DUBLIN, CA – March 30, 2024 – Dublin, California will transform into a poetry lover’s dream for National Poetry Month 2024 (April 1 – 30). Led by Dublin Poet Laureate James Morehead, a series of events will celebrate the power of poetry while supporting local businesses and showcasing talented poets from the Tri-Valley and beyond. James Morehead: “National Poetry Month is a wonderful opportunity to bring the community together to appreciate the beauty and impact of poetry. I’m thrilled to be part of events that blend poetry with the vibrancy of Dublin’s local businesses.”

(DUBLIN, CA) Over a year ago I was approached by the City of Dublin, in my role as Poet Laureate, to create captions for six sculptures (to be created by artist Adan Romo) capturing the history of Dublin, California for our Heritage Park and Museums. I used the prose poetry form and crafted the stanzas to work as individual captions, and when read together, as a single poem. Finally seeing the beautiful sculptures (“Ripples of Time”), and my words permanently stamped in medal, was a thrill. I encourage Dublin residents and visitors to stop by the Heritage Park and Museums to enjoy this new installation, and everything else the park has to offer.

The joy and challenge of writing poetry is the long journey from an initial image or idea, to a revised and edited poem that is worthy of publishing. For many years I wrote all of my poems longhand, with edits made on top of the poem, with scratch outs and column notes, until the poem was such a blur that I copied the latest edit to a clean page. My poems now are all written using Google Docs so that I can write at night in bed, using dark mode, without my wife (justifiably) banishing me to another room. A cool side effect of writing all my poetry using Google Docs is a complete revision history. Below is a timeline of revisions and edits made to a poem from my latest book (The Plague Doctor).

The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast February submitted poems episode features five wonderful contributions read by the poets. Different forms and themes are featured. The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast explores the art of poetry through interviews with poets and artists including Safia Elhillo, A.E. Stallings, Dana Gioia, Yanyi, Olivia Gatwood, Lisa Marie Simmons and more. Subscribe today.

The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast December submitted poems episode features five wonderful contributions read by the poets. Different forms and themes are featured. The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast explores the art of poetry through interviews with poets and artists including Safia Elhillo, A.E. Stallings, Dana Gioia, Yanyi, Olivia Gatwood, Lisa Marie Simmons and more. Subscribe today.

The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast October submitted poems episode features five wonderful contributions read by the poets. Different forms and themes are featured. The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast explores the art of poetry through interviews with poets and artists including Safia Elhillo, A.E. Stallings, Dana Gioia, Yanyi, Olivia Gatwood, Lisa Marie Simmons and more. Subscribe today.

The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast September submitted poems episode features six wonderful contributions read by six poets. Different forms and themes are featured. The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast explores the art of poetry through interviews with poets and artists including Safia Elhillo, A.E. Stallings, Dana Gioia, Yanyi, Olivia Gatwood, Lisa Marie Simmons and more. Subscribe today.

Jered’s Pottery (Emeryville, CA), recognized as “the top choice for hand-crafted custom dinnerware for some of the world’s top chefs and designers,” will be hosting an afternoon of poetry on Sunday Aug. 27 – 3pm, featuring Heather Bourbeau, Brennan DeFrisco, and James Morehead. Free tickets for the event are available here.

This week’s episode of the Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast features a special excerpt from the Exploring San Francisco podcast by San Francisco Travel. Award-winning host and travel writer Aaron Millar invited Viewless Wings founder and City of Dublin Poet Laureate James Morehead to recite his poem “nine point five miles per hour”, recorded while riding a San Francisco cable car. Aaron also interviews James about his work with the City of Dublin and how he discovered the art of poetry.

The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast June submitted poems episode features five wonderful contributions read by five poets. Different forms and themes are featured. The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast explores the art of poetry through interviews with poets and artists including Safia Elhillo, A.E. Stallings, Dana Gioia, Yanyi, Olivia Gatwood, Lisa Marie Simmons and more. Subscribe today.

Please note that this episode contains adult language and includes poetry that touches on suicide, and is not suitable for children. If you are having suicidal thoughts please reach out for support resources in your area.

DUBLIN, CA–As the current poet laureate of the City of Dublin, California, in my second two-year term, I feel privileged to share my insights about making the most of this role. Being poet laureate isn’t just about writing and reciting poetry at civic events when requested, but about understanding the soul of your city and finding ways to connect the community through the literary arts.

I view poetry is a vehicle for capturing Dublin’s narrative, embodying its heritage, its struggles, its triumphs, and its hopes. Just as Tracy K. Smith, the 22nd United States Poet Laureate used her position to connect rural communities through poetry, I am seeking to capture the rich diversity of Dublin, a city with a large immigrant population from around the world.

The Plague Doctor, the third collection of poetry by James Morehead (Poet Laureate – Dublin, California) is a mesmerizing collection of eerie, image-rich poems that explore the fleeting nature of existence and friendship, inspired by the world of art and artists. The poetry is accompanied by hand drawn ink artwork by Natalia Ardus, art by Mark Kulas and Tony Rubino, and photography by the author. Poet and singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Simmons writes in her foreword to the collection, “I’ve read this collection three, four, then five times. In my office, in the tour van and the green room, after yoga, and once bundled up beneath an ancient olive tree. Despite those many deep dives, it never seems enough to complete this foreword. So I returned; six, seven, ten times. Each reading has me focusing on something new, and a year from now, I know more discoveries will be made as my perspective shifts with my own experiences.”

The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast April submitted poems episode, for National Poetry Month features seven wonderful contributions read by seven poets. Different forms and themes are featured. The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast explores the art of poetry through interviews with poets and artists including Safia Elhillo, A.E. Stallings, Dana Gioia, Yanyi, Olivia Gatwood, Lisa Marie Simmons and more. Subscribe today.

DUBLIN, CA–The City of Dublin filled the Shannon Community Center last night to celebrate volunteers who contributed to the Dublin community in 2022. Mayor Melissa Hernandez and other elected officials recognized Dublin’s Young Citizen of the Year, Citizen of the Year, Organization of the Year, and special Mayor’s awards. James Morehead, Poet Laureate – Dublin, CA (recently confirmed for a second two-year term) opened the celebration with an original poem “When no one else will”.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–The music of Deon Nielsen Price will be featured in a concert at the Interfaith Center at the Presidio, in the Presidio Chapel (130 Fisher Loop, San Francisco), on Sunday March 19, 2023 – 2pm. James Morehead, Poet Laureate of Dublin, California, will recite two poems as part of the program, Gallery (set to music for baritone and piano by Price) and Flickering Through Stained Glass (inspired by the Presidio Chapel). The concert is open to the public and will also be livestreamed.

The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast February submitted poems episode features six wonderful contributions read by six poets. Different forms and themes are featured. The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast explores the art of poetry through interviews with poets and artists including Safia Elhillo, A.E. Stallings, Yanyi, Olivia Gatwood, Regina Harris Baiocchi, Lisa Marie Simmons and more. Subscribe today.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (February 17, 2023). James Morehead (Poet Laureate – Dublin, California) was the featured guest on the San Francisco Chronicle’s TotalSF podcast “The 9 best live music venues in S.F.” episode (Feb 17, 2023, hosted by Peter Hartlaub and Heather Knight). The episode featured a lively debate of San Francisco’s top live music venues with Peter, Heather, and James debating their top three picks, round robin-style. The episode also included the world premiere of James Morehead’s poem “At the barricade”, the title poem from his upcoming book of poems and photographs inspired by San Francisco Bay Area live music venues.

Waking up and feeling poetry blocked, and having just received a wonderfully bizarre 1988 Björk video in my YouTube feed, I decided to play with found poetry and ChatGPT.

Found poems, as defined by the American Academy of Poets, “take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems.”

Can computers replace poets? I’ll share my thoughts, as a published poet, with a few ChatGPT-generated poems. ChatGPT, the AI-driven chat app that generates machine responses from human-provided prompts, has gone viral the past week (to the point where the free service is frequently unavailable due to server overload). We’ve recently updated this article at the bottom with additional sponsored content from Originality.AI (an AI and plagiarism content detector).

The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast December submitted poems episode features seven wonderful contributions read by six poets. Different forms and themes are featured. The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast explores the art of poetry through interviews with poets and artists including Safia Elhillo, A.E. Stallings, Olivia Gatwood, Regina Harris Baiocchi, Kari Byron, Lisa Marie Simmons and more. Subscribe today.