Remembering poet Phyllis Meshulam
Fellow poets pay homage to a beloved local poet
By Terry Ehret
It is with great sadness that I share with you the news that Phyllis Meshulam passed away on Sunday, March 29, after several years facing, with grace and courage, a debilitating neurological disease. I have known Phyllis for almost three decades, as a colleague with the California Poets in the Schools Program, as a participant in many workshops at the Sitting Room, as a fellow poet and traveler, and as a friend.
A longtime resident of Sebastopol, Phyllis published five books and chapbooks of poetry, including Land of My Father’s War (Cherry Grove Collections, 2019), which won the Artists’ Embassy International Award; and most recently (Re)Creations, published by Kelsay Books in 2025. Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate, said of Land of My Father’s War, an “urgency of spirit has emerged eloquently here in these poems of perception and even prophecy…” And Maxine Hong Kingston said of (Re)Creations, “O Hope! The Poet can create our world again. Phyllis Meshulam breaks apart the old memes/archetypes/ stories and re-tells them. And we—her readers and listeners—can make our lives on this earth anew.”
In addition to her books, Phyllis’s poems have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, including Ars Medica; Bullets into Bells; Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace; and What Redwoods Know. Phyllis is also the editor of Poetry Crossing, CalPoet’s 50th anniversary lesson plan book, an inspirational resource for writers and teachers. For more than 30 years, Phyllis was an active participant in the Veterans Writing Group, convened by Maxine Hong Kingston, and a poet-teacher with CalPoets, giving presentations at the nationwide writing conferences, AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs) and Split This Rock.
As our Sonoma County Poet Laureate from 2020-2022, Phyllis guided us in her steady way through the shelter-in-place and social distancing of COVID-19. She offered online workshops, video poetry-writing lessons and brought together voices from across the county and beyond in her poet laureate project, the anthology called Freedom of New Beginnings—all of this while facing the challenge of her newly diagnosed illness.
Phyllis was a shining light in our literary community, especially her work with young writers in the CalPoets program, the Poetry Out Loud Program, and many events her students participated in, including the Petaluma Poetry Walk and the Poetry of Remembrance Community Reading. She reached diverse communities through her teaching and writing, from residents at Napa State Hospital, veterans, preschoolers, and English language learners. The legacy of her teaching and her poetry is imbued with her passion for justice, sensitivity, and inclusiveness.
Besides the many conferences, local readings and literary events, book launches, and conversations we shared on long drives or over lunch at the Redwood Grill, I had the great good fortune to travel with Phyllis and her husband Jerry on two writing-travel trips to Ireland and Wales. I will remember most about those journeys the moments when we wrote and read together in places that rang deep with the voices of the poets whose work we were studying, especially W.B. Yeats and Dylan Thomas.
On one particular afternoon, we were driving the hills of Carmarthenshire, searching for Fern Hill, the family farm of Dylan Thomas’s Aunt Annie and Uncle Jim, which the poet immortalized in his poem by that name. Our group of writer-travelers stood outside the gates of the old farmhouse at the foot of Fern Hill, while Phyllis led us in taking turns reading stanzas of Thomas’s ode to childhood. The photos below, taken by Jerry Meshulam, are of Fern Hill and the farmhouse, the reading at the gate, and Jerry and Phyllis with the guidebook that led us there.
Here is what some of her colleagues on the Poet Laureate Selection Committee had to say about Phyllis’s legacy:
“Hard to believe I first met her nearly thirty years ago when she was training to be a poet-teacher. I’ll remember her as an outwardly quiet and calm soul who fiercely and persistently voiced her love for the world through poetry and activism.”
—Arthur Dawson
“Phyllis has walked into challenging situations where she [felt] poetry [could] make the heart stronger. When schools were closed during the 2017 fires, she took the initiative to lead poetry classes for children at the synagogue Congregation Shomrei Torah on Bennett Valley Road, Santa Rosa.”
—Maya Khosla
“It’s a sad day. Phyllis has helped so many young people onto the path of poetry and deep creativity as well as writing and working to make our world a better place.”
—Clara Rosemarda
“Phyllis was a warm, kind, and yes, quiet yet profound poetic voice in our community. I will miss her soft wisdom, which I fortunately had the benefit of receiving when I helped her with one of her poet laureate projects.”
—Kim Hester-Williams
“Phyllis was a quiet storm in Sonoma County’s poetry world — a hard worker for so many years. A true gift.”
—Katharine Hastings
For Phyllis
Your life was integral to the world of rising light
to scores of young voices at their Poetry Crossing
To the first fresh words they learned to pen down,
To the journeys they will continue long after you
have slipped quietly away, dew disappearing
with the advance of day.
—Maya Khosla
To honor Phyllis’s legacy, I have included her poem “Goddess’s Dream” from (Re)Creations.
Goddess’s Dream
by Phyllis Meshulam
The black new moon of my belly is set
in a crescent of shine, and from it
a boy, a girl will soon come forth,
more or less in my image, of course.
They now are fish-like; may they always recall
their slick gill-slits. Come their time to crawl
may they be tutored by beetles and moles.
Their time to run, likewise by deer and a foal.
May my daughter grow strong as my son
never shoved from her place in the sun.
For I have dreamed of weeping women
and deadly warriors, and have seen
the universe split open, crack into stars:
into Venus, teardrop, blood-drop of Mars.
Terry Ehret has published several collections of poetry. From 2004-2006, she served as poet laureate of Sonoma County.