Sunday, April 26, 2026

Altadena’s Poets Laureate Invite a Community to Tell Its Story Onstage

The library series born from the Eaton Fire closes with an afternoon where the audience writes the script

Sixteen months after fire tore through Altadena, the stories still outnumber the people willing to tell them. On Sunday, an event at the Bob Lucas Memorial Library will try to change that — not with a microphone and a podium, but with actors who listen.

“After the Fire: Honoring Stories From the Community” pairs poetry with People’s Playback Theater, an interactive performance company whose actors take audience members’ spoken memories and transform them, on the spot, into movement, music and improvised scenes. The event runs from 10 a.m. to noon at the Bob Lucas Memorial Library and Literacy Center, 2659 Lincoln Ave. Registration is required.

The program is part of “After the Fires: Healing from Histories,” a yearlong poetry initiative led by Altadena Poets Laureate Sehba Sarwar and Lester Graves Lennon. The Academy of American Poets awarded the pair $50,000 fellowships in 2025 to launch the project, which has prioritized participation by Altadena residents who experienced displacement or loss from the Eaton Fire, according to the Academy of American Poets.

The Eaton Fire ignited on January 7, 2025, and destroyed more than 9,000 structures in Altadena, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The blaze killed 19 people.

Since receiving the fellowship, Sarwar and Lennon have organized monthly workshops and readings across Altadena in collaboration with the Altadena Library District and local arts spaces. The initiative has included events such as “From Ashes to Renewal: Voices of Resilience in Altadena,” held at the library in January 2026 to mark the fire’s one-year anniversary, and a series of open mic readings, according to the Altadena Library District.

Sunday’s event at Bob Lucas is among the final programs in the series. The day before, on Saturday, April 25, the library will host the 20th anniversary “Poetry and Cookies” celebration — the closing event of the “After the Fire” series — featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen and the announcement of the 2026–2028 Altadena Poets Laureate, according to event listings from the Altadena Library District.

Playback theater, a form of improvisational performance founded in 1975, invites audience members to share true stories from their lives and watch as a company of actors and musicians enact them. The format has been used in post-disaster and post-conflict settings around the world.

The Bob Lucas branch itself carries its own recovery story. The library at 2659 Lincoln Ave. reopened on August 16, 2025, after a 16-month renovation that added approximately 1,000 square feet — about 50 percent more space — including a children’s area, a literacy center with classroom and tutoring rooms, and an outdoor reading garden, according to the Altadena Library District. The project was funded by Measure Z, approved by 72 percent of district voters in 2020.

Sarwar and Lennon have served as Altadena’s Poets Laureate since May 2024. Sarwar is a transnational writer and community activist who founded Voices Breaking Boundaries, an arts organization in Houston. Lennon, who has lived in Altadena since 1992, is the author of three poetry collections and was instrumental in creating the Poet Laureate positions for both the City of Los Angeles and the City of Oakland, according to the Altadena Library District.

The Altadena Poets Laureate program began in 2006 after a library patron named Ralph Lane asked a librarian if the library ever hosted poetry readings. It has since grown into one of the community’s most enduring literary traditions, according to the library’s poetry program page.

Sunday’s event is free. Registration is available through the Altadena Library District website at altadenalibrary.libnet.info.

For those who lost homes, neighbors and the oaks that lined their streets, Sunday offers two hours and a small room in which the unspoken can, finally, take the stage.