Poets Laureate on Social Justice at Alibi Bookshop in downtown Vallejo, California. Part of the tour for Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.
Poets Laureate on Social Justice–Vallejo
Sunday, Nov. 24, 4PM at Alibi Bookshop in Vallejo; Napa County Poet Laureate Jeremy Benson, former Fairfield Poet Laureate Juanita J. Martin, former San Mateo Co. Poet Laureate Caroline Goodwin, former Sonoma Co. Poet Laureate Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Richmond Poet Laureate Robert Lipton, and hosted by Ron Reikki
Juanita J. Martin is Fairfield’s first poet laureate, 2010-2012. She’s also a freelance writer, and performance artist. Her poetry book, The Lighthouse Beckons, was accepted into the Solano County Library. Martin’s next volume of poems, Quiet Intensity, is due out in 2019. She’s published in Blue Collar Review, SoMa Literary Review, and others. Juanita is active in Ina Coolbrith Circle, and Benicia First Tuesday Poets. Juanita was also a longtime member of Redwood Writers from 2007-2017.
Juanita is listed with Poets & Writers Directory of Poets. She has read at the Frank Bette Cultural Center for the Alameda Poets in the Annual Black History event. She often reads for the Beat Poetry Festival and 100 Thousand Poets for Change. Juanita has been a featured reader with Healdsburg Literary Guild, Petaluma Poetry Walk 2007 & 2016, as well as Berkeley Poetry Festival. She has also contributed to Sonoma Discoveries Magazine, a tourist magazine covering North & West Sonoma County, and the Coast. www.jmartinpoetwriter.com
Napa Poet Laureate Jeremy Benson (2017-2021) writes poems; he has also written novels, short stories, articles, personal essays, stand-up comedy routines, short films, and many letters. Jeremy aims to cultivate a rich community of writers, readers, and artists, whether as a participant, patron, or planner. He has emceed open mics, curated readings, hosted craft-ins, led workshops, and cof-founded the Broken Nose Collective, an annual exchange of hand-made chapbooks.
Caroline Goodwin moved to California in 1999 from Sitka, Alaska to attend Stanford as a Wallace Stegner Fellow in poetry. Her books are
Trapline (2013),
Peregrine (2015),
The Paper Tree (2017) and
Custody of the Eyes (2019). She teaches at UC Berkeley Extension, CA College of the Arts and Stanford Continuing Studies. In fall 2013, she was appointed San Mateo County’s first Poet Laureate, and served for three years (2014 – 2016).
http://carolinegoodw.com/
Sonoma County Poet Laureate Iris Jamahl Dunkle‘s (2017-2018) poetry collections include Interrupted Geographies (Trio House Press, 2017) Gold Passage (Trio House Press, 2013) and There’s a Ghost in this Machine of Air (Word Tech, 2015). Her poem “Listening to the Caryatids on the Palace of Fine Arts” poem will be featured on 100 buses as part of the San Francisco Beautiful and Poetry Society of America Muni Art 2020 campaign. Her works have been published in Tin House, San Francisco Examiner, Fence, Los Angeles Review of Books, Split Rock Review, Taos Poetry Journal, Pleiades, Calyx, Catamaran, Poet’s Market, Women’s Studies and Chicago Quarterly Review. Her biography on Charmian London, Jack London’s wife will be published by University of Oklahoma Press in 2020. Dunkle teaches at Napa Valley College and is the Poetry Director of the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference.
Richmond Poet Laureate Robert Lipton is helping develop a literary arts center for the city. He has been a Pushcart nominee and Gregory O’Donoghue Competition winner. His work has appeared in Interbang, Jacaranda Review, King Log, Shades of Contradiction, The Texas Observer, Parthenon West, New Orleans Quarterly, Journal of Human Architecture, Quillpuddle, Opium Magazine, Red Wheelbarrow, Oberon, Written Here, and Southword. His book, A Complex Bravery was published by Marick Press. He works as a spatial epidemiologist.
Ron Riekki wrote My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting in Extinction (Loyola University Maryland’s Apprentice House Press), U.P.: a novel (Ghost Road Press), and Posttraumatic: A Memoir (Small Press Distribution). He edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press), And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017 (MSU Press), Here: Women Writing on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (MSU Press, Independent Publisher Book Award), The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works (Wayne State University Press, Michigan Notable Book), and The Many Lives of The Evil Dead: Essays on the Cult Film Franchise (McFarland). Riekki is contracted for seven upcoming books.
