“Everyone is a poet at heart”: Historic word collage celebrates County's natural beauty
In 2009, SCC residents submitted lines of verse to be compiled—by our inaugural Poet Laureate Nils Peterson—into a collaborative poem titled “A Family Album Santa Clara County, 2009.” The poem, excerpted below, winks at the wonders and quirks of Northern California living: like singing birds, quaking ground, ginkgo leaves, and (long) freeway drives.
From the “What's Here” section of “A Family Album Santa Clara County, 2009”:
I thought it would be almost like Kansas, but it’s not.
Home of garlic fog, traffic bog and many who jog.
Sometimes the earth shakes beneath our feet.
A hint of garlic seasons the morning fog.
Showers - what I once called drizzle.
Hills wrap long arms around the valley.
Winter rain stops; chartreuse gingko leaves finger the sky.
Hawks glide and dive, melted sunshine poppies spill downhill.
Morning doves coo softly from rooftop antennas.
A hummingbird whirrs through roses; jet lumbers above.
A woodpecker pounds the dead madrone, as I walk past.
Eleven ducklings in mom’s wake down Coyote Creek.
Paired for life, two geese fly over Camden before rain.
Two lizards doing pushups - Qui es mui macho?
A dog barks…bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark.
The street cat has a wild and holy light in his eyes.
With my wet laundry, I startle a doe.
6 AM: the mockingbird sang all night.
Squirrels playing soccer with walnuts on the roof.
Ocean cool morning, filigree snail trail on doormat.
Mountain lion hit on 85. Whose valley, this?
Above Silicon Valley two bluebirds are mating.
And crow, county jester, finds a way to thrive.
The Giant Orange. Not razed, just moved a mile. Hot dog!
“Two eighty south becomes six eighty north?! What?”
Moffett tarmac – white blimp, the floating skywhales return!
From the Mercury News' 2009 article titled “First official Santa Clara County poem”:
As the poet laureate of Santa Clara County, Nils Peterson yearns to elevate the status of poetry in the land of the iPod, to make art accessible to folks who don’t know Walt Whitman from Meg Whitman. That’s why he invited the community to help write the first official county poem, a vivid snapshot of life in the valley unveiled Tuesday.
“This poem captures the heights and the depths of life in Silicon Valley,” said Peterson, professor emeritus at San Jose State University, who was moved to tears as he recited “A Family Album, Santa Clara County, 2009” at a press conference at the county government center. “We are reflecting the family of Santa Clara County, that’s our extended family, and we are lucky to have each other.”
About 500 county residents submitted phrases that Peterson sculpted into an epic word collage that mashes up 100 lines from 100 authors, ages 11 to 80. In the manner of a Tweet, each line had to be short and sweet (from nine to 13 syllables long). Accessibility is the key to this collective opus.
“Poetry isn’t just for the elite,” said Liz Kniss, president of the Board of Supervisors, whose office partnered with the Arts Council Silicon Valley and the county library system on this project. “Everyone is a poet at heart.”
Read the whole thing here.
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