UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. —The Pennsylvania Center for the Book has released the 2020 Poems from Life with Juniper Village. The fourth annual event is 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 year’s Poems from Life poets include:

·       Michael Bourgo, Penn State Olli

·       Peter Buck, Penn State Sustainability Institute

·       Joe Bueter, Penn State English Department

·       Carolyne Meehan, Penn State College of Education

·       Kathleen Morrow, Penn State Communication Arts & Sciences, alumna

·       Camille-Yvette Welsch, Penn State English Department.

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.” Residents being celebrated this year include: Edward Bellis, Margaret (Peggy) Cole, Susanne Hinrichs, Harriet O'Brien, Lois Taylor and Fred Thompson.

In response to coronavirus precautions, recordings of poets reading their work will be made available online in lieu of the celebratory reading held at Juniper Village Senior Living at Brookline each year.

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, sponsored by Barbara I. Dewey, dean of University Libraries and Scholarly Communications, and Penn State State University Libraries, is an affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress. It 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, Wordstruck: Micro Essays on Literature, A Baker’s Dozen: The Best Children’s Books for Family Literacy, Words of Art, 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, contact Nicole Miyashiro, editor, at nmm16@psu.edu, or visit https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/poems-life, where videos from its previous years can also be found.