Keep A Small Purse

St. Patrick's Chapel
Photo courtesy of Fotosearch

HER ANXIETY
—William Butler Yeats

Earth in beauty dressed
Awaits returning spring.
All true love must die,
Alter at the best
Into some less thing.
Prove that I lie.

Such body lovers have,
Such exacting breath,
That they touch or sigh.
Every touch they give,
Love is nearer death.
Prove that I lie.

__________________

This week in NorCal poetry:

•••Monday (3/17), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Blake More at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Blake More resides along the tree, ocean, and character-lined vistas of the not-so-lost Mendocino coast. Engaged in many creative expressions, Blake’s work spans the spectrum from poetry, fiction, to non-fiction, to plays and performance pieces, to theatrical costume and mixed media functional art pieces, assemblage sculpture and wildly painted poetry art cars. The author of three full-length books (New Age Anonymous: 12 Steps for the Recovering New Ager, The Photon Energy Diet, and How To Heal Your Headache Naturally) and five books of poetry (Lingua Franca, Late-Eve(all) Woman In Paradise, I Scribble; Therefore I Am, postcards from the sun, and godmeat), Blake’s work has also appeared in magazines and journals worldwide (including Utne Reader, Yoga Journal, Alternative Medicine Digest, Japan International Journal, Nippon View, Tokyo Today, and Tokyo Time Out). Her original solo performance pieces and ensemble plays have appeared on streets and stages in New York, Tokyo, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Los Angeles, Marin, Sonoma, and the Mendocino coast. She has worked with the Oakland East Bay Symphony, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the Bay Area Video Coalition, The Marsh Theater, The Arena Theater, Gualala Arts, California Poets In The schools, Laughing Squid, KZYX Radio, KTDE Radio, SF Liberation Radio, and Radio Amsterdam. She coordinates a monthly poetry series and an annual poetry and jazz event on the south coast of Mendocino County. Blake’s newest book, godmeat (Beatitude Press, January 2008), is a collection of poetry, prose and color artwork and includes a poem movie compilation DVD. To learn more about godmeat, go to www.godmeat.com/. To explore Blake’s many other creative endeavors, please go to her website: www.snakelyone.com/.

•••Thursday (3/20), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured readers and open mic before and after. Info: 916-441-3931.

•••Friday (3/21), 7-8 PM: Poetry in the Hills Poetry Reading at the Event Center at Raley's in Placerville, 166 Placerville Dr. (take the Forni exit off of Hwy 50 and go north; Raley’s is about a mile down the road). Call 530-902-4591 for info. Featured readers are James Lee Jobe and Taylor Graham. An open mike follows. There is no charge. Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada, and also helps her husband (a retired wildlife biologist) with his field projects. Her poems have appeared in International Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, The New York Quarterly, Poetry International, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere, including the anthology, California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Heyday Books, 2004). Her latest book, The Downstairs Dance Floor (Texas Review Press, 2006), was awarded the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. She has two chapbooks from Rattlesnake Press and currently serves as a columnist for Rattlesnake Review. James Lee Jobe has been published in Manzanita, Tule Review, Pearl, and many other periodicals. His poems are also included in The Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems; Jewel of the Valley: A California Anthology; and How to be This Man: The Walter Pavlich Memorial Anthology. From 1994-1999, Jobe was the editor and publisher of One Dog Press, a poetry monthly. He also edited the quarterly, Clan of the Dog. Jobe has four chapbooks published; the most recent is What God Said When She Finally Answered (Rattlesnake Press).

•••Also Friday (3/21), 7:30 PM: Los Escritores Del Nuevo Sol presents An Evening of Poetry: Bilinguish & Y Preguntas, a reading by Jim Michael and Zheyla Henriksen. La Raza Galeria Posada, 1024 22nd St., Sacramento. $5 or as you can afford. Info: 916-446-5133 or www.larazagaleriaposada.org.


Bed of Roses Love Sonnet Contest

JoAnn Anglin sends us this note from Garrison Keillor: It's time for another poetry contest on "A Prairie Home Companion" and we've decided to make it a sonnet contest and to hold it on April 12, read the best entrants on our live broadcast from New York, and invite our audience — at home and at the theater — to vote a winner. We'll accept rhymed or unrhymed fourteen-line sonnets. We think they should be love poems, but love of what, who's to say. Absolutely must be original. Must be submitted by Friday, April 11, at midnight Central Time.

* Submission Form >> http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/features/lyrics/2008/form/

* Rules and Guidelines >> http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/features/lyrics/rules.shtml


Gold Rush Writers Conference May 2-4

The third annual Gold Rush Writers Retreat, featuring some good workshops with Karen Joy Fowler, Antoinette May, and more in the Leger Hotel in Mokelumne Hill will be held from May 2-4. Karen Joy Fowler’s award-winning short stories have been anthologized again and again. Learn the story behind her best seller, The Jane Austen Book Club, which has been made into a movie. Or study novel writing with Antoinette May, author of Pilate’s Wife, a historical saga translated into 17 languages. But this is only the beginning! There will be workshops in memoir, poetry, flash fiction, romance fiction, self publishing, computer research, short stories, novel writing and much, much more—plus a picnic supper in a Victorian garden, dinner at the historic Hotel Leger and a pool-side brunch! All yours for just $135! Info: www.goldrushwriters.com or toni@antoinettemay.com/.

Manzanita's Monika Rose says: This is a valuable conference, priced reasonably, with a friendly atmosphere. If you haven't signed up yet, you might want to do that, as there is a price break for early birds. The price goes up at the end of this month, so sign up now and STRIKE IT RICH.

___________________

GOOD-BYE TO THE FLOWERCLOCK
—John Haines

The hour belonged to hemlock
and nightshade; all around me
the dayflowers perished,
the garden I planted in my flesh
and watered with my blood.

The hour was wound tight
under the bark of the birch tree,
in the ice of the streambed,
and lay like an iron shadow
on the sundial I wore as a heart.

It was time to push away
the four walls of the years,
to go to the end of the path
and go beyond...

The flowerclock whirled
in the darkness, all its petals
flew off, and the stem
swung hollow and broken
like a blade of straw.

___________________

SHEPHERD'S PURSE
—John Haines

Poverty Weed or Beggar Tick,
some days in the field
are leaner than others.

Let the stalk be strong,
the flowerhead high
and the seedbox full—

November like a tax collector
will come to the poor,
the cut and the shaken,

with nothing to save
but their paper mittens
and a straw whistle.

In a time of hard money
keep a small purse,
spend little.

Be sure to have more
than one heart,
and you may survive.

__________________

—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

The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series.

Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!