UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Pennsylvania Center for the Book has announced the second annual Poems from Life with Juniper Village, a project developed in partnership with Juniper Village Senior Living at Brookline, to share and celebrate the lives of Juniper residents with original, individualized poems presented by local poets. This event is free and open to the public.
At 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 24, each poet will present their Poems from Life piece at a celebratory reading on the Juniper Village campus, located at 1930 Cliffside Drive in State College. Each poet meets with a Juniper Village resident over several weeks and then writes an original poem to celebrate the resident’s life and contribute to Juniper’s mission of “nurturing the spirit of life.”
This year’s Poems from Life poets include: Peter Buckland of the Penn State Sustainability Institute; Joe Bueter, Penn State English Department; Steve Deutsch, Penn State Artificial Heart & Cardiovascular Fluid Dynamics Lab, semi-retired; Margie Gaffron of Mid-State Literacy Council; Michael Martin Garrett, Communications and Marketing at Penn State School of International Affairs; Lee Peterson, Penn State English Department and Women’s Studies; Abby Minor, MFA Program in Creative Writing at Penn State, alumna; Lisa Mangini, Penn State English Department); and Camille-Yvette Welsch, Penn State English Department.
More about Juniper Village and the continuum of care it provides can be found at: www.junipercommunities.com/community/juniper-village-brookline/.
The Pennsylvania Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress, encourages Pennsylvania’s citizens and residents to study, honor, celebrate and promote books, reading, libraries and literacy. In addition to Poems from Life, it also administers the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, the Public Poetry Project, Letters about Literature; A Baker’s Dozen: The Best Children’s Books for Family Literacy; and the interactive Literary & Cultural Heritage Map of Pennsylvania.
For more information about the Pennsylvania Center for the Book’s Poems from Life with Juniper Village project, please contact Nicole Miyashiro, editor, at nmm16@psu.edu, or visit https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/poems-life, where videos from its inaugural year can also be found.