April 1st at the Aqus Cafe, 189 H Street in downtown Petaluma, 6:15pm: feature poets will be Janet Baer and CalPoets' Poet-teacher Sandra Anfang.  Sandra will be celebrating the release of her brand new full-length collection, Xylem Highway!

Throughout the Month of April, poems will be delivered with every meal from the Ceres Community Project.  The Ceres Community Project provides nourishing meals (by teen chefs!) made and delivered with love, to people throughout Sonoma County who are facing a health crisis such as cancer.

April 13th, 1-5pm; Chimera Makerspace, 6791 Sebastopol Ave. Suite #180, Sebastopol; Free and open to the public!  Come and gather at the POETRY CROSSING with CalPoets' Poet Teacher Jackie  Hallerberg.  We'll be joining the fun at the Chimera Arts open house inviting the public to make poems of all shapes and sizes! Engage in a variety of interactive and fun processes designed to help you "find" your poems. Take your creations home to share with others.  We invite school-age children (K-12) and their families into our maker space to create poems of all shapes and sizes. Our space will be a gathering place to scribble poems that are inspired by a variety of hands-on activities, prompts, and the sights and sounds. Some activities will be self-guided and others will be facilitated by Poet-Teachers. We encourage participants to unleash their creativity to make magic with words and language. We will also provide art supplies for the poets to illustrate their poems.

April 12th at Windsor High School - (student-led and oriented)

Spanish students of Karen Brown, Windsor High Teacher and Musician Extraordinaire will translate haiku and entice their friends to read the poem out loud in exchange for a sweet.  Students will get an extra sweet if they immediately post the video of them reading it on Snapchat or Instagram.  Students/staff are also eligible for another treat the following Monday if they confirm a post of a video of a family or community member reading their poem out loud over the weekend. The event will be advertised on the electronic sign at the front of the school accompanied by flashing haikus during the first two weeks of April.

Starting 2nd week of April,  Location: Bayer Farm- 1632 West Ave, Santa Rosa.  Explore the outdoors with a literary twist in this outdoor "poetry walk."  Geared toward families with young children, this literary adventure includes a booklet and poems posted outdoors with a short walk from poem to poem.  Each poem is translated into both English and Spanish.  Take the booklet home and read these poems again and again!  

April 18th, EVERYWHERE... Poem in Your Pocket Day is part of National Poetry Month. On this day, select a poem, carry it with you, and share it with others at schools, bookstores, libraries, parks, workplaces, street corners, and on social media using the hashtag #pocketpoem.  Click here to find a poem and bring Poem in Your Pocket Day to life in your classroom, workplace, email, social media, or the street!

April 18th, Sonoma Valley Regional Library, 755 West Napa Street, Sonoma 10am-12pm... Meg Hamill, Executive Director of California Poets in the Schools and also a poet, will be offering POEMS FOR YOUR POCKET at the library this day.  Stop by to say hello, learn more about our programs and join the fun for National Poetry Month.

Ongoing through the month of April -  Brought to you by ecologist and storyteller David Self... What inspires you to visit a trail or site again and again? Is it the way fog fills the valleys on a summer morning? Is it the silouette of large oak trees at sunset? The way the grasses ripple in the ocean breeze? A certain flower or a set of flowers gracing the shoulder of a hill? The chance drumming and calls of a pileated woodpecker. Or the promise of fresh mud, which might hold the prints of a passing coyote or mountain lion.  Capture a bit of your inspiration in a poem.  email it to SenseofPlace@placecraft.net, attach a related photo or two if you wish, and be sure to include your name, age (optional) and the Park or Trail that inspired the poem.”  Poems [and photos] will be shared on the Sense of Place blog - www.placecraft.net.  We’ll share many of the poems in the Placecraft blog, and we’ll also gather them into an eBook, to be released later this spring. 

Also click http://www.placecraft.net/hikes-with-poetry.html to learn more about poetry walks by Dave & Sue throughout the month of April.

Poet Kyle Matthews will be present April 8th (10:30-1:30)& 9th (11am-1pm) at the Sebastopol Regional Library (7140 Bodega Ave, Sebastopol) inspiring poetry for the paper flower art project. 

During the month of April Kyle will offer an interactive poetry station (including prompts, examples and hands-on-guidance) at the Sebastopol Public Library, where interested library-comers can write their own poems on paper leaves provided for this purpose.  The leaves will then be tied to paper flowers, which Librarian Rosalie Abbot will lead the public in making.  Combined, blossoms and leaf-poems will live in the library until the week of the Apple Blossom Festival, at which point they will be transplanted to Main Street Sebastopol, where they can shower the village with color, beauty, and delicious words--all carefully designed to serenade Spring and sing praises to the earth.

April 27th, 2-4pm Downtown Library - Santa Rosa (Free and open to the public.  Not an open-mic event)  Prepare to be inspired!  Join Sonoma County youth from around the county led by CalPoets' Sonoma County Area Coordinator Margo Perin as they share their original poems with the public.  Students have all been working with CalPoets' poet-teachers in their classrooms throughout the year. Many of these poetry workshops are subsidized or offered for free with assistance from The California Arts Council and Creative Sonoma.

Schaeffer students will inscribe original poems using sidewalk chalk on the playgrounds and other paved areas around their school.

Ongoing through the month of April - from the Academy of American Poets - a multimedia education project inviting young people in grades five through twelve to write letters in response to poems written and read by some of the award-winning poets.  All letters will be considered for publication on Poets.org in 2019.  Click here to find more information and to join the Dear Poet Project 2019.

Saturday, April 13th, 3:00-5:30pm, Rohnert Park-Cotati Regional Library - Celebrate National Poetry Month and the talented young poets of Sonoma County! Open Mic: 3:00 (sign up at the event) Featured Teen Poet Estrella Pacheco: 3:30 Poetry Slam: 4:00 (to compete email temerson@sonomalibrary.org) Performers in the open mic and poetry slam must be between the ages of 13-19. All ages are welcome to attend.  Prizes for the 3 top scoring poets!  Click here to register to save your seat! 

Free through mid-April, then $5.00/copy - Request a free copy of the National Poetry Month poster from the Academy of American Poets until mid-April; posters can be purchased for $5.00 each thereafter (while supplies last)

More projects are in the works.  We will add them as they come to fruition!