Juanita Martin will be featured at the following April events in Fairfield:
April 9, 10-3 p.m. Writers Resource Center Poetry Fest, Nelson Community Center, Fairfield
April 13, 12-1 p.m., Fairfield City Volunteer Appreciation, Creative Center for the Arts
April 15, 7-9 p.m., Author’s Event at Fairfield High School, Library
Spending more time alone in childhood than she may have liked, may have been the contributing factor that turned Juanita Martin into a fine poet. Growing up in southern New Jersey, she was the youngest of five older siblings. Books were her escape, so much so that an older cousin told her: “You’re always using big words.” Now that she is the first poet laureate of her adopted hometown of Fairfield, California--and a storyteller, public speaker and writer as well--those words come in handy.
Martin began to write in high school, poetry as well as prose. She wrote an essay in pencil and submitted it to a New Jersey Audubon Society contest: it garnered the top prize, a $50 bond. After high school, she attended Atlantic City College, and eventually took a job for the South Jersey Advisor. Although she was placed in the advertising/sales department, the position offered her the opportunity to pursue some writing assignments: “I just wanted to write,“ she says.
Martin’s drive and ambition led to other achievements as well. A stint in the Air Force led her to California and Travis Air Force Base. When a fellow airman chided her about her love of writing-- “I don’t know why you are wasting your time with poetry; there’s no money in it,”-- Martin asserted that she didn’t see it that way. “I would write no matter what.” In addition to her military service, Martin is a Licensed Vocational Nurse and also works as a freelance copywriter and editor.
It is clear that being a poet, having the gift to move people with her words and example, are central to Martin’s essence, yet she is one of those rare writers who works just as hard to encourage and promote others. Even in college, when she launched a creative writing magazine, it was to showcase her fellow students art and writing as well as her own. Since moving to the Bay Area, she has hosted many literary events, such as the Fairfield Library's “Poetry in the Park” program and the “Teen Poetry Slam” at the Sonoma County Book Festival.
A significant turning point took place when she lost her mother, Rosetta Jenkins, who passed away in 2000. “I started to take my own poetry more seriously,” she said, in part to honor her mother. Martin walked in her first Solano County Memory Walk and wrote an article for the organization‘s newsletter. She also began to produce more of her own work. “Poetry became the thing I wanted to do exclusively; I wanted to take it to another level and share it.” A year later, she started a poetry series at the Fairfield Barnes & Noble Bookstore. It lasted for two years. She also created a poetry and music CD called “Soul Stirrings,“ which came out in 2003 and received full-page coverage in the Fairfield Daily Republic.
By 2004 and 2005, Martin was traveling all over the northern Bay Area and attending open-mics in Solano, Alameda and Solano counties. She accepted hosting duties at the Adobe Net Café in Sonoma. At the local library, she saw an announcement about a “poetry slam.“ “I didn’t know what a poetry slam was at the time but thought I’d give it a try.” Her poem and performance led her to win the slam, and eventually she became the host of the annual event.
“The open mic poetry scene really opened me,” she says. As she became known, people sought her out with their questions about writing and publishing. This “led to invitations to be a featured reader.” Well-known poets like Geri Digiorno, poet laureate emerita of Sonoma County, encouraged her and invited her to participate in other events, such as the celebrated Petaluma Poetry Walk held each September. Meanwhile, Martin was sending out poems, getting published, and earning recognition. “I was thrilled to get those certificates and ribbons,” she says. “They made me want to work that much harder.”
In 2006, she became a headlining performance poet in the Extreme Clean Comedy Tour, sponsored by First Bace Entertainment Group, her first professional appearance. At the Crest Theatre in Sacramento, she shared the stage with Al Jamal, comedian, Willie Brown, a ventriloquist act, and Woody and Doug Williams.
In spite of the honor of being named a prize-winner or getting into print, Martin says that what has been most meaningful is to hear what people say when she gives a reading. “I enjoy your work” or “I love the way you read,” are some of the things she has been told, or “Your work is really polished.” At one reading, she became aware of an audience member who was crying in response to a poem Martin was reading. The person told her: “You were speaking to me.” Juanita pats her heart, “Those are the best compliments. Anyone can get published, but it is important to be part of a community and to have someone who has heard me, recommend me to someone else.”
Martin had to lobby for her position as Fairfield’s first poet laureate, a two-year volunteer appointment promoted by the Solano County Arts Council. Fairfield, known primarily as the home of Travis as well as the Anheuser-Busch and Jelly Belly factories, is mostly a commuter community of workers who daily stream into our larger urban centers. During Martin’s term as poet laureate, she hopes to raise the profile of poetry in her community.
Bringing poetry to school-kids is her first objective. Although school districts are currently in cut-back mode, Martin hopes to convince administrators and teachers the benefits of bringing poetry and poets to the children. “Do you know that poetry can help people become better learners?” she asks them. Martin has trained as a poet-teacher in the California Poets in the Schools program and was a coach for Poetry Out Loud; she wants to see these programs active in her hometown but has to convince people that “poetry is a lot more than words on a page.”
In January, Martin was one of several judges for the local Poetry Out Loud project which selected students to perform in final rounds at the State capitol. Lindsay Blackie, a 12-grader at Benicia High School was Solano County’s winning student. She will head to Sacramento this month.
With a population of over 106,000, Fairfield can now boast of more literary accomplishments than the legacy of famed poet Edwin Markham who grew up in the area. “There are a lot of poets in Fairfield,” says Martin whose work she hopes to bring into the spotlight.
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