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Ron Koertge, South Pasadena’s first poet laureate, has written “Ode to South Pasadena.” It’s a commemorative poem about the city, looking back as it also celebrates South Pasadena’s vibrant present.
A widely published writer and recipient of many awards, as poet laureate Ron is an ambassador for poetry, reading his poems and poems by others at various functions all around the city.
Along with more than sixty poet laureates from all over California, on October 6 Ron will appear at the McGroaty Arts Center in Tujunga. The reading begins at 2:00. It is free and is open to the public.
As he was composing the “Ode to South Pasadena,” Ron asked for ideas from the community and the response was enthusiastic. So in a sense, the ode is a collaborative effort.
Ron’s most recent book of poems is Olympusville, from Red Hen, a Pasadena-based independent press.
He can be contacted by e-mail at ronkoepoet@mail.com.
ODE TO SOUTH PASADENA
Ron Koertge | South Pasadena Poet Laureate
Water made the orange groves possible through all that remains now is
the name of a boulevard that celebrates them just as Mission Street
And El Centro celebrate the heritage of the city. Today kids in orange-and-
black drink root beer floats at the Fair Oaks Pharmacy and Soda
Fountain as they flirt with their phones. Parents wait for a table at Gus’s
Barbeque, and grandparents snap pictures of toddlers around the
Enormous Moreton Bay Fig Tree by the library as they remember when they
were children grinning into their own fathers’ cameras. The Cawston
Ostrich Farm is just a memory but the Dinosaur Farm opens at ten a.m.
Waiting on the shelves at Vidéothèque are films that debuted at the
Rialto Theatre in 1925. Hollywood has a second home here, transforming
parts of the city into Indiana or Massachusetts. Then crews dismantle
Everything the next day, leaving the neighborhood intact just as relentless
freeway fighters kept the city whole and undivided. Beauty is
everywhere in South Pasadena. Early morning light, yellow and mild like
a shawl that has been laundered a few times, falls across joggers and
communters. It wakes the parrots that circle and squawk. Passengers on
the Gold Line put on their sunglasses. Just below Grand Avenue,
a pair of coyotes make their way back the the arroyo. As a truck bound for
Trader Joe’s rumbles by, they slide into some shrubbery and
Disappear. On the lawn a sign says HATE HAS NO HOME HERE.
A house sparrow and a robin land and begin to sing.
