Look Out Where Yr Going!

AMERICAN CLASSIC
—Louis Simpson

It's a classic American scene—
a car stopped off the road
and a man trying to repair it.

The woman who stays in the car
in the classic American scene
stares back at the freeway traffic.

They look surprised, and ashamed
to be so helpless...
let down in the middle of the road!

To think that their car would do this!
They look like mountain people
whose son has gone against the law.

But every night they set out food
and the robber goes skulking back to the trees.
That's how it is with the car...

it's theirs, they're stuck with it.
Now they know what it's like to sit
and see the world go whizzing by.

In the fume of carbon monoxide and dust
they are not such Americans
as they thought they were.

The feeling of being left out
through no fault of your own, is common.
That's why I say, an American classic.

____________________

This weekend in NorCal poetry:

•••Tonight (Friday, 3/21), 7-8 PM: Poetry in the Hills at the Event Center at Raley's in Placerville, 166 Placerville Dr. (take the Forni exit off Hwy 50 and go north; Raley’s is about a mile down the road). Call 530-902-4591 for info. Featured readers are James Lee Jobe and Taylor Graham. An open mike follows. There is no charge. Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada, and also helps her husband (a retired wildlife biologist) with his field projects. Her poems have appeared in International Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, The New York Quarterly, Poetry International, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere, including the anthology, California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Heyday Books, 2004). Her latest book, The Downstairs Dance Floor (Texas Review Press, 2006), was awarded the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. She has two chapbooks from Rattlesnake Press and currently serves as a columnist for Rattlesnake Review. James Lee Jobe has been published in Manzanita, Tule Review, Pearl, and many other periodicals. His poems are also included in The Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems; Jewel of the Valley: A California Anthology; and How to be This Man: The Walter Pavlich Memorial Anthology. From 1994-1999, Jobe was the editor and publisher of One Dog Press, a poetry monthly. He also edited the quarterly, Clan of the Dog. Jobe has four chapbooks published; the most recent is What God Said When She Finally Answered (Rattlesnake Press).

•••Also tonight (3/21), 7:30 PM: Los Escritores Del Nuevo Sol presents An Evening of Poetry: Bilinguish & Y Preguntas, a reading by Jim Michael and Zheyla Henriksen. La Raza Galeria Posada, 1024 22nd St., Sacramento. $5 or as you can afford. Info: 916-446-5133 or www.larazagaleriaposada.org.

•••Monday (3/24), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Zaid Shlah and Brad Buchanan (A Night to Touch Your Inner Canadian) at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. A native Calgarian, Zaid Shlah now resides in Walnut Creek, CA. He obtained his BA in English from the University of Calgary and his MA in English from San Francisco State University, where he received the Distinguished Graduate award from San Francisco State University's Creative Writing department. His poetry has appeared in literary journals and anthologies both in Canada and the U.S. In particular, selections from the long poem, "Taqsim", have appeared on CBC Radio's Alberta Anthology. "Asking Iraq to Comply" appeared in the anthology, Canadian Writers Against the War: The Common Sky, 2003. And "Songs of Departure" and "Asking Iraq to Comply" are forthcoming in the anthology, Arab American and Diaspora Literature (Interlink Publishing, 2005). His first full-length book of poetry is Taqsim (Frontenac 2005). Brad Buchanan is originally from Canada and has had his poems published in many of the most widely-read Canadian literary journals, including Grain, Canadian Literature, The Antigonish Review, Descant, The Fiddlehead and Event. He has a Ph.D. from Stanford University and teaches at California State University, Sacramento. His first book is The Miracle Shirker from Poets Corner Press. He is married and has a young daughter, Nora, who has no idea yet that she is a Maple Leafs fan.

__________________

FILLING STATION
—Elizabeth Bishop

Oh, but it is dirty!
—this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a distrubing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.

Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Some comic books provide
the only note of color—
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
Esso—so—so—so
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.

___________________

I KNOW A MAN
—Robert Creeley

As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking,—John, I

sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going.

___________________

—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

The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series.

Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!

Creaking Helm of Summer

Photo by Stephani Schaefer, Los Molinos

CRANES
—John Haines

That vast wheel turning
in the sky,
turning and turning
on the axle of the sun...

The wild cries,
the passionate wingbeat,
as the creaking helm of the summer
comes round,

and the laboring ship
plunges on...

__________________

IN NATURE
—John Haines

Here too are life's victims,
captives of an old umbrella,
lives wrecked
by the lifting of a stone.

Sailors marooned
on the island of a leaf
when their ship
of mud and straw went down.

Explorers lost
among roots and raindrops,
drunkards sleeping it off
in the fields of pollen.

Cities of sand that fall,
dust towers that blow away.,
Penal colonies
from which no one returns.

Here too, neighborhoods
in revolt, revengeful columns;
evenings at the broken wall,
black armies in flight...

__________________

DIVIDED, THE MAN IS DREAMING
—John Haines

One half
lives in sunlight; he is
the hunter and calls
the beasts of the field
about him.
Bathed in sweat and tumult
he slakes and kills,
eats meat
and knows blood.

His other half
lies in shadow
and longs for stillness,
a corner of the evening
where birds
rest from flight:
cool grass grows at his feet,
dark mice feed
from his hands.

__________________

TREES ARE PEOPLE AND
THE PEOPLE ARE TREES
—John Haines

And there in the crowded commons
three hundred striding people,
gesturing, eating the air,
halted around us, suddenly quiet.

They sprouted leaves and cones,
they wore strange bark for clothing,
and gently lifted their arms.

__________________

THE PITCHER OF MILK
—John Haines

Today is the peace of this mist
and its animals, as if all
the cows and goats in the land
gave milk to the dawn.

The same mist that rises
from battlefields, out of the mouths
and eye-sockets of horse
and man, it mingles with smoke
from moss fires
in the homesteader's clearing.

I and the others come to the doors
of cold houses, called
by the thin ringing of a spoon;

we stand with our brimming bowls,
called to where Peace awakens
in a cloud of white blood.

____________________

No B.L. Drive-by today; Bari Kennedy has the flu.

And celebrate Spring! She sneaked up on us in the middle of the night!

—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

The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, all available at The Book Collector or from rattlesnakepress.com/.

Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!

Seeds & Shoes & Other Prodigals

Abandoned Snowman
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

HOW CAN YOU BELIEVE

in a spiral galaxy?
Under the soft electric glow that zaps
anything with wings at midnight,

wings that keep getting closer
house by isolated house—
remember how we drive this same

stretch of woods
like so many travelers
trying to get home before dark,

through hills where a lost dog
runs with the fear of doe in his feet.
Again tonight we arrive back

at our own front door, under no stars
but sky’s coupled pressure
building, released in heat

lightning. If there’s no freedom
for a shoe that’s lost its
mate, why can’t we just be joyful?


—Taylor Graham, Somerset

___________________

Thanks, TG! Taylor Graham is responding to yesterday's Seed of the Week, "Leftovers". She writes: OK, this is leftovers for sure. [Workshoppers in] Red Fox Underground have a nasty way of crossing out Foxes' favorite lines: "save it for another poem." So I gathered some of mine and here's what I got.

And David Humphreys sends us this response to last week's SOW about dogs. Thanks, David!

SHILOH
—David Humphreys, Stockton

I lost the first poem I wrote about the dog maybe
four years ago. Don’t know how it happened except
that it was so clearly out of his cocky prime I guess
I was just a little put out by the strutting sexual leer
of it, dog ears all perked up with his tongue lolling out
in a wide laughing grin mincing up to sniff out every
passing feminine bustle of attention, eyes rimmed in
handsome mascara theater, plume tail curling up behind
him like a feather in a Musketeer’s velvet hat. I must
have deleted it in some distracted irritation. Anyway,
here it is again, resurrected with all the odd details intact
as we both head out on our morning walk one more
time both of us a little heavier than we used to be, even
after 1200 miles further down the road.

Now, in just a few short years he has turned gray and slows
to a tired walk before we finish our two miles every morning.
Time is catching up with him as it has with all the others, one
named Tarawa, a jet black beauty that disappeared chasing
cattle in Colorado. Then came two lovely Goldens, Orion a
handsome dark male with a congenital heart defect and his
sister Chelsea a happy bright lighter female. I’ll miss all
of them before much longer and just have to go out and find
another to help me count the passing miles.

___________________

This just in:

•••Tonight, Wednesday (3/19), 9 PM: Rattlechapper James DenBoer will be reading at Bistro 33 as part of the Poetry Night at Bistro 33 Reading Series at 226 F St., Davis. Long-appreciated by local readers of poetry, James DenBoer’s work has appeared in a great variety of publications in multiple media. DenBoer has authored eight books of poetry spanning almost 40 years (including Black Dog for Rattlesnake Press), has appeared in another seven anthologies of poetry and literature, and has won awards and grants from the National Council on the Arts, the Author’s League of America, the Carnegie Fund for Authors and the National Endowment for the Arts. DenBoer’s most recent book, Stonework: Selected Poems, was published by Sandra McPherson’s Swan Scythe Press in the city of Davis. Open Mic follows the Featured Reader. Free and Open to the Public; hosted by Brad Henderson and Andy Jones. For more on James DenBoer, visit http://www.paperwrk.com/ or his rattlechapper page on rattlesnakepress.com/. JDB will be releasing another chapbook from Rattlesnake Press this June.

__________________

THE PRODIGAL
—Elizabeth Bishop

The brown enormous odor he lived by
was too close, with its breathing and thick hair,
for him to judge. The floor was rotten; the sty
was plastered halfway up with glass-smooth dung.
Light-lashed, self-righteous, above moving snouts,
the pigs' eyes followed him, a cheerful stare—
even to the sow that always ate her young—
till, sickening, he leaned to scratch her head.
But sometimes mornings after drinking bouts
(he hid the pints behind a two-by-four),
the sunrise glazed the barnyard mud with red;
the burning puddles seemed to reassure.
And then he thought he almost might endure
his exile yet another year or more.

But evenings the first star came to warn.
The farmer whom he worked for came at dark
to shut the cows and horses in the barn
beneath their overhanging clouds of hay,
with pitchforks, faint forked lightnings, catching light,
safe and companionable as in the Ark.
The pigs struck out their little feet and snored.
The lantern—like the sun, going away—
laid on the mud a pacing aureole.
Carrying a bucket along a slimy board,
he felt the bats' uncertain staggering flight,
his shuddering insights, beyond his control,
touching him. But it took him a long time
finally to make his mind up to go home.



____________________

—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

The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, all available at The Book Collector or from rattlesnakepress.com/.

Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!

Poetic Leftovers

THE BILLY RUN
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

The cherry, the almond
make dry light petal-snow.

We’re training young Billy
the Pomeranian-something out

of the mouth-snaps taught
him in that December kennel.

We must pay out griefs, like him,
on a-hint-at-a-time more leash.

Sun whitens by five degrees
each 8:00 a.m., probes with longer fingers

the blue. One block into the Billy-run,
two or three feather-poets,

mockingbirds, break off mid-song
to drive away magpies.

__________________

MOCKINGBIRDS
—Tom Goff

Gray-white birds
rhapsodize

—minature Homers, Charlie Parkers,
Bosnian guslári, but with plumes—

from the predawn shuttlecock
vast epic materials

till they make this oral stock: endless little

flute-throat stops.

Listen! and here comes again

sunrise with her fingers, translucence
beyond old and new.

__________________

Thanks, Tom! Tom Goff says: One poem's leftovers can be the start of another poem. I was thinking of what Ted Hughes wrote about Sylvia Plath and her craft, that if she couldn't make a satisfactory table, the pieces could still become a chair, and so on. (Paraphrasing loosely.) We all feel we overwrite, have too many things to say on a subject. But treat the excess as leftovers, and you can make soup, as it were. I had too much to say, as it happens, about mockingbirds, who have a great deal to say in our neighborhood. So a second little poem came from the gristle and fat of the first.

Tom calls this "Poetic Leftovers", and that's today's Seed of the Week. Got a poem, old or new, that warrants two poems? Something that didn't quite get said the first time? Or a spin-off; an idea that pops out of the chest of the first?

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. (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.

___________________

Still room in Cache Creek workshops:

Rae Gouirand writes: Registration is open for both of my spring workshops, and both are filling quickly, so please read on if you're interested in (and haven't already signed up for)...

•••the second eight-week workshop in my 2008 series at Woodland's Cache Creek Nature Preserve, PROSE POETRY. In this workshop we'll 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. 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. The Writer-in-Residence program offers workshops offered free of charge to the general public thanks to support from the Teichert Foundation and Cache Creek Nature Preserve. (To register, reply to me by email [rgouirand@gmail.com] with your name, email address, and a phone number where you can be reached.)

or

•••the 14-week spring session of my ongoing CREATIVE NONFICTION workshop, which begins Sunday, April 27. This time around we'll be reading book-length essay collections and memoirs (about one per month) instead of working from a coursepack, so the workshop will be especially fruitful for those who are working on memoir projects, book-length projects, or essay series (though writers working on individual pieces will also find room here). The course fee of $150 does not include the (2-3) books, which I'll be sending information about via email after registration. I'll provide info about where to get them used and/or locally. Those who have not attended a previous session of this workshop will need to pay in advance to hold a spot; returning writers can pay at the first meeting. After this session, we'll break for the month of August and then come back in September. Sunday nights, April 27-July 27, 7-9 PM. (To register, or for more information, email me. Please note that this workshop will not be running on Thursday nights at the Davis Art Center as listed in their catalog.)

__________________

REDOING THE FAÇADE LIKE A CHRISTO SHROUD
—Tom Goff

Dairy clouds, heavy cream
no wind has yet whipped this

spring. The cow god presides
over the mainly black grass-

eaters south of Highway 50.
Shoots are green, life is good, yet

north of 50, the trenches, backhoes
& bulldozers in equal number to those

grazers. Is all this well or unwell,
or a powdery mix of both? Milk-white also

alongside the road, Kaiser Permanente
Folsom, under a plastic shroud,

conceptual piece by Christo. They must be
redoing the façade. What the hell for?

Before, the building looked good enough,
or, let’s say, gray enough, a patient’s

face. Distance leaves it hard to determine
what gives, what goes. Either

this is the bulge that says the bedsheet’s
just been tugged over the late one’s head,

or the fitted sheet showing how now
the bed’s been emptied

—a shape, a vacancy, a silence. Still the cars
all around, though, friends

numb at bedside in chairs, their minds
still issuing tides that swell or slip back on ebb.

___________________

—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

The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series.

Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!

Keep A Small Purse

St. Patrick's Chapel
Photo courtesy of Fotosearch

HER ANXIETY
—William Butler Yeats

Earth in beauty dressed
Awaits returning spring.
All true love must die,
Alter at the best
Into some less thing.
Prove that I lie.

Such body lovers have,
Such exacting breath,
That they touch or sigh.
Every touch they give,
Love is nearer death.
Prove that I lie.

__________________

This week in NorCal poetry:

•••Monday (3/17), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Blake More at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Blake More resides along the tree, ocean, and character-lined vistas of the not-so-lost Mendocino coast. Engaged in many creative expressions, Blake’s work spans the spectrum from poetry, fiction, to non-fiction, to plays and performance pieces, to theatrical costume and mixed media functional art pieces, assemblage sculpture and wildly painted poetry art cars. The author of three full-length books (New Age Anonymous: 12 Steps for the Recovering New Ager, The Photon Energy Diet, and How To Heal Your Headache Naturally) and five books of poetry (Lingua Franca, Late-Eve(all) Woman In Paradise, I Scribble; Therefore I Am, postcards from the sun, and godmeat), Blake’s work has also appeared in magazines and journals worldwide (including Utne Reader, Yoga Journal, Alternative Medicine Digest, Japan International Journal, Nippon View, Tokyo Today, and Tokyo Time Out). Her original solo performance pieces and ensemble plays have appeared on streets and stages in New York, Tokyo, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Los Angeles, Marin, Sonoma, and the Mendocino coast. She has worked with the Oakland East Bay Symphony, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the Bay Area Video Coalition, The Marsh Theater, The Arena Theater, Gualala Arts, California Poets In The schools, Laughing Squid, KZYX Radio, KTDE Radio, SF Liberation Radio, and Radio Amsterdam. She coordinates a monthly poetry series and an annual poetry and jazz event on the south coast of Mendocino County. Blake’s newest book, godmeat (Beatitude Press, January 2008), is a collection of poetry, prose and color artwork and includes a poem movie compilation DVD. To learn more about godmeat, go to www.godmeat.com/. To explore Blake’s many other creative endeavors, please go to her website: www.snakelyone.com/.

•••Thursday (3/20), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured readers and open mic before and after. Info: 916-441-3931.

•••Friday (3/21), 7-8 PM: Poetry in the Hills Poetry Reading at the Event Center at Raley's in Placerville, 166 Placerville Dr. (take the Forni exit off of Hwy 50 and go north; Raley’s is about a mile down the road). Call 530-902-4591 for info. Featured readers are James Lee Jobe and Taylor Graham. An open mike follows. There is no charge. Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada, and also helps her husband (a retired wildlife biologist) with his field projects. Her poems have appeared in International Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, The New York Quarterly, Poetry International, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere, including the anthology, California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Heyday Books, 2004). Her latest book, The Downstairs Dance Floor (Texas Review Press, 2006), was awarded the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. She has two chapbooks from Rattlesnake Press and currently serves as a columnist for Rattlesnake Review. James Lee Jobe has been published in Manzanita, Tule Review, Pearl, and many other periodicals. His poems are also included in The Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems; Jewel of the Valley: A California Anthology; and How to be This Man: The Walter Pavlich Memorial Anthology. From 1994-1999, Jobe was the editor and publisher of One Dog Press, a poetry monthly. He also edited the quarterly, Clan of the Dog. Jobe has four chapbooks published; the most recent is What God Said When She Finally Answered (Rattlesnake Press).

•••Also Friday (3/21), 7:30 PM: Los Escritores Del Nuevo Sol presents An Evening of Poetry: Bilinguish & Y Preguntas, a reading by Jim Michael and Zheyla Henriksen. La Raza Galeria Posada, 1024 22nd St., Sacramento. $5 or as you can afford. Info: 916-446-5133 or www.larazagaleriaposada.org.


Bed of Roses Love Sonnet Contest

JoAnn Anglin sends us this note from Garrison Keillor: It's time for another poetry contest on "A Prairie Home Companion" and we've decided to make it a sonnet contest and to hold it on April 12, read the best entrants on our live broadcast from New York, and invite our audience — at home and at the theater — to vote a winner. We'll accept rhymed or unrhymed fourteen-line sonnets. We think they should be love poems, but love of what, who's to say. Absolutely must be original. Must be submitted by Friday, April 11, at midnight Central Time.

* Submission Form >> http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/features/lyrics/2008/form/

* Rules and Guidelines >> http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/features/lyrics/rules.shtml


Gold Rush Writers Conference May 2-4

The third annual Gold Rush Writers Retreat, featuring some good workshops with Karen Joy Fowler, Antoinette May, and more in the Leger Hotel in Mokelumne Hill will be held from May 2-4. Karen Joy Fowler’s award-winning short stories have been anthologized again and again. Learn the story behind her best seller, The Jane Austen Book Club, which has been made into a movie. Or study novel writing with Antoinette May, author of Pilate’s Wife, a historical saga translated into 17 languages. But this is only the beginning! There will be workshops in memoir, poetry, flash fiction, romance fiction, self publishing, computer research, short stories, novel writing and much, much more—plus a picnic supper in a Victorian garden, dinner at the historic Hotel Leger and a pool-side brunch! All yours for just $135! Info: www.goldrushwriters.com or toni@antoinettemay.com/.

Manzanita's Monika Rose says: This is a valuable conference, priced reasonably, with a friendly atmosphere. If you haven't signed up yet, you might want to do that, as there is a price break for early birds. The price goes up at the end of this month, so sign up now and STRIKE IT RICH.

___________________

GOOD-BYE TO THE FLOWERCLOCK
—John Haines

The hour belonged to hemlock
and nightshade; all around me
the dayflowers perished,
the garden I planted in my flesh
and watered with my blood.

The hour was wound tight
under the bark of the birch tree,
in the ice of the streambed,
and lay like an iron shadow
on the sundial I wore as a heart.

It was time to push away
the four walls of the years,
to go to the end of the path
and go beyond...

The flowerclock whirled
in the darkness, all its petals
flew off, and the stem
swung hollow and broken
like a blade of straw.

___________________

SHEPHERD'S PURSE
—John Haines

Poverty Weed or Beggar Tick,
some days in the field
are leaner than others.

Let the stalk be strong,
the flowerhead high
and the seedbox full—

November like a tax collector
will come to the poor,
the cut and the shaken,

with nothing to save
but their paper mittens
and a straw whistle.

In a time of hard money
keep a small purse,
spend little.

Be sure to have more
than one heart,
and you may survive.

__________________

—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

The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series.

Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!

A Garment of Brightness

Criminentlies—Enough with this dog talk!
Photo courtesy of Fotosearch

SONG OF THE SKY LOOM
—Tewa Song

Oh our Mother the Earth, oh our Father the Sky,
Your children are we, and with tired backs
We bring you the gifts that you love.
Then weave for us a garment of brightness;
May the warp be the white light of morning,
May the weft be the red light of evening.
May the fringes be the falling rain,
May the border be the standing rainbow.
Thus weave for us a garment of brightness
That we may walk fittingly where birds sing,
That we may walk fittingly where grass is green,
Oh our Mother the Earth, oh our Father the Sky!


(trans. by Herbert Joseph Spinden)

___________________

—Medusa

Dogs & Their Birthdays

DOG LIPS
—David Humphreys, Stockton

Dawg leeps, you softy bear
fur soft as mink. After our
morning walk you bounce around
like a dim wit puppy but then settle
down on your bean bag bed for your
day long snooze, Mr. Dog.

___________________

Thanks, David. David Humphreys is responding to last Tuesday's Seed of the Week.


Sacramento Poetry Center Conference: April 4-5

This year's Sacramento Poetry Center Conference will feature readings, lectures, and workshops. Here's the schedule:

Friday April 4:

6 PM late registration, passes, hors d'ouevres, book sales
6:45 PM Reception opening, introduction
7:00 PM Reading at The Space: Camille Norton, Joshua McKinney, Jane Hirshfield
8-8:30 PM Closing/Book Sales

Saturday April 5:

8:45-9:20 AM Breakfast, Late Registration, Briefing from President
9:30-11:30 AM Workshop A Camille Norton
9:30-11:30 AM Workshop B Joshua McKinney
11:30 AM Lunch
1-1:30 PM Al Young Lecture
2-4:00 PM Workshop C Ellen Bass
2-4:00 PM Workshop D Quinton Duval
4:15-4:30 PM Closing remarks by President
4:30 PM Reading at The Space: Quinton Duval, Ellen Bass, Al Young
5:30 PM Closing Book Signings

Fees: Members: Friday $10 [Reading only] Saturday $10 [Reading/Lecture only] Both Days $35; Non-members: Friday $10 [Reading] Saturday $15 [Reading/Lecture only] Both Days $45. Special one-time SPC membership fee at the conference: $25. Mail to: 1719 25th Street , Sacramento, CA 95816.

__________________

THE DOG'S MUSIC
—Russell Edson

The rich hire orchestras, and have the musicians climb into trees to sit in the branches among the leaves, playing Happy Birthday to their dogs.

When the manservants come with birthday cakes, they are told, not now, do not dare disturb me when I am listening to my dog's music.

I was just wondering, sir, if I should light the candles?

I said not now. Do you want to distract me from my dog's music? Don't you realize that this is his birthday, and that it's been a whole year since his last birthday?

Shall I just put the cake in his feeding bowl, sir?

You are still distracting me from my dog's music. I wonder why you do it. This is not your birthday. Why are you trying to attract my attention?

But, sir, the cake...

But do you think I want my dog to see me talking to you while his music is being played? How would it seem to you if I talked to the dog while your music was being played?

So sorry, sir. I'll take the cake back to the house...

Oh no, it's gone too far for that—Sic'em, sic'em, cry the rich to their dogs.

And so the dogs of the rich leap on the serving men, who cry, help help, to the rich, who reply, not now, not now, the dog's birthday is passing into history with all its marvelous music!

__________________

—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

The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series.

Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!