Tim Hunt
—Poetry by Tim Hunt, Normal, IL
—Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Tim Hunt
and Joseph Nolan
WHY THE LAND IS RED (LAKE COUNTY, CA)
The old miners say
the cinnabar is why
the land is red,
but the ore is long smelted,
the retorts scrapped.
Now all that’s left
are the bleached shacks
and the rust
of old bumpers.
The land must eat.
(prev. pub. in Quarterly West)
The old miners say
the cinnabar is why
the land is red,
but the ore is long smelted,
the retorts scrapped.
Now all that’s left
are the bleached shacks
and the rust
of old bumpers.
The land must eat.
(prev. pub. in Quarterly West)
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan
THE SUMMER SHE WAS 17 (1947)
In the cannery the women in long rows sit on stools
coring and peeling apple after apple, each one
picked from the cold sluice of water,
then placed for the spinning blades: lean
and reach, lean and reach, as the sun climbs the tin wall,
naps on the roof through midday, and so slowly
backs down the far wall to quitting time.
All day
the women around her talk as the ache builds
first in the fingers, then the shoulders and settles
in the small of the back. They talk of hurried meals,
husbands and lovers, the scrimping and moments
of pleasure that ache within the dark
of the brief summer nights as the cannery’s stink
cools toward another morning.
Reaching, reaching again into the cold water
she hears the shards of fear that glint through the cracks
in the stories, the bitterness, and too those bits of pleasure
that play within the tin walls of must and ought
like the motes of light in the high shadows
as the sun climbs, rests, and crawls
back down all summer, day after day.
(prev. pub. in Tar River Poetry)
Byrd Hunt, 1946
—Photo Courtesy of Tim Hunt
—Photo Courtesy of Tim Hunt
INSTRUCTIONS FOR REMEMBERING THE GRANGE HALL,
MIDDLETOWN, CALIFORNIA
Imagine it is late afternoon, perhaps mid-August.
Town’s back that way. You can walk it—
a few miles of thistle and red dirt.
But someone will drive the old man and his fiddle,
and his granddaughter will wear her cowgirl get-up,
the one makes you swear she’s Patsy Montana,
The Cowboy’s Sweetheart, and she’ll bring
her guitar. She’s a pretty sight and can play, too.
And the old man can still make you want
to dance, even after the week working in the sun,
even though the hall is nothing but a tin roof
on pine boards and there seems no end
to the hay to buck, fence to mend, stock
to water, or the clothes in the zinc-lined tub,
chickens to feed, the birthing, dying, bread to knead,
the empty distance to the hills if one looks up.
Tonight you will wash up and comb a little shoe dye
through your hair. Tonight you will walk to the Grange Hall.
Sue (Hunt) Hillman, 193?
—Photo Courtesy of Tim Hunt
—Photo Courtesy of Tim Hunt
WHY REDNECK WESTERN POETS WRITE THE WAY WE DO
for Betty Adcock
Because the preachers didn’t come west
and our church is the baked shade
under the firs behind the shed
where the junked cars rust so slow
in the dry heat they are
eternal and the low-growing thistle
will never hide them.
Because everyone here knows
who married who and who
screwed who and every triumphant
failure but nobody knows
where they came from and everybody
knows there is nowhere to go
but here.
Because the night sky is an abyss
over the bar between here and nowhere
and when you sit in the cab of your truck
to clear your head enough to drive home
on a dark night the stars do not wink
like fireflies but hang in the black crystal
no matter how much your head swims.
Because the day sky carries in heat
shimmers across the ridges, and all
the markings of the ancient ice, of flood
and fire tell us we do not belong here,
but we have almost come to love the land
for refusing to take us in.
Because the sun melts the snow
from the rock above the tree line
and as the afternoon ebbs west
down the face of the mountain
all we hear is silence.
(prev. pub .in Cloudbank)
for Betty Adcock
Because the preachers didn’t come west
and our church is the baked shade
under the firs behind the shed
where the junked cars rust so slow
in the dry heat they are
eternal and the low-growing thistle
will never hide them.
Because everyone here knows
who married who and who
screwed who and every triumphant
failure but nobody knows
where they came from and everybody
knows there is nowhere to go
but here.
Because the night sky is an abyss
over the bar between here and nowhere
and when you sit in the cab of your truck
to clear your head enough to drive home
on a dark night the stars do not wink
like fireflies but hang in the black crystal
no matter how much your head swims.
Because the day sky carries in heat
shimmers across the ridges, and all
the markings of the ancient ice, of flood
and fire tell us we do not belong here,
but we have almost come to love the land
for refusing to take us in.
Because the sun melts the snow
from the rock above the tree line
and as the afternoon ebbs west
down the face of the mountain
all we hear is silence.
(prev. pub .in Cloudbank)
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan
TEMPORARY SHRINE (THE UNION 76 STATION,
CALISTOGA, CA, 1966)
Late summer, after the days are longest
but still feel like it’s been hot
forever—one of those days time
is on vacation as you wait for whatever
will come and make you real—the draft, college,
something. And that day Augie—her hair
curled under her cap—is at the 76 Station
where the road runs past town unless you turn
at the stoplight, and in 1966 mostly
no one did, and probably Denny’s hanging around,
and maybe there are no cars on the rack
and they’re back behind the metal shelving,
the oil filters and brake pads, fooling around
when the Harley and the van roll up
ringing the bell. The man on the Harley
has hair even longer than Augie’s
and the longest moustache she’s ever seen,
greasy and smelling of Thunderbird sweat
and things she hadn’t smelled yet
as he parades the gas pumps
as if he weren’t short and fat, swirling
his leather fringes like a villain
in one of those French movies—
the lacy shirts and floppy hats and every
sword flick a sexy sneer for the heroine.
And Augie asks if they’re going to the River
to hear The Grateful Dead, because even in Calistoga
we’ve heard of The Dead, and Pigpen,
standing tall as he could, put his right hand
on the gas pump for 76 Regular and pronounced,
Madame, We are The Dead. And so
we each came unto the 76 Station,
and Augie showed us precisely where
he had laid his hand on the enameled metal
and we believed for once we had seen something
real, something Big. And maybe Augie dreamed
of the fat boy in the fringe and maybe Denny
felt anxious, but I don’t know that.
(prev. pub. in Naugatuck River Review)
CALISTOGA, CA, 1966)
Late summer, after the days are longest
but still feel like it’s been hot
forever—one of those days time
is on vacation as you wait for whatever
will come and make you real—the draft, college,
something. And that day Augie—her hair
curled under her cap—is at the 76 Station
where the road runs past town unless you turn
at the stoplight, and in 1966 mostly
no one did, and probably Denny’s hanging around,
and maybe there are no cars on the rack
and they’re back behind the metal shelving,
the oil filters and brake pads, fooling around
when the Harley and the van roll up
ringing the bell. The man on the Harley
has hair even longer than Augie’s
and the longest moustache she’s ever seen,
greasy and smelling of Thunderbird sweat
and things she hadn’t smelled yet
as he parades the gas pumps
as if he weren’t short and fat, swirling
his leather fringes like a villain
in one of those French movies—
the lacy shirts and floppy hats and every
sword flick a sexy sneer for the heroine.
And Augie asks if they’re going to the River
to hear The Grateful Dead, because even in Calistoga
we’ve heard of The Dead, and Pigpen,
standing tall as he could, put his right hand
on the gas pump for 76 Regular and pronounced,
Madame, We are The Dead. And so
we each came unto the 76 Station,
and Augie showed us precisely where
he had laid his hand on the enameled metal
and we believed for once we had seen something
real, something Big. And maybe Augie dreamed
of the fat boy in the fringe and maybe Denny
felt anxious, but I don’t know that.
(prev. pub. in Naugatuck River Review)
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan
FIRST NIGHT AT THE FILLMORE (MARCH 1967)
We have heard “It’s No Secret” on the car
radio and seen the pictures of people in costumes
who seem very grown up, even free, as if
the war has gone away and this might be
a Neverland of lost boys with beards, a Wendy
for each, and Daddy Hook off sipping cocktails
as if he and that smirking crocodile are
Hugh Hefner, and the ticking of the Atomic
Clock not even a memory. And so we
have come unto the Fillmore wearing
funny hats as if they made our hair actually
long and have climbed the stairs to where
Jack Cassady’s electric bass circles
the folk chords into only now
and the music is as loud as we’ve always
dreamed without knowing it and Marty’s
voice and Grace’s too
are darting kites freed of their strings.
(prev. pub. in Sand Hill Review)
We have heard “It’s No Secret” on the car
radio and seen the pictures of people in costumes
who seem very grown up, even free, as if
the war has gone away and this might be
a Neverland of lost boys with beards, a Wendy
for each, and Daddy Hook off sipping cocktails
as if he and that smirking crocodile are
Hugh Hefner, and the ticking of the Atomic
Clock not even a memory. And so we
have come unto the Fillmore wearing
funny hats as if they made our hair actually
long and have climbed the stairs to where
Jack Cassady’s electric bass circles
the folk chords into only now
and the music is as loud as we’ve always
dreamed without knowing it and Marty’s
voice and Grace’s too
are darting kites freed of their strings.
(prev. pub. in Sand Hill Review)
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan
HERE IN THE NEW WEST: AMERICAN CANYON,
“GATEWAY TO THE NAPA WINE COUNTRY” (AUGUST 2016)
Down the road the new hotel gleams: full color
like a spread in a trendy magazine—Audis, Beamers;
the ensembles of designer bags and shoes;
the uniformed staff’s deferential welcome.
Here, the faded lettering mumbles c-a-s-i-n-o,
and the card room’s pulled shades are a dusty shrug,
yawning as the men play Texas Hold ’Em—
tics and tells, all in and fold ’em.
Here, each card matters. Win. Lose. Here,
they do not think about which can to open for dinner
or what to pretend they want to watch on the TV
as it spends the evening and the butts smolder down
notching the ashtray, one by one,
like the handle of a gunslinger’s gun.
(prev. pub. in Book of Matches)
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan
BETWEEN THE HIGHWAY AND TRAIN TRACKS
(VALLEJO, CA, AUGUST 2016)
Here, the liquor store is open late,
and early.
The grocery store is not.
Here, the stained glass neon
shines down upon the offering
of gathered coins
and the counting out
and the upturned hand
receiving the brown-bagged pint—
the breadless communion
of temporary salvation:
blood of my blood; morning,
noon and night;
forever and again.
Amen.
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
A pair of six-shooters beats a pair of sixes.
–Belle Starr
____________________
Tim Hunt is the author of four collections: Ticket Stubs & Liner Notes (winner of the 2018 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award), The Tao of Twang and Poem’s Poems & Other Poems (both CW Books), and Fault Lines (The Backwaters Press). Recognitions include The Chester H. Jones National Poetry Prize. Originally from the hill country of northern California, he was educated at Cornell University. His final teaching post was Illinois State University where he was University Professor. He and his wife Susan live in Normal, Illinois, which is not hill country.
Website URL:
www.tahunt.com
www.facebook.com/TimHuntPoetry
California native Tim Hunt has sent us a passel of poems today, and we welcome him and his poetry! He writes, “I was born in Calistoga, grew up in Sebastopol and Calistoga, and my family goes back some generations in Lake County. College and work took me out of NorCal and so I'm mostly not seen as local in the region that very much shaped me, and have wound up, of all places, in Normal, IL.
“Sonoma, Napa, and Lake County material figures in three of my collections, Fault Lines, The Tao of Twang, and Ticket Stubs & Liner Notes. The first two poems here ("Why the Land Is Red" and "The Summer She Was Seventeen") were collected in Fault Lines (2009, The Backwaters Press). My great-grandfather's family came across by wagon train and settled in Middletown. And when I was a boy I was often sent to stay with family there because of my mother's health.
“Lake County in the later 1950s and early 1960s was economically a pretty depressed area, and lurking in the background was the brief boom when mercury mining was flourishing. Although I was born in Calistoga, my parents lived mostly in Sebastopol when I was growing up. My mother, as a teen, worked in the canneries. Sebastopol then (late 1940s) and, as I knew it growing up when the train tracks still ran down the middle of Main Street, was a bit different than Sebastopol now.
My great-grandfather was a country fiddler who led a string band and, in time, several of my aunts and uncles played with him. Sue (Hunt) Hillman played with his group and later passed along his fiddle to me, plus another photo of my great-grandfather, Byrd Hunt, with his fiddle. A close look shows that the fiddle is held together with twine. Betty Adcock has a terrific poem ‘Why White Southern Poets Write the Way We Do.’ That was the immediate occasion for ‘Redneck Western Poets.’
“The two poems from Ticket Stubs & Liner Notes (2018 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award) have Calistoga as their context. I spent my senior year of high school in Calistoga. ‘First Night at the Fillmore’ recalls the first foray several of us made into this new world. The costumes we wore were pretty laughable, and we had no idea why the cloud of smoke in the Fillmore smelled funny, but we were transported by the music as we flew Jefferson Airplane (or something).
“The final two pieces aren't yet collected. Summer 2016, my father was critically ill, and these were both occasioned by the daily drive down to the hospital in Vallejo and back to Napa where I was staying with a cousin.”
Tim also writes that many of his Napa County relatives have been hit by the fires Napa County experienced in the past few years; our sympathies to them for these tragedies. And welcome to the Kitchen, Tim! Ya'll come back!
Here, the liquor store is open late,
and early.
The grocery store is not.
Here, the stained glass neon
shines down upon the offering
of gathered coins
and the counting out
and the upturned hand
receiving the brown-bagged pint—
the breadless communion
of temporary salvation:
blood of my blood; morning,
noon and night;
forever and again.
Amen.
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
A pair of six-shooters beats a pair of sixes.
–Belle Starr
____________________
Tim Hunt is the author of four collections: Ticket Stubs & Liner Notes (winner of the 2018 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award), The Tao of Twang and Poem’s Poems & Other Poems (both CW Books), and Fault Lines (The Backwaters Press). Recognitions include The Chester H. Jones National Poetry Prize. Originally from the hill country of northern California, he was educated at Cornell University. His final teaching post was Illinois State University where he was University Professor. He and his wife Susan live in Normal, Illinois, which is not hill country.
Website URL:
www.tahunt.com
www.facebook.com/TimHuntPoetry
California native Tim Hunt has sent us a passel of poems today, and we welcome him and his poetry! He writes, “I was born in Calistoga, grew up in Sebastopol and Calistoga, and my family goes back some generations in Lake County. College and work took me out of NorCal and so I'm mostly not seen as local in the region that very much shaped me, and have wound up, of all places, in Normal, IL.
“Sonoma, Napa, and Lake County material figures in three of my collections, Fault Lines, The Tao of Twang, and Ticket Stubs & Liner Notes. The first two poems here ("Why the Land Is Red" and "The Summer She Was Seventeen") were collected in Fault Lines (2009, The Backwaters Press). My great-grandfather's family came across by wagon train and settled in Middletown. And when I was a boy I was often sent to stay with family there because of my mother's health.
“Lake County in the later 1950s and early 1960s was economically a pretty depressed area, and lurking in the background was the brief boom when mercury mining was flourishing. Although I was born in Calistoga, my parents lived mostly in Sebastopol when I was growing up. My mother, as a teen, worked in the canneries. Sebastopol then (late 1940s) and, as I knew it growing up when the train tracks still ran down the middle of Main Street, was a bit different than Sebastopol now.
My great-grandfather was a country fiddler who led a string band and, in time, several of my aunts and uncles played with him. Sue (Hunt) Hillman played with his group and later passed along his fiddle to me, plus another photo of my great-grandfather, Byrd Hunt, with his fiddle. A close look shows that the fiddle is held together with twine. Betty Adcock has a terrific poem ‘Why White Southern Poets Write the Way We Do.’ That was the immediate occasion for ‘Redneck Western Poets.’
“The two poems from Ticket Stubs & Liner Notes (2018 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award) have Calistoga as their context. I spent my senior year of high school in Calistoga. ‘First Night at the Fillmore’ recalls the first foray several of us made into this new world. The costumes we wore were pretty laughable, and we had no idea why the cloud of smoke in the Fillmore smelled funny, but we were transported by the music as we flew Jefferson Airplane (or something).
“The final two pieces aren't yet collected. Summer 2016, my father was critically ill, and these were both occasioned by the daily drive down to the hospital in Vallejo and back to Napa where I was staying with a cousin.”
Tim also writes that many of his Napa County relatives have been hit by the fires Napa County experienced in the past few years; our sympathies to them for these tragedies. And welcome to the Kitchen, Tim! Ya'll come back!
For Betty Adcock's poem, "Why White Southern Poets Write the Way We Do", see www.vqronline.org/why-white-southern-poets-write-way-we-do/.
•••The deadline is coming up (Oct. 31) for The Poeming Pigeon's annual contest, sponsored by Portland, Oregon’s The Poetry Box. Info: thepoetrybox.com/the-poeming-pigeon/. Better get to it!
•••Tonight (Thurs., 10/14), 5:30pm: Sac. Poetry Alliance’s Literary Lectures (www.sacramentopoetryalliance.com) presents Everything is Politics, featuring S.L. Wisenberg online at us02web.zoom.us/j/81872835469/.
•••Also tonight, the great actor, voiceover artist and documentary narrator, activist and poet Peter Coyote is celebrating his 80th birthday in Davis from 7-9pm, with a release party for his recent book of poetry, Tongue of a Crow (Stahlecker Selections). (Info: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tongue-of-a-crow-peter-coyote/1139709580/, available in paperback and on Kindle.) John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st St., Davis, CA. Tickets are free, but reservations are required. Check out the details at www.eventbrite.com/e/peter-coyotes-80th-birthday-party-and-reading-tickets-179279930097/.
__________________
—Medusa
•••The deadline is coming up (Oct. 31) for The Poeming Pigeon's annual contest, sponsored by Portland, Oregon’s The Poetry Box. Info: thepoetrybox.com/the-poeming-pigeon/. Better get to it!
•••Tonight (Thurs., 10/14), 5:30pm: Sac. Poetry Alliance’s Literary Lectures (www.sacramentopoetryalliance.com) presents Everything is Politics, featuring S.L. Wisenberg online at us02web.zoom.us/j/81872835469/.
•••Also tonight, the great actor, voiceover artist and documentary narrator, activist and poet Peter Coyote is celebrating his 80th birthday in Davis from 7-9pm, with a release party for his recent book of poetry, Tongue of a Crow (Stahlecker Selections). (Info: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tongue-of-a-crow-peter-coyote/1139709580/, available in paperback and on Kindle.) John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st St., Davis, CA. Tickets are free, but reservations are required. Check out the details at www.eventbrite.com/e/peter-coyotes-80th-birthday-party-and-reading-tickets-179279930097/.
__________________
—Medusa
Is this Miss Kitty?
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world, including
that which was previously-published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world, including
that which was previously-published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
