear music like that from a bagpipe. The carousel is floating - is contained but seems to be moving on - It's 2 am and I'm in the Emergency Room at North Brown Central. I see faces piling into the door, drawn faces, wild looks. a mother with a child the ruddy faced baby crying the mother knows something is wrong. There's impatience. 3 pm Friday smells like popcorn, frankfurters roasting, people's faces lit up with excitement, like Christmas. The carousel still floats a nine year old girl loses her grip of the bronze pole. The carousel's spinning the girl catapults into the net like a baseball thrown. 3 pm Friday in the Emergency Room the woman is anxious her child is still crying, continuously. William Shingler

But twenty years ago, in 1980, she started a reading group for Goldwater patients - a small group at first, sharing reading and poetry writing, with the help of volunteers. Early on, support and then leadership, came from Sharon Olds and Hattie Jo P. Mullens. In 1981, help came from the Kennedy Foundation. Through Sharon Olds's leadership, the program became part of the NYU undergraduate program as a special arts program. BeauSeigneur said, "Even after all these years, I still have great enthusiasm for this program." Indeed, her enthusiasm radiates strongly.

In the early 1990s the program became part of the Recreation Department, supervised now by Linda Dianto, who says, "I am excited by the continued involvement of the patients and the students." Her experience goes back to her work at Coler Hospital in 1986.

With consolidation of the Island's two hospitals in 1996, Dianto moved to Goldwater. She said, "The longer I oversee this program the more I see our need for more volunteers. When new patients want to enter this poetry program, I have to say no, because we do not have enough volunteers, especially young people."

Supporting Linda's position is Pamela Hargrow, Director of Public Affairs. She emphasized, "We need funds for this program, at least $7,000 to $8,000 a year. We need grants and major gifts." She comes to this program through a background of nursing and as former Director of Volunteer services at Goldwater. She said, "This program is changing the quality of their lives, giving them self-esteem and a better self-image."

William Shingler, a patient in the program, is glad to see The WIRE at the session. "We want this program publicized." Susan Miller, the graduate student working with William, has been involved since October. Shingler has had three of his poems published.

Kelly says, "We are here to facilitate communication with the patients."