Joel Fallon (June 16, 1931 - August 11, 2016) was the first

Poet laureate A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ...

Benicia, California Benicia ( , ) is a waterside city in Solano County, California, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It served as the capital of California for nearly thirteen months from 1853 to 1854. The population was 26,997 at the ...

. He is the namesake of the Joel Fallon poetry scholarship awarded annually since 2015 to high school students in Benicia, California. He was a founding member of the Benicia First Tuesday Poets, which meets at the Benicia Library monthly since 2003, and also helped begin the Benicia Love Poetry Contest and the annual Poets’ Picnic. He was named Benicia's first poet laureate in 2005. He helped Genea Brice advocate for a poet laureate program in neighboring

Vallejo, California Vallejo ( ; ) is a city in Solano County, California and the second largest city in the North Bay region of the Bay Area. Located on the shores of San Pablo Bay, the city had a population of 126,090 at the 2020 census. Vallejo is home to the ...

. He also served as a vice president of Arts Benicia. Fallon began writing

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

while serving overseas in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

. He was influenced by

Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloq ...

, Emily Dickinson, and Charles Bukowski. His successors include Robert Shelby, Ronna Leon, Lois Requist, Don Peery, Johanna Ely, and Tom Stanton.

Works

Collections

*Peery, Don, ed. ''The Book of Joel'' (Benicia Literary Arts, 2019)

Chapbooks

*''Apple Wind'' *''A Gathering of Angels'' *''Clean Sheets, Dirty Woman'' *''Shanghai Wilson''

Albums

*''Fallon Reads Fallon'' (2010)

References

Municipal Poets Laureate in the United States Poets from California People from Benicia, California 21st-century American male writers American male poets 1931 births 21st-century American poets 2016 deaths {{US-poet-1930s-stub

Works

Collections

Chapbooks

Albums

See also

References