Three poets turn a poem a day into new book

It all began one autumn afternoon in 2012 at a tea shop on the top of Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. Over a pot of tea, island poets Sandra Noel and Margaret Roncone made a solemn pact to write one poem each day and share it with each other over email.

A few months later, the duo invited Seattle poet Joanna Conom to join their “small flock” of poets, and the trio have been fulfilling their commitment ever since.

The three birds, as they refer to themselves, will read from their new book of poems: “Three Birds Dreaming,” written in the time following that fateful day in 2012, at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 2, at Vashon Bookshop.

The new chapbook will be Noel’s fourth, following “The Gypsy in my Kitchen,” “Into the Green” and “The River.”

Noel also works as a freelance illustrator, graphic designer and biologist and is well-known for her interpretive and educational signs posted around the island and throughout the Northwest. She also contributes her artistic design skills as a volunteer for non-profit conservation organizations.

Roncone hails from Rochester, New York. Her poetry has been performed as part of Pierce College’s 10-minute play festival. She’s been published in “Chrysanthemum,” “The Avocet,” “Goose River Anthology,” “Barnwood Poetry Journal,” “Writergirrls” and “Poets Against War.”

From 2011 to 2012, Roncone facilitated a poetry writing group at Chief Seattle Club and has curated an open-mic venue in Seattle for 10 years. She said she finds inspiration for writing during frequent bus rides.

A longtime resident of Seattle who was “born into (its) gray mist,” Conom said poetry was “a love of her young life that was lost in the fog of adulthood.”

Six years ago, during an acupuncture treatment for sciatica, the fog lifted for the poet when the acupuncture needles, inserted in the top of her head, “freed trapped poems,” and she said she’s been writing ever since. Her work has appeared in “Penhead,” “Press” and “Ghost House #6, Randomly Accessed Poems.”