Just Poetry Desserts

Life is Short...
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

THE MILKY WAY
—Sinon Anton, Iraq

her nipple
is a rounded decade of
strawberries
my tongue
is a tribe
of motherless fingers
climbing
the marble dome
of an atheist temple
angels wail for asylum
i swim in a fountain
of undeciphered languages
BUT
it's a temporary galaxy
the next morning
her bra
strangles my metaphors

__________________

Poetry treats this week:

•••Monday (6/11), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Jan Haag and Sue Staats at the Carmichael Library, 5605 Marconi Ave., Carmichael [note new location for this week's reading]. Open mic to follow. Jan Haag was born in Long Beach, California, and as a child imagined herself as a young Louisa May Alcott, sitting in a tree, writing poems and stories. She found a career in writing and editing for newspapers, books and magazines. She now teaches journalism and creative writing at Sacramento City College, but she is grateful for the healing spontaneity of Sutterwriters, which has her once again scribbling happily in that metaphoric tree. She also teaches classes at Sutterwriters and has a book out from LAMP [Literature, Arts & Medicine] Press entitled Companion Spirit. Sue Staats is also an instructor at Sutterwriters. She has won the NCRAA Literary Award in Poetry for “Trash”, and has won First Place in the Sacramento News & Review’s student poetry contest for “Martha Stewart Leaves Prison.”

•••Tuesday, June 12, is the deadline to let Tim Bellows know if you’d like to attend his poetry event, Let’s Talk Poetry: Discovering new poetry landscapes, friends and good conversation, which will be meeting June 24, from 1-3 PM. About this event, Tim says: Call it a small celebration where we take a break from the torrent of daily doings, get time to talk, and savor “The best words in the best order.” It’s an informal open forum for reading a favorite poem, getting supportive feedback on your own creation, or simply voicing your words for applause only. We meet for coffee or lunch or pie at Marie Calendar’s on Sunrise Blvd., just north of Madison on the left. Our “Library Room” holds 14 max at one big table. Most inviting. So . . . please RSVP soon to reserve your spot: tbp45@sbcglobal.net by June 12, so we can be sure of our numbers.

Admission: a poem to share. Or a tip for poets in the craft dept.
Attitude: Just to share something of yourself and your favorite lines. And enjoy!
Remember: “The poem is not made up of these letters that I plant like nails, but of the white that remains on the paper.” —Paul Claudel (1868-1955), French writer and diplomat.

•••Thursday (6/14), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured reader, plus open mic before and after.

•••Fri. (6/15), 7:30 pm: Writers of the New Sun/Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol presents Araceli Collazo. The multi-talented Araceli has performed in Northern California, in Texas and in Mexico. Through words and music, in both Spanish and English, her performance is intensely riveting, yet touched by humor and vulnerability, and accessible to all. La Raza Galeria Posada, 1022-1024 22nd Street, Midtown Sacramento, 916-446-5133 or call Graciela Ramirez, 916-456-5323. Los Escritores’ website is http://escritoresdelnuevosol.com/. Cost: $5 or as you can afford.

•••Also Friday (6/15), 7 PM: Our House Gallery and Framing presents "Visions and Views"—poetry, drama, musical improvisation with spoken word, featuring poets Susan and Joseph Finkleman, who will be joined by Sharon McCorkell on percussion and Francesca Reitano on flute. An open mic follows. There is no charge. Our House is located at 4510 Post St. in El Dorado Hills Town Center; from Sacramento, take the Latrobe exit south for a block and then turn left into the shopping center. The gallery is on the northern end. The Finklemans are the authors of SpiralChap #6, Poems in Two Voices, from Rattlesnake Press. Read more about them on their website: www.visionsandviews.com

•••Also Friday (6/15), 6:30 PM, 1078 Gallery in Chico: Ramekon O'Arwisters will read from his manuscript, In My Truth: Sugar on my Tail, a compilation of poems and autobiography about living in Kernersville, North Carolina in the 1960’s. Recent poems from the collection addressing a range of taboo topics will be included in the reading. O'Arwisters, a San Francisco artist, creates altered women's handbags that are stand-ins for racial, sexual, and political prejudice. His writing was featured in "The Hard Edge of Existence: A Black Gay Sex (& Love) Show" directed by Cedric Brown and performed at the Thick House in San Francisco. His work was published in Paper-Thin/Soul Deep: A Collection of Personal Letters and Journal Entries of African American Men, published by Vantage Press, New York in 2002, the James White Review in 1998, and You’re a Star at MECCA: Highlights of the Open Mic Reading Series at A Different Light Bookstore in San Francisco in 1999. His public readings include the Black Coalition on AIDS (BCA), Audre and Langston Salon in 2006, and Intersection For The Arts 40th Anniversary Block Party in 2005, both sponsored by Black Gay Letters and Arts Movement (B/LGAM). This is a vital additiion to Chico’s gay pride events.

•••Saturday (6/16), 2 PM: Kim Culbertson will be reading in Grass Valley from her new teen novel, Songs for a Teenage Nomad, which will be released this month from Hip Pocket Press. The reading/book signing/party will be held at the Off Center Stage behind the Center for the Arts, Grass Valley, and is sponsored by Literature Alive! Tickets are $10 at local book stores (and at the door, if available) and the proceeds will be used to keep Inkwell, the Grass Valley high school poetry program, up and running.

•••Saturday (6/16), 7-9 PM: Underground Poetry Series presents Glen Stovall & The Stovall Singers and Black Men Expressing Love poem tour, plus open mic. Underground Books, 2814 35th St., Sacramento (35th & Broadway). Info: www.terrymoore.info


The new Tule Review is in!

The Tule Review, the biannual journal of the Sacramento Poetry Center, is available now for $5. Pick one up at The Book Collector and other sundry locations. It's a beautiful edition from Guest Editor (and rattlechapper) Mary Zeppa, featuring many past, present and future SnakePals. Information about ordering or submitting for the next issue available on the SPC website, sacramentopoetrycenter.org. Check it out!

_____________________

WARS I
—Sinon Anton

when i was torn by war
i took a brush
immersed in death
and drew a window
on war's wall
i opened it
searching for
something
But
i saw another war
and a mother
weaving a shroud
for the dead man
still in her womb

____________________

PHANTASMAGORIA
—Sinon Anton

blue rain
addressing a silent orchestra
in a distant morning
the maestro
cannot read
the foggy notes
butterflies
bloom
from your vocal chords
and colonize
my memory

(Today's poetry is from Iraqi Poetry Today: Modern Poetry in Translation, edited by Saadi Simawe for King's College London, 2003. Sinon Anton's work was translated by himself.)

_____________________

—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 (free publications): Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; RR #14 will be out in mid-June. Next deadline, for RR #15, is August 15. VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets #10 (for kids 0-12) is now available at The Book Collector; next deadline is 10/1.

Books/broadsides: May's releases are Grass Valley Poet Ron Tranquilla’s Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006, plus a littlesnake broadside by Julie Valin (Still Life With Sun) and a Rattlesnake Interview Broadside (#2) featuring Khiry Malik Moore and B.L. Kennedy. All are now available at The Book Collector. Rattlechaps are $5; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com or rattlesnakepress.com for ordering information.

Next rattle-read: Rattlesnake Press will present Sacramento Poet Tom Miner at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, June 20 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, North of Everything. Also featured that night will be a new littlesnake broadside (Cominciare Adagio) from Stockton Poet/Publisher David Humphreys, plus #3 in the Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Jane Blue. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/ NOTE: For June, and for June only, our monthly Rattlesnake reading will be on the THIRD Weds. instead of the second one. And there will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August.

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

—Rumi