Godzilla Always Returns

frank andrick and Art Luna

B.L. Kennedy

LUNA’S CAFÉ
—B.L. Kennedy, Sacramento

Thursday night at Luna’s Café
I stand out front
The acoustics are better out front

I shoot the shit
With poet Frank Andrick

We talk serious art
The Cure
Patti Smith
Philip Lamantia
Artaud
Sonic Youth

Some local tries to catch
Our drift and disappears

When he catches the eye
Of some chick seated with Felicia McGee

Our discourse continues
As Kimi Julian takes to stage to read

We talk Arthur Rimbaud, Kenneth Anger
Frank has just given me some bootlegged
Copy of Lucifer Rising

Crawdad Nelson steps outside
He listens and hasn’t any idea
As to what we are talking about?

There is not that much difference between
Picasso and Godzilla

Yeah, says some dip shit seated by
The planter smoking an American Spirit

Godzilla always returns

______________________

Join us tonight for La Luna at La Luna!!

October is Sacramento Poetry Month! Be sure to join us tonight (Thursday, Oct. 30) at 8 PM, when Rattlesnake Press will release not one, but two SpiralChaps to honor and celebrate Art Luna and Luna’s Café in Sacramento, including a new collection of art and poetry from B.L. Kennedy (Luna’s House of Words) and an anthology of Luna’s poets, artists and photographs (La Luna: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café) edited by Frank Andrick. Come travel with our Away Team as we leave the Home of the Snake for a brief road trip/time travel to Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento to celebrate Art Luna and the 13 years of Luna's long-running poetry series. Who knows what auspicious adventures await us there??

Born in the Bronx, educated at Naropa Institute on scholarship (MFA) and at California State University, Sacramento (BA and two MA’s), and honored in the current Who’s Who in America, Bari Kennedy has an extensive list of credits, including numerous scholarships, grants, and awards (including the Danae Poetry Award, Texture Literary Award, SPC Lifetime Achievement Award, and Community Service Award from Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Council, 1989). For the past thirty years, Kennedy has served the Sacramento community by spearheading many poetry readings, fundraisers, and major poetry events in Colorado, Oregon, and Northern California, including the now-famous “World’s Longest Outdoor Poetry Reading” (1986, 1996, 2006), the annual “October in the Railroad Earth: An Annual Tribute to Jack Kerouac” (1980-2004) and the establishment of a special collection of books and other collectibles from Sacramento writers at the University of California at Davis Shields Library Special Collections Department. In 2005, he and Linda Thorell received a grant from the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission to establish The Archives Group, dedicated to preserving the history of Sacramento’s poetry scene on videotape. The results of this collaboration were the documentary film, I Began to Speak.

B.L. is currently both Reviewer-in-Residence and Interviewer-in-Residence for Rattlesnake Review, where his poetry and picture-poems have also appeared, plus two previous poetry/art collections and the on-going series of collected interviews of NorCal poets, Conversations. He continues to co-host Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café in Sacramento, as well as his annual “Tribute to d.a. levy”. For further information and poems, see his page on rattlesnakepress.com (under “SnakeRings SpiralChaps”). And watch for “B.L.’s Drive-Bys”, his weekly micro-reviews on the Rattlesnake Press blog, “Medusa’s Kitchen” (medusaskitchen.blogspot.com).

This latest collection of Bari's is all about Luna's. It's a very personal take that consists of poetry and art pieces about his long experience there as a host, reader and listener. Together with frank's broader anthology (La Luna), B.L.'s Luna's House of Words will give you an insightful, irreverent view of what goes on at 1414 16th St. in Sacramento every Thursday night.

frank andrick: A Sac-Franciscan experimental mythologist whose work spans poetry, prose, story writing and telling. A Poet who loves mixing it up w/ music and movies while still holding the solo voice high. frank is the producer and host of “The Pomo Literati”, a two-hour spoken word program broadcast on KUSF San Francisco which features live reading performances, contemporary recordings, and archival rarities from pre-beat to post-modern. He also co-hosts Poetry Unplugged @ Luna's, an open mic, featured-reader series, which was Sacramento News & Reviews’ People’s Choice for Best Open Mic Venue. frank creates word-driven, multi-media events and poetry/performance tours. He is the author of Soluna, a collection of his poems and prose, and two littlesnake broadside from Rattlesnake Press: AOL (Aurelia Occultica Lamantia) and Home is Where You Hang Your Wings. He is preparing his next manuscript for publication, entitled Mandorla. Google him ...he loves it!!

For the past nine years, frank (and others) have been collecting poems and art work from readers at Luna's Cafe, the site of the long-running Poetry Unplugged series which was begun 13 years ago by Joe Montoya. Finally, the fruits of all their labors will see print (thanks to frank's fine editing) in the form of La Luna: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe (including some poetry and photography from Innkeep Art Luna, who did the cover shot!)—a dual-tribute to Art Luna, Luna's Cafe, and all the readers there, past, present and future.

Both La Luna and Luna's House of Words will be available tonight ($8 each) at Luna's, starting tomorrow at The Book Collector, and (soon) at rattlesnakepress.com/. Or, heck, send me $10 and I'll mail ya one (P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726). [Note "Sarah Palinism" (heck)...]

___________________

LAVA FLOW
(inspired by Mono Lake
and the eastern Sierras)
—Art Luna, Sacramento

We walk the rim of fire and ice
Lava slathered land
Glacier carved Earth Mother
I watch the flow hot and wet
I taste you

__________________

B.L. Kennedy

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

pass the thesaurus
lord im hungry
little puddles of
Rogets
on my Webster salad

—d.a. levy

__________________

—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review is November 15! Send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems, please) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also coming in November: On November 12, Rattlesnake Press will release a new rattlechap from Red Fox Underground Poet Wendy Patrice Williams (Some New Forgetting); a littlesnake broadside from South Lake Tahoe Poet Ray Hadley (Children's Games); our 2009 calendar from Katy Brown (Beyond the Hill: A Poet’s Calendar) as well as Conversations, Vol. 4 of B.L. Kennedy’s Rattlesnake Interview Series. That’s Weds., November 12, 7:30 PM at The Book Collector.


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 SOWs; 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 (sometimes): 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 and in-between! 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.