Salvatore Amico M. Buttaci
NIGHT VERSES
—Salvatore Amico M. Buttaci, Lodi, New Jersey
She cringes at the word
Atrocities
taking all of life
much too personally
"They are not out to get you,"
I tell her, but she talks
of bullwhipping dictators
persuasive ministers of state
telling nasty propagandas
She hates too much!
and does it all in perfect rhyme
interspersed with manic laughter:
says
"I fear self-expression,
it brings on oppression,
there's nothing refreshing
about all this depression!"
Once she kept company
with a full moon,
sang peace songs through
the night,
delivered mad monologues
to constellations,
some of which she invented
by connecting the dotted stars
"If only I were strong enough,"
she says, "to lift the iron hand
of my enemies!"
Then she apologizes
for the woman she could have been,
blames the ghost victims of
those who have punished her,
insists she will survive.
—Salvatore Amico M. Buttaci, Lodi, New Jersey
She cringes at the word
Atrocities
taking all of life
much too personally
"They are not out to get you,"
I tell her, but she talks
of bullwhipping dictators
persuasive ministers of state
telling nasty propagandas
She hates too much!
and does it all in perfect rhyme
interspersed with manic laughter:
says
"I fear self-expression,
it brings on oppression,
there's nothing refreshing
about all this depression!"
Once she kept company
with a full moon,
sang peace songs through
the night,
delivered mad monologues
to constellations,
some of which she invented
by connecting the dotted stars
"If only I were strong enough,"
she says, "to lift the iron hand
of my enemies!"
Then she apologizes
for the woman she could have been,
blames the ghost victims of
those who have punished her,
insists she will survive.
______________________
Thanks, Sal! Salvatore Amico M. Buttaci has been writing since childhood. His first published work was "Presidential Timber," an essay that appeared in the Sunday New York News when he was fifteen. A graduate of Seton Hall University, he majored in drama and began teaching in 1966 after living in Sicily for a year. He wrote and directed several full-length plays for educational theater including The Party and For Heaven's Sake, Sweeney!
In 1981, he earned an M.B.A. in marketing from Rutgers Graduate School of Management. For twelve years he was a marketing executive for a direct marketing firm in New York City. In 1991 he returned to teaching English to 7th and 8th grade students. He is a teacher at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Garfield, as well as an adjunct professor at Bergen Community College where he teaches writing courses. He also conducts poetry and fiction workshops. As a Language Arts teacher, Sal stresses the value of poetry, teaching students how to understand, appreciate, and write poems. After school, he conducts a class called "Poetry Club" for those students interested in learning advanced poetry techniques and submitting their work for publication, including having them send poems to Rattlesnake Press's VYPER. Sal will be retiring from teaching this Fall.
From 1974 to 1988, Sal was Editor of New Worlds Unlimited, an annual poetry anthology that showcased the poems of aspiring and professional poets from here and abroad. For two years he was Editor of Poetidings, the newsletter of the New Jersey Poetry Society, Inc. Many of his poems, short stories, and articles have been published widely. Publications include The Writer, Poet Magazine, New York Times, Newsday, Feelings, Christian Science Monitor, and Cats Magazine. His poems have also appeared in publications in Italy, India, and Canada. He has won numerous writing awards, the most recent was $500 for a poem entitled "Sacred Ground" which he entered in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Inc. in 1999. Another of his poems, "Lovefall," written in both English and in Italian, won First Honorable Mention in a poetry contest in Italy. The Empress Poetry Award in 1994 earned him First Prize of $250 for "Alienation." In 1998 his collection of poems, Promising the Moon, as well as A Family of Sicilians: Stories and Poems, were published. In 2001 Pudding House Publications released his chapbook, Greatest Hits: 1970-2000. His most recent book, a collection of love poems to his wife Sharon, is called A Dusting of Star Fall.
Because of his pride in his Sicilian roots and his opposition to the media's false representation of Sicilians and Sicilian-Americans, Buttaci lectures at libraries and organizations about "Growing up Sicilian." He says, "This is my small way of showing the truth about Sicilian-Americans: that they are no better or worse than all other ethnic groups!" And, along with Passaic poet Paul Juszcyk, in 1995 he co-founded "The Saturday Afternoon Poets," a poetry group that performs readings in local libraries and coffeehouses.
Sal is also a songwriter, having collaborated on many songs, especially country and Gospel, with his musician brother, Alfonso. Four of their songs were background music in a 1989 movie, Fortress of Amerikkka. He is a songwriter and a music publisher-member of ASCAP.
At present Sal lives in Lodi, New Jersey, with the love of his life— his wife, Sharon, and their pet computer. The latest issue of VYPER is packed full of poems from his classes; pick one up at The Book Collector, or write to me and I'll send you one. Rattlesnake Press is greatful to Sal for all the poems he and his students have sent us these past three years, and we wish him a great retirement!
_____________________
Gold Country Writers' Retreat this weekend:
This coming Friday through Sunday, a panel of nine pros, including National Book Award- and Newbery Honor-winning young-adult author Nancy Farmer, and retreat founder, biographer and novelist (Pilate's Wife) Antoinette May, will host interactive workshops and lectures on the novel, short story, memoir, biography, poetry, screenwriting, eloectronic literature and flash fiction. The three-day event will be held at the Hotel Leger in Mokelumne Hill and costs $125. Info: www.goldrushwriters.com or May at 209-286-1320.
Summer's coming—get ready for Writers' Camp:
No, that's not cramp, it's Camp! Mark your calendar and sign up soon for the Manzanita Summer Writers Retreat Campout up at gorgeous Calaveras Big Trees State Park near Arnold, CA. Daily hiking, journaling, workshops, Sierra lectures, evening campfire storytelling and poetry, and camaraderie with other writers in your group with a trained writer leader. Lots of free time to explore and write. Limited to 40 writers for the week camping/hiking experience, so tell your writer friends and organize a group to come up together and reserve your spot by June 1. See below for details. If you only want to come for a day workshop, then that can be arranged for Friday or Saturday, or a quiet day in the park during the week. Contact:
Monika Rose
Retreat Director
(209) 754-0577
www.manzanitacalifornia.org
mrosemanza@jps.net
When: June 25 to July 1, 2007: Share a campsite with other writers. Bring your own equipment and food. Tents only; no RVs. Quiet time to walk, reflect, write, and share daily live journals. Where: Calaveras Big Trees State Park Campground. Arnold, CA. Activities: Daily walks with writer teachers/leaders and journaling on the North Grove and SouthGrove trails, joined by park docents. Guided workshops for daily writing, craft talks, and group campfire/sharing in the evening. Lots of time to write and reflect. Resources available: field guides, Sierra texts, pamphlets and park material, and other guides. Invited speakers include representatives from the Park Service, Big Trees Association, and those involved with the Sierra habitat. Friday and Saturday craft workshops presented by writers from different genres. Reserve your place now. Limited to 40 participants. First reserved, first served. $180 for the entire week, Monday-Sunday. Friday and Saturday workshops: $50 per day. Friday or Saturday fees do not include park entrance fees per day, an additional $6 per carload, per day. Fee Deadline: June 1. Send check made out to Writers Unlimited for $180 for the retreat or $50 per day fee to: Writers Unlimited PO Box 632, San Andreas, CA 95249.
Friday and Saturday Workshops (June 29 and June 30) will feature Molly Fisk, Poet; Antoinette May, Novelist, nonfiction and travel writer; Lucy Sanna, Nonfiction, marketing; Sally Ashton, Poet, ed. DMQ Review; Kevin Arnold, Poet; David Alpaugh, Poet, Editor; Jeff Knorr, Poet and nonfiction; Ron Pickup, Poet, Photographer, Essayist (Photography/poetry); Conrad Levasseur, Poet (Creative Sensory Journaling); Beau Blue, electronic publisher, online editor (Digital writers seminar). Plus a Small Press Panel, the Manzanita writers and editors, and Digital workshops (Discovery Education). Sponsored by Writers Unlimited, An Affiliate of the Calaveras County Arts Council, and other sponsors: Ironstone Vineyards, Sierra Seasons, and Poets & Writers.
_____________________
EXPATRIATE
—Sal Amico M. Buttaci
you're in Paris where you found
along the Seine the seediest
of neighborhoods: the one the French
priest calls "my church's black eye"
you're in Paris studying
the painters with their pastels
who will paint you and small talk
for the price of café and croissant
the expatriates a l'avant-garde
who lean against the Moulin Rouge
against graffitied white stucco walls
high on wine and dope
the street children begging
for money to buy cigarettes
for bus fare to take them
to Eiffel's naive tourist row
you tell us it's all so insane
but in Paris you have found your soul
you can write your novel there
your truest poems, your Broadway play
still, why have you stopped writing
letters to us dashed off
in what you claimed were
inspired high-wire walking?
"Paris at daybreak is so sad,"
you wrote in your last postcard,
"especially after a night of rain.
"Whom should I wish were here?"
_____________________
QUAKERS
—Sal Amico M. Buttaci
Pity the frightened
those yet to cower
in the dark corners
of their lives
my own initiation
was a walk through fire
even when I drove my car
in the teeming rain or
under heavy, blinding snow
my white-knuckled hands
squeezed the steering wheel
and these eyes blurred, twitched,
strained past the frantic
arcing of the windshield wipers
so certain was I
the car would crash
and I would not survive
How I wished my ex-wife
could take the wheel
brave us through one more
stormy weathered night
calmly she would not allow
the elements to distract her
while I pushed my right foot
against imaginary brakes
feeling as safe
as fearful men can feel
all of you out there
who come late to fear
or for years have quaked
inside the bleak safety
of your own shadows
courage is a lighthouse
that blinks a calming eye
a samaritan lighting black waters
a savior of refugees
_____________________
Thanks again, Sal!
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)
SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:
Journals: Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; next deadline is May 15. The new VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets 9 (for kids 0-12) is available; next deadline is today, May 1.
Books/broadsides: April’s releases are SnakeRings SpiralChap #7 from D.R. Wagner: Where The Stars Are Kept, and littlesnake broadside #33: Swallowed By This Whale Of Time by Ann Menebroker. Both are now available at The Book Collector. SpiralChaps are $8; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com for ordering information. Rattlesnake Interview Series #1 with Ann Menebroker and B.L. Kennedy is also available (free) at The Book Collector (or contact Kathy Kieth).
Next rattle-read: May's releases will be Ron Tranquilla’s Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006, plus a broadside by Julie Valin and a Rattlesnake Interview Broadside (#2) featuring Malik and B.L. Kennedy. Come check all these out on May 9 at 7:30 PM at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else’s.
Thanks, Sal! Salvatore Amico M. Buttaci has been writing since childhood. His first published work was "Presidential Timber," an essay that appeared in the Sunday New York News when he was fifteen. A graduate of Seton Hall University, he majored in drama and began teaching in 1966 after living in Sicily for a year. He wrote and directed several full-length plays for educational theater including The Party and For Heaven's Sake, Sweeney!
In 1981, he earned an M.B.A. in marketing from Rutgers Graduate School of Management. For twelve years he was a marketing executive for a direct marketing firm in New York City. In 1991 he returned to teaching English to 7th and 8th grade students. He is a teacher at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Garfield, as well as an adjunct professor at Bergen Community College where he teaches writing courses. He also conducts poetry and fiction workshops. As a Language Arts teacher, Sal stresses the value of poetry, teaching students how to understand, appreciate, and write poems. After school, he conducts a class called "Poetry Club" for those students interested in learning advanced poetry techniques and submitting their work for publication, including having them send poems to Rattlesnake Press's VYPER. Sal will be retiring from teaching this Fall.
From 1974 to 1988, Sal was Editor of New Worlds Unlimited, an annual poetry anthology that showcased the poems of aspiring and professional poets from here and abroad. For two years he was Editor of Poetidings, the newsletter of the New Jersey Poetry Society, Inc. Many of his poems, short stories, and articles have been published widely. Publications include The Writer, Poet Magazine, New York Times, Newsday, Feelings, Christian Science Monitor, and Cats Magazine. His poems have also appeared in publications in Italy, India, and Canada. He has won numerous writing awards, the most recent was $500 for a poem entitled "Sacred Ground" which he entered in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Inc. in 1999. Another of his poems, "Lovefall," written in both English and in Italian, won First Honorable Mention in a poetry contest in Italy. The Empress Poetry Award in 1994 earned him First Prize of $250 for "Alienation." In 1998 his collection of poems, Promising the Moon, as well as A Family of Sicilians: Stories and Poems, were published. In 2001 Pudding House Publications released his chapbook, Greatest Hits: 1970-2000. His most recent book, a collection of love poems to his wife Sharon, is called A Dusting of Star Fall.
Because of his pride in his Sicilian roots and his opposition to the media's false representation of Sicilians and Sicilian-Americans, Buttaci lectures at libraries and organizations about "Growing up Sicilian." He says, "This is my small way of showing the truth about Sicilian-Americans: that they are no better or worse than all other ethnic groups!" And, along with Passaic poet Paul Juszcyk, in 1995 he co-founded "The Saturday Afternoon Poets," a poetry group that performs readings in local libraries and coffeehouses.
Sal is also a songwriter, having collaborated on many songs, especially country and Gospel, with his musician brother, Alfonso. Four of their songs were background music in a 1989 movie, Fortress of Amerikkka. He is a songwriter and a music publisher-member of ASCAP.
At present Sal lives in Lodi, New Jersey, with the love of his life— his wife, Sharon, and their pet computer. The latest issue of VYPER is packed full of poems from his classes; pick one up at The Book Collector, or write to me and I'll send you one. Rattlesnake Press is greatful to Sal for all the poems he and his students have sent us these past three years, and we wish him a great retirement!
_____________________
Gold Country Writers' Retreat this weekend:
This coming Friday through Sunday, a panel of nine pros, including National Book Award- and Newbery Honor-winning young-adult author Nancy Farmer, and retreat founder, biographer and novelist (Pilate's Wife) Antoinette May, will host interactive workshops and lectures on the novel, short story, memoir, biography, poetry, screenwriting, eloectronic literature and flash fiction. The three-day event will be held at the Hotel Leger in Mokelumne Hill and costs $125. Info: www.goldrushwriters.com or May at 209-286-1320.
Summer's coming—get ready for Writers' Camp:
No, that's not cramp, it's Camp! Mark your calendar and sign up soon for the Manzanita Summer Writers Retreat Campout up at gorgeous Calaveras Big Trees State Park near Arnold, CA. Daily hiking, journaling, workshops, Sierra lectures, evening campfire storytelling and poetry, and camaraderie with other writers in your group with a trained writer leader. Lots of free time to explore and write. Limited to 40 writers for the week camping/hiking experience, so tell your writer friends and organize a group to come up together and reserve your spot by June 1. See below for details. If you only want to come for a day workshop, then that can be arranged for Friday or Saturday, or a quiet day in the park during the week. Contact:
Monika Rose
Retreat Director
(209) 754-0577
www.manzanitacalifornia.org
mrosemanza@jps.net
When: June 25 to July 1, 2007: Share a campsite with other writers. Bring your own equipment and food. Tents only; no RVs. Quiet time to walk, reflect, write, and share daily live journals. Where: Calaveras Big Trees State Park Campground. Arnold, CA. Activities: Daily walks with writer teachers/leaders and journaling on the North Grove and SouthGrove trails, joined by park docents. Guided workshops for daily writing, craft talks, and group campfire/sharing in the evening. Lots of time to write and reflect. Resources available: field guides, Sierra texts, pamphlets and park material, and other guides. Invited speakers include representatives from the Park Service, Big Trees Association, and those involved with the Sierra habitat. Friday and Saturday craft workshops presented by writers from different genres. Reserve your place now. Limited to 40 participants. First reserved, first served. $180 for the entire week, Monday-Sunday. Friday and Saturday workshops: $50 per day. Friday or Saturday fees do not include park entrance fees per day, an additional $6 per carload, per day. Fee Deadline: June 1. Send check made out to Writers Unlimited for $180 for the retreat or $50 per day fee to: Writers Unlimited PO Box 632, San Andreas, CA 95249.
Friday and Saturday Workshops (June 29 and June 30) will feature Molly Fisk, Poet; Antoinette May, Novelist, nonfiction and travel writer; Lucy Sanna, Nonfiction, marketing; Sally Ashton, Poet, ed. DMQ Review; Kevin Arnold, Poet; David Alpaugh, Poet, Editor; Jeff Knorr, Poet and nonfiction; Ron Pickup, Poet, Photographer, Essayist (Photography/poetry); Conrad Levasseur, Poet (Creative Sensory Journaling); Beau Blue, electronic publisher, online editor (Digital writers seminar). Plus a Small Press Panel, the Manzanita writers and editors, and Digital workshops (Discovery Education). Sponsored by Writers Unlimited, An Affiliate of the Calaveras County Arts Council, and other sponsors: Ironstone Vineyards, Sierra Seasons, and Poets & Writers.
_____________________
EXPATRIATE
—Sal Amico M. Buttaci
you're in Paris where you found
along the Seine the seediest
of neighborhoods: the one the French
priest calls "my church's black eye"
you're in Paris studying
the painters with their pastels
who will paint you and small talk
for the price of café and croissant
the expatriates a l'avant-garde
who lean against the Moulin Rouge
against graffitied white stucco walls
high on wine and dope
the street children begging
for money to buy cigarettes
for bus fare to take them
to Eiffel's naive tourist row
you tell us it's all so insane
but in Paris you have found your soul
you can write your novel there
your truest poems, your Broadway play
still, why have you stopped writing
letters to us dashed off
in what you claimed were
inspired high-wire walking?
"Paris at daybreak is so sad,"
you wrote in your last postcard,
"especially after a night of rain.
"Whom should I wish were here?"
_____________________
QUAKERS
—Sal Amico M. Buttaci
Pity the frightened
those yet to cower
in the dark corners
of their lives
my own initiation
was a walk through fire
even when I drove my car
in the teeming rain or
under heavy, blinding snow
my white-knuckled hands
squeezed the steering wheel
and these eyes blurred, twitched,
strained past the frantic
arcing of the windshield wipers
so certain was I
the car would crash
and I would not survive
How I wished my ex-wife
could take the wheel
brave us through one more
stormy weathered night
calmly she would not allow
the elements to distract her
while I pushed my right foot
against imaginary brakes
feeling as safe
as fearful men can feel
all of you out there
who come late to fear
or for years have quaked
inside the bleak safety
of your own shadows
courage is a lighthouse
that blinks a calming eye
a samaritan lighting black waters
a savior of refugees
_____________________
Thanks again, Sal!
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)
SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:
Journals: Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; next deadline is May 15. The new VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets 9 (for kids 0-12) is available; next deadline is today, May 1.
Books/broadsides: April’s releases are SnakeRings SpiralChap #7 from D.R. Wagner: Where The Stars Are Kept, and littlesnake broadside #33: Swallowed By This Whale Of Time by Ann Menebroker. Both are now available at The Book Collector. SpiralChaps are $8; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com for ordering information. Rattlesnake Interview Series #1 with Ann Menebroker and B.L. Kennedy is also available (free) at The Book Collector (or contact Kathy Kieth).
Next rattle-read: May's releases will be Ron Tranquilla’s Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006, plus a broadside by Julie Valin and a Rattlesnake Interview Broadside (#2) featuring Malik and B.L. Kennedy. Come check all these out on May 9 at 7:30 PM at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else’s.
