Scenes from My Life is Poetry reading at the Center.
Verse by Verse LGBT Seniors Share Their Rich Histories Through the Powerful Intimacy of Poetry
VANGUARD | SPRING 2020
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ixteen LGBT seniors gathered at reading. “But after I read it, I thought, from the City of Los Angeles Departthe Los Angeles LGBT Center for a ‘Thank goodness I read that.’ This is my ment of Cultural Affairs. poetry reading all their own. Their sexuality. It’s sexy. I’m 85 now, and at 83, deeply personal writings were the results I had an amazing sexual relationship and “The reading is the culmination of of the eight-week My Life is Poetry work- then wrote about it. I experienced such weeks of poetry writing in the workshop. shop offered through the Center’s Senior swooning.” What you hear is people’s personalities, Services department. interests, passions, and life experiences,” The group’s autobiographical poetry he explained. “I created the workshop Cassandra Christenson has been part ran the gamut, with topics including out of concern about queer seniors’ visiof the workshop for 15 years, but the nostalgic hook-ups, childhood jobs, a bility, representation, connection to their prospect of reading her poem Seasons wicked stepmother, addiction to choco- community, and their need for an artistic of Love in front of more than 40 people late, the presidential impeachment, Kar- outlet. With the idolization of youth, our inside the Center’s Harry & Jeanette en Carpenter, and Christmas dinner at culture’s value in the wisdom and stories Weinberg Senior Center still made her grandma’s house. that come with age has diminished.” nervous. The poems are developed in what Steven Reigns, the poet laureate of “Right at the last minute I did not West Hollywood from 2014 to 2016, has Reigns describes as a supportive and want to read that poem. I tried to get been teaching the workshop for 15 years safe environment, both creatively and another poem off the f lash drive, but I at the Center. The f irst of its kind in the emotionally. Students are taught how to wasn’t able to,” she confessed after the country, the class is supported by a grant excavate past experiences and turn them
