Writers sought to help fill Latrobe with poems for National Poetry Month

A little less than a year ago, Bobbie Hineline of Latrobe was strolling through the village of Saranac Lake in upstate New York, when she realized every storefront had public-facing placards bearing poetry.

“In the Adirondacks, which is a big, big area, there’s a writers’ group that sponsored this project, which they called ‘Poetry Village,’” said Hineline, who is preparing for retirement after serving as a pastor at churches in Latrobe and Darlington. “I thought it was super cool.”

Hineline has been writing poetry throughout her life, including as a child and even as recently as a decade ago when she took a poetry class in Pittsburgh.

“I like playing with words, but I realized that a lot of people were a lot better at it than me,” she said.

To share her passion, Hineline partnered with Saint Vincent College professor Jeannine Pitas and Independence Health bereavement counselor Maureen Ceidro to bring poetry to life in downtown Latrobe this spring.

Hineline and Pitas, along with Pitas’ students, have put a call out for poetry submissions from Westmoreland County writers. Their work will be collected and displayed at storefronts and different areas in Latrobe for National Poetry Month in April.

“We’re just really excited to bring poetry into the public square,” said Pitas, who is also the author of the 2023 poetry collection “Or/And.”

“What better way to do it than putting it on buildings that people walk by every day?” she said.

Poem submissions must be less than 25 lines or 300 words, whichever comes first. Poems can explore any subject but cannot contain explicit content or hate-speech. They can be emailed to jeannine.pitas@stvincent.edu with the subject line “Poetry Neighborhood Latrobe.”

In addition to putting poetry on prominent display, the group is scheduling several other activities and workshops to coincide with National Poetry Month.

“I’ll be gathering people to read nature poetry, probably at the Winnie Palmer Nature Reserve,” Hineline said. “We’ll probably try and do a night of poetry music, and Maureen will help with a workshop focusing on grief poetry.”

Hineline said she’s excited to see the poems that are submitted.

“I think poets are kind of the prophets of our day,” she said. “It behooves us to listen to them. I think they can be wiser than a lot of the people who get much more attention.”

For more on National Poetry Month events in Latrobe, email jeannine.pitas@stvincent.edu. Poem submissions are due by the end of February.