Saturday, March 14, 2026

Indigenous Poets Take the Stage at Altadena’s Post-Fire Healing Gathering

[photo credit: County of Los Angeles]

Altadena’s Poets Laureate will host a free outdoor poetry gathering centered on Indigenous voices on Saturday, March 28, at Loma Alta Park, continuing a nationally funded initiative to help the community heal through creative expression more than a year after the Eaton Fire.

The event, titled “When We Gather, We Heal: Indigenous Voices in Poetry,” is part of “After the Fires: Healing from Histories,” a project backed by $50,000 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships awarded to co-laureates Sehba Sarwar and Lester Graves Lennon. The initiative prioritizes participation by Altadena residents who experienced displacement or loss from the fire, which began January 7, 2025, killed at least 19 people and destroyed more than 9,000 buildings.

The gathering will include a poetry reading and open mic at Loma Alta Park, 3330 N. Lincoln Ave. A specific start time had not been posted as of Saturday; details are available at altadenapoetryreview.com.

By centering Indigenous voices, the event draws a connection to the Tongva people, whose Hahamog’na band settled along the Arroyo Seco through Pasadena and the Altadena foothills, according to PBS SoCal’s “Departures” project. In 2022, a one-acre parcel in Altadena overlooking Eaton Canyon was returned to the Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy — the first time in nearly 200 years that the Tongva had regained stewardship of land in Los Angeles County, according to the conservancy. The Altadena Poetry Review has previously published work by Tongva writers, according to its anthology page.

Sarwar, a transnational writer born in Karachi, Pakistan, whose work addresses displacement, migration and gender, has described the laureates’ post-fire work as urgent.

“Breaking isolation is so urgent at this time when our community is dealing with devastation while struggling with worry and fear about other urgent issues,” Sarwar said in a March 2025 interview with the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

Lennon, poetry editor of Rosebud magazine and a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, has lived in Altadena since 1992. He was displaced from his home of more than 30 years by serious smoke damage from the Eaton Fire, according to Local News Pasadena.

“I always thought of poetry as the most direct link from the heart and soul to understandable speech,” Lennon said in an interview published by the Daily Trojan in October 2025. “Poetry provides that immediate outlet, and it also allows a person to be in conversation with themselves.”

The Altadena Poets Laureate program traces to March 2003, when library patron Ralph Lane asked the Altadena Library District if it hosted poetry readings. Lane became the library’s first Poet Laureate in 2006. The tradition has continued uninterrupted since, with the Altadena Poetry Review publishing work from more than 120 poets and writers, according to Pasadena Now.

Lennon 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. Sarwar founded Voices Breaking Boundaries, a social justice arts organization, in Houston in 2000.

The laureates’ 2025 Altadena Poetry Review, available free at altadenapoetryreview.com, is divided into two sections. The first, “Before the Ashes,” is dedicated to the memory of Peter J. Harris, the immediate past Altadena Poet Laureate Editor in Chief, who died on October 25, 2024. The second, “After the Ashes,” is dedicated to victims and survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires.

The Altadena Main Library at 600 E. Mariposa St. has been closed for renovation since February 1, 2026. Laureate programming has moved to Loma Alta Park, where the program held “Rooted in Us: Celebrating Black Writers and the Legacy of S. Pearl Sharp” on February 28.

“When We Gather, We Heal: Indigenous Voices in Poetry” is free. For information, visit altadenapoetryreview.com or call the Altadena Library District at (626) 798-0833.

The March 28 event falls near the end of Sarwar and Lennon’s two-year laureate term, which runs through April 2026. The Altadena Library District has begun its search for the 2026-2028 Poets Laureate, according to the library’s website.

“Community is huge at this time,” Sarwar said, according to the Daily Trojan. “This is such a time of loss and fear and devastation on so many fronts. We are all feeling it. We are together.”

ALTADENA POETS LAUREATE: “WHEN WE GATHER, WE HEAL: INDIGENOUS VOICES IN POETRY” Date & Time: Saturday, March 28, 2026 (see event page for time). Venue: Loma Alta Park, Altadena, CA. Phone Number: See event page for details. Website: https://altadenapoetryreview.com/