■ Poets fight back after vandals put future of program in doubt

A public poetry program that lets people take home copies of locally composed verse will continue in Benicia, despite problems with vandalism to some of the containers that hold the compositions.

The “poem homes” were started locally in 2010 by Ronna Leon, then the city’s poet laureate. They have remained part of the poet laureate program in the tenure of her successor, Lois Requist.

Poems are written or chosen by area writers, and Renee Jordan, who owns Jordan Real Estate, has been paying to copy the poems so they can be placed inside clear boxes for passersby to read or take home a copy.

Lately, though, the poem homes have been vandalized, Requist said, particularly in areas that aren’t near businesses.

She said sometimes all the poems are removed and the boxes are emptied shortly after being filled. That’s been happening at the poem home box at Community Park in the Southampton subdivision.

Sometimes, she said, someone removes the plastic insert that holds the poem home box in place.

At times, advertising and religious tracts have been put into the emptied boxes.

Jady Montgomery, project manager, said she knows that some of the literature substitutions have been no accident.

“I have a stack of religious fliers with business cards that someone put in the box at ABC Music in place of all the poems,” Montgomery said. This isn’t the only place the substitutions have taken place: It also happened at the community Avant Garden at First and East D streets, she said.

“I’m going to write them, that I have their fliers,” Montgomery said.

The repeated vandalism prompted he to take down the poem home at the Avant Garden.

But when she went to remove another box, she found that a vandal had beaten her to it.

The poem home at City Park was damaged repeatedly, and then the box itself was taken, Requist said.

Others near the Community Action Council, in Benicia Marina and at Benicia Public Library also have been hit, though that’s been rare compared to what’s happened to poem home boxes elsewhere.

Benicia police Lt. Scott C. Przekurat said he hasn’t seen any reports made to his department about vandalism to the poem home boxes.

But Montgomery became so discouraged, she said, she decided “maybe it was a nice thing that’s had its lifespan and is over.”

She even told Requist, “I’m done.”

However, the two women noticed that the boxes harmed the most were not near business establishments. So they’re trying a new approach — removing the vulnerable ones in or near parks, and asking businesses to allow poem home boxes nearby.

“I’m going to ask Phil Joy if he’ll host one at the Plein Air Gallery on First Street,” Montgomery said. “And I plan to ask the principal at Liberty High. It works better if they’re located near a private establishment or public building like the library or a school. Public parks don’t work.”

Benicia’s poet laureate acknowledged that she and Montgomery were on the verge of phasing out the program that has been a community effort, with Peter Bray installing boxes throughout the city, Bobby Richardson helping to keep the boxes filled, Jordan’s handling the copying and multiple poets from around the state providing the verse.

Jordan has agreed to continue paying to have the poetry copied.

So instead of taking down the boxes, the poem home caretakers are filling them with 2,000 new copies of poems.

“I’m pleased,” Requist said.