Sonoma County Poet Laureate Bill Vartnaw and Sonoma County Poet Laureate emeritus Gwynn O’Gara are joined by poet QR Hand and the rest of WordWind Chorus (poet Brian Auerbach & saxophonist Lewis Jordan).  QR will read separately as well as performing with WordWind.

Of Q. R. Hand,  the late, lamented Reginald Lockett (a founding member of the jazz/poetry ensemble WordWind Chorus), once said, “Q.R. Hand’s poetry traverses the terrain of form, music, and language. This is an inspired, well crafted poetry that is political in intent and spirited in execution and defies any comparison to any literary precursors or contemporary schools of thought. Q.R. Hand is an entity unto himself; a true visionary walks among us.”  Read more about Q.R. here.

WordWind Chorus began a couple of decades ago, with Q.R., Brian and Lewis and co-founder, the late and much missed Reginald Lockett, performing poetry by the various members in highly energized and intertwined unison and counterpoint, and with Lewis adding saxophone lines and accents.  The result has always been riveting and wonderful.  Their CD entitled We Are of the Saying may still be available at the show, and is a wonderful document of the group’s original four-voice interplay.

Bill Vartnaw has been publishing poetry for more than 40 years. One of the original members of the Bay Area Poets Coalition, he established Taurean Horn Press in 1974 and to date has published 15 books, under that imprint, as well as editing and publishing OR magazine and 8 issues of the Mini-Taur series. His books and pamphlets include If You Should Die A Fool, You Will Be No Less Wiser For It, In Concern: For Angels and Suburbs of My Childhood, and his work has appeared in many small magazines over the years, most recently in North Coast Literary Review 4, metaformia.org, Paterson Literary Review 40, Big Scream 46 and About.com (Spring Poems.) In 2007, Vartnaw co-edited with Geri Digiorno, founder of the Walk, Petaluma Poetry Walk, 10-Year Anthology, 1996-2005.

Gwynn O’Gara is both as a writer and as a writing teacher active in the California Poets in the Schools program for the past 20 years. She is the author of three poetry collections: Winter at Green Haven, Fixer-Upper, and Snake Woman Poems. She is also the co-author of Fruit of Life: Poems of Passion and Politics.