Sharmagne Leland-St. John

Sharmagne Leland-St. John (born May 23, 1946) is an American poet. Leland-St. John is best known for the poem "I Said Coffee," for which she was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2007. She has received a total of 21 Pushcart Prize nominations and won the 2013 International Book Award honoring Excellence in Mainstream and Independent Publishing for best poetry anthology. Early life Her father Jerome was an animal trapper in the jungles of Tegucigalpa in Honduras. During her childhood, he collected exotic animals to supply zoos and private estates. He also had a pheasant farm and quail ranch in Mexico City and eventually settled in Tarzana, California. When Leland-St. John was three years old, her father left the family, sued for custody, won, and then placed her and her older sister in a Catholic convent. In 1958, her father returned to the U.S. and brought his daughters to live with him and his new wife in Tarzana, which caused his wife to leave him. Career In the mid-1960s, she met Peter Yarrow from the folk singing group Peter, Paul and Mary and started dating him. Through the group's road manager, she was introduced to guitarist Peter Walker, with whom she began performing in concert and writing song lyrics. Under the name Peter and the Countess, they performed in venues such as The Fillmore East and West, The Psychedelic Super Market in Boston, The Ark in San Francisco, The Ash Grove in Los Angeles. In addition to Peter and the Countess, Leland-St. John and Walker formed the band Orient Express, which included Bruce Langhorne and Lowell George. They also performed the music behind Timothy Leary’s slide shows, "Celebrations".