Perie Longo will succeed Barry Spacks as Santa Barbara's poet laureate for the next two years. Photo by Jeff Clark / SBN

As a teacher, mentor, author and therapist, Longo has dedicated her life to helping others find their artistic voice through words. She will continue that work in an official capacity for the next two years, crafting poems for city events such as the Old Spanish Days Fiesta party in August while serving as a symbol for a city that prides itself on the caliber of its artists.

“I’m thrilled,” said Longo, who was selected for the post by a committee of artists and city leaders. “I think of how important poetry is for all of us, how it feeds the soul.”

She succeeds Barry Spacks, Santa Barbara’s first poet laureate who was selected two years ago. The two of them stood together this week in front of a packed audience at City Hall as Mayor Marty Blum read a list of Longo's accomplishments. It was a long list -- she has been writing poetry in Santa Barbara for 37 years. She was selected from dozens of nominations the city received in a widely publicized selection process.

Longo is a common face in schools throughout the county, serving with the California Poets in the Schools since 1984. Along with a team of about five other poets, she visits young children in class to give lessons on how to use words to express their emotions.

Perie Longo looks over a proclamation she received this week naming her Santa Barbara's poet laureate. Photo by Jeff Clark / SBN

“I have seen how healing the experience of writing can be,” said Longo, who also works with Hospice of Santa Barbara to help people deal with dying.

One of her goals as poet laureate is to create a regular venue for teenagers in Santa Barbara to read and write poetry and, more importantly, for adults to come and listen so they understand what young people are going through.

A long list of accomplishments earned Perie Longo the job as Santa Barbara's poet laureate. Photo by Jeff Clark / SBN

Through her work with teenagers at the Santa Barbara Music and Arts Conservatory, she saw that young people are grappling with some heavy issues that are decidedly different from prior generations.

“I’ve been fortunate to have worked with young people for many years, so I have seen some of the changes,” she said. “Teenagers today seem very concerned about the world they’re coming into, and what their place in it is."

In addition to her work locally, Longo has also earned a name nationally as president of the National Association for Poetry Therapy, which promotes growth and healing through story and the written word. Longo has also published three books of poetry: “With Nothing Behind but Sky,” “The Privacy of Wind” and “Milking the Earth.”

As poet laureate, she would love to help Santa Barbara artists publish a book of their own. In a city such as Santa Barbara – dubbed by some as the “city of poets” – she said it would be fitting for the place that has inspired so many artists.

Perie Longo has published three books of poetry in her career as a therapist and poet. Photo by Jeff Clark / SBN

The kids recited these words in the mural room at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse, where the walls are covered with portraits of “conquistadors on horseback, bent on victory,” according to her poem.

It was a powerful juxtaposition for Longo, seeing the kids read through their Spanish, Dutch, Chinese and Arabic accents amid pictures of warriors killing each other.

“In this feast of courage,” her poem reads, “no matter who’s annihilating whom, hope rears its head in some kind of poetic justice."

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THE POETRY OF PERIE LONG 

Perie Long’s poem to the city at her induction ceremony: “Student Poetry Recitation.”

Tonight, we complain about the lack of light,
Battle with our notes, check if all the contestants
Have arrived to recite their memorized poems
In a room larger than life
Where justice may be done, lined with murals
Of conquistadors on horseback, bent on victory.

How will we see our notes? How will the video film
These bright faces within these solemn walls?
But nothing can stop the students. Soon they are up
Reciting Keats and Shakespeare,
Dickinson’s “Hope is a thing with feathers”

All dressed up for poetry’s stakes
And you think this was the way of connection
Before these murals and that siege, before plagues,
Before terrorists and weapons of mass destruction,
And the latest war that turns

East Beach into a sea of white crosses marching
To the wash that drowns our sins,
Before all that happens in any life
Fevers the pen into action.

So thinking, the students give voice to Momaday
And Millay and while the judges tally the scores,
Members of the audience stand to join them
With poems embedded in memory: Chinese and Spanish,
Arabic and Dutch. In this feast of courage,
No matter who’s annihilating whom,
Hope rears its head in some kind of poetic justice.