- CASEY CARNEY
- Posted On
Lake County Poet Laureate Reading Series to feature Carolyn Wing Greenlee Nov. 14
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The third event of the Poet Laureate Reading Series takes place this Friday, Nov. 14, featuring the poetry of Carolyn Wing Greenlee.
The reading, which begins at 6:30 p.m., will take place at the Riviera Common Grounds Coffee House at 9736 Soda Bay Road, Kelseyville.
Presented by current Lake County Poet Laureate Casey Carney and Common Grounds Proprietor Andrea Williams, the series is held on the second Friday of each month through April and is designed to showcase local poetry by presenting each of Lake County’s eight poet laureates in sequence, along with a guest poet and musician.
Admission is free, with a $5 suggested donation.
The poet laureate is an official appointment by a government or conferring institution for the purpose of promoting poetry in that jurisdiction. These appointments occur from local to national levels.
In Lake County, the two-year position began in 1998 with the appointment of Jim Lyle.
In 2004, Greenlee was selected as the third poet laureate of Lake County.
Greenlee is a third generation Chinese-American from a California Gold Rush/railroad family.
With the intimacy of membership in this often silent minority, Greenlee has spent the last 25 years collecting the stories of her family, which are being published as a six generation family memoir entitled “Eternal River.”
The diversity and tenacity of Greenlee’s artistic vision has enabled her to excel as an artist in spite of an intensely confining upbringing as the daughter of a Confucian scholar.
Although her father did not allow her to become an artist, saying it wasn’t respectable, Greenlee chose to study literature, became a teacher and would eventually prevail as a professional poet, writer, photographer, painter, recording artist, biographer and publisher.
In 1985 Greenlee was pronounced legally blind with Retinitis Pigmentosa, a hereditary eye disease.
By 2006, Greenlee’s vision was down to 4 percent , and she made the decision to train for a guide dog. Greenlee chronicles this life changing experience in her book “Stedy Hedy.”
A national speaker on writing as well as the Chinese-American experience, Greenlee desires to make minorities better understood by telling their stories. These stories now include the community of the visually impaired.
In 1973, Greenlee’s father, Dr. Thomas W. Wing, invented medical microcurrent, a healing modality that utilizes levels of amperage so low that the body is able to accept the electricity as its own energy or chi.
Along with her husband, Dr. Dennis Greenlee, she helped to pioneer the use of microcurrent, which launched her into the healing arts.
Two years ago, Greenlee was diagnosed with scleroderma, an incurable autoimmune disease. As a result of her search for paths of healing, Greenlee has synthesized the capabilities of microcurrent with trauma and stress release techniques which she now uses to help others with so called impossible conditions.
Current projects include the completion of a third album of original songs.
Greenlee just finished a new book on the animal sculpture of Betty Davenport Ford, and is currently working on a filmed video documentary of the 90-year-old artist.
Greenlee will be reading from her book of poetry, “Wildflowers in the Snow,” described by Montserrat Review Editor Calder Lowe as “…a poignant testimony to a wisdom that is hard won and reverently tendered.”
The Nov. 14 reading also will feature guest poet Lourdes Thuesen from Lucerne and guest musician Travis Rinker from Lakeport.