Between Storms, & Poetry Events 3/20-26

BETWEEN STORMS
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

A week of snow, and then
it stopped.
We ventured out
to see how the world had changed.

A broken branch, black
cuneiform on a blank white page,
and farther on, the great oak
almost split in two
by the weight of weather.

We marveled at the quiet—
no birds, no scold of squirrels.
Only the tracks of a pair of deer—
parallel columns of dittos
across a field.

Then clouds pulled apart, the sun
cast shadows skysail blue
on the lee-side of drifts,
magnifying
every crystal facet.

In all this blinding whiteness,
we searched for sign
of a mythic passage, and found

our own footprints
melting
like a trail of breadcrumbs
to lead us home.

______________________

First Day of Spring, so Taylor Graham sends us a poem about snow—which seems to be what our Spring is like this year!

Another action-packed week, poetry-wise:

•••Tonight (3/20), Contance Carter reads at the Sacramento Poetry Center, Headquarters for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento, 7:30 pm.

•••Wednesday (3/22) is the monthly Hidden Passage Poetry Reading from 6 to 7 p.m. at Hidden Passage Books, 352 Main St. in Placerville. It's an open-mic read-around, so bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share, or just come to listen.

•••Also Weds. (3/22), there will be a Poems-For-All Poets Reading at 8 pm, HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.) featuring Ann Menebroker, Crawdad Nelson, S.V. Taylor, Do Gentry, Rachel Hansen, Rhony Bhopla, Kimberly White, Susan Kelly-DeWitt, and readings of poems by Kenneth Patchen, Anatole Lubovich, and Charlie Macdonald. Info: 916-442-9295.

•••Thursday (3/23), Poetry Unplugged features Crawdad Nelson at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac., 8 pm. Free. Info: 916-441-3931.

•••Friday (3/24), Luna's Cafe (1414 16th St., Sac.) will host the opening of an art show featuring the work of B.L. Kennedy, 7-10 pm. Music is provided by Spoken Blues, and Bari also plans to have local poets talk and read poetry. All art that sells (and it's priced very cheap, he says) goes to help The Archives Group (T.A.G.) Project. Bari says, The major thing with the art show is to raise $$$ for T.A.G. through the sale of the art. The second reason is to celebrate 30 years in the Sac art/poetry community.

•••Sat., March 25 will be the last day to register for the 5th Annual Pleasanton Poetry, Prose & Arts Festival which will be held on Saturday, April 1 at the CarrAmerica Conference Center, 4400 Rosewood Drive, Pleasanton. It's a full-day poetry event for writers of all ages, sponsored by the Pleasanton Cultural Arts Council (PCAC) and the City of Pleasanton. If you need to stay overnight, discounted hotel reservations are available. Festival brochure and registration form is on-line, available at: www.PleasantonArts.org.

•••Also Saturday (3/25), 7-9 pm, The Show (hosted by Terry Moore @ Wose’ Community Center, 2863 35th Street, Sac.) will feature The Straight Out Scribes along with Jammin' Jay Lamont (BET Comedian), and Chamber 7 from Monterey. Donation is $5. Info (and to get on the email list): T.Mo at 916-455-POET or fromtheheart1@hotmail.com

•••Sunday (3/26) at 7 pm, Kabinet and frank andrick present an Alejandro Jodorowsky double-feature at HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.): Fando and Lis, plus The Holy Mountain. Gratis Tarot readings included! (More about this later...)

________________________

Somewhere in my purple haze of cough medicine and Kleenex piles, I missed the new Sacramento Poetry Center blog. Check out sacramentopoetrycenter.blogspot.com for news and reviews! I've posted a permanent link to the right of this column ("SPC blog").


LIGHT
—Elizabeth Jennings

To touch was an accord
Between life and life;
Later we said the word
And felt arrival of love
And enemies moving off.

A little apart we are,
(Still aware, still aware)
Light changes and shifts.
O slowly the light lifts
To show one star
And the darkness we were.

_____________________

THE BITTER WORLD OF SPRING
—William Carlos Williams

On a wet pavement the white sky recedes
mottled black by the inverted
pillars of the red elms,
in perspective, that lift the tangled

net of their desires hard into
the falling rain. And brown smoke
is driven down, running like
water over the roof of the bridge-

keeper's cubicle. And, as usual,
the fight as to the nature of poetry
—Shall the philosophers capture it?—
is on. And, casting an eye

down into the water, there, announced
by the silence of a white
bush in flower, close
under the bridge, the shad ascend,

midway between the surface and the mud,
and you can see their bodiesred-finned in the dark
water headed, unrelenting, upstream.

___________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)