The Poet’s House, A Reading by Elizabeth Herron

Join us for a very special reading from The Poet’s House by Elizabeth C. Herron, Poet Laureate of Sonoma County, 2022 to 2024.

Elizabeth Herron’s book-length poem, The Poet’s House was written in parallel with Bruce Johnson’s creation of his opus sculpture, Poetry House, a Japanese teahouse-inspired work currently sited on Johnson’s property. After discovering a poem Elizabeth had written in the Guest Book of the Sonoma Mountain Zen Center, “It struck me,” Bruce said, “that I was building a ‘poetry house’ rather than a teahouse – even though I had no idea what a ‘poetry house’ would be.” He invited Elizabeth to join in the project and over the subsequent year and a half, she wrote her long poem The Poet’s House portions of which are inscribed underneath the building’s roof and walls, “to imbue this small sacred space with verse,” as Bruce said.

The original hand-written book, The Poet’s House, is currently on display in the museum gallery as part of the exhibition of Bruce Johnson’s work. Publication of The Poet’s House is scheduled for 2026.