South Pasadena Public Library: Library Celebrates National Poetry Month With "A New Beginning"

Press release from the South Pasadena Public Library:

04/07/2021

April is National Poetry Month, and in celebration, the South Pasadena Public Library invited residents of all ages to contribute to a crowdsourced poem. The idea for a South Pasadena community poem was City of South Pasadena Poet Laureate Ron Koertge’s, and he was inspired by young poet Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb”, which was read to great acclaim at President Biden’s inauguration, and by National Public Radio’s Poet-in-Residence Kwame Alexander, who recently called for contributions to a crowdsourced poem, which resulted in 2,500 contributions and his poem “This is Our Dream”.

Contributions for the South Pasadena poem came from community members as young as six years old to adults. Ron Koertge wove their thoughts and lines into one coherent poem titled “A New Beginning.”

Koertge explained, “Collecting a lot of suggestions and making them into one poem meant taking things that were different colors and sizes and shapes and seeing how they’d fit together. I started out by seeing which contributions wanted to get next to each other. After a lot of shuffling and moving things around, pretty soon I had a kind of song that had a theme and refrain. Then I’d read out loud until I was happy with the melody.”

Information about the Poet Laureate and the poem, “a New Beginning,” is posted on the Poet Laureate page. Later in the month, the South Pasadena High School Drama Club students will be reciting the poem aloud and their recording will be added to this page.

Koertge said, “Thanks to everybody who took the time to contribute to this communal poem. It’s common to say that writing is a lonely process:  one writer and a blank sheet of paper. But I didn’t feel lonely at all working on this project. I had a lot of new friends who helped.” He and the South Pasadena Public Library recognize the following for their assistance with this poem:

Afshin Ketabi, Anonymous , Ansel Law, Benjamin Regan, Bianca Richards, Cookie, Diala Faddoul, Jennifer Tuason, Katie Telser, Kay Mouradian, Krysten, Leo Tuason, Linda Castro, Maida Wong, Margaret Finnegan, Margo F. Newman, Marlane McAlexander Osman, Megan Bennett, Michael D. Toman, Mike Bonifer, Miss Lang, Pam Jones, Paul Kikuchi, Robin Meyer, Shana Brewer, Sharon Sprenger, Sherry Fuqua-Gilson, Sorrel Barnard, Tylene

This press release was produced by the South Pasadena Public Library. The views expressed here are the author’s own.