 White clouds float over the yellow fields. It is September and the corn is ready to harvest. Driving through the Yellow County farmlands, I can see that it was a good summer. Tomato trucks moving slow on the farm roads. Tractors moving farm equipment. In a pasture north of Davis, I can see that the colt that was new in the spring now runs and plays, sometimes even hopping. The road is empty for a few minutes and I pull the car over and get out. 61 years old with a birthday approaching. I am no farmer, but I love good tilled earth. White clouds float over yellow fields. I scoop up some dirt in my hands. And these words from our freshly minted poet laureate James Lee Job. And my friend, welcome James. Glad to be here, thank you. Yeah, it's really fun you could come in. So you were literally just seated or ordained as poet laureate in mid-September. Oh, 9-11, yeah, of all days. Yeah, it was going to be the 25th. And I got a call from the now laureate emeritus, Andy Jones, saying we're going to hand the torch over on the 11th instead. And I thought, there's a torch? Was there literally? No, there was not a torch. And what really amused me, too, was there was no laurel wreath. Your poet laureate comes from the same Latin root word as was laurel. Right. And in ancient times in Greece they wore them. Yeah. I thought, OK, that's all right. Well, thinking down the line, you can implement some new traditions for the next handover. But for now, it's your job. And so tell us, what does a poet laureate do? What are your job responsibilities? In different places, it's set up differently. I wanted Davis. What they asked for is that you have a poem ready for specific functions like the Martin Luther King beret and the Fourth of July fireworks and picnic. And they really don't ask that much. But they like you when you apply to have some sort of agenda. Then they judge from the nominees and choose you that way. And so my agenda is not too complex. The first project, which is already underway, is we're going to put poetry from local poets on posters in downtown storefronts. And I'm already collecting those. Another project is I've already made myself available to the school district to go into classrooms or assemblies. And I just today started hearing back from them. So that might happen very soon too. Two longer term projects is you've probably noticed around Davis the book giveaways, little book nooks we have here and there. I'm going to set up one for poetry that'll be in City Hall. But they want me to do it after they do a remodel. There's a remodel about to happen. And they want it after that. And it's a two-year term. And I want to go out of the two-year term with an anthology of Davis poets. Nice. And there are a good number of poets here. Yeah, especially since I'm going to include poets. For the sake of the campus, poets who have just gone to school here or taught here. And so I'm hoping to get some work from Gary Snyder who taught here for 15 years. And I know a little bit. One of the first, that was one of the first ways I really got turned down to poetry was reading Gary Snyder in college. Yeah. Well he used to bring me into his class. He got to know me from a magazine I was publishing when I was still in Sacramento in the 90s. I moved here in 96. Called One Dog Press. And I got his address from somewhere and I started sending them to him. Just sending them to him. And finally I got a letter back one day with a check. I said, I'll do my Gary Snyder impression here. I don't recall subscribing to your fine journal. However I do like it. So I'm sending a check for a subscription now. And I never cashed it. I framed both the letter and the check. And they hang over my desk to this day. Good call. But he started bringing me in, like once a semester to talk to his class. I always say about how to be an unsuccessful poet. But how to be a locally based poet. Right. And on that note, well, two things. You are widely published both online and in print anthologies. Your poetry is a matter of record. You can Google me. You can. And you also, you hold a couple of very vibrant local poetry, regular poetry readings. So let's talk about those for a minute. The first one I inherited, Allegra Silverstein, who was also the first poet laureate of Davis, was among a group of people at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis who started a monthly reading back in the mid 90s. And in the beginning, the first couple of them, I understand it was mostly just people from the church themselves just reading poems. But it evolved quickly into a regular poetry reading series with poets coming from all over to read. And she ran it for 22 years and handed it off to me. 21 years, I think. And handed it off to me early last year. And so I took over that. And that's the third Friday of the month at 7.30 in the library at the UU Church. And I have poets from all over the region come and read. And there's an open mic too. Does that one have a name? The Other Voice. The Other Voice, that's right. The Other Voice. And I wanted to start a series because the UU Church is kind of out in the sticks. Yeah. And in the winter months, when it's dark early, it's kind of hard to find that last cutoff on the fat one. Right. I wanted to start a series that was in town and during the daytime because so many people in the crowd who are a little older would have a hard time driving at night. Yeah. All the lights. I wish I could come. So I wanted a daytime series that was in town along the bus route and had a parking lot. And luckily the Davis Arts Center stepped up. Right. And so that one happens on a... A third Sunday at 2 p.m. And of course, I don't think Unitrans is that active on Sunday. But the 42 Loop Bus for Yolo Bus stops right in front of the place. Right. They've got their own parking lot. And it's easy to find in the city. And that's 2 p.m. Two featured poets on the third Sunday. Yeah. Every month. That's the Davis Arts Center Poetry Series. Okay. Yeah. So when were you bitten by the poetry bug as it were? I was eight years old. Okay. I've been writing for 53 years. Once I started, I never actually stopped at all. The first... I won a contest at eight. Yeah. A poetry contest that got me some notice. And at the time my parents were divorcing. And I was like the most unnoticed kid in the world to me. I felt like I was invisible. So suddenly there was like these people. And they took me around to these assemblies and schools. Right. Affirmation. Yeah. This is good. You know? And I just kept at it. And by my teens I was hitting the open mics bouncing back and forth between my parents in Baltimore and in the Dallas area. Hitting the open mics and starting to get a few featured readings here and there. And this was before Al Gore invented the Internet. So I was mostly getting my work into small zines. Right. With things like meat quarter, meat whistle quarter, quarterly. Some of them had some really odd names. A fine publication I'm sure. Yeah. Nerve cowboy. And, you know, I had a life. I had to work for a living. So I tended to have a day job. I didn't want to pursue the teaching college route, which so many poets, published poets do. Right. They teach for a living. I don't really like crowds of people all that much. Right. All day, all those months out of a year that just sounded like hell to me. So eventually I wound up with a career in radio for 25 years. And that was kind of nice. That's over now. And besides this, I'm on the board of directors for the interfaith winter rotating shelter. And that keeps me busy. And I'm pretty busy at my church. Yeah. So you mentioned working with the schools. What would you say to a young person who says, you know, I really want to write, but I don't know if I can. Or I know I can write, but I don't know if I can read in front of others. What would your advice be to them? First of all, yes, you can write. It's just a matter of finding what it is you want to write. And you'll find it much easier once you learn that. And the best way to do that is to experiment, write many different things. And you know, if you're not comfortable with it, you don't have to show it to anybody. And I write a new poem every day. Sorry. And I have for years. I have thousands of the damn things. But that doesn't mean they're all coming out into the light of day. Well, maybe a tenth of them do less than that. Right. So the first poem you shared with us evoked driving along those lovely county roads with the golden autumn light. It's a favorite thing of mine. So poetry of place, I imagine, is very important when you are a poet laureate. It always has been, even before that. But when I started, when I began back on the spring pushing for this, I really focused on our area. I've always written a lot, especially from PewDieCreek, I love PewDieCreek. And Cash Creek. And when I was younger and a little healthier, I hiked all those trails. I know them very intimately. And so yeah, I've really built up a lot of Davis material lately. But when I lived in other places, I wrote about my hometown, Baltimore. I wrote about East Texas. Yeah. Well, let's hear. You told me you wrote this other poem. You sent it to the city council. And after you, I read at the ceremony where I became poet laureate. And everyone was so nice and so wonderful and the chief of police was there and I chatted with them. And the fireman's boss was there and I chatted with them. And I thought, well, I'm going to go home and write a poem for all these people. So I went home and I wrote this poem. And I sent it to them. Morning light begins pale through the window. Just a whisper in the darkness at first. And then later a blue sky cloaked in the golden sun. Slowly, slowly, the valley rises. And I rise too. Today is here. This is now, I tell myself. Time to take roll call. James, present. Let the morning begin. Nice. Nice. So what's your first official duty as poet laureate? What do you got coming up? The poster project. That's underway now. Rachel Hartso with the city has already found the storefronts and I'm starting to gather the poems. Great. And there's, you know, our downtown is so in flux right now. And there's so much discussion about its future and even the immediate problems with, you know, with parking and vacancies and things like that. So I love the projects that have come about through the Arts Alliance and Rachel's work for really drawing attention to, you know, taking a vacant space and making something beautiful and intriguing and maybe even useful out of it. Yeah, I really hate to see some of those buildings and why I don't want any of them to be empty. Right. Like the music, the building that watermelon music moved out of, that's a really lovely building. It's a shame it's been sitting empty all these months since they moved over to West Davis. Yeah. I understand why they did. They needed more space. They needed more rehearsal rooms and things. But in a city that does not have a mall or a Walmart sucking the life out of downtown, it's really a shame that those buildings aren't full. Yeah. Well, let's see what poetry can do to invigorate it a little bit. Oh, sorry. Right. So if someone wants to attend, let's say the Saturday thing, tell us again, it's at the Davis Arts Center. They're sponsoring it. That's Sunday. Third Sunday, F and Covel just show up. And if you want to read, you just, that's at the other one. We have the open mic at the other voice at the Unitarian Church. Okay. Two featured poets and an open mic. And the one at the Davis Arts Center is just featured poets. All right. I read a lot of others' poetry actually out at the Unitarian Churches, you know, I've never been brave enough to read any of my own, but I haven't ruled it out completely. Well, come out. Yeah, I might. I might, one of these days. Yeah. I work at my own courage for that. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. And it's a nice way to meet other poets because people who come to poetry, we usually write poetry. Right. So do you have a Facebook page as Poet Laureate? No, just my own Facebook page, James Lee Job. I have a blog where I blog all my own writing. Okay. And that's James-Lee-Jobb.blogspot.com. But if you Google me, it's easy to find. Right. And I've just started a second blog for yellow county poets that nobody gets denied. Whatever you send me, I'll put on the blog for you. Okay. And just email it to me at James-Lee-Jobb at gmail.com. Okay. See, that might be an easier way to start than getting up and reading in front of people. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks for taking up the mantle. I mean, I firmly believe that a community that's enriched by poetry and other arts is a better community. Better to. And thanks for joining us here on The City Considerers. Thank you for having me. We hope you will come back and share more of your poetry down the line. Any time. I'm only about a half a mile away. I know you are. All right. You've been watching The City Considerers here at Davis Media Access. And I don't think I ever introduced myself. I'm Autumn Lepe. We're now my pleasure to host poet Laureate James-Lee Jobb today. Thanks.