Listen & Be Heard Network Arts News

13th Annual Petaluma Poetry Walk 

September 21, 2008 10am – 7 pm 

In Downtown Petaluma 

 

All events are FREE and within walking distance. 

Enjoy a memorable stroll through historic Petaluma, California, 

with scheduled stops along the way to hear noted 

poets read their works. 

 

1- Petaluma Art Center NEW VENUE! 10 am • 230 Lakeville Street 

[corner of D and Lakeville streets] 

 

Terry Ehret has published four collections of poetry: Suspensions, Lost Body, Translations from the Human Language, and Lucky Break. Literary awards include the National Poetry Series, California Book Award, Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize, and four Pushcart nominations. She is the co-founder of Sixteen Rivers Press, a shared-work publishing collective for San Francisco Bay Area poets. From 2004-2006 she served as poet laureate of Sonoma County. 

 

Dan Bellm is the author of Practice, which came out from Sixteen Rivers Practice Press in March 2008, One Hand on the Wheel, and Buried Treasure. His work has appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Threepenny Review, Best American Spiritual Writing, and Word of Mouth: An Anthology of Gay American Poetry. He is also a widely published translator of poetry and fiction from Spanish.

 

Gillian Wegener has lived in the Central Valley for nine years, where she teaches junior high language arts. She has been writing poetry since her own junior high stint, and has been published in several Central Valley publications, including Penumbra, Zambomba and In the Grove. 

 

And…friends of the late Phoebe Washer. Phoebe’s art will be on exhibit at Petaluma Art Center during the Poetry Walk. 

 

2- Jungle Vibes 11am • 136 Petaluma Blvd. N 

Music by G.P. Skratz and the New Arundo Band 

 

Jeanne Powell is the author of My Own Silence, shortlisted for the Naomi Long Madgett poetry prize in 2002. Word Dancing, her collection of prose, poetry and art, was published in 2008. For ten years she hosted the award winning spoken word series, “Celebration of the Word.” 

 

Lynn Watson is a Petaluma native and has an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Her two books of poetry are Amateur Blues and Catching The Devil. Her private writing workshops have included such illustrious students as Judy Stedman and Geri DiGiorno. She is currently writing villanelles. 

 

Jack Crimmins is the author of the poetry collection, Kit Fox Blues, published by poet Diane di Prima’s press, Eidolon Editions, and a new book-length poem, The Rust Life. His chapbooks include Blue Cat Buddha, Summer War Haiku, Desert Edge, and a book of poem collages, Time has Razors. He works as a licensed psychotherapist in community mental health in Sonoma County. 

 

Jungle Vibes  Noon • 136 Petaluma Blvd. N 

 

Claudia Chapline’s recent poetry has been published in the Petaluma Poetry Walk Anthology, the Marin Poets Anthology, City Works, and several Anthology chapbooks. She lives in Stinson Beach where she writes an art column for the West Marin Citizen. 

 

Sean Kilty, a superb poet of romantic love, is author of the collections She Was That Way, Cold Blade Against the Heart and Higher Ground. He has long been a senior partner in the Way Up, Firm and High Tail It Bright Out of Town Detective Agency, a loose confederacy of shady characters devoted to the complete discrediting of reality in our time.

 

Michael Larrain—also a senior partner in WUFAHTIBOOTDA—may be best known in Sonoma County for his long-running roadside vending operation, Flowers Not To Reason Why. But he is also the author of three volumes of poems: The Promises Kept In Sleep, Just One Drink For the Diamond Cutter and For One Moment There Was No Queen. The CD of his love poems is titled Lipstick: A Catalogue of Continuous Undressing. His third novel, As the Case May Be, is due out soon from Spuyten Duyvil Press of Brooklyn, N.Y. 

 

Steve Wasserman was born and raised in Chicago, and after a long stop at the Naropa Institute’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, he moved to Berkeley. He is the author of the acclaimed collection of poems, Wild Goose Pagoda, and is the Special Envoy of the Way Up, Firm and High Tail It Bright Out of Town Detective Agency, under the name “Inside Job.” 

 

3 – The Apple Box at The Mill 1 pm • 6 Petaluma Blvd. N.  (near the river)

 

 

Ed Coletti, 64, graduated from Georgetown University and the Creative Writing Graduate Program at San Francisco State University (under Robert Creeley). In addition to the usual national journals and anthologies, he has authored several books and also found time for a career as a counselor. He founded Round Barn Press and the popular SoCoCo Reading Series. 

 

Michael Rothenberg is a poet, songwriter and editor of Big Bridge magazine online. His poetry books include Nightmare Of The Violins, Man/ Woman, a collaboration with Joanne Kyger, Favorite Songs, The Paris Journals, Monk Daddy, Grown Up Cuba, and Unhurried Vision. He is also author of the novel Punk Rockwell and editor for the Penguin Poet series. 

 

Terry Carrion was conceived in Venezuela, born in New York, raised in Los Angeles, and now lives in Northern California among the redwoods. Her work has appeared and disappeared in various publications. 

 

Apple Box at The Mill 2 pm • 6 Petaluma Blvd. N. 

 

Diane DiPrima, an important writer of the Beat movement who now lives in San Francisco, is the author of 43 books of poetry and prose, and has had her work translated into 20 languages. She has received several grants from the NEA and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Poetry Association. Her other awards, honors and grants are too numerous to mention. 

 

Cultural activist Maria Mazziotti Gillan is executive director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson NJ and director of the Creative Writing Program/Professor of Poetry at Binghamton University SUNY. She has published eleven books of poetry, co-edited four anthologies, and is editor of the Paterson Literary Review. Her latest book is All That Lies Between Us. 

 

4 – Copperfield’s Books 3 pm • 140 Kentucky Street 

 

 

Since 2005, Al Young has served California as state poet laureate. He is an award-winning author of more than twenty-two books — which include novels, essays, memoirs and poetry. His latest books are Coastal Nights and Inland Afternoons (Poems 2001-2006), Something About the Blues: An Unlikely Collection of Poetry, and Jazz Idiom: Blueprints, Stills and Frames. 

 

Joyce Jenkins is the author of Joy Road, a chapbook, and Portal. She is  editor/publisher of Poetry Flash, a print publication and web site and co organizer of the longtime Poetry Flash reading series. She received the American Book Award in 1994, the National Poetry Association’s 1995 Award for Distinguished Service, and the 2006 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement. 

 

Jonah Raskin is the author, most recently, of The Radical Jack London. He teaches at Sonoma State University and is the author of four poetry chapbooks, including More Poems Better Poems. 

 

5 — Phoenix Theatre 4 pm • 201 Washington Street 

 

Mike Tuggle, Sonoma County Poet Laureate, 2008-2009, says a good poem hurts you a little. He hosts a monthly open mike at The River Reader in Guerneville and was California Poet in the Schools for youth at risk. 

 

Martha Cinader Mims and Tony Mims are the duo who brought Listen & Be Heard Newspaper, and Listen & Be Heard Poetry Cafe to the Bay Area. 

Martha is the author of When the Body Calls, published by Writers and Readers, Dreamscape, published by Tenth Avenue Editions, and also has a CD. 

Tony is the director of New Life Self Discovery Center in Vallejo, where he offers his services as a life coach. He is the author of Metaphysical Muse. They will be accompanied by Paul Neal (bass) and Carl Trent (drums). 

 

6 – Bella Luma Caffe – Helen Putnam Plaza 5 pm • 125 Petaluma Blvd. N. 

 

Avotcja is a poet/playwright, teacher, multi-instrumentalist, popular Bay Area DJ and an ASCAP recording artist. Appearing with Shirley Kazuyo Muramoto on koto and Eugene Warren on bass. 

 

Nancy Keane has been publisher/editor of Poetry at the 33 Review poetry venue in San Francisco since 1991. Her latest book is You Can’t Have No Stinkin’ Green Card. 

 

In Homeless in Petaluma (New Way Media Press 2008), Michelle Baynes writes about working with the homeless for thirteen years in Petaluma. 

 

Geri Digiorno is the founder of the Petaluma Poetry Walk. She is author of White Lipstick (Red Hen Press 2005), Rosetta Mary (dPress 2007) and I’m Tap Dancing (Norton Coker Press). 

 

7 – Aqus Café NEW VENUE! 6 pm • Foundry Wharf • 189 H Street 

“Children of the Beats” hosted by Gerry Nicosia 

 

John Cassady is the son of Beat heroes Neal and Carolyn Cassady. He has lectured on the Beats all over the country in the Beat Museum’s traveling Beatmobile, and is the author of a memoir of his father, Visions of Neal. 

 

Neeli Cherkovski is the author of Ferlinghetti: A Biography, Hank: The Life of Charles Bukowski and Whitman’s Wild Children. 

 

Latif Harris is currently co-editing and publishing the 50th Golden Anniversary issue of Beatitude magazine. 

 

Sharon Doubiago’s book South America, Mi Hija was nominated twice for a National Book Award. Her memoir, My Father’s Love will be published this year by Red Hen Press, as well as a lifetime selection of her poetry from University of Pittsburgh Press. 

 

Nicole Henares is a poet and publisher of Magenta Press in North Beach. She edits the Monterey Poetry Review and is currently working on an MFA in Creative Writing at SF State. 

 

Jessica Loos is a North Beach performance poet and teaches at Academy of Art University. 

 

Dana Alberts, a singer/songwriter and punk rock veteran with his band Minus One, will provide musical backup for Children of the Beats. 

 

Thanks to our Petaluma Poetry Walk Sponsors

The Argus-Courier, Michelle Baynes, Jennie Butler, Richard & Dinah Benbrook, Clover-Stornetta Farms, Lynn Camhi, Copperfield’s Books, Hillcrest Dental, Ann Erickson, Carl Macki, Jim March, Lin Max & Sean Gaskie, Jennie Orvino, the Petaluma Arts Council, Poetry Flash, Tall Toad Music, and Bill Vartnaw

 

This event is supported by Poets & Writers Inc. through grants it has received from The James Irvine Foundation and is co-sponsored by Poetry Flash 

 

For additional information, contact: Geri Digiorno (707) 763-4271. 

http://geri-digiorno.petaluma360.com