Co-sponsored by Works/San José art and performance center!
38 South Second Street, downtown San José.

Open mic to start the show!

If you are unable to attend in person, we welcome you to join via Zoom! Register in advance for this event via Zoom.
Link: https://bit.ly/Well-REDseptember2025

Our featured poets:

G. Craige Edgerton
Craige started his writing practice at age 75, as suggested by his Vet Center counselor to help him deal with his negative issues regarding his time in Vietnam as a combat Marine. He fought it for many months and finally decided to try it just once. It turned out to be one of the best decisions of his life and he hasn’t stopped writing since. In college, he admired those who could write creatively and tell compelling stories. But being from rural South Texas, he lacked confidence. And who would want to hear his story of a very ordinary life anyway? The counseling sessions at the Vet Center that dealt with his, and many others, PTSD made him realize that being in combat was not an ordinary experience. Very few individuals have such experiences. He realized that the stories of the mostly Vietnam veterans were unique, not in actual combat stories, but in how they had recovered fifty-plus years later. For reasons that are still unclear, he decided to write some of those stories and enroll others willing to tell their stories too. This book is the result of that decision.

Jaime Lee Johnson
Born in San Jose, California, Jaime Lee Johnson was raised by his aunt after an adoption at a very early age. Jaime knew he wanted to serve, given how every generation in his family had in one way or another, but he also knew it was a commitment. He served 7 years in the US Army as an infantryman and in a military intelligence unit, including a deployment to Baghdad in 2005. After his discharge, he experienced trouble, like most vets with PTSD, and had to find help for it. A friend recommended he go to the Vet Center in San Jose, and everything changed. Jaime knew that the lessons he learned through the group could help others, which is why he became part of the project for this book. To pass on his experiences with PTSD and how he found ways to deal with the side effects of war, both physically and mentally. He hopes that with this book, he can help at least one veteran reconnect with their family or their friends, or show them the way to get help for problems they feel no one else can understand.

Bill Noyes
Born in San Francisco, Bill was raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, and then again in San Francisco. He graduated in 1965 from Andrew Hill High in San Jose and then attended San Jose State College. In 1967, Bill was drafted into the Vietnam War, B 2/22, earning a Silver Star and a Combat Infantry Badge north of Saigon. He finally earned his BA degree from San Jose State University in Philosophy in 1978. Bill married in 1976 and raised two daughters at their Campbell home. He retired from welding after 30 years. During this time, he worked on various home additions, sculpted statues, and persisted with writing projects and books. War experiences have taken much of his attention throughout his life and, accordingly, resulted in many valuable lessons learned.

Nick Butterfield

Nick AKA Nektarios Butterfield served in the USNR as a Hospital Corpsman HM1 from 1983 to 1993. Active during Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield in 1990-1991 “Grief is the source of many of my writings.” “PTSD, I saw in my dad who was a Pearl Harbor Survivor and many of my current writing collaborators.” They are not just veterans of war but of life.” Nick was one of the few who gathered in Willow Glen Bookstore in the mid-90s. The Willow Glen Poetry Project went on to publish 3 anthologies in which Nektarios participated in. He has contributed to 3 Caesura editions in the past and contributed to Veterans of Life Write book that came out in 2020. He co-facilitates Veterans of Life Zoom meetings, the first Friday of every month, which is sponsored by the Psychology Dept. at SJSU and Martin Luther King Library and Poetry San Jose. The group has participated in seven Poetry San Jose Festivals and has been meeting regularly since 2015. This group started with Amy Meier’s recognition of a need for Veterans to write and heal.

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Poetry Center San José is a member supported organization and is funded, in part, by grants from Applied Materials Foundation, the City of San José's Office of Cultural Affairs, Literary Arts Emergency Fund, supported by the Mellon Foundation (@MellonFdn), Knight Foundation, Poets & Writers, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, SVCREATES, in partnership with the County of Santa Clara and the California Arts Council and also supported in part by a SVCreates National Endowment for the Arts American Rescue Plan grant. We also thank Brandenburg Family Foundation and Anne & Mark's Art Party for their generous giving.