The Wildling Art Museum in the sunny Santa Ynez Valley invited the public to its Fourth Annual Poetry Reading on Sunday, June 3, 3-5 p.m. This free event, underwritten by the Valley Foundation, featured poems about nature by four well-known poets from Santa Barbara County: Robert Emmons, Perie Longo, Enid Osborn and David Starkey. A short concert by Lorin Grean, Celtic harpist and vocalist, preceded the poetry reading at 3 p.m. and a wine and cheese reception followed.

Robert Emmons is at once poet, corporate executive, international consultant, university professor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, art collector, and the author of seven books. His latest, Seafarers, Poems of the Sea, was published in 2007 by the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum. He read poems from this collection as well as from earlier books, “The Wanderer, a Poet’s Journey” (2005) and “Passage to New England.”

Perie Longo is the recently appointed 2007-09 Poet Laureate of the City of Santa Barbara. She teaches at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and leads the Santa Barbara Summer Poetry Workshop. Her most recent book is “With Nothing Behind but Sky ”(Artamo, 2006).

Long-time Santa Barbara resident Enid Osborn writes poetry that draws from her native New Mexico, her colorful family and her small-town beginnings. She has printed four chapbooks and is currently working on a short story collection titled “The Church of Deliberate Acts”.

David Starkey directs the creative writing program at Santa Barbara City College. He has published more than 400 poems in literary magazines as well as several books, most recently “Ways of Being Dead: New and Selected Poems” (Artamo, 2006).

In addition to meeting these talented poets and hearing their poems, the public could view the current exhibition, “Fragile Environments: Photographs of Antarctica and the Everglades by Roger Craton and Clyde Butcher.”

This event is sponsored by The Valley Foundation.