HEALDSBURG – In a kind of jazz festival of the word, the Healdsburg Literary Guild is honored to celebrate National Poetry Month with a unique gathering of literary talent at the Third Sunday Salon on April 19, when it will host 12 Poets Laureate from northern California reading from a just-published anthology, “Sometimes in the Open.”

Guest host will be the editor, Bob Stanley, poet, writing teacher and president of the Sacramento Poetry Center.

Poets laureate are poets who have been honored by their communities with the designation, usually bestowed to acknowledge a writer’s quality body of work, as well as community activity involving the literary arts.

Reading from the collection, whose title is taken from a line in a poem by Terry Ehret, Sonoma County’s past poet laureate, the presenters will include Mike Tuggle and Geri DiGiorno, current and past Sonoma County laureates; Vilma Ginzberg, current Healdsburg literary laureate along with two former Healdsburg laureates, Armando Garcia-Davila and Penelope LeMontagne; current and past Lake County laureates Jim Lyle, Carolyn Wing Greenlee, Mary McMillan, and Sandra Wade; Connie Post of Livermore, Martha Meltzer of Pleasonton and Ruth Blakeney of Crocket.

In his preface to the collection, Bob Stanley writes:

“Here are worker-poets and teacher-poets and activist-poets and workshop-poets and host-open-mike-every-week-for-eleven-years-poets. Here are farmer-poets and driver-poets and mother-and-father-and-daughter-and-son-poets, the ones who witness and tell, the ones who remember. The tender poets and the angry poets are here; the ones who pay attention.  … Sometimes in the Open presents a geographic tour of California poetry, but much more lies beneath the surface. … travel along the landscape of these poems … reflect on the work these poets have done, and how poetry works to help us see the world for what it is, and what it can be.”

This rare cultural event, free and open to the public, will be held at the Healdsburg City Hall, 401 Grove Street , from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 19. Doors open at 1:30 p.m.

The anthology, the first such collection limited to California laureates’ works, will be made available; participating poets will also have their own publications available for purchase and signing afterward.

Call 707-433-7119 or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information.