Of Trains & Swans & Snow-Feathered Egrets

OUT THE TRAIN WINDOW
—Norma Kohout, Sacramento

fluent white poetry of egrets
in flight,
explosion of mallards alarmed
by the train,

moored tankers, freighters loading,
unloading
below Benicia Bridge, visible
from the train,

across Suisun Bay—a moving sheet
of chipped slate—
the soft-green hills of Vallejo roll
by the train;

convolutions of pipes, metal stairways,
orange tanks,
futuristic oil-refineries grow
beside the train;

snow-feathered egrets on black-stilt legs
watch for fish
in the marsh’s bright channel,
near the train.

And more, and more—strange, ugly,
natural, beautiful—
waits to be discovered
on the train.

_______________________

Thanks, Norma! "Out the Train Window" is from Norma's littlesnake broadside of the same name, due to be released this coming Wednesday, August 9, at 7:30 PM at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sac. Norma Kohout retired to Sacramento in 1987 after teaching English in Modesto—which was preceded by four years of chaperoning and counseling the San Francisco Boys Chorus, earning a degree at San Francisco State, and doing secretarial work in Los Angeles, and earlier, for Readers Digest in Chappaqua, New York. Janet Chandler mentored Norma into co-facilitating the senior poetry group at Hart Senior Center, which Norma now does weekly with Joyce Odam. She won the 2001 Chaparral Golden Pegasus award, and her poetry has appeared in Poets’ Forum Magazine, Senior Magazine, and Rattlesnake Review. Come hear Norma read from her broadside next Wednesday, when Irene Lipshin will be releasing Rattlechap #26: Shadowlines. (More about that later!)

August Contest Deadlines:

•••August 15 is the (postmark) deadline to enter The Ina Coolbrith Circle’s 87th Annual Poetry Contest. Their rules are very exact, so you need to get a copy of them; write to me and I’ll send them to you. For more information about The Ina Coolbrith Circle itself (but, alas, no contest rules), try www.coolpoetry.com. ICC is an ancient, venerable society of poets, named after California's first Poet Laureate.

•••The 20th Annual Focus on Writers Contest, sponsored by the Friends of the Sacramento Public Library, also has a deadline of August 15. Awards in each category (short story; first chapter of a novel; poetry; non-fiction article or first chapter; book/article for children; first chapter of book for young adults) are $250 for 1st, $150 for 2nd, $75 for 3rd. (Cool!) Info/rules: 916-264-2880 or www.saclibrary.org (click on Friends, then on Focus on Writers), or watch for one of the yellow flyers around town or at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sac.

•••Poets & Writers is pleased to announce the 2007 California Writers Exchange Contest. The winners of the contest, one poet and one fiction writer from California, will receive a $500 honorarium and an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City, where they will meet with agents, editors, and prominent writers, and give a public reading of their work in Spring 2007. The winners will be selected by Cristina Garcia (fiction) and Charles Harper Webb (poetry). The contest is open to poets and fiction writers who have never published a book, or have published no more than one full-length book in the genre in which they are applying, AND have resided in California for at least two consecutive years prior to the date they submit their manuscripts. An application must accompany all manuscripts. For complete guidelines and an application, please contact (310) 481-7195 or cainfo@pw.org or send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:

Poets & Writers, Inc.
California Writers Exchange
2035 Westwood Blvd., Suite 211
Los Angeles, CA 90025

Completed applications must be postmarked no later than August 31, 2006. Founded in 1970, Poets & Writers is the nation's largest nonprofit organization serving creative writers. P&W is grateful to The James Irvine Foundation for a major grant which makes the California Writers Exchange possible.

Journal Deadlines:

•••Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review is August 15; that’s only two weeks away! Send 3-5 of your dandiest poems, art, photos, or article ideas to kathykieth@hotmail.com or POBox 1647, Orangevale, CA 95662. No cover letters, no bios, no prev-pubs or simul-subs, pleez…

•••Deadline for the second issue of Modesto’s Hardpan is also Aug. 15. No limits on line numbers or subject. e- or snailmail: hardpanpoetry@sbcglobal.net ....or POBox 1065, Modesto, CA 95353.

•••Oceana writes: It's official. I had so much fun working on the previous edition that I signed on to be the regular editor for Clive Matson's Crazy Child Scribbler. If you don't know already, the Scribbler is an 8-page hard-copy journal for writers dedicated to writing from the core and keeping the pen moving. The Scribbler is published each season. All materials in the publication remain copyrighted by the authors.

The theme for the autumn edition is Beverages. You may submit pieces that focus on a beverage of your choice. Prose or poems that merely make an interesting reference to a beverage will also be accepted. Please submit each poem (40 lines or less) or prose (500 words or less) as plain text in the body of separate e-mail messages (no attachments) to oceana@oceanasphere.com. Please type "Submission" and the title of the piece in the subject heading of your email message to minimize the chance of your email becoming lost among the spam. Simultaneous submissions are fine. Deadline is September 1st. Info: www.oceanasphere.com

_______________________

WILD SWANS
—Edna St. Vincent Millay

I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over.
And what did I see I had not seen before?
Only a question less or a question more;
Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.
Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,
House without air, I leave you and lock your door.
Wild swans, come over the town, come over
The town again, trailing your legs and crying!

________________________

XXX
—Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

(from Fatal Interview, 1931)

________________________

—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.)