Photo by Katy Brown
__________________JUST OUT OF SIGHT . . .
—Katy Brown, Davis
The last of winter lingers on the other side of the hill.
But here, the sunlight warms mustard and bare vines;
spring charms buds from the vines, blooms from the flowers.
And I have nothing better to do today than capture the moment.
Sunlight warms new mustard, old vines and earth—
hills roll away from the Bay— rolling toward bigger hills;
and I have nothing to do but capture the moment.
Not tourist country— Private Property signs are everywhere.
Rolling away from the Bay, the hills climb to bigger hills—
stony ground fit for vines and mustard, olives and lavender.
Private Property signs posted everywhere warn tourists away,
the best views saved for red-winged blackbirds and shy rabbits.
Vines and mustard, olives and lavender cling to stony ground,
bend against the constant wind, grow low on the rolling hills,
leaving the best views for the blackbirds and rabbits.
Only one flat road to the hilly crest calls the visitor.
Spring charms buds from the vines and blooms from flowers
bent against the constant wind on the low rolling land.
The last of winter lingers on the other side of the hill:
only one flat road calls the visitor beyond the crest.
—Katy Brown, Davis
The last of winter lingers on the other side of the hill.
But here, the sunlight warms mustard and bare vines;
spring charms buds from the vines, blooms from the flowers.
And I have nothing better to do today than capture the moment.
Sunlight warms new mustard, old vines and earth—
hills roll away from the Bay— rolling toward bigger hills;
and I have nothing to do but capture the moment.
Not tourist country— Private Property signs are everywhere.
Rolling away from the Bay, the hills climb to bigger hills—
stony ground fit for vines and mustard, olives and lavender.
Private Property signs posted everywhere warn tourists away,
the best views saved for red-winged blackbirds and shy rabbits.
Vines and mustard, olives and lavender cling to stony ground,
bend against the constant wind, grow low on the rolling hills,
leaving the best views for the blackbirds and rabbits.
Only one flat road to the hilly crest calls the visitor.
Spring charms buds from the vines and blooms from flowers
bent against the constant wind on the low rolling land.
The last of winter lingers on the other side of the hill:
only one flat road calls the visitor beyond the crest.
Join us this coming Wednesday, November 12, at The Book Collector, when Rattlesnake Press will release our 2009 HandyStuff calendar from Katy Brown (Beyond the Hill: A Poet’s Calendar), plus 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); and Conversations, Vol. 4 of B.L. Kennedy’s Rattlesnake Interview Series. That's 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's.
Katy Brown is our intrepid columnist, photographer, and poet who has been working even harder for the Snake of late, producing HandyStuff calendars, blank journals, and other, well, handy stuff, in addition to her own wonderful SpiralChap, The Quality of Light. We're very proud to have a beautiful new 2009 calendar of her poetry and photos available, starting this Wednesday, for just $5.00. Best deal in town! You'll need copies for all your friends... All of these goodies are (or will be) available at The Book Collector or on rattlesnakepress.com/.
See more about Katy on her rattlesnakepress.com page (click on SpiralChaps) or in Medusa's Kitchen's archives to the left of this column (go to March, 2007 and scroll down to March 24). And watch for her column, Snake Eyes, in each issue of Rattlesnake Review.
Speaking of which, the next deadline for RR is this Saturday, November 15! Hop on it, buckaroos! Send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to include all contact info, including snail address.
Also this week in NorCal poetry:
•••Monday (11/10), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Edward Mycue and Nancy Keane at HQ for the Arts, 25th & J Sts., Sacramento. Open mic follows. Edward Mycue has published more than 15 books, and his first book, Damage Within the Community, published in 1973, was selected by Library Journal as one of the ten best poetry books of that year. He has published in numerous magazines in the US [including Lungfull!, Fence, Hawai’i Review, Dirty Goat, Illuminations, Painted Bride Quarterly, Carolina Review, Caliban, Exquisite Corpse, Boston Review and Poetry Flash] as well as magazines in England [Shearsman], Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain.
Nancy Keane is a lover of children's literature and works as a school librarian. She was raised in Massachusetts and and headed off to University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She says: I still love to read and have shared many of my favorites with my own children. I currently live with my 16-year-old son, four cats and a dog. My daughter and her husband live nearby and have blessed me with my first grandchild. And now I can share more stories with Aidan as the years go by. In addition to my webpages and books, I also promote reading through a television show. Kids' Book Beat airs monthly on our local cable channel, CCTV. I am also on the adjunct faculty of the Computer Dept. at New Hampshire Technical Institute and teach technology related workshops for The Univerisity of New Hampshire.
Coming Up at SPC: Next Monday (11/17), SPC will present Ann Privateer and Edythe Schwartz.
•••Thursday (11/13), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured readers with open mic before and after.
•••Saturday (11/15), 7:30 PM: Six Ft. Swells Press presents a 2-for-1 Happy Hour of Poetry, as they celebrate the two latest chapbooks in their famed Cheap Shots Poetry Series: Sex On Earth by Christine Irving and Noel Kroeplin, and The One That Got Away by Will Staple. Rhythm’s Café, 114 W. Main St., Grass Valley. There will be a book-signing following the readers. Only a $2 cover, with beer and wine available. For more information call 530-277-4379 or sixfootswells@yahoo.com. Please visit our website at www.myspace.com/sixftswells/.
Coincidentally, interviews with Noel Kroeplin and Will Staple are included in Conversations, Vol. 4 of B.L. Kennedy’s Rattlesnake Interview Series, which will be released this Weds. at The Book Collector!
Six Ft. Swells Press was founded in 2006 by poets and pirates Todd Cirillo, Julie Valin and Matt Amott in an effort to bring poetry into the truck stops, bowling alleys and barrooms of the world. They are known for great poetry and good times. Cirillo says, We believe that poetry and especially poetry readings can be events of champion proportions, where everyone can escape into a room of unsavory but fun people and have a great time. After-Hours Poetry reflects those common secrets of the heart and hangovers that we all share at some point in life.
Noel Kroeplin believes in dark places, darker nights, beauty, love and poetry. Whatever the situation, she’s having a good time. This is her first collection of poetry. Christine Irving is priestess and poet, storyteller and artist. She believes that the spoken work, infused with sensuality, can bring mind, body and heart into full presence and attention. Her work includes books of poetry, Be A Teller of Tales, co-author of the play, A Rose In Winter and a CD called Originals. Will Staple is an internationally-sought-after poet who has received the Engpol Median International Award for books published between 1991 and 1999. He has been a featured reader in Paris, Germany and Switzerland. His work has been translated into Russian, German and Italian. His previous books include I Hate the Men You Sleep With; Dr. Montoya’s Medicine; Passes For Human; The Only Way to Reduce Crime is to Make Fewer Acts Illegal and Numinous Luminosity. He is looking for the one that got away.
•••Sat. (11/15), 10 AM-4 PM: SpiralChapper Joe Finkleman’s images will be part of a one-day show/sale at St. Mary’s School, 58th and M Streets, Sacramento. Joe will have full-size framed images, small images, and lovely greeting cards (suitable for framing) for sale. It's a great chance to buy holiday gifts at affordable prices. Check it out! Information about Joe can also be seen on the SpiralChapper page of rattlesnakepress.com, or go to visionsandviews.com/.
__________________
Charlie Rose and Kay Ryan:
Connie Post, Livermore Poet Laureate, writes: Charlie Rose had Kay Ryan on his show this week. Wonderful Interview. They were joined by James Billington from the Library of Congress, as well. It's about a 20-25 minute interview. Worth taking time to watch/listen to at http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2008/11/06/2/
a-conversation-with-kay-ryan-u-s-poet-laureate-and-james-billington-
librarian-of-congress [got that?]. Coindentally, Connie Post will be reading at SPC on Monday, November 24, with Janet Smith. Gee, today is just full of coincidences...
___________________
DON’T LET THEM PRY
—Salvatore Buttaci, Princeton, WV
In solitude good poets hone their craft,
Away from bustling crowds, the niggling chores
That day demands. A still time to explore
The agony of hapless love, pen drafts
Of verse heavy with pathos that can graft
A shoot of hurt with one of Never More.
And too, like Petrarch, write of one adored,
A Laura, Dante’s Beatrice, or laugh
In anapestic play. Always alone,
And never teamed with critics who will try
Their hand at stifling yours. Limit your zone
Of verbal sleight of hand. Don’t let them pry
While you work your fingers to the bone.
Compose your verse without a watchful eye.
__________________
BEFORE THE BELL
OF THE LAST ROUND
—Salvatore Buttaci
I put it
Where it will do
The most good
I confess
And you laugh
As if that gold ring
Were a comic’s prop
A Cracker-Jack toy
A hoop for circus fleas
Not a sacred thing at all
Into my left hand
First where you released it
Before the bell of the last round
of our contentious marriage
Stone-chinned aloof
You with your white-banded finger
a phantom of the missing ring
I with the real thing in my trembling palm
Shrouded in weak wisps of aura
Top pocket
Safe now from your waving hand
The ring braced against my shirted heart
Resuscitated by clamorous heartbeats
Lonely as I in this unhappy parting
What does this fingerless ring
in wed-unlock know of beginning and end
Though in its goldness it wheels
Tales of vows kept or broken
And ran
These tears I said I wouldn’t ever let fall
Like streams that have strayed far from fast rivers
Sluicing from eyes filled with your leaving
Steady-hand memory click-clicking away
And your ring left behind in my pocket
All that remains of our years of forever
The word that starts you laughing all over again
Then you’re gone through the door one last time
Through the vineyard
I go like a man possessed
to settle his wrath in the grapes
of libation and drown in its sea
The voices still crying for love
may I show you this ring
tell all that it stood for
I keep it right here where it does
the most good
close to my heart.
__________________
TRANSFORMATION
—Salvatore Buttaci
Today I gave my father back his face,
returned dark brown eyes, a voice,
greying hair, that smile lost in time.
I lifted him from the flatness of a photgraph,
brought his appearance into focus
so that in his familiar shape and form
he would somehow come to life.
Why punish myself like that?
Why disturb him from a decade's sleep?
At Sunday mass during the consecration
I should have contemplated Christ's Passion.
Instead I resurrected my father—not his ghost!
The flesh and blood of him! The father
I had kept at bay since death, his face
freed from the stillness of photographs,
I had allowed my mind to conjure dangerously:
a likeness much too painful to recall.
But I was lonely; I missed him.
All at once, ashamed of my irreverence,
afraid my prayer would be answered,
I blurred the vision of his transformation
except for a hand waving in misting memory,
except for the voice of that gentle father spirit
attempting to speak words of forgiveness
to a son tottering between wishing him and wishing
him away. Then an old photograph circa 1952
flashed in my memory: on a porch a young boy and his father.
It is summertime forever. The sun is shining. They smile.
__________________
Thanks, Sal! A Family of Sicilians... the latest book by Author and Snake Pal Salvatore Buttaci, is now available. To order copies, go to http://www.geocities.com/sambpoet/ and click on "ordering information." or e-mail the author at sambpoet@yahoo.com/. The book would make an ideal Christmas gift! [See? We're already doing your Christmas shopping for you, between all these wonderful books and a few of Katy's calendars...!]
And watch for more of Sal's work in Rattlesnake Review #20—did we mention that the deadline is
THIS SATURDAY??????
__________________
Today's LittleNip:
It's a nervous work. The state that you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums to get rid of.
—Shirley Hazzard
__________________
—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) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to include all contact info, including snail address.
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.
