Within Words We Are One
Poetry by the Bay Address: 51 Daniels Avenue, Vallejo, CA Website: http://www.poetrybythebay.com Host: Keith Thompson Vallejo’s longest running poetry open mic! Poetry by the Bay meets at 51 Daniels street on the 4th Wednesday of the month at 7 PM. Open mic format. 4 minutes …
Applications are now closed. A new poet laureate will be chosen and announced in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. Thank you to all that applied. The application for Vallejo Poet Laureate was due November 15th. Follow in the footsteps of Vallejo Poet Laureate – Genea …
February 27, 2020 was the last time Poetry by the Bay met in person. It returns at 7 PM on March 22nd and every 4th Wednesday thereafter at 51 Daniels Street. Whether you can attend or not please help spread the word by posting this image on your social media.
For more information visit these links:
http://www.facebook.com/PoetrybytheBay
For over a decade Poetry by the Bay has provided The City of Vallejo with a FREE Spoken Word Open Mic show where thousands of poets have come and shared their work. We want to continue to be able to do this for the decades …
SAY GOODBYE TO WRITER’S BLOCK AND HELLO TO THE DEEP VOICE WITH “METHOD WRITING” Beginning on Saturday morning, March 26, Vallejo writer Charles Kruger (columnist for The Rumpus and LitSeen, theatre and book reviewer, and published poet) will be debuting an online class in “Jack …
(Covid-19) Summer by Juanita J. Martin
Beaches are quiet
Except the occasional
Tide coming in
As the sun burns its way through the atmosphere
No sizzle from the grill
Everyone’s inside— Dreaming of vacations
they never had as pools of sweat bead
guzzling water clinging to the AC
or the nearest fan
plugged into their devices the world’s chatter
the latest movie, music, game as we gather around
work and food in hand,
measuring the distance of love,
giving virtual hugs without the Hallmark moment
Trying to make sense of it all,
Hoping for a swift end to (Covid-19).
Juanita J. Martin is Fairfield’s First Poet Laureate, 2010-2012. She was a longtime member of Redwood Writers, 2007-2017, and is a current member of Napa Valley Writers, Benicia Writers Salon, Ina Coolbrith Circle, and Benicia First Tuesday Poets. Juanita is listed in Poets & Writers Magazine, Directory of Poets. Her poetry book The Lighthouse Beckons was accepted in Solano County Library. Her poetry appears in Blue Collar Review, SoMa Literary Review, Rattlesnake Review, and others. She contributed non-fiction to Sonoma Discoveries Magazine. Juanita reads all over the Bay Area, and has been a featured reader at Beat Poetry Festival, Petaluma Poetry Walk, Berkeley Poetry Festival, and 100 Thousand Poets for Change. When she is not writing or volunteering, Juanita reads on Vallejo Ozcat radio’s ARTbeat or with Benicia First Tuesday Poets. www.jmartinpoetwriter.com
Hair It Is By Dr. Gina Rizzo Everyone is valuable and beautiful as they are. Hair has a mind of its own. How it is born is how it’s grown. Hair is all the same. We are all working with how it came. Perms to …
i am a doll dug out of a landfill by Melissa Eleftherion Body of the cave mouth Dissolution of salt Intuitive ash collects I vibrate to the speleothem the duodenum My heart holds the dirt like some sweet music i remember once a breathing green …
Cold Gin and a Pandemic by Georgina Marie A swig of fresh lime squeezed over ice San Francisco’s Junipero gin with a garnish soothes the overwhelm of more bad news and sudden heat What I learned at home today: the length of estrangement becomes short in comparison to the weight of regret one hundred more days of solitude – a poet’s irony bare white walls wait with open-hearts to catch our sighs how much I miss my father now that he is dead. Toss back tonic water with an extra kick catch the sun warming the side of my face through the glass door into the dining room and now the reflection of how many years have passed how the idea of a father became a ghost how a ghost haunted me into adulthood how adulthood became a poem always in the works how poems became home how hard it is to live inside this one
*Poem originally appeared in the Lake County Bloom on May 28, 2020 https://www.lakecountybloom.com/cold-gin-and-a-pandemic-poetry-by-georgina-marie/
Georgina Marie is a poet from Lake County, Northern California and the current Lake County Poet Laureate for 2020-2022, the first Mexican-American and youngest to serve in this role for Lake County. She has participated in many readings within Lake County and surrounding counties, has served as co-editor for the Middletown Art Center’s RESILIENCE and RESTORE collections of written word and visual arts, and is an assistant poetry editor for Rivet Journal, an online literary journal from Red Bridge Press. As part of the Broken Nose Collective, an annual chapbook exchange, she created her first poetry chapbook, Finding the Roots of Water, in 2018 and her second chapbook, Tree Speak, in 2019. In 2020 she is working on her full-length manuscript.
Wishing Well By Aqueila M. Lewis-Ross I wish you Love: We need it today more than ever As you find your way in this world You may see the change you want to see And do something to make a difference without conditions, but sometimes …