It's the berries!
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
RUNAWAY COLORS
—Carl Sandburg
The smoke of these landscapes has gone God knows where.
The sun touches them off with shot gold of an evening,
with a mother's grey eyes singing to her children.
The blue smudge on a haystack a mile off is gone. God know where.
The yellow dust of a sheet over Emil Hawkinson's cornfield,
The ribbons of red picked at by the high-flying hard-crying crows,
These too are in the pits of the west God knows where.
_____________________
LACKAWANNA TWILIGHT
—Carl Sandburg
Twilight and little mountain
towns along the Lehigh, sundown
and grey lavender flush.
Miners with dinner buckets and
headlamps, state constabulary on
horses, guns in holsters, Scranton,
Wilkesbarre, the Lackawanna Trail.
Twilight and the blessed armistice
of late afternoon and early evening.
Twilight and the sport sheets, movies,
chain programs, magazines, comics,
revival meetings.
Twilight and headlights on the new
hard roads, boy friend and girl friend,
dreams, romance, bread, wages, babies,
homes.
____________________
Calendar additions for this week:
•••Tonight, Wednesday (10/17), 9-10 PM: Poetry Night at Bistro 33 has moved to a new day and time, the first and third Wednesdays of the month from 9-10, beginning tonight with a reading by a Davis favorite, Eve West Bessier. Co-hosted by University Writing Program faculty "Dr. Andy" Jones and Brad Henderson, who look forward to seeing friends, friends of poetry, and lovers of great entertainment in the banquet room of Bistro 33 (downtown Davis, 226 F Street). The show starts at 9 PM and is FREE. After the featured poet, plan to stay until 10:30 PM for the energetic open-mic featuring novice poets and songwriters from around the greater Davis/Sacramento area. Many poets are currently scheduled to appear at Bistro 33 this fall, including James Ragan and Sandra Gilbert. Info: Bistro 33 at (530) 756-4556.
Eve West Bessier holds a B.A. in English from San Francisco State University and a Master of Education from the University of California, Davis, where she has worked as a researcher since 1990. She is an Area Coordinator and teacher with California Poets in the Schools, a jazz vocalist, vocal coach and certified life coach. She received the 2000 Kathryn Hohlwein Award and took First Place for Poetry in the 2000 California Focus on Writers Contest. Her publications include: The North American Review, Kalliope, Lyric, Manzanita, Seeker, The Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems, and Heart Flip. She has two chapbooks, Roots Music and Splash published by dPress. Her poem, “Zoo You, Boogaloo”, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2003. For more on Eve West Bessier, see http://www.evewestbessier.com/
•••Tomorrow, Thursday (10/18), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Jill Stockinger, John Bell, and Bill Pieper at the Carmichael Public Library, Marconi Avenue, Carmichael. Jill Stockinger, librarian in the Sacramento Public Library System, has been writing poetry since she was 12 years old. She received her BA with Honors in English Literature from U. Wisconsin-Madison and then her Master's in Library Science from U. Wisconsin Graduate Library School in 1984. She has helped edit four small poetry magazines, the last one being NFG out of Canada which died with Issue 5, volume 2 in August 2004. She has been published in a few small magazines but not lately. John Bell returned to Sacramento after many decades away. Long after wowing the Center Joint School District by winning its spelling bee as a fifth grader (in a year he would rather not disclose), he graduated from the University of New Mexico with a BA in Spanish language and literature and from Wichita State University with an MFA in creative writing. After years of suffering the humidity of Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas, he accepted a post at American River College, where he teaches composition and creative writing. He lives in the city of Sacramento with an elderly tomcat named Butch. Long-time Nevada City and Sacramento resident Bill Pieper is author of the novels Belonging (2006), Gomez (2005) and the award-winning Fool Me Once (2003), as well as the novella collection, So Trust Me (2000). In September 2006 he was named Best Local Book Author in the Sacramento News & Review's annual Best of Sacramento issue. A graduate of Dartmouth College, Bill studied creative writing at Sacramento State University and was a founding member of the writers' group, Wednesday Muse. and the publishing co-op, Pacific Slope Press. He is also a frequent speaker at literary events. In recent years these have included the Sacramento State Summer Writers' Conference, lectures at the College of San Mateo, Listening to the Wild (sponsored by Nevada County Literature Alive), the Sacramento Library Foundation's Authors on the Move dinner, and the Focus on Writers Conference sponsored by Friends of the Sacramento Public Library. In addition, he has discussed his books and writing on Sacramento's Channel 18 TV and many times on radio, including KVMR in Nevada City, KXJZ in Sacramento, as well as on KQED, KPFA and KUSF in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bill's varied interests in art, music, bicycling, fencing, cooking, fly fishing, photography, tennis, California history, and Buddhism not only inform his work but make him an engaging interview guest. For further information, please see his website at http:// stores.ebay.com/bpbooks. It is updated regularly with news, reviews and announcements of his future reading and media events. Of late, Snake fans will recognize him in Conversations, the new interview anthology out from Rattlesnake Press.
•••Saturday (10/20), 8 PM: 3rd Eye Collective presents: AI Live is back! Sol Collective Gallery in Sacramento, 2010 Del Paso Boulevard. Doors open and Open Mic/Freestyle Battle sign-ups start @ 7:07 PM. This month features Freex, Akronems, Justin Scales and N2Deep! All ages! $10 at the door. Info: www.myspace.com/3rdeyecollective or www.youtube.com/3rdeyecollective. Conocida, 3rd Eye Collective Business Manager, 925.565.3579, conocida3ec@yahoo.com or www.artisticinsomnia.com
_____________________
TWO FISH
—Carl Sandburg
when the two fish spoke
their speech was scarlet
they met in a bowl
of molten gold air
they swung in an arch
of seven rainbow sheens
they swam in a grotto
one of a thousand grottoes
they shook their fins
in a green feather dust
____________________
SPEECH
—Carl Sandburg
There was
what we call "words,"
a lot of language,
syllables,
each syllable made of air.
Then were was
s i l e n c e,
no talk at all,
no more syllables
shaped by living tongues
out of wandering air.
Thus all tongues
slowly talk themselves
into s i l e n c e.
_____________________
—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).
SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:
Journals: The latest issue of Rattlesnake Review (#15) is available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or send $2 to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. Next deadline is November 15. The two journals for youngsters, Snakelets and Vyper, are on hiatus; no deadlines this Fall.
New in October: Rattlesnake Press celebrated Sacramento Poetry Month on Wednesday, October 10 with the release of Spiral, a rattlechap by Kate Wells; Autumn on My Mind, a free littlesnake broadside by Mary Field; and #5 in the free Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Laureate Julia Connor. Also released that night was Conversations, Volume One of the Rattlesnake Interview Anthology Series (a collection of B.L.'s conversations with eleven Sacramento poets), as well as a free broadside tribute to poet/publisher Ben L. Hiatt, commissioned by Rattlesnake Press and designed by Richard Hansen from poetry by B.L. Kennedy and artwork by Patrick Grizzell. All of these are available at The Book Collector, 100 24th St., Sacramento, or from rattlesnakepress.com, or write to kathykieth@hotmail.com/.
Coming in November: The Snake is proud to announce the release of Among Neighbors, a rattlechap from Taylor Graham; Home is Where You Hang Your Wings, a littlesnake broadside from frank andrick; and A Poet's Book of Days, a perpetual calendar featuring the art and photography of Katy Brown. Come celebrate the release of all of these on Wednesday, November 14, 7:30 PM at The Book Collector.
