Seeing Through Cracked Glass

Junk Yard, I
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

CHETNIK POSITIONS

—Semezdin Mehmedinovic

First the excavator arrived: It dug trenches in the ground, and a lorry brought concrete slabs to line them with. Tanks were dug in at the sides, so that only their cannon protruded. Guns as well. Our rifles cannot reach them. Perhaps they could spend the winter in such trenches? It is August now; they get tobacco from Nis, brandy from Prokuplje. I don't know where their women come from, but I have seen them through binoculars. One of them has placed an inflatable mattress by the trench and is sunbathing in a swimsuit. She lies there for hours. Then she gets up, goes to the cannon, pulls the cord and fires a shell on the town at random. She listens briefly for the explosion and watches for its source. She even stands on tiptoe, innocently. Then she goes back, coats her body with suntan lotion, and surrenders herself to serenity.

__________________

This weekend in NorCal poetry:

•••Friday (3/7), 7:30 PM: The Other Voice, a poetry reading series sponsored by the U.U. Church of Davis, presents Nancy Bodily and Suzanne Roberts in the library of the church located at 27074 Patwin Road. Nancy Bodily, a mother and student, lives with her husband and daughter in Davis. Her poetry has been published in Poetry Now, Ash Canyon Review, Banyan Review, The Kokanee and Real Eight View. Her favorite pastimes are learning poetry from 6th graders, walking in the fields with Bogey and Ginger, and fumbling towards Zen in her weekly radio program: Earth Mama's Mountain Music Hour. Suzanne Roberts is the author of two books of poems, Shameless (Cherry Grove Collections, 2007) and Nothing to You (Pecan Grove Press, March 2008), which was a finalist in the Zone 3 Book Award and the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize. Her work has been published in many literary journals and anthologies. She is currently finishing a PhD in Literature and the Environment at the University of Nevada, Reno. She lives, writes, and teaches in South Lake Tahoe. Refreshments and Open Mike follow the reading, so bring along a poem or two to share.

•••Saturday (3/8), 2-4 PM: Culture Collection presents Larry Ukali Johnson-Redd, vocalist Carla Fleming and Fuh Shang & the Jalapen. 6391 Riverside Blvd., Sacramento. Free. 916-208-7638.

•••Sunday (3/9), 7 PM: Marie Ross will be reading at Barnes & Noble in Stockton at Weberstown Mall on March Lane. Info: birchtree33@hotmail.com


Heading to Mexico?

Donna Hanelin writes:

I'll be teaching a Course on Story Writing (July 12 -18) and conducting a Writers' Retreat (July 20 - 26) at Casa Sagrada (www.casasagrada.com) in Teotitlan del Valle, Mexico, 15 miles due east of the city of Oaxaca. This is my 3rd year teaching at Casa Sagrada and my 11th offering retreats in Oaxaca. The retreat is limited to twelve participants with an active interest in writing (non-writing roommate guests also invited). This year I'm very excited at the prospect of focusing my teaching on Story, both fictional and autobiographical, long and short; though some of you may know me as a poet, I've been writing stories and teaching story writing for twenty years.

As part of the Writers' Retreat, I will read your manuscript (up to 60,000 words) in advance and offer private consultation during the week at Casa Sagrada. Aside from optional evening readings, the time is unscheduled for you to work on your manuscript or to start from scratch or to experiment with new forms and ideas discussed at the Course. Your time will be as uninterrupted as you need or want it to be. Story writers, poets, essayists and non-fiction writers are welcome at the Retreat.

The Course and Retreat can be attended separately or combined into a two-week experience with a weekend break at Casa Sagrada with time to relax, tour the area or simply continue with your writing. The Casa also offers horseback riding, cooking classes, traditional Mexican healing, massage and guided hiking and bird watching. And you can wander down into Teotitlan, the world renown village of rug weavers or up into the surrounding hills-there's lots to explore and to enjoy!

The cost ($1,060 for Course or Retreat/$195 Weekend Break/or $1,925 for all 14 days) is very reasonable and includes room, all meals, Course and/or Retreat and airport transfers. You can fly direct to Oaxaca from Houston on Continental. By the way, the weather is temperate, not humid—80s day/60s night, 5500’ elevation. Visit the web site for details and photos: http://www.creativewritingclasses.us/Writing-Retreats-Oaxaca-Mexico.html/ And please contact me directly for more Information and Registration: Donna Hanelin (530-265-8799) or donna@creativewritingclasses.us/ A paper brochure is available on request.

___________________

GLASS
—Semezdin Mehmedinovic

I go to the window and look at the cracked glass panels of the 'Jugobanka' building. I could stand there for hours. A blue glass facade. One floor above the window from which I watch, a professor of aesthetics is out on his balcony: he adjusts his glasses and combs his beard with his fingers. I see him reflected in the blue facade of 'Jugobanka', in the cracked glass panels which turn the scene into a living cubist painting on a sunny day.

____________________

HERO
—Semezdin Mehmedinovic

He's a hero, says the soldier in fatigues, pointing at the kid kneeling on the parquet floor. Killed a Chetnik, he says. The boy put the ammunition belt and the old M48 down on the floor: he smiles, completely carried away, as he plays with plastic cars and makes the sounds of an engine. On Vraca, he says, after agreeing to tell the story, my friends took some shots with a Kalashnikov and nothing. Then I let go twice and the Chetnik just rolled over. My rifle kills at five kilometres, he said, scratching his forehead with a toy car.

___________________

Today's prose poems are from Scar on the Stone: Contemporary Poetry from Bosnia, ed. by Chris Agee, Bloodaxe Books, 1998. These three poems were translated by Ivana Djordjevic.


—Medusa

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).


SnakeWatch: News From Rattlesnake Press:

Coming March 12: Rattlesnake Press will be releasing a chapbook from Ann Privateer (Attracted to Light), a littlesnake broadside from Jeanine Stevens (Eclipse), Conversations Vol. 2 of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#17—next deadline is May 15). Join us to celebrate all of this at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on March 12 at 7:30 PM.

Love in Sooth

Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
who would've been 202 years old today

LOVE
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We cannot live, except thus mutually
We alternate, aware or unaware,
The reflex act of life: and when we bear
Our virtue onward most impulsively,
Most full of invocation, and to be
Most instantly compellant, certes, there
We live most life, whoever breathes most air
And counts his dying years by sun and sea.
But when a soul, by choice and conscience, doth
Throw out her full force on another soul,
The conscience and the concentration both make
mere life, Love. For Life in perfect whole
And aim consummated, is Love in sooth,
As nature's magnet-heat rounds pole with pole.

___________________

Today in NorCal poetry:

•••Today at 2 PM, hear Edythe Haendel Schwartz on Jeffrey Callison’s “Insight” on KXJZ Capitol Public Radio (90.9). Next Monday, Sacramento Poetry Center will feature Edythe at HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento, 7:30 PM.

•••Tonight (3/6), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Open mic before and after.

•••Also Tonight (3/6), 5:30 PM: Tahoe poet Suzanne Roberts reads from her collections, Shameless and Nothing to You. Wild Mountain Books, 352 Main St., Placerville. Free. 530-622-4540.


Speaking of SPC:

Don't forget the Sacramento Poetry Center's Second Annual High School Poetry Contest; the deadline is March 15, a week from Saturday. Winners will receive prizes including a $100.00 Grand Prize, books, scholarships to the SPC Writers’ Conference (April 5, 2008), and publication in The Tule Review, Sacramento Poetry Center's literary journal, or in Poetry Now, the official monthly newsletter of the Sacramento Poetry Center. Winners and Honorable Mentions will also be invited to perform their work on April 14, 2008 at The Sacramento Poetry Center’s venue at the HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th Street in Sacramento. No entry fees required. (3 poems maximum per student, please.) Send poems to: High School Poetry Contest, The Sacramento Poetry Center, 1719 25th St., Sacramento, CA 95816.


Cache Creek workshop:

The second eight-week workshop in Rae Gouirand’s 2008 series at the Cache Creek Nature Preserve is entitled PROSE POETRY. This workshop will explore a wide variety of contemporary prose poems, discuss the particularities of the form, and use the spring landscape at the Preserve to feed surprising new work. Expect to be inspired in new directions! Writers in all genres and with all levels of experience are welcome. Please note a time change: this workshop will meet in the afternoons on Thursdays, April 10-May 29, from 1-3 PM. (To register, email your name, email address, and phone number to rgouirand@gmail.com/.


B.L.'s Drive-By:

Total Immersion by Glenna Luschei, Presa :S: Press, P.O. Box 792, Rockford, MI 49341. 96 pp, $15. ISBN 978-0-980081-0-4

Sometimes when you review books, you come across a jewel, and the poetry of Glenna Luschei’s new collection, Total Immersion, talks to the reader and quickly becomes one of those books that you just have to have in your library. These poems wrap themselves around you with delicate ease and sharp wisdom. Here is an evocative celebration of aliveness which echoes with alertness and truth. Glenna Luschei is filled with the sounds of the world and language communicated to the reader with such delicate organic style that the poems themselves speak with natural voice and spirit. I fell in love with the shear beauty of these poems. So, if you are not tuned-in to the work of Glenna Luschei, pick up a copy of Total Immersion at your local bookstore, or order it directly from Presa :S: Press and journey with the poet.

—B.L. Kennedy, Reviewer-in-Residence

(“B.L.'s Drive-By” is a Thursday feature on Medusa. Watch for more of B.L. Kennedy's reviews in every issue of Rattlesnake Review; plus, some of his past reviews are posted on rattlesnakepress.com under the heading "SnakeFaves and Things We Wish We'd Published, But Didn't". And if you have something you'd like Bari to look at for possible review, his contact info is in the long blurb to the right of this column.)

___________________

THE SUDDEN SPRING
—John Haines

The coyote had just spoken
and lay down to rest in a snowdrift.

March, like a fly awakened too early,
droned between somnolence
and a furious boredom.

No one remembers the autumnal
prophet, teller of drowsy stories
to be continued...

Winter, the unfinished, the abandoned,
slumped like a mourner
between two weeping candles.

__________________

LARKSPUR
—John Haines

The blue giant is passing,
king of this field.

His trumpets blow pure cobalt,
he brings with him
audiences of the deepest indigo.

By his command
the sky-stained meadows overflow,
and bridges of azure
stretch far into evening...

where the king, his train halted,
stands alone in his blueness.

___________________

MARIGOLD
—John Haines

This is the plaza of Paradise.
It is always noon,
and the dusty bees are dozing
like pardoned sinners.

___________________

THE MUSHROOM GROVE
—John Haines

Here the forest people
died of a sexual longing.

The ground trampled in their passion
healed into a cemetery,
with a few flowers
like frayed parachutes.

Their headstones are umbrellas,
black and weeping.

___________________

Taylor Graham writes to say that her husband, Hatch, is doing much better, and thanks for your good thoughts.


—Medusa

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).


SnakeWatch: News From Rattlesnake Press:

Coming March 12: Rattlesnake Press will be releasing a chapbook from Ann Privateer (Attracted to Light), a littlesnake broadside from Jeanine Stevens (Eclipse), Conversations Vol. 2 of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#17—next deadline is May 15). Join us to celebrate all of this at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on March 12 at 7:30 PM.

Improbable Moons

Photo by Stephani Schaefer, Los Molinos

A LAMENT FOR MENG CHI
—Chang Chi (A.D. 765-830)

We inscribed our names
In the courtyard
By the river's bend;
And you
Were the youngest
Of the nineteen guests.

Today you are not here
To see the light of spring
Nor the blossoms
Of the apricot
Fluttering to the earth
Before the temple door.

___________________

Thanks, Steph, for the photo. Stephani Schaefer lives farther north up the Sacramento Valley, where so many fruit trees are in bloom right now.

Taylor Graham sends us this tidbit in response to yesterday's Seed of the Week. Her husband, Hatch, by the way, is in the hospital and has been pretty sick with the flu.

Watch for more of both of these ladies' work in Rattlesnake Review #17, due out next Wednesday—Yikes! That's a week from today!

POP QUIZ
—Taylor Graham, Sunset

Here you are — alive.
Would you like to make a comment?
—Mary Oliver

I stand at the chalkboard
while everyone sits silent, waiting
for my answer.

What’s the paradigm of creation
reflected in the sonar frequency of bats,
or the extrasensory gaze of horses
in their dark fields?

A quirk-quiz posed by an unseen
professor,

as all the quarks, quanta, chips
and scurf glisten like chalk-
dust charmed in air,
bright against the black-
board. Sunlight’s speechless
answer.

___________________

This just in: calendar additions for tonight:

•••Tonight (Weds., 3/5), 9 PM: Bistro 33 presents Paul Hoover and Maxine Chernoff in the restaurant’s banquet room at 226 F St. in Davis. Paul Hoover has published eleven collections of poetry, including Edge and Fold, Poems in Spanish, Winter (Mirror), Rehearsal in Black, and Totem and Shadow: New & Selected Poems. He is editor of the anthology, Postmodern American Poetry (W. W. Norton) and, with Maxine Chernoff, the literary magazine, New American Writing. He won the Jerome J. Shestack Award for the best poetry to appear in American Poetry Review in 2002. With Nguyen Do, he edited and translated the anthology, Black Dog, Black Night: Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry, recently published by Milkweed Editions. With Maxine Chernoff, he edited and translated Selected Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin, forthcoming from Omnidawn in Fall 2008. Professor of Creative Writing at San Francisco State University, he curates the Friday Night Poetry Series at San Francisco’s de Young Museum.

Maxine Chernoff is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently Among the Names (Apogee, 2005) and Evolution of the Bridge: New and Selected Prose Poems (Salt Editions, 2003). Her most recent collection of fiction is Some of her Friends That Year: New and Selected Stories (Coffee House). Chernoff has published poetry and fiction in The Paris Review, Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, Story, Partisan Review, North American Review, TriQuarterly, and Conjunctions. She is a frequent reviewer for The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune. She chairs the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University.

Brad Henderson and Andy Jones will host this evening of poetry at Bistro 33. An open mic follows the featured readers. Admission is free, and all are welcome.

•••Also tonight (3/5), 7 PM: Poet Gillian Wegener at the Modesto Library, reading at the Friends of the Modesto Library's annual meeting. Stanislaus County Library, 1500 I Street, Modesto.

__________________

LAMBS
—Thomas James

Under branches of white lilac
They crop the wet grass just before dawn.
They move smokily through the half-light, smudge pots
Pulsing against a thick morning frost.
My watch glows like a small, improbable moon. Six o'clock.
I have been driving into the dark too long.

I pull to the side of the road.
I am a branch, a stone. The lambs are not aware of me.
They have been fading into the hillside
Like shadows that have peopled someone's fever
In the shut room of a dilapidated farmhouse
Where the walls reiterate a spray of honeysuckle.

They ignore one another. They are blanketed with thistles,
A little out of sorts in this shabby light.
Five or six of them are wandering through a peach orchard,
Not even aware of my personal squalor.
What stumbles from their tongues is never music;
It is the echo of a badly damaged shell.

Now they are moving by a ditch or rainwater,
Inspected for flaws in the foggy mirror.
I walk into the field, I am not afraid of them—
They scatter like the last edges of a sickness.
The sun has begun to enlarge its tawny fleeces
At the expense of no one in particular.

__________________

—Medusa

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).


SnakeWatch: News From Rattlesnake Press:

Coming March 12: Rattlesnake Press will be releasing a chapbook from Ann Privateer (Attracted to Light), a littlesnake broadside from Jeanine Stevens (Eclipse), Conversations Vol. 2 of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#17—next deadline is May 15). Join us to celebrate all of this at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on March 12 at 7:30 PM.

Seeds, Two

Here you are—alive.
Would you like to make a comment?
—Mary Oliver

SONNET OF INTIMACY
—Vinicius de Moraes (Trans. by Elizabeth Bishop)

Farm afternoons, there's much too much blue air.
I go out sometimes, follow the pasture track,
Chewing a blade of sticky grass, chest bare,
In threadbare pajamas of three summers back,

To the little rivulets in the river-bed
For a drink of water, cold and musical,
And if I spot in the brush a glow of red,
A raspberry, spit its blood at the corral.

The smell of cow manure is delicious.
The cattle look at me unenviously
And when there comes a sudden stream and hiss

Accompanied by a look not unmalicious,
All of us, animals, unemotionally
Partake together of a pleasant piss.

___________________

The baby vulture photo was my idea, but thanks to Margaret Ellis (Peggy) Hill for the Mary Oliver quote which is our SEED-OF-THE-WEEK. Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers that you have come up with, such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—send us whatever you think might tickle somebody's muse. I'll pick one and post it on a Tuesday, then Medusa readers are encouraged to rise to the occasion with their responses to your triggers. All poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review, starting with the up-comer issue (#17) which is due out in mid-March. (Be sure I have your snail address so I can send you one.) Send your work to me at 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.

____________________


Woodland needs your poems!

•••Saturday, March 15, 11 AM-3 PM: Help Woodland celebrate the beauty of trees with poems at Woodland's Arbor Day Celebration at The Gibson House Museum, Gibson Road, Woodland. Either write a poem or find a good one to share, and either email it to damasa@pacbell.net or mail it to Tree Poems, 42 Clark Court, Woodland, CA 95776. Indicate whether you'd be interested in reading your poem at the event, or whether you'd prefer to have it displayed. For questions, contact Marjorie Brown at 530-662-2124 or Chris Gray at 530-661-3311.


Three up-coming retreats within spitting distance:

•••April 4-6, Friday 7 PM til Sunday noon: Nevada City Poetry Retreat in Nevada City, CA. Fee is $135. Saturday lunch & light snacks provided. Join Nils Peterson and Sally Ashton for a Gold Country get-away in historic Nevada City near Grass Valley. We will divide our time between creating new poems and revisioning old ones. You'll be invited to see if a "golden thread" can lead you to the place where the inner and outer landscapes meet. Saturday evening will be a session working on reading and presentation technique. In your free time, you may wish to explore historic Nevada City’s charming downtown or hiking trails.

Schedule:

Friday
7-10pm Reception and Session 1

Saturday
9:30-Noon Session 2
Lunch at the cabin

2-5pm Session 3
Out to no-host Dinner
Evening Session: Reading/performance technique

Sunday
9:30-Noon Session 4
Retreat ends

To Register: Sally Ashton at sallyashtn@aol.com/ or 408-892-3115 OR Nils Peterson nissepete@aol.com/. $50 deposit due at registration. Most meals & lodging not included; please make your own arrangements.


•••Sunday, April 6, Sutterwriters is proud to sponsor a one-day writing workshop with Ellen Bass. Chat with Ellen over coffee from 9:30-10 AM, then workshop from 10 AM to 4:30 PM. Fee: $125.00 (includes catered lunch). If you missed her last time, don't wait to sign up for this one! We will learn about the craft of writing and get her insightful critique on our writing. She will critique either one poem or up to 3 pages of prose. In order to give Ellen time to critique your work prior to the workshop, the writing is due by March 15th.

Ellen Bass teaches poetry and creative writing in Santa Cruz and in other gorgeous places, such as Big Sur, British Columbia, Mallorca, and Tuscany. We are extremely lucky to have her in Sacramento. Please visit her website at http://ellenbass.com for more information and to see what others have said about her workshops!

If you are interested in attending, please email Billie Custock at bcustock@comcast.net and she will send you the registration details. Space is limited, so sign up early! Info: http://sutterwriters.com/ellenbass.html


•••Dorianne Laux will be teaching two workshops in Santa Cruz: either Saturday, April 5 or Sunday, April 6, each from 10 AM to 4 PM. Dorianne will offer individual critique of one poem from each participant. She'll also give a talk about some aspect of the craft of poetry and share some of her own experiences as a poet. She is willing to read one poem from each participant before the workshop. If you'd like to submit a poem for critique, please send it via email by March 25 to Shalom Victor at victors75@rattlebrain.com. Also, please bring 14 copies of your poem to the workshop for the other group members. There'll be a maximum of 14 students. The cost of the workshop is $185. Registration is on a first-come basis. To register, please make your check payable to Ellen Bass and mail to Shalom Victor at 338 Walnut Ave., Santa Cruz, CA 95060.

DORIANNE LAUX’s fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon (W.W. Norton), is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award. It was also short-listed for the 2006 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for the most outstanding book of poems published in the United States in the previous year, and chosen by the Kansas City Star as one of the ten best books of poetry published in 2005. Laux is author of three collections of poetry from BOA Editions: Awake (1990) introduced by Philip Levine, reprinted this year by Eastern Washington University Press, What We Carry (1994), finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Smoke, (2000). She is co-author of The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (W.W. Norton, 1997). Her work has appeared in the Best of the American Poetry Review, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and has been twice included in Best American Poetry. She has been awarded with a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She waited tables and wrote poems in San Diego, L.A., Berkeley, Petaluma and Juneau, Alaska before moving to Eugene where she’s now a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Oregon. In the fall, she'll be Professor of Creative Writing at North Carolina State University.

____________________

If the vulture and quote don't inspire you, how about a little surrealism?

UNBREAKABLE FISHNET
—Andre Breton
(to Gala Eluard)

The nightwatch performs its usual now-you-see-it-now-you-don'ts in the dormitories. At night two multicolored windows are left half open. Through the first, vices with black eyebrows creep in, young women doing penance go to the other to lean out. Otherwise nothing could disturb the pretty woodwork of sleep. We see hands putting on muffs of water. Blackberry bushes get tangled up on big empty beds while white pillows float on silences more apparent than real. At midnight the underground room fills with stars around the theaters, the ones where opera glasses play the leading roles. The garden's filled with nickel-plated bells. There's a message instead of a lizard beneath every stone.

___________________

MAGPIE
—Shinkichi Takahashi

I start across the bridge.
Coming toward me from the other side,
A woman, drenched and perhaps
Having failed to purchase apples, mutters—
"Sardines, sardines." Below, listening,
A magpie bobs mournfully up and down.

It is a long black bridge,
So long that to cross it is unthinkable.
My white breath dies, rises, and dies.
Life: dust on a bridge rail.
Wars, revolutions: bubbles on a stream.

Late in the frosty night, alone,
I cross an endless bridge.

__________________

—Medusa

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).


SnakeWatch: News From Rattlesnake Press:

Coming March 12: Rattlesnake Press will be releasing a chapbook from Ann Privateer (Attracted to Light), a littlesnake broadside from Jeanine Stevens (Eclipse), Conversations Vol. 2 of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#17—next deadline is May 15). Join us to celebrate all of this at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on March 12 at 7:30 PM.

Sowing Clover

THE MAN BORN TO FARMING
—Wendell Berry

The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout,
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
that the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
descending in the dark?

____________________

This week in Norcal poetry:

•••Monday (3/3), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Julia Levine and Rick Campbell at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. [See last Friday's post for bio.] Open mic afterward.

•••Thursday (3/6), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Open mic before and after.

•••Also Thursday (3/6), 5:30 PM: Tahoe poet Suzanne Roberts reads from her collections, Shameless and Nothing to You. Wild Mountain Books, 352 Main St., Placerville. Free. 530-622-4540. You can also hear Suzanne read at The Other Voice in Davis on Friday [see below for info and Suzanne's bio].

•••Friday (3/7), 7:30 PM: The Other Voice, a poetry reading series sponsored by the U.U. Church of Davis, presents Nancy Bodily and Suzanne Roberts in the library of the church located at 27074 Patwin Road. Nancy Bodily, a mother and student, lives with her husband and daughter in Davis. Her poetry has been published in Poetry Now, Ash Canyon Review, Banyan Review, The Kokanee and Real Eight View. Her favorite pastimes are learning poetry from 6th graders, walking in the fields with Bogey and Ginger, and fumbling towards Zen in her weekly radio program: Earth Mama's Mountain Music Hour. Suzanne Roberts is the author of two books of poems, Shameless (Cherry Grove Collections, 2007) and Nothing to You (Pecan Grove Press, March 2008), which was a finalist in the Zone 3 Book Award and the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize. Her work has been published in many literary journals and anthologies. She is currently finishing a PhD in Literature and the Environment at the University of Nevada, Reno. She lives, writes, and teaches in South Lake Tahoe. Refreshments and Open Mike follow the reading, so bring along a poem or two to share.

___________________

Two deadlines this week, and other March opportunities:

•••March 8 is the early registration deadline and also the entry deadline for the contest for the 7th Annual Pleasanton Poetry, Prose & Arts Festival, which will be held Saturday & Sunday, April 5-6 at the Pleasanton Senior Center, 5353 Sunol Blvd, Pleasanton. Join them for a weekend celebration of poetry, prose, and visual arts. Keynote Speaker will be Jane Hirshfield, Poet, Essayist, & Translator (www.barclayagency.com/.) One- or two-day workshops offered by luminaries such as Kim Addonizio and Sacramento’s own Kathleen Lynch; also lots of offerings for youth. Sponsored by the Pleasanton Cultural Arts Council (PCAC) and the City of Pleasanton. On-line brochure and registration form available at www.PleasantonArts.org/. Early registration deadline: Saturday, March 8, 2008. Last date to register for Festival is Tuesday, March 25, 2008. Contest, open only to registered attendees, has an entry deadline of Saturday, March 8, 2008.

•••March 8 is also the deadline for the Stockton Writing Contest. Check out the details on the Arts Commission website, www.stocktongov.com/arts/, or contact Stockton Arts Commission Director Deena Heath at Deena.Heath@ci.stockton.ca.us

•••The Patricia Dobler Poetry Award is open to any woman writer over the age of 40 living in the U.S. who has not published a full-length book of poetry, fiction, or non-fiction (chapbooks excluded). Poems must be unpublished, up to 75 lines. Up to two poems, of any style, per submission. Submissions must be postmarked by or before March 10. The winner will be notified by April 10. Judge: Ann Townsend. With each entry, submit the following:

* Cover sheet with name, address, phone number, e-mail, title of poem
* Check for $20, made payable to Carlow University
* Self-addressed stamped envelope for notification

Note: The author’s name, address, or any identifying information should not appear on any poem.

Send entries to:

The Patricia Dobler Poetry Award
Jan Beatty, Director of Creative Writing
Carlow University
3333 Fifth Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

The winner will receive the Patricia Dobler Poetry Award, in the form of round-trip travel and lodging as a participating guest of Carlow’s MFA residency in Carlow, Ireland, June 13–23, 2008. For more information on Carlow University’s MFA program, and for complete contest rules, please contact Dr. Ellie Wymard at 412-578-6346 or see http://gradstudies.carlow.edu/creative/dobler-award.html

•••The Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission (SMAC) is accepting applications for the Artist Residency Institute, a paid professional development series for artists from Sacramento and Placer Counties. The Artist Residency Institute (ARI) is a series of workshops and fieldwork (residency) experiences that pays visual, performing, literary and media artists to build their teaching skills. Both new and returning artists are invited to participate in this year's Institute. The program will take place throughout the month of April, 2008 and the application deadline is March 14th by 4:00 p.m.

The key presenter is nationally known educational arts consultant, Dr. Rosalind Flynn, allied with The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Regional presenters from the visual and performing arts and education fields will collaborate with Dr. Flynn on some sessions.

Institute workshops teach you how to design and deliver effective lessons in the arts, develop site-specific artist residencies, use California Visual and Performing Arts Standards required by school systems, teach to the developmental levels of your students, how to manage a classroom and more! The Institute will also connect you to a supportive network of local teaching artists and schools. The Institute curriculum is primarily focused on K-12 age groups but is easily adaptable for teaching adults or other populations in a variety of settings.

All new artists do an artist residency in their discipline in either a school or community site as part of the Institute. The residencies are at least 3 one-hour sessions with the same students. Artists develop the curriculum for the residency in the Institute workshops, and are paid for the residencies on an hourly basis. If the artist is not already working with a particular school or community site, SMAC staff will identify an appropriate residency site based on their experience and interests. Artists from Placer County must do their residency in Sacramento County. There is no cost to participating artists. All artists are paid a stipend of $250 to attend all workshop sessions. New artists are paid an hourly fee for their residency.

If you are a practicing visual, performing, literary or media artist who can demonstrate expertise in an art form, are experienced in or committed to teaching, and live or work in either Sacramento or Placer Counties, you are eligible to apply. Applications are due March 14th by 4 PM. For workshop schedules and more information about the Institute and the application process, log onto: http://www.sacculture.com/aeo_Training_resource.htm or contact Arts Education staff Chelsea Hunt at 916-566-3979, chunt@cityofsacramento.org.
__________________

FEBRUARY 2, 1968
—Wendell Berry

In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.

__________________

MARCH 22, 1968
—Wendell Berry

As spring begins the river rises,
filling like the sorrow of nations
—uprooted trees, soil of squandered mountains,
the debris of kitchens, all passing
seaward. At dawn snow began to fall.
The ducks, moving north, pass
like shadows through the falling white.
The jonquils, half open, bend down with its weight.
The plow freezes in the furrow.
In the night I lay awake, thinking
of the river rising, the spring heavy
with official meaningless deaths.

____________________

WINTER NIGHT POEM FOR MARY
—Wendell Berry

As I started home after dark
I looked into the sky and saw the new moon,
an old man with a basket on his arm.
He walked among the cedars in the bare woods.
They stood like guardians, dark
as he passed. He might have been singing,
or he might not. He might have been sowing
the spring flowers, or he might not. But I saw him
with his basket, going along the hilltop.

____________________

—Medusa

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).


SnakeWatch: News from Rattlesnake Press

Coming March 12: Rattlesnake Press will be releasing a chapbook from Ann Privateer (Attracted to Light), a littlesnake broadside from Jeanine Stevens (Eclipse), Conversations Vol. 2 of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#17—next deadline is May 15). Join us to celebrate all of this at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on March 12 at 7:30 PM.

The Grass People

TO TURN BACK
—John Haines

The grass people bow
their heads before the wind.

How would it be
to stand among them, bending
our heads like that...?

Yes... and no... perhaps...
lifting our dusty faces
as if we were waiting for
the rain...

The grass people stand
all year, patient and obedient—
to be among them
is to have only simple
and friendly thoughts,

and not be afraid.

____________________

—Medusa

Through White Wings

HOW TO REGAIN YOUR SOUL
—William Stafford

Come down Canyon Creek trail on a summer afternoon
that one place where the valley floor opens out.
You will see
the white butterflies. Because of the way shadows
come off those vertical rocks in the west, there are
shafts of sunlight hitting the river and a deep
long purple gorge straight ahead. Put down your pack.

Above, air sighs the pines. It was this way
when Rome was clanging, when Troy was being built,
when campfires lighted caves. The white butterflies dance
by the thousands in the still sunshine. Suddenly anything
could happen to you. Your soul pulls toward the canyon
and then shines back through the white wings to be you again.

__________________

Can you stand one more love poem? This one is from Wayne Robinson, who was also inspired by the end of Love Month:

FOOLISH IN LOVE
—Wayne Robinson, Lodi

Foolish, I see myself in this fools place again,
making a stand
Chasing the sparking specks like the fools gold in
the sand
At the bottom of the stream, so rich in the look of
gold
Worthless, except for the dream, love before we get
too old.

I carry my pan with me like a heart on a sleeve,
ready to swirl
A promising waterway like dancing with a smiling,
willing girl.
Fairies in the mist, the princess and the pea,
Rapunzel, with hair
To let down, while love sick I, romantic I, await
you there.

Romeo beneath the balcony, or maybe Cyrano, Arise
Fair Sun!
My strength and fate are within your tepee, your man
has come!
Take my hair! Leave me to my enemies, I shall endure
As long you love me, the blind Samson, as long as I’m
sure.

I shall collect the fairy dust that has taken the
shape of iron pyrite
Devour the letters of Valentine, the last he had time
to write,
And watch you dance, I love to have you dance next to
me
You float like a dandelion puff when the meadow is
windy.

___________________

And more Stafford:

IN THE DEEP CHANNEL
—William Stafford

Setting a trotline after sundown
if we went far enough away in the night
sometimes up out of deep water
would come a secret-headed channel cat,

Eyes that were still eyes in the rush of darkness,
flowing feelers noncommittal and black,
and hidden in the fins those rasping bone daggers,
with one spiking upward on its back.

We would come at daylight and find the line sag,
the fishbelly gleam and the rush on the tether:
to feel the swerve and the deep current
which tugged at the tree roots below the river.

__________________

THINGS I LEARNED LAST WEEK
—William Stafford

Ants, when they meet each other,
usually pass on the right.

Sometimes you can open a sticky
door with your elbow.

A man in Boston has dedicated himself
to telling about injustice.
For three thousand dollars he will
come to your town and tell you about it.

Schopenhauer was a pessimist but
he played the flute.

Yeats, Pound, and Eliot saw art as
growing from other art. They studied that.

If I ever die, I'd like it to be
in the evvening. That way, I'll have
all the dark to go with me, and no one
will see how I begin to hobble along.

In the Pentagon one person's job is to
take pins out of towns, hills, and fields,
and then save the pins for later.

___________________

—Medusa

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).


SnakeWatch: News from Rattlesnake Press

New in February: The Snake had a massive celebration on February 13 with the release of To Berlin With Love from Elsie Whitlow Feliz and Don Feliz, a new broadside from Carlena Wike (Going The Distance), and a new SnakeRings SpiralChap from Sam and Kathy Kieth (Sex—For Animals...). All of these publications are now at The Book Collector and on rattlesnakepress.com.

Coming in March: Rattlesnake Press will be releasing a chapbook from Ann Privateer (Attracted to Light), a littlesnake broadside from Jeanine Stevens (Eclipse), Conversations Vol. 2 of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#17). Join us to celebrate all of this at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on March 12 at 7:30 PM.