Three Sonoma County poets team up for May 23 event

Three of Sonoma County’s better-known contemporary poets will share the podium Saturday, May 23, for a reading at a Santa Rosa coffee house.

The event marks the North Bay launch of the new poetry collection, “The Problem With Breathing,” by Santa Rosa poet and artist Ed Coletti, from Arizona-based publisher Edwin E. Smith Publishing.

The event also will feature Katherine Hastings, Sonoma County poet laureate and founder and host of WordTemple, a series of live poetry readings in Sebastopol and a radio series on Rohnert Park’s public station, KRCB.

David Beckman, Santa Rosa poet and playwright, also will appear. His three-act play, “Becoming Walt Whitman,” was produced in 2010 at the 6th Street Playhouse

Coletti is the publisher of the Santa Rosa-based Round Barn Press, and writes online for his two blogs, “Ed Coletti’s P3” and “No Money in Poetry.”

Born in New York, Coletti moved to Santa Rosa when he returned from the Vietnam War. He is a graduate of Georgetown University, and completed a master’s degree in creative writing under Robert Creeley at San Francisco State University, San Francisco. Later, Coletti got a second master’s degree in management at Sonoma State University.

The reading will run from 5 to 7 p.m. at SoCo Coffee, 1015 Fourth St., Santa Rosa.

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com.