By Julie BUTCHER

On Tuesday night, the Glendale City Council celebrated the “passing of the typewriter” between the city’s inaugural poet laureate Raffi Joe Wartanian and its newest poet laureate Tina Demirdjian. 

Appointed in March 2023, “Raffi has built a poetry community in Glendale, encouraging poets of all levels to express themselves in times of joy, chaos and grief,” said Lessa Pelayo-Lozada, director of Library, Arts and Culture.

She celebrated the work done by Wartanian, which she noted also included bringing notable poets to the local community and beginning the Jewel City anthology, which is now accepting submissions for its third volume (see https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfleM4ZC5xgEOP_-kSTK7aVhBR5GvlRazjBNLrVH3gf1DyrDA/viewform).

Wartanian thanked a long list of city staff, family and supporters and quickly ticked off a list of “tangible, quantifiable accomplishments” he helped establish: 11 poetry workshops; 30 featured poets in six locations around the city; two published anthologies including 129 poems written by 67 poets; two special events, one in June 2023 celebrating PRIDE month. He also listed  the many “intangible qualitative outcomes:” 

“We’ve championed the authentic self-expression of poets from all walks of life from Glendale and beyond. We’ve awakened and reignited a love for creative writing that feels increasingly rare in an age of fragmented attention and outsourced thinking to artificial intelligence. We’ve cultivated community among our workshop participants, and we’ve given hope to writers and readers in difficult life situations,” Wartanian detailed.

Introducing the new poet laurate, Wartanian said that Tina Demirdjian has been functioning in the job for decades, long before it existed, at the “creative vanguard,” championing poetry and the arts through her own writing, her work with GUSD students, her ground-breaking programming at the Brand Library, and “perhaps most importantly – as is often the case with poets – she is an individual of tremendous humanity, awareness, insight, ethics, dignity and creativity.”

Demirdjian accepted the symbolic typewriter then addressed the council. 

“When somebody asks me, ‘What do you do?’ sometimes I say that I change people’s minds: I change their minds about themselves; I change their minds about poetry; I change their minds about ‘the others’ in the room,” she said. 

Mayor Ardy Kassakhian welcomed comments in prose or in poetry or iambic pentameter and credited Glendale poet Linda Ravenswood and former councilmember Paula Devine with the initial idea for the poet laureate program. He noted that currently the number one movie at the box office is based on a 2000-year-old poem. More information can be found at https://www.eglendalelac.org/poetlaureate.

On Tuesday night, the council confirmed several appointments to the city’s various board and commissions, all of which have openings and vacancies. To apply for an appointment – or to get additional information about the opportunities available – visit https://www.glendaleca.gov/government/departments/city-clerk/boards-and-commissions.

Councilmember Elen Asatryan added a reminder that all of the commissions and boards have openings for student commissioners. Interested students can find details at https://www.glendaleca.gov/Home/Components/News/News/9579/16.

Councilmember Vartan Gharpetian commended city staff for the successful World Cup watch party on Saturday as well as the successful Cruise Night on Saturday night. 

“Beautiful night, delicious food, good music, wonderful cars,” he said. “Everybody’s happy.”

Gharpetian also thanked Public Works director Daniel Hernandez for fixing a traffic safety issue at the intersection of Verdugo Road and Wabasso Way. Extending the red curb helped improve visibility and the small engineering correction seemed to have fixed the problem, Gharpetian reported.

Councilmember Alek Bartrosouf observed the soccer viewing party highlighted the need for shade on the Artsakh Paseo and urged the quick addition of shade trees to existing landscaping. 

Bartrosouf also announced and invited participation in an upcoming meeting regarding traffic safety along the Chevy Chase Canyon corridor. Information about the meeting and potential projects can be found at https://www.glendaleca.gov/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/56080/.

The meeting is set for Saturday, July 25 at the Chevy Chase Library at 3301 E. Chevy Chase Drive from 2 – 6 p.m. and will focus on potential traffic calming strategies.

Mayor Kassakhian announced that the Alex Theater is screening “The Odyssey,” a premiere made possible because of recent upgrades to the theater’s projection and audio systems, the theater’s first major Hollywood studio opening since 1991. Tickets are available now at https://cinema.thealex.com/shows. 

Kassakhian added that Paramount Studios will be hosting a celebratory 60^th Star Trek anniversary festival at the Alex Theater over the Labor Day weekend, “further establishing our beloved Alex as a premiere destination for both first-run and classic cinema.”

Finally, the council gave input on several pending minor changes to the city charter, potentially scheduled to appear on the ballot in November. The changes would appear as one or more ballot items covering changes to civil service rules and some of the city’s financial processes. The charter review committee is still considering recommendations regarding a potential independent audit committee.

The council will meet next week on Tuesday, July 28 at 6 p.m.