EXPECT NOTHING
—Alice Walker
Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.
Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.
Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
_________________
CFCP, Inc. Monthly Contests Need YOU:
The California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc.'s monthly poetry contest (prizes $25, $15, $10) could use some more submissions for June; here's your chance! SnakePal and Rattlechapper Colette Jonopulos, Co-Editor of Tiger's Eye, is this month's judge, and the topic sounds like fun: "Plastic Pleasure, Tacky Treasures". Here are the guidelines:
There is no limit to the number of poems submitted each month with the appropriate fees. ($2/poem OR 3 poems/$5. Make checks out to CFCP, Inc.) Except where otherwise indicated, poems are limited to 28 lines of text not including the title or space following the title. Poems for the monthly contests must be postmarked by the last day of the month for that category. (For those entrants who use a post office that does not date-stamp mail, a written date beneath the return address will suffice.) All forms accepted for all categories, within line limits. Send TWO copies of each poem with author's name and address front upper right corner on ONE copy only. Put no identification on the second copy. Poems must not have previously been awarded a money prize. If previously published, please state where. Print contest month on outside of mailing envelope, at the front right top corner of both copies of each poem. If you wish to receive a winners’ list, please send SASE with proper postage and note the contest month on the envelope.
Send to Cleo Griffith, Monthly Contest Editor, CFCP, Inc., 4409 Diamond Court, Salida, CA 95368. For information: cleor36@yahoo.com or (209) 543-1776.
Contest subjects for the rest of 2008 (Judge's name in parentheses):
JUNE: Plastic Pleasures, Tacky Treasures (Colette Jonopulos)
JULY: NO CONTEST
AUGUST: Pearls and Platinum (Cynthia Bryant)
SEPTEMBER: What I should have said (June Saraceno)
OCTOBER: Boredoms (12 lines or less) (Lora Zill)
NOVEMBER: Spangles and Tangles (TBA)
DECEMBER: NO CONTEST
__________________
Birthdays this week: Akhmatova, Ciardi, Dunn, for starters:
MUSE
—Anna Akhmatova
When, in the night, I wait for her, impatient,
Life seems to me, as hanging by a thread.
What just means liberty, or youth, or approbation,
When compared with the gentle piper's tread?
And she came in, threw out the mantle's edges,
Declined to me with a sincere heed.
I say to her, "Did you dictate the Pages
Of Hell to Dante?" She answers, "Yes, I did."
(Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, August, 2000
Edited by Orit Bonver, August, 2000)
__________________
EVERYTHING PROMISED HIM TO ME
—Anna Akhmatova
Everything promised him to me:
the fading amber edge of the sky,
and the sweet dreams of Christmas,
and the wind at Easter, loud with bells,
and the red shoots of the grapevine,
and waterfalls in the park,
and two large dragonflies
on the rusty iron fencepost.
And I could only believe
that he would be mine
as I walked along the high slopes,
the path of burning stones.
__________________
MEN MARRY WHAT THEY NEED
—John Ciardi
Men marry what they need. I marry you,
morning by morning, day by day, night by night,
and every marriage makes this marriage new.
In the broken name of heaven, in the light
that shatters granite, by the spitting shore,
in air that leaps and wobbles like a kite,
I marry you from time and a great door
is shut and stays shut against wind, sea, stone,
sunburst, and heavenfall. And home once more
inside our walls of skin and struts of bone,
man-woman, woman-man, and each the other,
I marry you by all dark and all dawn
and have my laugh at death.
Why should I bother the flies about me? Let them
buzz and do.
Men marry their queen, their daughter, or their mother
by hidden names, but that thin buzz whines through:
where reasons are no reason, cause is true.
Men marry what they need. I marry you.
___________________
THE REVERSE SIDE
—Stephen Dunn
The reverse side also has a reverse side.
—Japanese proverb
It's why when we speak a truth
some of us instantly feel foolish
as if a deck inside us has been shuffled
and there it is—the opposite
of what we said.
And perhaps why as we fall in love
we're already falling out of it.
It's why the terrified and the simple
latch onto one story,
just one version of the great mystery.
Image & afterimage, oh even
the open-minded yearn for a fiction
to rein things in—
the snapshot, the lie of a frame.
How do we not go crazy,
we who have found ourselves compelled
to live with the circle, the ellipsis, the word
not yet written.
__________________
Seed of the Week:
Today's LittleNip:
Mere comings, mere goings. Though now
there's somewhat less coming
in the comings and considerably more
going in the goings...
—from "The Past" by Galway Kinnell
___________________
—Medusa
SnakeWatch: What's Up With Rattlesnake Press
New in June: Day Moon, a new chapbook by James DenBoer, and Mindfully Moon, a littlesnake broadside by Carol Louise Moon, as well as Volume Three of Conversations, our third book of interviews by B.L. Kennedy, featuring Art Beck, Olivia Costellano, Quinton Duval, William S. Gainer, Mario Ellis Hill, Kathryn Hohlwein, James Jee Jobe, Andy Jones, Rebecca Morrison, Viola Weinberg and Phillip T. Nails. All this PLUS a brand-new edition (#18) of Rattlesnake Review! Now available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or (soon) from rattlesnakepress.com/. (Snake contributors and subscribers will be receiving their copies in the mail this week. If you're not among either of these, and can't get down to The Book Collector to get your free copy, send me two bux and I'll mail you one: P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.)
The Snake will be snoozing through July and August, leaving Medusa to carry on alone. Then on September 10, we shall burst back onto the scene with Ten Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell, plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review. (Deadline is August 15.) Meanwhile, look in on Medusa every day, and, for heaven's sake, keep sending stuff! The snakes of Medusa are always hungry...
Medusa's Weekly Menu:
(Contributors are welcome to cook up something for 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 favorite tools.
Thursday: B.L.'s Drive-Bys: Micro-reviews by our irreverent Reviewer-in-Residence, B.L. Kennedy. Send books, CDs, DVDs, etc. to him for possible review (either as a Drive-By or in future issues of Rattlesnake Review) at P.O. Box 160664, Sacramento, CA 95816.
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 ravenous poetic souls.
And poetry! Every day, poetry from writers near and far! The Snakes of Medusa are always hungry.......!
_________________
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.
