Healdsburg Jazz selects Enid Pickett as its first poet laureate

Healdsburg Jazz — the nonprofit behind the popular Healdsburg Jazz Festival — has appointed Windsor jazz enthusiast, poet and former Sonoma County educator Enid Pickett as the organization’s first poet laureate.

Pickett will be commissioned to write poetry and will also help with expanding Healdsburg Jazz’s educational outreach.

“I’m very, very excited, and honored to be literally the first poet laureate for Healdsburg Jazz. It is something that is very close to my heart,” Pickett said.

Pickett first got involved with Healdsburg Jazz when founder Jessica Felix held an informational meeting in the early days of the organization’s infancy.

“My history (with Healdsburg Jazz) began when Jessica Felix held the very first exploratory meeting and I attended that meeting 22 years ago and I’ve been in and out with my participation since that time. I moved a few times since then, but I’ve been involved with jazz my entire life and I’ve always been a lover of jazz and I sing jazz, and now I’m able to kind of write about it as well,” Pickett said.

Healdsburg Jazz Artistic Director Marcus Shelby said in a statement that he’s thrilled to be working with such a brilliant artist and to be working with someone who he’s known for the past decade.
“I am personally thrilled to partner with such a brilliant and eloquent artist. I have known Enid for almost 10 years, and I’m inspired by her ability to weave words and sentences like a musician playing the blues-full of clear, articulate tension and release,” Shelby said.

The Healdsburg Tribune, January 27, 2021