Digging Our Poetic Roots: Poems from Sonoma County

These poems cover a remarkable range of subjects, sensibilities, and approaches to poetry. There is a freshness and authenticity of voice everywhere that is inspiring, as if lines were written ‘with the flutter of butterfly wings.’ ‘How do you paint the wind?’ a poet asks. In unison, an answer comes from this exceptional collection: poems paint the wind.

• Lee Slonimsky

What pleasure to read these poems from Sonoma County poets both new to the craft and well-accomplished on the path. From the intimacy of the Sunday dinner table to the unforgettable image of a funeral gondola in Venice, these are poems that reach toward the world to meet it at the precipice. Connecting to nature, art, myth, and back to self scavenging for truth in the inner journey, the poems here remind me that the act of writing is both a call and response, the most artful kind of listening.

• Jennifer K. Sweeney

In these poems you will find the telling detail that momentarily creates a world, a light touch for just the right mood, surprising juxtapositions that illuminate an observation, humor saving memory from nostalgia’s seductive whispering.

• Patrick Cahill