The Petaluma Poetry Walk takes place next Sunday, September 19, from 11 am until 8 pm at several venues in Petaluma. The annual event is hosted by Susan Bono, Jack Crimmins, Terry Ehret, Gerald Fleming, Martin Hickel, Carl Macki, Delia Moon, Gerald Nicosia, and Bill Vartnaw. For a complete schedule, go www.petalumapoetrywalk.org.

Geri Digiorno has traveled some distance from being a grieving widow to serving as organizer emerita, chieftess doyenne of one of Northern California‘s most popular poetry events, the Petaluma Poetry Walk.

When she first met Tony Digiorno, he wasn’t exactly her type; but, even though he was fifteen years her senior, he was good on the dance floor. “I never would have dated him,” she says, except that he wooed her and treated her well, had a good sense of humor and was practical. So in her late thirties, having raised children already, she fell in love; it seemed she and Tony could live happily-ever-after. Unfortunately, Tony never went to the doctor. When the colon cancer was detected, it was already in an advanced stage and he passed away after only eleven years of marriage.

After Tony died, she started taking art and poetry classes, reconnecting to her love of literature and of poetry. She studied at Solano College where teacher Rene Chavez encouraged her, then joined workshops led by poet Dorianne Laux in Petaluma and took courses at Sonoma State University. Through writing, she found a community and developed important friendships.

While having lunch with one of those friends, Judy Stedman, and out-of-state visitors, they started to toss around ideas for how they could increase the popularity of poetry in their area. “Petaluma is the perfect town to do something,” suggested Stedman. She turned to Digiorno and said, “You can do it, Geri!”

They sought recommendations from Laux for poets they could invite to read and the first Petaluma Poetry Walk was launched on the autumnal equinox, September 22, 1996, with the support of Poetry Flash, the New York-based Poets& Writers organization, Poet’s Gig, Rhyme, Rhythm, and Song, and the Sonoma County Literary Arts Guild, and local merchants.

“Each year, I think, this will be my last.” After serving as chief hostess and organizer for nearly 15 years, Digiorno says that she is glad she “didn’t know what she was getting into when she started out.” From the beginning, the Walk drew large crowds and attracted well-known poets. Readings are held at various “stations” along a pre-arranged route where host-poets welcome featured readers and run open-mics. The venues come and go, but Digiorno acknowledges loyal business owners who provide their cafes, galleries, and theater spaces year after year.

This year’s line up of invited readers includes the current Sonoma County poet laureate Gwynn O’Gara, Los Angeles poet Wanda Coleman, Sharon Doubiago, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Margaret Kaufman, Austin Straus, Eugene Ruggles, authors in the 16 Rivers publishing collective, H.D. Moe, Daniel Michael McKenzie, and Adam David Miller. A complete list and schedule is available at www.petalumapoetrywalk.org.

As in previous years, Digiorno works with a group of devoted volunteers: Bill Vartnaw of Petaluma and Carl Macki of Novato have helped year after year, booking locations and finding poets willing to come and read, while Michelle Baynes and Richard Little Moon (Digiorno’s daughter and grandson, respectively), Godlieve Hottanhove, Richard Benbrook, and Jim March have all played important roles, not to mention the hosts who keep it together at each venue.

Digiorno has published several books of verse, notably White Lipstick (2005), for which she received enthusiastic blurbs from Al Young, D.A. Powell, Laux, Gillan, and Diane DiPrima. In addition, Digiorno co-edited with Vartnaw the Petaluma Poetry Walk 10-Year Anthology: 1996 to 2005. She was appointed Sonoma County’s poet laureate for 2006-2007. During her tenure she organized children to write poems on Petaluma sidewalks, hung haiku-poems in the trees, taught poetry and collage, organized readings at Petaluma’s local library, and represented Petaluma in poetry events around the state. She has also taught poetry to women in a battered women’s shelter and in homeless shelters as well as in college classrooms.

Digiorno's own poetry highlights relationships and draws on childhood memories. She was raised in a family with eight sisters. Her work is “probably therapeutic in some ways,” implying that some degree of self-discovery and healing is involved. Although one family member once joked “Don’t tell Geri anything; she’ll just write about it,” Digiorno conscientiously strives to show respect toward, and not hurt anyone she writes about. “It’s complicated when your subject matter is mostly personal experience,“ in particular when the topic often circles around intimacy issues and family dynamics. “In a large family, everyone has a different view of what happened.” Still she perseveres in “getting her memories done,” and acknowledges teachers like Al Young who “showed me it was o.k. to write the truth.” Of her eight sisters, only one other is also a poet, the well-known Nancy Keane of San Francisco who operates the 3300 Club in San Francisco with its longstanding poetry-readings series.

Geri followed in her mother’s footsteps when she got pregnant at a young age; she was 17 when she had her first child. She had two daughters and a son and worked hard for years to support the family, taking a variety of jobs from being a teacher’s aide, a waitress, and helping out in a European art gallery. In addition to poetry, Geri has long been interested in art. Her home is filled with her own paintings and collages, as well as work she has received from friends.

In October she will participate in an open studio program in Petaluma. Some of her pieces draw on Catholic iconography--possibly a vestige of childhood visits to a Catholic Church where she was impressed by the statuary--so completely different from what she saw in her own family's Mormon religion. Digiorno can be seen and heard at this Sunday's Petaluma Poetry Walk as well as in October at the events listed below:

October 21, 2010
CITYART Gallery
284 Main St.
Point Arena, CA

October 22, 2010
reading in a tribute to Lucille Clifton
Petaluma Art Center

October 26, 2010
reading with Al Young and Marvin R. Hiemstra
3300 Club
San Francisco

POEMS BY GERI DIGIORNO

one year later

one year later
I will be living
in a home for
unwed mothers
in Oakland

right there in black and white
I am fifteen years old
standing between
dorothy hardy and
john luhring
jim cancella behind us
in a light suit and tie
a mouth full of teeth
like a cold breeze

joan is wearing a white
two-piece dress
with matching heels
her lips open
marilyn monroe style
albino curls oppose
her bony features
dorothy’s dress
sweeps away behind her
outlinging heavy legs
thick brown locks
cut short
surround her dimples

I’m the only one
not smiling
dark blondness falls
across my cheeks
my eyes tumble
to the ground
diploma tightly held
in both hands
***
i’m one of them

i was baptized at sixteen
in my sister mona’s white
two piece bathing suit
and white flannel night gown

laid back onto the water by two men
in alabaster suits
holding my nose
while they prayed over me
pushed me down underneath the coolness
till I came up saved
***

i believe

in my self
light rain
sudden storms
the moon
polenta and sausage
good sex
red sunsets
a perfect martini
the stars
true love
monet’s garden
cracked crab
long baths
soft jazz
a walk on the beach
and root beer floats

i believe
in quiet mornings
the ocean
slow dancing
the back of a man’s neck
fred astair tapping across the screen
the magic of the sacramento delta
stone angels in italian cemeteries
growing your own tomatoes
paul newman’s eyes
that writing poetry is telling the truth
ironing is therapy
kissing is an art
and dusting is a waste of time

(from White Lipstick, Red Hen Press, 2005, copyright by Geri Digiorno)