We spent a couple of hours today driving around Sebastopol, Freestone and Occidental, so reading There's a Ghost in this Machine of Air was perfect, because it contains poems about the history of the area. We'd gone to look at a house on Wagnon Rd., among other things, and there is even a poem in the collection that takes place on that road in 1898. From "A Message to Myself So I Remember Who I Am":
Removed from the troubles of everyday life--the mind opens like a sky stirred by sea wind.
Iris is a former Sonoma County Poet Laureate, and although I don't know her well, I have served on the Poet Laureate Selection Committee with her (after her term), and I have heard her read often enough to hear her voice in my head as I went through this collection. It's a beautiful way to learn more about the history of West County. I look forward - post-challenge! - to reading her new collection about Charmian Kittredge London as well.
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