Diane Pecoraro selected as the Our Town: Voices & Verses Community Poet.

Diane Pecoraro, the recently appointed Community Poet of SLP, has been writing since the age of twelve when she found a blank lined notebook on the beach in Rye, New York and started her first journal. For many years, she was a very private writer. Then a colleague invited her to join a writer's group. That encouragement led to sharing her poems more openly. Many notebooks have been filled since then. She has participated as a reader at poetry events, had a poem read on Public Radio and included her work in an anthology nominated for a 2005 MN Book Award.

Pecoraro writes humorous light verse and poems which are serious. They address topics ranging from food to immigrant issues.  A lifelong interest in art is a topic which inspires her. For occasions, she often creates playful songs and rhymes. When her husband won a difficult golf match a few years ago,  his victory was immortalized in a mock epic.

To broaden her range, Pecoraro has taken workshops at the Loft in writing songs, humor, monologue and portrait poems. She even pursued acting classes in improvisation.  She continues to meet with her remarkable writers' group called "The 42nd Street Irregulars" and connects with a second group of writers at the Global Market.

As an engaged SLP resident, Pecoraro knows its schools, residents, demographics, businesses and neighborhoods.  She volunteers as a tutor in the local ABE program and as a member of the film and art committees at the JCC.  Her professional life has been focused in the field of Adult English As A Second Language (ESL). As the community poet, she would like to bring diverse oral traditions into the mix.

Pecoraro is delighted  with the opportunity to be part of the "Our Town: Verses and Voices" project.  She refers to it as a" generative project", one which will help to" grow" many poetry enthusiasts in the community. It is her hope that it will move people to see themselves as potential poets and to become aware of the poetry in the air around them.  

Please watch for more information soon about poetry teaching workshops, community jams and spoken word performances.  For questions or comments please contact Sara at 952-928-6422 or email info@slpFriendsoftheArts.org. To reach Diane please email depecoraro@aol.com.

Click here to view the Star Tribune article all about Diane along with one of her poems!  

ESL Class: Grammar Lesson 
Her thin wrist is poised over the page,
with painstaking attention to the words,
meaning and sound
of the discordant new language
practiced with the person in the next seat
from another color and country
whose skin exudes unfamiliar spices.

He used to be a teacher
in what used to be Russia
She used to have a farm
in Cambodia before she came
carrying only an iron tea kettle.
Those two over there-
neighbors in the same town
of the so-called "former" Yugoslavia.

This is a classroom filled with used-to-be's,
a hard concept to teach in English.
They need it though
to explain who they once were.

A Somali woman veiled head to shoe
asks a question, pronounces "used to"
with three syllables instead of two.
As he shifts in his chair to attend,
the Buddhist monk forms a fluid arc of saffron.
His robes hang out below the frayed wool coat
he wears during this hard winter.
On his feet hiking boots, laces open,
chafe rough against bare legs.

-Diane Pecoraro