Joy Harold Helsing
DIFFERENT GODS
—Joy Harold Helsing, Magalia
In the shadow of Shasta
below the snow-graced peak
where Spirits dwelled
An RV park
three motels
four gas stations
three fast-food outlets
two Chinese buffets
a Mexican restaurant
over-crowded truck stop
____________________
Thanks, Joy! Joy Harold Helsing is an ex-salesclerk, ex-secretary, ex-textbook editor, ex-psychologist, ex-college instructor, ex-New Englander and ex-San Franciscan who now plays with words in the woods of Magalia, CA. As a college undergraduate, she won two top awards for poetry in the Atlantic Monthly student writing contests. Her work has appeared in The Aurorean, Bellowing Ark, Brevities, California Quarterly, centrifugal eye, Leading Edge, The Mid-America Poetry Review, Möbius, Poetalk, Poetry Depth Quarterly, Psychopoetica, The Raintown Review, Rattlesnake Review, Red Owl, and elsewhere. She has published three chapbooks, and in 2005 she published her first book, Confessions of the Hare (PWJ Publishing).
NEXT EPISODE
—Joy Harold Helsing
Teenage girl
buys pot at school
Home alone
makes brownies
Single mom
gets home early
Girl hides brownies
in closet
Dog discovers goodies
eats same
gets high
OD’s
Rush to vet
doggy saved
Girl confesses
sent to room
grounded
“forever”
Mom collapses
in front of TV
Turns on
soap opera
_____________________
Chico Artoberfest:
Speaking of our north-valley friends: if you're headed to Chico during October, be sure to go downtown and enjoy the Window Art Project. In conjunction with the city-wide, month-long Artoberfest, artists display their work in business-place windows. Skyway Poets (Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Joy Harold Helsing, Sally Allen McNall, Audrey C. Small, Renee Goularte, Lara Gularte, Stephani Schaefer, Gloria Conly, Zora Maksente and Ann Doro) have the 'Poetry Window' at the Chamber of Commerce, 300 W. Salem St. (across from the parking garage), where poems are posted for the public to read.
This coming Sunday:
•••Sunday (10/14), 7 PM: Poets Corner presents Sacramento's Brad Buchanan reading and signing his book, Miracle Shirker, followed by open mic @ Barnes & Noble, Stockton, Weberstown Mall.
Conversations:
Volume One of the new interview anthology from Rattlesnake Press, Conversations, is now available at The Book Collector. Featuring B.L. Kennedy's interviews with eleven writers from the NorCal area, it is the first installment of a series that is intended to chronicle and reflect our astounding poetry scene with 108 spiral-bound pages of poetry talk, plus a few poems and pix scattered in. If you can't get to The Book Collector (1008 24th St., Sac.) or if they run out, write to me and I'll mail you one ($8, $10 including postage).
Also available now is Kate Wells' new chapbook, Spiral ($6 if you want me to mail you one); Mary Field's littlesnake broadside, Autumn On My Mind (free with SASE); and B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series #5, which features Sacramento Poet Laureate Julia Connor (also free). All of these are available, of course, at The Book Collector, or email me at kathykieth@hotmail.com.
Coming Soon: Taylor Graham
Rattlesnake Press is proud to announce the release of a new chapbook, Among Neighbors, from world-reknowned poet Taylor Graham. Among Neighbors will premiere on Wednesday, November 14 at The Book Collector. More about that later... Also premiering that night will be Home is Where You Hang Your Wings, a littlesnake broadside by frank andrick.
______________________
CULTURE CLASH
—Joy Harold Helsing
Japanese artists
paint bends of grass
slants of reed
willows over water
plum blossoms over snow
On golden screens
that we display
in overheated rooms
____________________
And now, in a completely different mood, this from Tom Goff:
COUPERIN UNDONE
—Tom Goff, Carmichael
Stroganoff schmoganoff,
Nikolaus Harnoncourt,
hearing a harpsichord
student’s gavottes:
“Why no excitement?
Musicologically,
none erudite lent?
What crude little snots!”
_____________________
Thanks, Tom, but oh woe is us! Now we'll have double dactyl rhythms running through our heads all day...!
—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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).
—Joy Harold Helsing, Magalia
In the shadow of Shasta
below the snow-graced peak
where Spirits dwelled
An RV park
three motels
four gas stations
three fast-food outlets
two Chinese buffets
a Mexican restaurant
over-crowded truck stop
____________________
Thanks, Joy! Joy Harold Helsing is an ex-salesclerk, ex-secretary, ex-textbook editor, ex-psychologist, ex-college instructor, ex-New Englander and ex-San Franciscan who now plays with words in the woods of Magalia, CA. As a college undergraduate, she won two top awards for poetry in the Atlantic Monthly student writing contests. Her work has appeared in The Aurorean, Bellowing Ark, Brevities, California Quarterly, centrifugal eye, Leading Edge, The Mid-America Poetry Review, Möbius, Poetalk, Poetry Depth Quarterly, Psychopoetica, The Raintown Review, Rattlesnake Review, Red Owl, and elsewhere. She has published three chapbooks, and in 2005 she published her first book, Confessions of the Hare (PWJ Publishing).
NEXT EPISODE
—Joy Harold Helsing
Teenage girl
buys pot at school
Home alone
makes brownies
Single mom
gets home early
Girl hides brownies
in closet
Dog discovers goodies
eats same
gets high
OD’s
Rush to vet
doggy saved
Girl confesses
sent to room
grounded
“forever”
Mom collapses
in front of TV
Turns on
soap opera
_____________________
Chico Artoberfest:
Speaking of our north-valley friends: if you're headed to Chico during October, be sure to go downtown and enjoy the Window Art Project. In conjunction with the city-wide, month-long Artoberfest, artists display their work in business-place windows. Skyway Poets (Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Joy Harold Helsing, Sally Allen McNall, Audrey C. Small, Renee Goularte, Lara Gularte, Stephani Schaefer, Gloria Conly, Zora Maksente and Ann Doro) have the 'Poetry Window' at the Chamber of Commerce, 300 W. Salem St. (across from the parking garage), where poems are posted for the public to read.
This coming Sunday:
•••Sunday (10/14), 7 PM: Poets Corner presents Sacramento's Brad Buchanan reading and signing his book, Miracle Shirker, followed by open mic @ Barnes & Noble, Stockton, Weberstown Mall.
Conversations:
Volume One of the new interview anthology from Rattlesnake Press, Conversations, is now available at The Book Collector. Featuring B.L. Kennedy's interviews with eleven writers from the NorCal area, it is the first installment of a series that is intended to chronicle and reflect our astounding poetry scene with 108 spiral-bound pages of poetry talk, plus a few poems and pix scattered in. If you can't get to The Book Collector (1008 24th St., Sac.) or if they run out, write to me and I'll mail you one ($8, $10 including postage).
Also available now is Kate Wells' new chapbook, Spiral ($6 if you want me to mail you one); Mary Field's littlesnake broadside, Autumn On My Mind (free with SASE); and B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series #5, which features Sacramento Poet Laureate Julia Connor (also free). All of these are available, of course, at The Book Collector, or email me at kathykieth@hotmail.com.
Coming Soon: Taylor Graham
Rattlesnake Press is proud to announce the release of a new chapbook, Among Neighbors, from world-reknowned poet Taylor Graham. Among Neighbors will premiere on Wednesday, November 14 at The Book Collector. More about that later... Also premiering that night will be Home is Where You Hang Your Wings, a littlesnake broadside by frank andrick.
______________________
CULTURE CLASH
—Joy Harold Helsing
Japanese artists
paint bends of grass
slants of reed
willows over water
plum blossoms over snow
On golden screens
that we display
in overheated rooms
____________________
And now, in a completely different mood, this from Tom Goff:
COUPERIN UNDONE
—Tom Goff, Carmichael
Stroganoff schmoganoff,
Nikolaus Harnoncourt,
hearing a harpsichord
student’s gavottes:
“Why no excitement?
Musicologically,
none erudite lent?
What crude little snots!”
_____________________
Thanks, Tom, but oh woe is us! Now we'll have double dactyl rhythms running through our heads all day...!
—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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).
