‘There Is Definitely Hope’: Smithtown Marine Corps Veteran Publishes First Poetry Collection

SMITHTOWN, NY — More than three decades after being discharged from the Marine Corps with a PTSD diagnosis, Smithtown resident Mary Flatley is now holding the professional poetry collection she once only hoped to publish.

Three years ago, she told Patch she wanted her next book to be “professional.” Today, it is.

Flatley’s first officially published solo collection, Second Entrance, was released last month by Wyld Syde Press and is now available on Amazon — a milestone she once only imagined.

“It was amazing to type in my name and see it pop up,” Flatley said. “I never thought I’d have a whole book just to myself.”

Flatley, 59, is a Marine Corps Reserve veteran who was discharged in May 1990 with a PTSD diagnosis. After completing boot camp, she attended Administrative Clerk School, where she was named honor graduate in a class of approximately 60 Marines before being assigned to the Marine Corps Communications Battalion in Amityville.

The collection was edited and published by Dr. Tammy Nuzzo Morgan, former Suffolk County Poet Laureate (2009–2011), who also wrote the foreword and designed the cover.

“Tammy did such a wonderful job,” Flatley said. “I selected the poems and wrote the dedication to my mom and dad, Julie and Vincent. The hardest part was deciding which poems to include.”

The book includes approximately 32–33 poems spanning a wide range of topics, including nature, love, humor, family and personal experiences.

“Second Entrance includes things that happened in my life — funny poems, nature poems, love poems,” she said. “It’s a wide variety.”

Flatley began writing in 1997 as a student at SUNY Purchase. Her first published poem appeared in a COVID anthology edited in collaboration with the Walt Whitman Birthplace. She later worked at the Walt Whitman Birthplace from 2003 to 2008 as an administrative assistant.

While PTSD is not the central focus of Second Entrance, Flatley continues to use poetry as a tool for processing life events and emotional challenges.

“There is definitely hope,” Flatley said, adding that writing has helped her manage PTSD and encouraging fellow veterans to seek support when they need it.

After her military service, Flatley worked for many years, including as a relief aide at Western Suffolk BOCES assisting severely disabled students, before stopping work in 2012 to care for her mother. Her mother passed away in November 2022 after a decade of caregiving.

Flatley was honored by Suffolk County Legislator Robert Trotta as his Veteran of the Year in 2022. She comes from a military family; her uncle served as a lieutenant colonel in the Marines, and her father served during the Korean War era.

Volunteering has remained a constant throughout her life. While in college, she transported veterans to Sunday Mass at the Long Island State Veterans Home and later volunteered at institutions including the Heckscher Museum, Sweetbriar Nature Preserve and the Guide Dog Foundation. Today, she volunteers at Whisper Woods assisted living facility in Smithtown, where she calls bingo games, takes residents on outings and conducts poetry readings. She also volunteers with the American Legion in Greenlawn, contributing to its newsletter by interviewing local officials.

She remains connected to the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association and hopes to conduct a reading there this year. Flatley also discussed several upcoming or potential appearances, including a veterans-focused event at Half Hollow Hills Library in May and a small poetry reading for women veterans at the Northport VA. She hopes her book may also be sold in the Birthplace gift shop.

Because she receives Social Security Disability as a disabled veteran, Flatley does not collect royalties from book sales. She said she is motivated by sharing her work and supporting her publisher rather than by profit. She feels she has grown more confident both as a poet and as a person.

“My life is defined by joy, not money,” she said. “I define success by how much I help other people, not by money, cars, or clothes.”

She aspires to possibly become Huntington or Smithtown’s Poet Laureate one day and hopes eventually to write a memoir. She continues to write new poetry and sees art as a peaceful way to process upheaval.

When asked what she hopes readers take away from Second Entrance, Flatley said she hopes the poems are seen as “deep” and “philosophical.”

“I hope it makes people think,” she said.

Readers interested in purchasing Second Entrance can find the collection on Amazon in both the United States and Canada. The book features more than 30 poems and is currently listed on Amazon.