Sugartown Publishing

The Eight Easts Bay Poets featured in Between the Fault Lines are:

Marianne Betterly lives in Kensington.

Nalini Davison lives in El Sobrante.

Martha DeWitt lives in Pleasanton.

Jannie M. Dresser lives in Crockett.

Evie Groch lives in El Cerrito.

Judy Maher lives in Oakland.

Anita May lives in Crockett.

Carolyn Yale lives in Oakland.

Released March 2013, the book collects the work of poets who met together for a year and a half to hone their words and share their knowledge of poetry under the leadership of Jannie M. Dresser, MFA.

A collage-poem from the final section of Between the Fault Lines, with a nod to Paul Valery who said: "A poem is never finished, only abandoned."

In the beginning, the poem was

frothy, frilly, flower-filled.

One came at a rush, one was a still-life

written on white leaves.

One asked: "Have I always been

an exclamation point . . .

rising up off my spot?"

We say we must be fearless

writing down thoughts.

We expose our bald spots, surgery scars,

unread letters in a cardboard box.

We strip down to bone, shed shadows,

pleading: "Stay with me . . . hear me out."

There's no clause in the work day

for poetry: you must

take it as your birthright, your ink-stained

inheritance. Just remember though,

when it comes to perfect,

damned poets

don't know squat.