Petaluma Poetry Walk on Sunday

Ron Salisbury’s been a poet since he was 12 and in seventh grade. “Our assignment,” he said, “was to write a poem.|

Ron Salisbury’s been a poet since he was 12 and in seventh grade. “Our assignment,” he said, “was to write a poem. The teacher gave us examples by Robert Frost. I went home and said to my mother, ‘What do I do?’ and she said, ‘Well, can you rhyme?’

“I could, “Salisbury said, “and I have never looked back. It’s all I’ve ever written - and who I’ve always been.”

Salisbury, former owner of Deaf Dog Coffee and a former long-time Petaluman who turns 71 next month, is in the second year of classes at San Diego State University, working toward a master of fine arts in poetry.

He’s one of this year’s featured poets in the 19th annual Petaluma Poetry Walk. The walk takes place Sunday, Sept. 21, at half-a-dozen downtown venues. Salisbury will read at the museum. (See sidebar for the complete list of poets, locations and times.)

Salisbury’s poetry has been published in the Cape Reader, the Alaska Quarterly Review, Spitball and Soundings East. He was a finalist for the 2012 Anthony Hecht poetry prize.

He no longer rhymes as much as he did when younger and, when he does, it’s more likely to be internal rhymes.

Even though he’s “technology savvy,” he said his poems begin as handwritten words on a page. He’ll then put them into a computer for the revisions which are, as writers know, “ninety percent of the work.” But for that first draft, the physical act of hand and pen setting down phrases and lines, “it seems to feel closer to the words, more organic.”

This is, he said, his third master’s, “the one I really care about - creative writing.”

Why is he going back now for this degree? “I want to teach in an MFA program. To do that, you have to have not only a book, but a degree. And teaching is how I want to spend the last part of my life.” Teaching the art of writing, he feels, “is the obligation of anyone who writes.”

Also, he joked, ‘I’m the oldest person in class. I’m older than all my professors. That means I get invited to all the beer parties.”

Salisbury said his poetry is “accessible. “I do some lyric poetry, but it’s mostly narrative. You understand what I’m writing about. And, given my age, a lot of the subject matter relates to someone my age living in this world, what that’s like. It can be unforgiving for an older person.”

He quickly added, “That doesn’t mean it’s morbid or depressing, but usually filled with irony and acute observations.

One teaching experience he remembered as especially rewarding was a poetry class he taught bi-weekly for seven years at Sunrise of Petaluma. “I think most of the people who were in it had never had someone joke - or even talk to them - about death.”

He’s participated in the Petaluma Poetry Walk since it began. “The very first presentation was in one of my stores in Petaluma. Now I go back every couple of years and read.”

As to where he most enjoys writing poetry, “In a bar,” he said with a laugh. “I do an awful lot of writing there, and I drag friends to various bars.”

Bars? And poetry? “For one thing, if it’s good beer, that helps. It’s an environment that’s different.

“I think of writing as a job. You write every day. You check in on that time sheet, put in the hours. And I find the bar environment is filled with inspiration. It’s a fertile atmosphere with crazy conversations. It’s alive. And that infuses my writing.”

(Contact Katie Watts at argus@arguscourier.com)

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