THE PRESENCE OF DAYLILIES
IN A LONG MARRIAGE
—Colette Jonopulos
You fry eggs in
the cast iron skillet
that takes my two
hands to lift, nestle
seeded blackberry
jam into crevices
of thick sliced French
bread. All morning
you move pans from
burners to sink, pour
coffee into identical
mugs. By afternoon
the daylilies drop their
once-pink lips onto the
kitchen floor, leave
behind crossed
stems, vase full
of brackish water
floating yellow dots
of pollen. There are
too many years
behind us to doubt
how Saturday begins,
to imagine anything
but daylilies in their
infinite undoing.
__________________
I SPY
—Be Davison Herrera
a robin scurries
across the freshly
rain washed grass
joined by another
and yet another
in the constant
search always on
since apparently food
is generally abundant
on this hillside
under fruiting trees
since the robins
keep coming back.
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Thanks, Be and Colette! Having just returned from Oregon myself, today we celebrate two ex-Sacramentans/now Oregonians, Colette Jonopulos (Eugene) and Be Herrera (Corvallis). Colette Jonopulos lives, writes, and edits in Eugene, Oregon. She has two non-fiction books in print: The One Thing Needful and Living Waters for a Parched Land. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals, and she has published a littlesnake broadside and a chapbook (The Burden of Wings) for Rattlesnake Press. She currently co-edits Tiger’s Eye: A Journal of Poetry with JoAn Osborne. Click on her name to the right of this column for Tiger Tracks, the Tiger’s beautiful blog.
Be Davison Herrera says she is 66 and thriving: poet, circumnavigator, handspinner, welder, labyrinth designer. Aspiration: to construct a phrase key for the tranquillity of the Milky Way Galaxy or do backup for Willie Nelson in August, whichever comes first. Be will be hosting a reading in Sacramento later in June; watch for details. She was also very instrumental in connecting Sacramento and the Vietnamese Poetry Society (see previous issues of Rattlesnake Review for information about them and their work).
__________________
This week in NorCal poetry:
•••Tonight (Monday, 6/2), 7:30 PM: Time Tested Books and the Sacramento Poetry Center present Theresa McCourt (Poet), Sasha Tkacheff (Violinist), and C-Sus Vocal Jazz Group. 1114 21st St., Sacramento. Info: http://sacramentopoetrycenter.blogspot.com/. On May 14 of this year, Theresa McCourt was awarded the Albert and Elaine Borchard Fellowship in poetry through the University of California, Davis, creative writing program for the 2008 Tomales Bay Workshops. In both 2007 and currently in 2008, she has been part of the Artist Residency Institute, through the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission. In January 2007, her poetry won a 1st place recognition in the Maggi H. Meyer Memorial Contest, and in Fall 2006, she won a 1st in the Ina Coolbrith Poetry Contest. In 2005, she won a 3rd in the 79th Annual Berkeley Poets Contest. In March 2007, she received an honorable mention in the Sacramento Poetry Center's poetry contest. Credits include mamazine.com, Brevities, Poetry Now, Song of the San Joaquin, Rattlesnake Review, Toyon, and Night and Day. Theresa is a transplant from Manchester, England, with a BA in English Literature and Drama from Birmingham, England, and a MA in English Literature (with an emphasis on teaching writing) from CSU Sacramento. While in business for herself, Theresa provided writing seminars and wrote freelance articles for national and local magazines and newspapers, including an eight-year run as a biweekly columnist for The Sacramento Bee.
Born in Woodland, California of Ukranian-Russian heritage, violinist and songwriter Sasha Tkacheff began studying the violin at age eight with Ingrid Peters at the Pease Conservatory of Music. Her first performance as a soloist was at her sixth grade graduation from Foulks Ranch Elementary School. Over the past seven years, Sasha has performed numerous times, participated in chamber music workshops, Sacramento Youth Symphony concerts, and served as concert mistress with the Sacramento Youth Symphony Junior Orchestra. Sasha is a junior at Franklin High School and is an honor student. “My music is lyrical, but modern. It is romantic, passionate, jazzy.” Influenced by Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Sting and Regina Carter, Sasha’s goal is “to get my ideas out to people so they can be inspired just like I was by the people before me. Musically, my goal is to become a great performer and play with an abandon that no one has seen before.”
C-Sus is an award-winning vocal jazz group from Sacramento State. This octet, consisting of four women and four men, includes Kristen Poirier and Caitlin Clarke, sopranos; Kate Janzen and Gaw Vang, altos; Ramsey Kouri and Tim Weiss, tenors; Steve Bingen, baritone, and Bob Stanley, bass.
•••Every Tuesday night: 3rd Eye Collective presents the live interactive webcast poetry show, Life Sentence (7:30-10 PM, Coffee Garden, 2904 Franklin Blvd, Sacramento, www.ArtisticInsomnia.com/).
•••Wednesday (6/4), 9 PM: Sacramento City College Professor Jeff Knorr will read his poetry at Bistro 33’s Poetry Night. Jeff Knorr is the author is three books of poetry: The Third Body, Keeper, and Standing Up to the Day. His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Chelsea, Connecticut Review, The Journal, Red Rock Review, Barrow Street, and Like Thunder: Poets Respond to Violence in America. A sought-out visiting author and professor, Jeff Knorr has edited, judged, and been a visiting writer for various conferences and festivals. He is the founding co-editor and poetry editor of the Clackamas Literary Review, has been an invited judge for the Willamette Award in Poetry and the Red Rock Poetry Award, a visiting writer for venues and festivals such as Wordstock, University of Pennsylvania’s Kelly Writer’s House, The Des Moines Festival of Literary Arts, and CSU Sacramento’s Summer Writers Conference. He currently directs the River City Writer’s Series at Sacramento City College and serves on the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission’s Poet Laureate committee.
Poetry Night at Bistro 33 takes place on the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 226 F Street in Davis. The featured reader begins at 9 PM, and an open mic follows the feature. All Poetry Night events are free and open to the public. The hosts of Poetry Night are Brad Henderson and Andy Jones. Info: (530) 756-4556
•••Thursday (6/5), 9-11 AM: The final workshop in the 2008 series at Cache Creek Nature Preserve (Prose Poetry II) begins this Thursday, June 5, and is offered free to the general public, thanks to support from the Teichert Foundation and Cache Creek Nature Preserve. To register, email Rae Gouirand at rgouirand@gmail.com with your name, email address, and phone number; there are still a few spaces available.
•••Thursday (6/5), 12-1:30 PM: Join California Lawyers for the Arts for a workshop. San Francisco attorney and publishing expert Robert Pimm will discuss legal and business aspects related to independent self-publishing, including relevant agreements, copyright protection, product distribution, publishing strategies and other concerns. There will be time for Q/A, so you can ask questions pertinent to your specific situations. You are welcome to bring your lunch. The Avid Reader at the Tower 1600 Broadway, Sacramento. Admission: $5 students/seniors, $10 members of CLA, $20 others.
•••Thursday (6/5), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured readers, with open mic before and after.
•••Sunday (6/8), 4 PM: Charles Entrekin will be reading from his new novel, Red Mountain: Birmingham, Alabama, 1965, at the Off Center Stage at the Center for the Arts in Grass Valley.
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3:30 AM IN STARSHINE
—Be Davison Herrera
the good thing is
most of us die
before we've caused too
much trouble for ourselves
and others no matter
how tenaciously we try
to hang on clamping
our dreams of love
to poundage and length
archaic notions of peacemaking
through war or economic
power played as politics
without awareness we dance
in conjunctive connection with
those who quietly keep
all alive: the trees
the wind the rain
turning turning us all
a ball in space.
__________________
MANIFESTO FOR AN ILLNESS
—Colette Jonopulos
as the moon rises
becomes white on the sky
white on our faces
I will hold you
while you ease into tiredness
your head held stiff on the thin
stem of your neck
and later while you sleep I
will lay my arm across
your waist breathe so quietly you
might guess my absence
I will stay awake while you form
dream words in the worlds
you inhabit without me
movement will alert me
to your awakening
a flurry of sheets gathered
at your chin I will bring
you pomegranate juice cut
with orange hold the cup
to your lips I might speak
and you might answer
or I might weave your
fingers through mine
accept the silence you’ve become
your pale half-moon shoulders
all nervous energy along
my chest my arms the wings
of your imminent exit
__________________
HER MOUTH NOW
—Colette Jonopulos
she stands under broad magnolias with
mourners and the minister who
speaks of glorious tomorrow
she imagines that last conversation
the bracelet left behind:
hammered silver
jade
the gaping fish mouth
if they had argued at least
shown their cards for once
said something true that opened
their mouths like the hammered fish mouth:
instead of river water exiting the oval
only light—the wavering field of it in
her mouth now
like buttered candies and honey
wiped from lips onto jeans
like tongues and napes and
mornings not waking up alone
but with someone watching your
next thought rise
as if she weren’t standing here in a garden
of hard stones and
gargoyles believing in
the gate that opens once
and closes
___________________
Today's LittleNip:
An hour is not merely an hour, it is a vase filled with perfumes, with sounds, with projects, with climates...
—Marcel Proust
_________________
—Medusa
MEDUSA'S WEEKLY MENU:
(Contributors are welcome to cook something up 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 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.......!
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SNAKEWATCH: NEWS FROM RATTLESNAKE PRESS
New for May: Rattlesnake Press is proud to announce the release of Among Summer Pines by Quinton Duval and a littlesnake broadside, Before Naming, by Stephani Schaefer. Both of these are now available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, and at rattlesnakepress.com/.
Coming June 11: Two Moons in June: Join us at The Book Collector for the premiere of 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 of Rattlesnake Review! That's at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM, June 11. See you there!
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.
