ROOTBOUND
—Stella Beratlis, Modesto
He tells me
Stella, that shit matters:
sixty-year-old invasion and rat bastard regrets
a generation wiped out in double-time,
the next generation working off bad credit
caused by wives wielding catalogs.
Salt them all, he says.
If she says anything I’ll kill her.
He tells me
about riding bikes in the rain
to work the graveyard shift
cousin in a cave
eating weeds and lizards
uncle deep in well
casting spells on the future
they beat them off with rakes and scythes
Salt them all I’ll kill them.
I’ll be go to hell, he said, picking out ear wax:
the Germans are our neighbors now.
The Germans are our neighbors now.
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RAISIN QUEEN
—Stella Beratlis, Modesto
I want to be
the raisin queen of Fresno
and I’m taking concrete steps to get there.
All these years later
still have that crazed feeling
you know what I mean?
I can take a leave of absence
tell them I’ve hiked the Appalachian trail—
don’t look for me I’ve disappeared in-country.
I can go to Flagstaff there’s a good store there
save some money then maybe
cross a national border.
To live in my pickup in Moab
all I need is baloney and beer,
sensible shoes,
and one of my dead fathers.
I’m taking concrete steps to get there.
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Thanks, Stella! Some of you Sacramentans may remember Stella Beratlis from Landing Signals days; she used to be a Sacramento resident. More of Stella's work will appear in Snake 11, due out in September.
•••Tonight (8/17), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged features Francisco Alarcon. Open mic before/after. Hosted by frank andrick. 8pm at Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St. Info: 441-3931 or www.lunascafe.com. Free.
•••Tonight (8/17), 8-11 PM: Vibe Sessions Neo-Soul Lounge at The Cobbler Soul Food Restaurant, 3520 Stockton Blvd., Sac. This week will feature the one and only Miss Ashleigh, who just returned from Austin Texas, where she was a member of the Sacramento Slam Team. Plus, we got the band in the place to be. So come through and vibe with some of the best in Spoken word and neo-soul.
•••Tomorrow night (Friday, 8/18), 7 PM: Our House Defines Art poetry reading features Sacramentans (and Rattlechappers) Susan Kelly-DeWitt and Shawn Pittard. Free; an open mic follows. Our House Defines Art Gallery & Framing is located at 4510 Post St. in El Dorado Hills Town Center; from Sac., take the Latrobe exit off to the right (south), then turn left into the shopping center.
•••Monday night (8/21), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center features Rob Anthony and Josh Fernandez. SPC/HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sac. Info: 916-451-5569. Bob Stanley hosts.
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Snake Pal Ellaraine Lockie writes: I have an interview posted on The League of Laboring Poets, a new website for poets/writers at: www.theleagueoflaboringpoets.com. Medusa's readers might be interested in exploring the website, as it offers contests (with no fees), articles on writing and critique opportunities, in addition to interviews.
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If you're interested in submitting your poetry to publishers, the new (2007) Poet's Market is in the bookstores. This is an invaluable guide to many, many poetry markets in the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere—a guide that not only lists hundreds of journals and contests (plus articles), but, if you read carefully between the lines, will teach you how to be a good submitter, vastly increasing your odds of being published. Do you send for samples of journals before you submit to them, then try to match the poems you send to the type each journal seems to prefer? Do you search through, looking for publications that seem to match your style/interests, rather than sending out poems willy-nilly? Do you follow all the etiquette each journal asks for? Are you diligent about cataloguing where you've sent each poem, and do you follow up if you don't hear back from the editors within a reasonable amount of time? (And hey—what is a reasonable amount of time?) At $30, Poet's Market is not cheap, but if you're interested in getting published, you really need to check it out, at least every couple of years. Or share one with a friend.
Rattlesnake Press is not listed in Poet's Market, though; I prefer to keep it Our Little Nor-Cal Secret. Poet's Market entries (which are free to any publisher) HUGELY increase the number of submissions a journal receives; I get plenty as it is and I don't want to draw attention from other geographical areas.
I did list RP in Dustbooks' The International Directory of Little Magazine and Small Presses, and its companion, The Directory of Poetry Publishers. These two probably have even more listings than Poet's Market, but aren't as well cross-indexed, don't contain any articles, and ouch! that print is wee... Frankly, my listing for last year, which was also free, didn't yield all that many new submissions (thank heavens). But the obsessive submitter should probably go through both.
Online, I just found out about drowningman.net—Wow! This is a set of links to the home pages of many, many journals—hundreds, it looks like! Such online references are the wave of the future, as far as I can see, with their greater chance of staying up-to-date, and all the options they offer. You can see sample poems on their home pages, which none of the print references offer; they can list on-going contests and other time-sensitive material; and you can get a much better sense of each journal: Classy? Tacky? A little bit of both? No need to send for samples to find out!
Then again, the question came up recently as to whether folks should even bother to publish. What's in it for us? Fame? Fortune? Why can't we be content with local attention, or just putting our poems away after we write them? Words like "bulls***" and "hobbyist" came up; forks were slammed down on the table. We never did resolve it; I think it's ultimately a totally personal decision. But the discussion was sure lively! What do you think?
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Today would've been Ted Hughes' 76th birthday:
THISTLES
—Ted Hughes
Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men
Thistles spike the summer air
And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.
Every one a revengeful burst
Of resurrection, a grasped fistful
Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up
From the underground stain of a decayed Viking,
They are like pale hair and the gutterals of dialects.
Every one manages a plume of blood.
They they grow grey like men.
Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear
Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.
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CROW GOES HUNTING
—Ted Hughes
Crow
Decided to try words.
He imagined some words for the job, a lovely pack—
Clear-eyed, resounding, well-trained,
With strong teeth.
You could not find a better bred lot.
He pointed out the hare and away went the words
Resounding.
Crow was Crow without fail, but what is a hare?
It converted itself to a concrete bunker.
The words circled protesting, resounding.
Crow turned the words into bombs—they blasted the bunker.
The bits of bunker flew up—a flock of starlings.
Crow turned the words into shotguns, they shot down the starlings.
The falling starlings turned to a cloudburst.
Crow turned the words into a reservoir, collecting the water.
The water turned into an earthquake, swallowing the reservoir.
The earthquake turned into a hare and leaped for the hill
Having eaten Crow's words.
Crow gazed after the bounding hare
Speechless with admiration.
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OWL'S SONG
—Ted Hughes
He sang
How the swan blanched forever
How the wolf threw away its telltake heart
And the stars dropped their pretence
The air gave up appearances
Water went deliberately numb
The rock surrendered its last hope
And cold died beyond knowledge
He sang
How everything had nothing more to lose
Then sat still with fear
Seeing the clawtrack of star
Hearing the wingbeat of rock
And his own singing
—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.)
