PROGRAM CELEBRATES LOVE POEMS.

Byline: Mark Kellam

Love was the theme of a program at the North Hollywood Regional Library on Feb. 7 as a group of poetry lovers of all ages got together to read some classics aloud and create an impromptu community poem themselves.

Four of the teen participants read some well-known love poems aloud.

Victor Rivera read My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose, Amber Hollensteiner read To Dianeme, Cleopatra Rodriguez read My First Love, My Mother and Adam Guerra read A Midsummer.

Debbie Campbell, an actress who coordinates afternoon programs on Thursdays at the library, helped the group understand the meaning of some of the more flowery language.

For example, in To Dianeme, poet Robert Herrick writes:

Give me one kiss,

And no more;

If so be, this

Make you poor;

To enrich you,

I'll restore

For that one, two

Thousand score.

Campbell helped the participants, particularly the younger ones, understand what Herrick was saying. If one kiss depleted his love's kissing account, then he will replace that kiss with many more -- 40,000 to be exact.

Score means 20, Campbell told them, so 2,000 multiplied by 20 comes to 40,000.

The group then wrote a community poem, with each person writing one line and then passing the poem under construction to the next person.

Peg Trivison, a young adult librarian, told the group a romantic tale about her late uncle and aunt.

In the 1980s, her Uncle D.J. and Aunt Rosario were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary in Cleveland, Ohio. D.J. memorized and recited to Rosario the poem She Walks in Beauty, Like the Night by Lord Byron. He had recited that poem to her back when they were courting. Later, their grandson recited the same poem to his bride on his wedding day, Trivison added.

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Photo:

Cleopatra Rodriguez writes her line of the community poem.

Mark Kellam valleynews.com

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Community poem