Conference of Shadows

Photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento

POETRY IS NOT ALWAYS WORDS*
—Allegra Silberstein, Davis

In silent trust a farmer sows the seeds,
counting miracles like rain and sunlight.
Expecting exposure if you please.
Weeds do their own sowing,
adorn hills and valleys with their artistry—
could be, that’s poetry.
Consider also the sow as in how now, sweet sow,
the one Saint Francis knew
as he placed his hand upon her head
lying in her bed of straw with fourteen teats
and fourteen mouths suckling noisily.
Poetry is not always words
but sometimes words… for this sow
I’ve come to know blossoms
from words sown by Galway Kinnell.

(*After last Thursday’s LittleNip quotation from Audrey Foris)

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Thanks, Allegra! And Taylor Graham sends us her response to yesterday's Seed of the Week, "Beauty in Unexpected Places":

COMING-OUT
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

Between the full green-leafing of native oaks
and one transplant maple that holds its fisted buds
close to the twig-tip,
it doesn’t feel like spring. Too shiver-cold, this
brittle-blue air on which, abruptly

a feather-soft flurry silvers against sun.
From a rotten stump come a dozen—no,
at least a hundred, thousands, unceasing
stream spurting one at a time
from a pin-hole in dry dead wood—

Termites. One by one, one and one-one-
& one again, each single wing-
pair on a fuselage of hunger uncountably
bright and keen as spring has
always been.

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Truth and Beauty

Beauty is truth, truth beauty. —John Keats

A poetry workshop with Marie Howe and Ellen Bass will be held in Taos, New Mexico from May 27-31, 2009 (yes, this is only 2008—but if you'd like to come, don't delay too long, because space is limited). Marie Howe and Ellen Bass are poets who know how to tell the truth in ways that show us the beauty of life, even in the midst of heartbreak and loss. If you want to encounter more truth in your poems, if you want to tell that truth in the most beautiful way possible, if you want to craft poems that reflect the inextricable marriage of truth and beauty, love and death, the luminous and the ordinary, please join us for this special workshop.

This workshop will be held at the Mabel Dodge Luhan house in Taos, New Mexico. Situated at the end of a quiet road not far from the center of town, the inn has housed Georgia O'Keeffe, D.H. Lawrence, Ansel Adams, Martha Graham, and Carl Jung, among many other notables. As an historic inn and conference center which offers retreat-style setting and artistic and literary workshops, the Mabel Dodge Luhan House continues to build on its 80-year history of personal, intellectual and artistic ferment. To see more of the Mabel Dodge Luhan house, visit mabeldodgeluhan.com/. For further info about the structure of the workshop, registration, or traveling, please email Shalom at victors75@rattlebrain.com or call her at 831-423-3064. The basic cost of the workshop is $1250, which includes double occupancy lodging at the Juniper House at the Mabel Dodge Luhan Inn, all meals, and the workshop.

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This week's HandyStuff Quickie is Self-Publish Your Chapbook: Guidelines for Poetry, Short Fiction, Memoir or Nonfiction Collections by Patricia Wellingham-Jones (PWJ Publishing, P.O. Box 238, Tehama, CA 96090). Whether you're publishing it yourself or getting your book ready for another publisher, this little book has lots of info about putting a chapbook together, especially for first-timers. The material is presented in a compressed, checklist format which makes for quick reading and easy use. For ordering info, or for more info on Patricia, see her page on rattlesnakepress.com or go to www.wellinghamjones.com/.

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FIREWIND
—Virginia Hamilton Adair

In September
the Sant' Ana

makes dogs tremble
arsonists go mad
lovers bite in bed

at all hours
sirens howling
into the foothills

along the ridges
rows of hideous suns
at midnight

trees burst

insane deer
run with the horses.

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MOJAVE EVENING
—Virginia Hamilton Adair

Sundown when the wind turns off
we walk over tessellated sand
to Johnstones' ranch.
They have a well.
They shut the dog indoors
and hose-fill old pans
to water the wild things.
On the cooling earth we sit back
so silent the dreams come.
Is this a conference of shadows
father coyote and his family
around the water pans?
And not far enough to mean fear
only decorum
the periscope ears of three
no five rabbits. Waiting.
A narrow moon steals up.
All shadows are brothers.
Now when the tall ears
bob toward the water circle
we know the coyotes are off
into silver spaces
their eyes coming out to hunt
with the other stars.

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Today's LittleNip:

BAKU: A Japanese fabulous creature, the Eater of Dreams. It has the face of a lion, body of a horse, tail of a cow and feet of a tiger. It is invoked to devour evil dreams and render them harmless, or to change them into good fortune when appealed to with the words, "Devour, O Baku".

—from Dictionary of Symbolic and Mythological Animals by J. C. Cooper

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—Medusa


Here's Medusa's weekly menu of features. Contributors are welcome to submit to any and all of these!

Monday: Weekly NorCal poetry calendar

Tuesday: Seed of the Week: Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—whatever might tickle somebody's muse. Pick up the gauntlet and send in your poetic results; and don't be shy about sending in your own triggers, too! All poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review. Send your work to 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.

Wednesday: HandyStuff Quickies: Resources for the poet, including whatever helps ease the pain of writing and/or publishing. Favorite journals to read and/or submit to; books, etc., about writing; organizational tools—you know—HandyStuff! Tell us about your favorites.

Thursday: B.L.'s Drive-Bys: Micro-reviews by our irreverent Reviewer-in-Residence, B.L. Kennedy

Friday: NorCal weekend poetry calendar

Daily (except Sunday): LittleNips: SnakeFood for the Poetic Soul: Daily munchables for poetic thought, including short paragraphs, quotes, wonky words, silliness, little-known poetry/poet facts, and other inspiration—yet another way to feed our ever-hungry poetic souls.

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SnakeWatch: News from Rattlesnake Press

New in April: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn's SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown's blank (well, not really) journal of photos and prompts, MUSINGS (For Capturing Creative Thought). All of these are now available at The Book Collector and will soon be available through rattlesnakepress.com.

Coming in May: Join us on May 12 for the release of Among Summer Pines by Quinton Duval; a littlesnake broadside, Before Naming, by Stephani Schaefer; and Volume Three of Conversations, our third book of interviews by B.L. Kennedy. That's at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM.

Also in May: Deadline for Issue #18 of Rattlesnake Review is May 15. Free copies of Issue #17 are available at The Book Collector, or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.


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). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.