GRANADA HILLS TEEN TOPS 35,000 ENTRIES IN CONTEST.

Byline: STACY BROWN

Sixteen-year-old Michael Leviton took some garlic, added some romance and came up with a poem that won a nationwide contest.

Leviton, a Granada Hills resident who attends Cleveland High School in Reseda, submitted the poem to Lancome Cosmetics Co.'s ``Poetry of Love'' contest.

His was one of 35,000 entries sent by hopeful poets.

It caught the eye of the judges, and Leviton was awarded a laptop computer with software and, among other things, a selection of poetry books.

The contest was part of a campaign by Lancome to launch a new fragrance called ``Poeme,'' said Lynn Lennartz of Lancome's public relations office in New York City.

The musical ``Frankenbean and the Monster Carrots,'' an original production that uses music, dance and circus skills to tell about energy and nutrition, premieres at the Los Angeles Children's Museum on Feb. 8.

The 40-minute show will play at noon and 2 p.m. Feb. 8-10 and Feb. 15-17.

The musical features such original songs as ``The Nutrient Shuffle'' and ``The Energy Song.''

A gymnastics program for girls ages 4-17 will be offered at Pierce College Extension on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings starting Friday.

The 10-week series will be open to beginning, intermediate and advanced students.

The registration fee is $59. More information is available at [phone].

Cal State Northridge has started a community newsletter collection that will preserve the history of Southern California's Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities.

The Asian-American Community Newsletter collection, started by CSUN's Urban Archives Center and Asian American studies department, will be available for students, scholars and the community to study.

``The contemporary records of our work, play and struggles are reflected in many mediums, including community newsletters and documents produced by community organizations,'' said Kenyon Chan, who chairs the Asian-American studies department.

The newsletter collection will join hundreds of other newsletters at the Urban Archives Center, which also stores Japanese-American newspapers from World War II relocation camps and the Southern California Labor Newspaper Collection.

The files will be available to the public by the end of this summer in the Special Collections section of the main library.

For information on how to contribute to the collection, contact Chan at [phone].

The winning poem

``This afternoon I took apart the bulb of garlic that you gave me. I should've known I'd only end up with a bunch of cloves. But, on the verge of love, my mind's inclined to think there's more to things than what they seem. Lying here in bed tonight I tell myself how much cloves look like tears. . . .''

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

Photo: Michael Leviton

Mixed garlic, romance

Box: The winning poem (see text)