Lakeport >> “I have a crush on the English language. I’m just in love with words,” said Julie Adams, Lake County’s newest Poet Laureate. “I want to infect other people with that joy.”
The announcement of Adams’s appointment came after poetry readings at the Soper Reese Theatre Friday evening by five of Lake County’s former Poet Laureates: Carolyn Wing Greenlee, Mary McMillan, Russell Gonzaga, Elaine Watt and Casey Carney. There were also recordings from past laureates James Bluewolf and Sandra Wade. Richard Schmidt read poetry by Lake County’s very first Poet Laureate, Jim Lyle.
The Lake County Poet Laureate tradition began in 1998. Since then, the county has seen eight laureates come and go, with Adams bringing that number to nine. Each Poet Laureate has played an important role in the local art scene, and thus have had an essential part in shaping the county.
“For the past two years I’ve enjoyed the opportunity of bringing our community together through poetry,” said Casey Carney, the 2014-2016 Poet Laureate and host of Friday’s event. “I experience poetry as a journey of awareness and as a powerful way to discover and reveal a shared humanity. It’s not just a hobby; it’s a birthright. Poetry is an essential, unique and powerful form of expression.”
The five laureates in attendance had the difficult task of selecting one of three impressive poets to take up the mantle. The finalists were Bill Gottlieb, a professional writer and editor of 40 years; Lourdes Thuesen, a fourth generation San Franciscan with work published in anthologies and the Lunar Calendar; and Adams, the “Queen of Harbin” as she’s been dubbed by her fellow creatives out of Harbin Hot Springs.
The selection process was an extensive one, requiring a mission statement, a letter of recommendation, a list of participation in the local literary community and any published work. Finally, the finalists read a selection of their poetry in front of the crowd and the former Poets Laureate at the Soper Reese.
Naming the newest Poet Laureate was a group decision between the five poets in attendance plus two absentee laureates, and it wasn’t an easy one. “We were truly fortunate to have three outstanding finalists, who are each devoted to the art form of poetry and the value of artistic community,” said Carney.
Ultimately they selected Adams, who is already heavily involved in the Lake County writing community and “unusually insightful,” Carney said. For the next two years, Adams will be fostering the county’s literary community through events and teaching. And as part of the group of artists who resided at Harbin Hot Springs before the Valley Fire, she has a good deal of experience to bring to the table.
Adams’s writing journey began at sea. It was a few years after college and she had boarded sailboat traveling from San Francisco to Singapore. Only one other person had joined her. The trip would take five years.
Sailing with a two-person crew wasn’t the easiest feat and Adams and her companion had to take turns at the wheel. Adams’s favorite time to steer was 2 a.m. when the only light to be found was that of the cool, distant stars. The sky seemed endless. It bled into the sea until the world felt directionless.
Before taking to the open water, Adams painted and drew to “stay alive.” But she didn’t step aboard that little sailboat with any artistic material. “So i just started writing on whatever I could find, the log book and paperback book margins,” she said. “It was like an urgency that was created by that shift in perception of being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean practically alone. It was a life altering experience.”
After that, it was all about words. Adams returned to Harbin Hot Springs and created events where the writers could all pen poetry together.
But despite her involvement in the community’s literary scene, Adams was hesitant to apply for the position of Lake County Poet Laureate at first. Her friends had been pushing her toward it for years, but she never felt that she had the time. Then the Valley Fire hit. Adams knew if she became the 2016-2018 Poet Laureate, she could make a huge impact.
“Art is healing in all of its forms,” she said. “If you can express it through art it’s not so deeply painful … You get to relieve yourself of that burden instead of denying it.”
So she applied. She was both surprised and delighted when Carney announced her selection. “I have that disease that lots of poets have of never feeling like they’ve done enough,” Adams said, explaining that she was editing her work up until the second read it aloud Friday night.
One of Adams’s priorities is rebuilding Harbin Hot Springs, where 2,000 people lost their homes. “I feel personally responsible for the economic recovery of South Lake County by rebuilding Harbin and the spirit of the people who live there who need so much self expression in order to survive that devastation,” she said.
Adams also wants to combat the barren, sparse language she feels social media and texting have created. She’s aiming to bring forth a style of writing which, while brief, is as affecting as any poem. “Language is beautiful, it can be beautiful even in brevity,” she said. “People can write poetry online — when they say i love you to each other.”
By the end of her two-year run as Poet Laureate of Lake County, Adams’s goal is to have created 200 new poets in the community. She wants to bring poetry and the humanities back to educational curriculum, get students reading Yeats and Homer again.
“People can learn poetry any time in their life. The more you’re exposed to it the better your world gets,” Adams said. “The prettier, the brighter your world gets.”
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
