This group will focus on poetry and writing that expands boundaries of thought and explores themes of social action and human rights. The workshop includes critique of personal writing, the sharing of notable poets and writers, and encourage the publication of finished work by individuals of the group. Speakers may be enlisted from time to time.
Writers play an important role in human rights advocacy as an expression of universal human experience. Writers can tell the truth, the good, the bad, the beautiful, our joys and sorrows. Writers reflect back to us and create future visions and say what others fear saying. We need writers to write new stories.
This group is facilitated by Lara Gularte, Poet Laureate Emeritus of El Dorado County. Her most recent book of poetry is Fourth World Woman (Finishing Line Press, 2022). Kissing the Bee (The Bitter Oleander Press, 2018) is about her California pioneer ancestors. Her writing is influenced by deep image poets. She has been published in many journals and anthologies and is affiliated with the Cigarros Colloquium: Azoreans Diaspora Writers, at the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI). She is a teaching artist of creative writing at Mule Creek State Prison and co-leads a poet and writers’ workshop with author, Beverly Parayno, at the Cameron Park Library. Gularte is known for conducting Ekphrastic poetry/writing workshops at local art galleries and hosts the popular monthly reading series, Poetry of the Sierra Foothills, at “Chateau Davell Winery” on the western slope of the Sierra Foothills.