The Wildling Art Museum in the sunny Santa Ynez Valley invited the public to its Fifth Annual Poetry Reading on Sunday, June 1, 3-5 p.m. This free event featured poems about nature by four well-known poets from Santa Barbara County: Bettina T. Barrett, Michael Hannon, Lois Klein and Paul J. Willis. The emcee for the afternoon was Perie Longo, the 2007-09 Poet Laureate of the City of Santa Barbara. 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.

Bettina T. Barrett grew up in Denmark, arriving in the U.S. at age 15. In addition to writing poetry, she is an artist working in clay. Her books include Bear-Star My Name (Fithian, 1989). Sleepdancer (Fithian, 1994), and Heartscape (Mille Grazie Press). She says, “Poems come to me at unexpected moments, or when I feel an intensity of emotion about something.”

Michael Hannon, who lives in Los Osos, California, began writing poems when he was twenty. He has been widely published in journals and anthologies, both in the U.S. and abroad, and is the author of three full-length collections: Poems & Days (Isis Press, 1986), Ordinary Messengers (Floating Island, 1991), and Trusting Oblivion (if publishing, 2002).

Lois Klein is on the faculty of the Santa Barbara Poetry Conference and teaches through California Poets in the Schools. She also organizes the monthly Favorite Poems Project readings at the Blue Agave in Santa Barbara. Her chapbook, Naming Water, came out in 1998 and her new book, A Soldier’s Daughter, was published by Turning Point Books in 2008.

Paul J. Willis has taught English at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California for the last twenty years. His recent books include Bright Shoots of Everlastingness: Essays on Faith and the American Wild (WordFarm, 2005) and his first full collection of poems, Visiting Home (Pecan Grove Press, 2008). He is a return guest to the Wildling Art Museum’s annual Poetry Reading event.

In addition to meeting these talented poets and hearing their poems, the public was invited to see the current exhibition, “Abbrescia’s Passion: Plein-Air Paintings of Glacier National Park.”