<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-family: Arial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class="">Maya Khosla has been chosen to be Sonoma County’s 10th Poet Laureate by a committee of her peers. Her term will begin May 1, 2018 and continue until December 31, 2019. Ms. Khosla’s work has taken her to wilderness areas, to the page and to the screen. She was one of the first volunteers allowed to document the vigorous natural regeneration in Pepperwood Preserve, following the October 2017 fires in Sonoma, and her work is currently ongoing with a team of volunteers. She often combines poetry and film. Her published works include award-winning poetry, non-fiction ,and scripts for documentary films including </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class="">Village of Dust, City of Water,</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class=""> </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class="">Shifting Undercurrents, </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class="">and </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class="">Searching for the Gold Spot</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class="">: </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class="">The Wild After Wildfire.</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class=""> Maya has worked on natural resource surveys throughout California as well as in Kenya and India.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-family: Arial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 16px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-family: Arial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">On Sunday, April 29, 2018, Ms. Khosla will be presented to the public at a reception at Sebastopol Center for the Arts taking place in the Brent Auditorium at 3PM. The reception will be attended by past Poets Laureate and the public is invited to come for dessert, beverages and poetry as the mantle is passed from the 9th Sonoma County Poet Laureate, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, to the 10th.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-family: Arial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 16px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-family: Arial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Please us join us in celebrating Sonoma County’s newest Poet Laureate, Maya Khosla.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-family: Arial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-family: Arial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-family: Arial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-family: Arial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">Rejuvenation</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class=""><i style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Most of the biodiversity in these forests depends on wildland fire. </i></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class=""><i style="font-size: 14px;" class="">Chad Hanson </i></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">Once we have looked away, once we have mourned </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">and banished all smoldering thoughts about the tribe </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">of blackened trees replacing the known world— </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">for now and another season – and the last long </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">fingers of smoke have been ushered out by wind, a </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">ticking begins. No one has seen them arriving in </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">such numbers, but the birds are neither lost nor passing </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">through. They are simply linked tight to the newborn </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">scents of ash and rain, to the promise of white fruits,</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">the riches concealed by bark.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">So were the ways of ancestors who began their </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">journeys as specks in the distance, some fifty </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">thousand years ago. Riding the miles of smoky gold, </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">along a known line of hunger, growing closer and closer. </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">The rufous beat of instinct working a </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">migration upstream against the flow of smoke. Into </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">the source, its multiple treasures.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">One new arrival looks bright with hope. He preens his </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">dusk-and-opal plumage. Others tap like as if knocking </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">on doors. The answers have all been provided by the </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">ages, delicate as genetic fibers coiled in each cell— </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">beak and bone, muscle and shiny eye. The living </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">are awake to the growth and profusion soon to follow. </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">They will grow with the diligence of all known colors </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">unfurling from the soil’s chocolatey darkness, from </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">the trees re-greening come spring, from the </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class="">blackness. </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Maya Rani Khosla</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </div></span></div></body></html>