Hart Crane's 101th Birthday Party

The Paper was first launched in 1979 by Elizabeth Poole and Nick Valentine, in Guernewood Park, and Monte Rio. I began working for The Paper around 1980.  Somewhere along the way, it became the West Sonoma County Paper. Nick Valentine or John Boland may have changed the name again. John moved it from Monte RIo to Forestville to Freestone and to Santa Rosa. When it was purchased in 1994 by Silicon Valley-based Metro Newspapers Group (a chain of 10 weeklies: AAN members Metro Silicon Valley and Metro Santa Cruz), it became the Sonoma County Independent. The Sonoma County Independent morphed into the Northern California Bohemian in 2000. I use the same name throughout, though I worked for at least three iterations of the paper.

The Paper’s Summer arts issue: Attuned to the Land

The West County Muse

Attuned to the land

POETRY

BY SUSAN KENNEDY

Photo by Maureen Hurley

POETS AMUSING THEMSELVES at the 13th annual Hart Crane Birthday Party (Crane was born 101 years ago, July 21. Left to right: west County writers Ann Erickson, Betty Garrett, Gail King, Hunce Voelcker, Pat Nolan and Paul Mariah.

Forestville poet Maureen Hurley describes her writing as ‘Formed by the bending of land along the fault line where I’ve lived all my life, where, if you put your ribs to the ground in the yellow summer grass, you can almost hear the earth shifting.”

Maureen Hurley, Forestville ("I am a landscape poet; I paint images with words"):

IN MARY BIANCHI'S GARDEN

Harte Crane’s birthday party photo

Blast from the past: Hunce Voelcker's annual Hart Crane party: Ann Erickson, Betty Garrett, Gail King, Hunce Voelcker, Pat Nolan, Paul Mariah (& me behind the camera, as usual). Hart Crane was born in July 21, 1899, and it says 101 year birthday party, but Hunce died in 1990, so it’s 1989.