LAKE COUNTY >> The third of the Poet Laureate Reading Series, presented by current Lake County Poet Laureate Casey Carney and Common Grounds proprietor Andrea Williams, takes place this Friday at 6:30 p.m. at the Riviera Common Grounds Coffee House at 9736 Soda Bay Road, featuring the poetry of Carolyn Wing Greenlee.
Greenlee will be reading from her book of poetry Wildflowers in the Snow, described by Montserrat Review Editor Calder Lowe as ” a poignant testimony to a wisdom that is hard won and reverently tendered.” She was selected as the third poet laureate of Lake County in 2004.
The diversity and tenacity of Greenlee”s artistic vision has enabled her to excel as an artist in spite of an intensely confining upbringing as the daughter of a Confucian scholar. Although her father did not allow her to become an artist, Greenlee chose to study literature and became a teacher, eventually prevailing as a professional poet, writer, photographer, painter, recording artist, biographer and publisher.
A third-generation Chinese American from a California Gold Rush/Railroad family, Greenlee has spent the last twenty-five years collecting the stories of her family, which are being published as a six-generation family memoir entitled “Eternal River.” Greenlee desires to make minorities better understood by telling their stories; these stories now include the community of the visually impaired. Greenlee was pronounced legally blind with Retinitis Pigmentosa in 1985, a hereditary eye disease. By 2006, Greenlee”s vision was reduced to 4% and she made the decision to train for a guide dog. Greenlee chronicles this life changing experience in her book “Stedy Hedy”.
Her current projects include the completion of a third album of original songs, a just-completed book on the animal sculpture of Betty Davenport Ford and a video documentary of the 90 year-old artist.
The Nov. 14 reading will also feature guest poet Lourdes Thuesen from Lucerne and guest musician Travis Rinker from Lakeport.
This series is held on the second Friday of each month through April and is designed to showcase local poetry by presenting each of Lake County”s eight poet laureates in sequence, along with a guest poet and musician. The poet laureate is an official appointment by a government or conferring institution for the purpose of promoting poetry in that jurisdiction. These appointments occur from local to national levels. Admission is free with a $5 suggested donation.
