SLO NightWriters general meetings are held on the second Tuesday of each month, except during July and August, at The PG&E Education Center, 6588 Ontario Road, San Luis Obispo, CA, just off Highway 101 at the San Luis Bay Drive exit, 7 - 9 pm. Members and guests are welcome to attend. Our Tuesday, May 10, 2011 Speaker Program is described below. We hope that you'll attend.
Bonnie Young, SLO’s Poet Laureate
In an article written by Sarah Linn, reporter for the SLO Tribune, Sarah discovered, “San Luis Obispo poet laureate Bonnie Young finds inspiration in her surroundings -- the quiet bliss of her Arroyo Grande garden, the beautiful beaches she sees from the Grand Avenue boardwalk, the hungry people she serves at the South County People’s Kitchen.”
As this year’s poet laureate life has been anything but quiet and peaceful, but she will admit it has been inspirational. One of her official duties is creating community outreach. She has dedicated her year to getting poetry into the classrooms of our area schools and poetry into the hearts and minds of our local youth.
Bonnie will share her year and her plans for a tri-community "Share Your Favorite Poem Party" event in SLO, North County and South County. As a resident of Arroyo Grande, she has also infused poetry into the community’s Centennial year. She plans to share her poems with the membership and has invited SLO NightWriter members Evy Cole and Anne Candelaria to help her present.
Bonnie holds a BA in English Literature from Cal State L.A. She has been a facilitator of poetry workshops and Poets on the Edge for several years. Her work has been published in The Witness, Flyway Midwest Quarterly, Rattle, Thema, Mount Loretto Bulletin, Cafe Solo, Monterey Observer, San Luis ObispoTribune and the New Times. She served on the SLO Arts Council Poetry Committee and with the full support of fellow members of Poets on the Edge, she developed "Put a Poem in Your Pocket" displays in local libraries promoting National Poetry Month with copies of poems for library patrons to take home. In 2010 they served three libraries and this year expanded to six libraries.
Young explained, “People who write poetry are searching for … whatever is really beautiful and meaningful in life that we may be missing,” Young said. “There’s an inner soul that’s reaching out for something else, and that’s poetry.”
At the urging of her children, Young published the chapbook “Inside Pockets” in 2009. Join us as Bonnie, our esteemed poet laureate, Evy and Anne, our member poets, share their world of poetic inspiration with us.
