Luna's Café, Sacramento
photo by frank andrick
GHOST PIGMENTS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville
They say, through the Depression he worked
with brush and finger, mallet, chisel, earning pennies
for an applewood saint or a collage of scraps
of newsprint, ticket stubs and racing forms,
veined with streaks of chalk or crayon—whatever
he might glean from crevices and gutter;
colors he distilled from bark and flower petals,
lichen, sumac, goldenseal. When no one wanted
pictures, he roamed the woods gathering
roots and leaves to dry for herbal tea. They say
he starved on art and water. His eye lengthened
like a shadow, but not to trouble the living
stream of men who still had jobs, hurrying down-
headed past him on the street. And still
he painted, carved, and whittled, buyers
or no. Here’s what passed down to us,
self-portrait of a stranger, brittle now, but
transfused with backlight like a family ghost.
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Thanks to Taylor Graham and Phil Weidman for today's poems (Phil's poem below is in celebration of the "Plink" group that cleans up the forest in our area), and to frank andrick for the photo of La Luna. Be sure to join us there this Thursday (10/30), 8 PM, when Rattlesnake Press’s “Away Team” will travel to 16th St. in Sacramento for a Double Feature—a release of, not one, but TWO SpiralChaps in celebration of Luna’s Café: a new collection of art and poetry about Luna’s and about writing from B.L. Kennedy (Luna’s House of Words) and an anthology of over 100 Luna’s poets, artists and photographs (La Luna: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café) edited by frank andrick. Featured will be readings by B.L. Kennedy and by other Luna's hosts over the years. That’s Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento, 8 PM. Open mic before and after.
Also in NorCal poetry this week:
•••Tonight (Monday, 10/27), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Meg Withers and Tom Goff at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Open mic after. [See last Friday's post for bios.]
•••Weds. (10/29), 8 PM (doors open at 7:30): d.a. levy Birthday Bash at Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento, featuring the reading of d.a. levy poems by D.R. Wagner, frank andrick, Gene Bloom, Patrick Grizzell, Robert Grossklaus, Kathy Kieth, Noel Kroeplin, Robert Lozano, Miles Miniaci, Crawdad Nelson, Charlene Ungstad, Terryl Wheat and Todd Cirillo. Music by the Downtrodden Saints. Hosted by B.L. Kennedy. $5.00 at the door. Info: 916-441-3931.
•••Friday (10/31), 7:30 PM: Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol / Writers of the New Sun present their annual Día De Los Muertos Poetry Reading honoring Those Who Have Gone Before, a tribute to Los Antepasados with poems, stories and songs featuring Francisco X. Alarcón, who will read from an upcoming collection of poems. La Raza Galería Posada in midtown Sacramento (1022-1024 22nd St.), (916) 446-5133; www.larazagaleriaposada.org/. Come and read your own poems to los muertos!
La Raza Galería Posada, a historic institution of local civil rights movements, was established on the belief that art and culture uplift, enlighten and build communities, education, and awareness about people and society. And for information about Los Escritores, call 916-456-5323.
•••Friday (10/31), 7 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center Halloween Poetry Bash, HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento.
•••Saturday (11/1), 12-4 PM: The annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival celebrates writers, nature and community at Civic Center Park in Berkeley with Robert Hass, Jane Hirshfield, Brenda Hillman, Al Young w/bassist Dan Robbins, Joseph Lease, Camille Dungy Avotcia, Mike Tuggle, Chris Olander, Grace Fae & Grace Tea. Open reading, environmental updates, art activities; River Village: literary & environmental exhibitors. Info: www.poetryflash.org or 510-526-9105. Watershed is a collaboration of Robert Hass (US Poet Laureate, 1995-97), Poetry Flash, Ecology Center/Berkeley Farmers’ Market and EcoCity Builders.
Also: Two pre-festival events: (1) A symposium entitled Creativity in the Face of Climate Change: The Role of the Humanities in Awakening Societal Change on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2-4:30 PM, free at the Maude Fife Room in Wheeler Hall, UC Berkeley (presented by the Berkeley Institute of the Environment; RSVP at bie.berkeley.edu/ccc); and (2) a Pre-Festival Strawberry Creek Walk (poetry & creek restoration update) on Saturday, Nov. 1 at 10 AM (meet at Oxford & Center Sts. in Berkeley).
A Poet’s Stamp!
The U.S. Postal Service announced last Thursday that Edgar Allan Poe will be featured on a 42-cent U.S. postage stamp on Jan. 16, 2009, marking the 200th anniversary of his birth. I did a little research (well, looked at the list on Wikipedia) and discovered that the first poets to be so honored were in 1940, which was a big year for poet-stamps (Longfellow, Js. Lowell, Js. Whitcomb Riley and John Greenleaf Whittier). Nobody got a stamp in the ‘50’s (too tame an era for wild poets, I guess), and only Dante got one in the ‘60’s (1965). Then apparently they tried to make up for lost time in the flower-child ‘70’s, with Dickinson, Dunbar, Frost, Jeffers, Lanier, Masters, and Sandburg. Millay and Eliot represented the ‘80’s, but then it dwindled again to just two since 1986: Marianne Moore in 1990 and Ogden Nash in 2002. Hopefully the next decade will do better by U.S. poets…!
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FOREST FRIENDS
—Phil Weidman, Pollock Pines
You toss it, they retrieve it,
You dump it, they haul it.
You leave it burning,
they douse it until cold.
Name it (a mattress, refrigerator,
battered TV) they find it
and heave it on board
Doug’s trusty old truck.
Nothing is too big, nothing is too small.
Bullet-riddled cars are
pulled out of the brush
so they can be towed.
Beer cans, bottles and
shotgun hulls are tossed
into garbage bags
and loaded when full.
Steve, their Pied Piper
who scours back roads,
rewards his volunteers with
cold drinks and grub.
__________________
THE DAY PAST TENSE
—Taylor Graham
It’s dark. Turn off the monitor,
turn on the news. Still the image burns
his retina. That graph of fortune
on the brink of ruin, the not-so-divine
grape of ripeness on its vine, gone
to rot in rain. Act of God or Man?
His fingers tense on the control.
Turn off the news, forget the dying
green lines across the screen.
Turn on some music. Listen
for divine harmonies from thin
air rising and falling ancient-timeless
as Gregorian chant, so many voices
imploring, praising
in the only words they know,
a language he can’t quite understand.
__________________
LATE YEAR PARADIGM
—Taylor Graham
What became of him?
A bird flew out the window.
How could you forget?
The keys do a circle dance
choosing a partner, a lock.
Our old deaf dog sleeps
like stone, wakes up at midnight,
barks to hear a sound.
Our deep imaginings and,
in the night sky, stars.
The dark’s a fertile garden.
She kept her memories
in an album, leather bound.
A young girl writes down
dreams she knows she’ll remember.
Our Harvest Moon is waning.
Wild geese overhead,
one less than last year, one more
than a future spring.
The vixen howls from her den,
the old man’s at solitaire.
A blackbird’s shadow
on the pond makes ripples
but the bird is gone.
__________________
FLYING FOX
—Taylor Graham
(after Vincent Van Gogh)
Stained-glass wings illuminated
by no moon at midnight—
they glow of themselves,
with the heat of leaves loosed
in October’s dying light.
By morning, littered streets
and gutters. But tonight, held
aloft by leaded arms and fingers,
these wings extend, a hope
of light.
__________________
Today's LittleNip:
LEAVE THEM ALONE
—Patrick Kavanagh
There's nothing happening that you hate
That's really worthwhile slamming;
Be patient. If you only wait
You'll see time gently damning
Newspaper bedlamites who raised
Each day the devil's howl
Versifiers who had seized
The poet's begging bowl
The whole hysterical passing show
The hour apotheosised
Into a cul-de-sac will go
And be not even despised.
__________________
—Medusa
SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:
October is Sacramento Poetry Month! Be sure to join us on Thursday, Oct. 30, 8 PM, when Rattlesnake Press will release not one, but two SpiralChaps to honor and celebrate Luna’s Café, 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??
And check out B.L. Kennedy’s interview with Art Luna in the latest Rattlesnake Review (#19)! Free copies are available at The Book Collector, or send me two bux and I’ll mail you one (address below). Next deadline, by the way, is November 15.
Coming in November: November will feature 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.......!
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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.
