Contributions by Poet Laureates; Nils Peterson (Santa Clara County, 2009-2011), Parthenia M. Hicks (Los Gatos, 2010-2012), Sally Ashton (Santa Clara County, 2011-2013), David Denny (Cupertino, 2011-2013) and Erica Goss (Los Gatos, 2012-2014). Theseus famously says in "Midsummer Night's Dream" that the imaginations of the Lunatic, the Lover and the Poet are made of the same stuff. There is truth here. One must be a little mad to face the infinite space of a blank page. One must love the world to want to catch a bit of it, to prevent it from disappearing into the great slough of the past, and one must be madly in love with words to spend hours listening to them sing, hoping they'll join hands in the dance of a line. He goes on to say that as the poet's imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet's penTurns them to shapes and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.

So a poem is "a local habitation," and this book too is a "local habitation," an anthology where the poems of the five Poet Laureates of Santa Clara County (2009 to 2014) have gathered together to rub elbows with each other and talk. The conversation is good. You'll enjoy listening in.

In Elizabethan England that there were so many good poets it was called "a nest of singing birds." The same is true of Santa Clara County. Here are five of the warblers. Nils PetersonParthenia M. HicksSally AshtonDavid DennyErica Goss