Here you are—alive.
Would you like to make a comment?
—Mary Oliver
Would you like to make a comment?
—Mary Oliver
SONNET OF INTIMACY
—Vinicius de Moraes (Trans. by Elizabeth Bishop)
Farm afternoons, there's much too much blue air.
I go out sometimes, follow the pasture track,
Chewing a blade of sticky grass, chest bare,
In threadbare pajamas of three summers back,
To the little rivulets in the river-bed
For a drink of water, cold and musical,
And if I spot in the brush a glow of red,
A raspberry, spit its blood at the corral.
The smell of cow manure is delicious.
The cattle look at me unenviously
And when there comes a sudden stream and hiss
Accompanied by a look not unmalicious,
All of us, animals, unemotionally
Partake together of a pleasant piss.
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The baby vulture photo was my idea, but thanks to Margaret Ellis (Peggy) Hill for the Mary Oliver quote which is our SEED-OF-THE-WEEK. Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers that you have come up with, such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—send us whatever you think might tickle somebody's muse. I'll pick one and post it on a Tuesday, then Medusa readers are encouraged to rise to the occasion with their responses to your triggers. All poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review, starting with the up-comer issue (#17) which is due out in mid-March. (Be sure I have your snail address so I can send you one.) Send your work to me at kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline for SOW; respond today, tomorrow, or whenever the muse arrives. Print 'em out, maybe, save 'em for a dry spell? When you send us work, though, just let us know which "seed" it was that inspired you.
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Woodland needs your poems!
•••Saturday, March 15, 11 AM-3 PM: Help Woodland celebrate the beauty of trees with poems at Woodland's Arbor Day Celebration at The Gibson House Museum, Gibson Road, Woodland. Either write a poem or find a good one to share, and either email it to damasa@pacbell.net or mail it to Tree Poems, 42 Clark Court, Woodland, CA 95776. Indicate whether you'd be interested in reading your poem at the event, or whether you'd prefer to have it displayed. For questions, contact Marjorie Brown at 530-662-2124 or Chris Gray at 530-661-3311.
Three up-coming retreats within spitting distance:
•••April 4-6, Friday 7 PM til Sunday noon: Nevada City Poetry Retreat in Nevada City, CA. Fee is $135. Saturday lunch & light snacks provided. Join Nils Peterson and Sally Ashton for a Gold Country get-away in historic Nevada City near Grass Valley. We will divide our time between creating new poems and revisioning old ones. You'll be invited to see if a "golden thread" can lead you to the place where the inner and outer landscapes meet. Saturday evening will be a session working on reading and presentation technique. In your free time, you may wish to explore historic Nevada City’s charming downtown or hiking trails.
Schedule:
Friday
7-10pm Reception and Session 1
Saturday
9:30-Noon Session 2
Lunch at the cabin
2-5pm Session 3
Out to no-host Dinner
Evening Session: Reading/performance technique
Sunday
9:30-Noon Session 4
Retreat ends
To Register: Sally Ashton at sallyashtn@aol.com/ or 408-892-3115 OR Nils Peterson nissepete@aol.com/. $50 deposit due at registration. Most meals & lodging not included; please make your own arrangements.
•••Sunday, April 6, Sutterwriters is proud to sponsor a one-day writing workshop with Ellen Bass. Chat with Ellen over coffee from 9:30-10 AM, then workshop from 10 AM to 4:30 PM. Fee: $125.00 (includes catered lunch). If you missed her last time, don't wait to sign up for this one! We will learn about the craft of writing and get her insightful critique on our writing. She will critique either one poem or up to 3 pages of prose. In order to give Ellen time to critique your work prior to the workshop, the writing is due by March 15th.
Ellen Bass teaches poetry and creative writing in Santa Cruz and in other gorgeous places, such as Big Sur, British Columbia, Mallorca, and Tuscany. We are extremely lucky to have her in Sacramento. Please visit her website at http://ellenbass.com for more information and to see what others have said about her workshops!
If you are interested in attending, please email Billie Custock at bcustock@comcast.net and she will send you the registration details. Space is limited, so sign up early! Info: http://sutterwriters.com/ellenbass.html
•••Dorianne Laux will be teaching two workshops in Santa Cruz: either Saturday, April 5 or Sunday, April 6, each from 10 AM to 4 PM. Dorianne will offer individual critique of one poem from each participant. She'll also give a talk about some aspect of the craft of poetry and share some of her own experiences as a poet. She is willing to read one poem from each participant before the workshop. If you'd like to submit a poem for critique, please send it via email by March 25 to Shalom Victor at victors75@rattlebrain.com. Also, please bring 14 copies of your poem to the workshop for the other group members. There'll be a maximum of 14 students. The cost of the workshop is $185. Registration is on a first-come basis. To register, please make your check payable to Ellen Bass and mail to Shalom Victor at 338 Walnut Ave., Santa Cruz, CA 95060.
DORIANNE LAUX’s fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon (W.W. Norton), is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award. It was also short-listed for the 2006 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for the most outstanding book of poems published in the United States in the previous year, and chosen by the Kansas City Star as one of the ten best books of poetry published in 2005. Laux is author of three collections of poetry from BOA Editions: Awake (1990) introduced by Philip Levine, reprinted this year by Eastern Washington University Press, What We Carry (1994), finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Smoke, (2000). She is co-author of The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (W.W. Norton, 1997). Her work has appeared in the Best of the American Poetry Review, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and has been twice included in Best American Poetry. She has been awarded with a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She waited tables and wrote poems in San Diego, L.A., Berkeley, Petaluma and Juneau, Alaska before moving to Eugene where she’s now a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Oregon. In the fall, she'll be Professor of Creative Writing at North Carolina State University.
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If the vulture and quote don't inspire you, how about a little surrealism?
UNBREAKABLE FISHNET
—Andre Breton
(to Gala Eluard)
The nightwatch performs its usual now-you-see-it-now-you-don'ts in the dormitories. At night two multicolored windows are left half open. Through the first, vices with black eyebrows creep in, young women doing penance go to the other to lean out. Otherwise nothing could disturb the pretty woodwork of sleep. We see hands putting on muffs of water. Blackberry bushes get tangled up on big empty beds while white pillows float on silences more apparent than real. At midnight the underground room fills with stars around the theaters, the ones where opera glasses play the leading roles. The garden's filled with nickel-plated bells. There's a message instead of a lizard beneath every stone.
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MAGPIE
—Shinkichi Takahashi
I start across the bridge.
Coming toward me from the other side,
A woman, drenched and perhaps
Having failed to purchase apples, mutters—
"Sardines, sardines." Below, listening,
A magpie bobs mournfully up and down.
It is a long black bridge,
So long that to cross it is unthinkable.
My white breath dies, rises, and dies.
Life: dust on a bridge rail.
Wars, revolutions: bubbles on a stream.
Late in the frosty night, alone,
I cross an endless bridge.
__________________
—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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. 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: News From Rattlesnake Press:
Coming March 12: Rattlesnake Press will be releasing a chapbook from Ann Privateer (Attracted to Light), a littlesnake broadside from Jeanine Stevens (Eclipse), Conversations Vol. 2 of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#17—next deadline is May 15). Join us to celebrate all of this at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on March 12 at 7:30 PM.
