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A Few Clouds Long Beach Public Library hosts 9/11 programs
Poetry, lecture discussion to honor 10-year anniversary
“I don’t think poetry is an escape from the real world,” said Ellen Pickus, an award-winning poet and retired English and creative writing teacher at Long Beach High School.
This year, Pickus will be conducting a 9/11-themed poetry and prose workshop at the Long Beach Public Library on Sept. 10, a day before the 10-year anniversary of 9/11.
“I think it’s a way to look at life more clearly,” she said. “I’m a great believer in writing. I think it is very therapeutic.”
The Long Beach Public Library will be hosting two Sept. 11, 2001 memorial programs this month. The first will be Pickus’ poetry and prose program, “We Will Never Forget,” which will commence at 2:00 p.m. The event is open to all, and Pickus said it is meant to encourage many to come out with a poem or a short piece of prose that they have written, or even a work written by a favorite author, that addresses 9/11 in a “healing manner.”
The second program, “9/11’s Blue Collar Heroes: Remembering the Fallen Heroes and Rescue Workers,” will feature a lecture by Dr. Richard Greenwald, a professor from St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn. The program focuses on the firemen, policemen, EMTs, and other rescue workers and their role in providing aid to those at ground zero, and how they were, and are today, perceived by the public. The program will take place on Sept. 14 at 7:30 p.m.
In recent years on Sept. 11, Pickus, who self-published her first book of poems in November of 2008, entitled, “Unbroken Promises,” said she has attended events at the Long Beach Public Library, and has hosted poetry workshops on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
Library Programmer Edie Kalickstein, who said that Pickus hosted the 9/11 poetry program in 2009, said having her return this year — especially to memorialize the 10-year-anniversary of 9/11 — was an easy decision.
“I think there’s a need for the public to express themselves about loss and devastation,” Kalickstein said. “I feel that the library being a community center has a purpose in bringing together different points of view.”
