Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano today announced the appointment of Golda Solomon as the City of Yonkers’ first Poet Laureate. The Yonkers Poet Laureate is an unpaid position aimed at encouraging the community to engage with poetry by creating and leading activities that inspire writing and poetry performances.
A Yonkers resident, Golda Solomon has spent the last four decades ministering to, teaching, sharing, and advancing the joy and pleasures of poetry to children as young as 5 and adults as old as 85. Solomon has taken time to perfect her craft by writing poems about Yonkers events/milestones and continues to serve as an advisor and mentor to aspiring young writers and musicians in the City of Yonkers.
“I am proud to appoint Golda Solomon as our first Poet Laureate,” said Mayor Spano. “Today, all 50 states have a poet laureate, as do many counties, cities and other jurisdictions, including Westchester County. Solomon’s combined passion for the written and spoken word and our city will prove to be a great asset in nurturing Yonkers’ flourishing arts.”
The objectives of the City of Yonkers Poet Laureate are to:
· Enhance the presence and appreciation of poetry and literary arts in the City of Yonkers
· Raise awareness of the power of literature, poetry, and the spoken word
· Provide a forum for collaborative art forms
· Engage and support an emerging generation of poets and spoken word artists
· Provide access to poetry and literary arts to all sectors of the community
· Encourage the reading and writing of both poetry and the written word
“We are all artists. We are all writers. We are all poets,” said Golda Solomon. “I look forward to working with the community by unifying the diverse voices of our city through poetry.”
Golda Solomon is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Manhattan College and CUNY (Borough of Manhattan Community College) and has been the Poet in Residence at the Blue Door Art Center in Yonkers for more than a decade where she has developed and executed poetry and writing classes to all ages and creeds. Golda has received grants and honorariums from Poets & Writers, the NEA Yonkers Initiative, Rotary Club, Blue Door Art Center, Groundwork Hudson Valley and Hudson Park that help with her commitment to effecting change in Yonkers through the arts. Additionally,Solomon is a published poet with her collections, Flatbush Cowgirl, Medicine Woman of Jazz, Po’Jazz: Takin’ It to the Hollow, First Set and Jazz Riffs and is currently at work on her memoir, “Blues and Black Ink: Found & Lost in Brooklyn.”
