The Coeur d'Alene Poet Laureate program increases awareness of the role that poetry and literature play in the community and creates a record of Coeur d’Alene’s distinctive character.  Along with offering readings and workshops, the Poet Laureate writes poems for the city that are reflective of local landscapes, social situations, or important events.

Early October

This illuminated day, illuminated

leaf you choose from the pile

a scattering of

light green and dark,

corn-yellow, lantern, blood-red, but this

            golden one, summer sun and winter candle

held in your hand. Elliptic as the curve of the lake

touching the sand.

The season has sung the beach back

quiet. Only chickadees toddle,

trying all the forgotten berries.

A flicker stills in a snag

and then drops, old swoop, cloud-heavy,

its white pressed back something other. All the draws I’ve walked alone

lit by this overwintering bird and the friend that taught me to sing them.

A city can be a friend. Its peripheries endure us.

The sun slides across the half surface of each thing begging for bounce.

Sometimes I see this thin old woman walking on Government Way,

some days she is all sadness, a crumpled glove, but yesterday she strolled,

a biscuit in her hand,

the sun washing her face,

her grey hair holding every warmth

the entire city her home.

We return, my son and I, to the leaves piled in their little gully

damp divide, sidewalk, cut grass.

We pocket the most perfect. These will be suncatchers

in the window when the dark comes.

These will be illuminated – the way you say the word, so many small syllables

rounding in your toddler mouth –

our home catching.

                                    - Jennifer Passaro, Coeur d’Alene Poet Laureate
                                      9 October 2024, 28th Mayor's Awards in the Arts

Jennifer Passaro is a poet, nonfiction writer, and stay-at-home mom. Born in Idaho’s Wood River Valley, she has spent much of her life in what Moscow writer Mary Clearman Blew coined the “roughhewn circle,” a cultural and geographic centering that encompasses Idaho, western Montana, and Eastern Washington.  She earned her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Montana in 2011, with an emphasis in creative writing, particularly poetry and fiction from the western United States and Native American literature and cultural studies. Her experiences include working on trail crews in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana and out of the Fernan Ranger District on the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. She worked as a reporter for the Coeur d’Alene Press covering Kootenai County and has contributed to the Sandpoint Reader, the Trestle Creek Review, and Opt West Literary Magazine, among other publications. Most recently, Jennifer has been a writing instructor at Emerge, where she led poetry workshops and performed at events like Lit Crawl CDA. Jennifer made Coeur d’Alene her home in 2018 and currently resides in the Sanders Beach neighborhood with her husband, their son, and their two old dogs.