September 1, 2018
Dear Literary Folk,
GoFundMe for the Petaluma Poetry Walk
The Petaluma Poetry Walk is coming up on Sunday, September 16, but this one-day moveable feast of words needs our help.
In years past, the directors Geri Digiorno and Bill Vartnaw have reached into their own pockets to help cover the costs. Local patrons, businesses, and individuals volunteers and organizers have also made contributions to help the Poetry Walk qualify for Poets & Writers matching funds. Unfortunately, this year the funding from Poets & Writers is not available, which is why we’re reaching out with this GoFundMe campaign.
We’re more than halfway to our goal of $2,000. Please consider making a donation, however small. It only takes a few minutes. Here’s the link to contribute to the Walk’s GoFundMe account:
The Walk will launch this year at 11 AM at a new venue: The Petauma Hotel’s historic ballroom. Readings continue at various downtown venues, with new authors presenting every hour, finishing at Aqus Café. Discover more about the upcoming walk venues and readers at the Poetry Walk website: www.petalumapoetrywalk.org/
Special thanks to Kevin Pryne for setting up the GoFundMe account, and to The Sitting Room, which has generously offered to be the nonprofit sponsor for this fundraising campaign.
Petaluma Author Expo September 8th at the Petaluma Library
On Saturday, September 8, the Petaluma Regional Library will host an afternoon with local writers. Designed as a “Meet and Greet” event, the Author Expo will feature more than 30 writers and will offer readers and new writers a chance to talk with published authors about their work.
I will be giving a short opening presentation about the writing process and publishing options to open the event.
The Author Expo is from 2:00-5:00 p.m. Refreshments will be provided, and the event is absolutely free!
Location: 100 Fairgrounds Drive, Petaluma, CA 94952. For information and details, contact Celma de Faria Luster (707)763-9801 ext. 0714.
Need a Space to Meet for your Book Group? The Sitting Room Welcomes You!
The Sitting Room community library would like Book Groups to know that they would be welcome to hold their meetings here. There is comfortable seating for up to 10 people and parking too. We are open from 9 to 5 Mondays – Saturdays, but are happy to make arrangements for other time slots also. If interested in arranging a trial meeting, please call us at 707 795-9028 or email us at boxcar@sonic.net. The atmosphere is right (and people won’t have to straighten up their houses for the occasional occasion). We are right next to Sonoma State University at 2025 Curtis Drive, Penngrove, 94951. Check out our website: www.SittingRoom.org for directions and to get a feel for the place.
WordTemple Returns!
Saturday, September 8, 7:00 p.m. Word Temple Reading Series. Featured readers are Brenda Hillman, Stephen Kessler and David Beckman. Free admission (donation suggested). At Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 282 S. High St., Sebastopol. Contact: Gregory W. Randall, gwr4745@aol.com. More information at: www.wordtemple.com
T Bone Burnett at the Luther Burbank Center
On Sunday, September 9, 7 PM, accompanied by his guitar, film clips, and decades’ worth of stories, T Bone takes audiences on a tour of his work and collaborations with musicians across all genres, including Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Elton John, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, B.B. King, Tony Bennett, k.d. lang, Elvis Costello, Jack White, Taylor Swift, Leon Russell, and many more. For tickets and information go to: https://lutherburbankcenter.org/event/on-the-road-with-t-bone-burnett-stories-music-and-movies/
Celebrate Ed Coletti’s New Chapbook
Saturday September 29, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Ed Coletti will read from his new chapbook Fire Storm at SoCo Coffee, 1015 4th St Santa Rosa. SoCo now has terrific salads, paninis, falafel, and pastries as well as coffee drinks, soft drinks, and a wide tea selection. anniversary of the fire. 707-291-7801.
“A World of Despair; A World of Hope.”
The 8th annual 100 Thousand Poets for Change will take place on Sunday, September 30, 406 PM at Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County, 467 Sebastopol Ave., Santa Rosa. At this international reading, poets all around the world read their poems for change. This year’s event will be dedicated to the children and young people who will be inheriting this severely damaged world from us. Free. Donations welcome. Refreshments provided.
If you are interested in reading or helping or know a young person who would like to read a poem (theirs or someone else’s), please contact Susan Lamont at peacenik@sonic.net.
Poems of Resistance and Resilience: Sixteen Rivers Press’s New Anthology
Sixteen Rivers Press announces the release of their new anthology on September 4.
To order your copy, go to this link: www.sixteenrivers.org/authors/our-anthology/.
Susan Griffin and Dean Rader, two of the poets featured in this collection, will be reading at the annual Sixteen Rivers Benefit on Sunday, October 25, 2-5 PM. Join us for an afternoon of wine, hors d’oeuvres, silent auction, and a reading by these acclaimed poets.
For tickets, go to www.brownpapertickets.com/events/3592360
Poem for September
I’ve been reading the work of Ada Limon lately, in preparation for the workshop I’ll be leading on Contemporary American Women Poets at the Sitting Room. I also had the chance to hear her read and in conversation with Matthew Zapruder at Readers’ Book in Sonoma. She told the audience that she lived as a teenager in an apartment across the street from the bookstore, where she worked from the age of 15. Sonoma remains her home, and she spends part of every year here; her other home is in Kentucky.
The poem for September is from her new collection, The Carrying, © 2018, Milkweed Editions.
Late Summer after a Panic Attack
By Ada Limón
I can’t undress from the pressure of leaves,
the lobed edges leaning toward the window
like an unwanted male gaze on the backside,
(they wish to bless and bless and hush).
What if I want to go devil instead? Bow
down to the madness that makes me. Drone
of the neighbor’s mowing, a red mailbox flag
erected, a dog bark from three houses over,
and this is what a day is. Beetle on the wainscoting,
dead branch breaking, but not breaking, stones
from the sea next to stones from the river,
unanswered messages like ghosts in the throat,
a siren whining high toward town repeating
that the emergency is not here, repeating
that this loud silence is only where you live.
_________________
Terry Ehret
Co-editor, Sonoma County Literary Update
Sonoma County Literary Update 
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