Medusa's Kitchen: Inkwells of the Heart

Friday, October 21, 2005

Inkwells of the Heart

CREAKY LIDS LIFT
—Patricia D'Alessandro, Sky Valley, CA

from inkwells of the heart
when poets dip for ink
against the war

a gentle man named Samuel
who, with his wife protects
women against the violence
of men in Washington,

whose "sacred intervention"
collected 30,000 poems
against the war in Iraq
that Dr. Carlos Williams would approve

as leader of humanity
against all wars
so that the time for melting guns
to plowshares
is now prime.

____________________

Thanks, Pat! Ex-Sacramentan Pat D'Alessandro keeps in touch with the Sacramento poetry community via her poems and doodles and other artistic doings. Watch for more from Pat in the next Rattlesnake Review, due out in December (deadline for submissions: November 15).

ITEM
—William Carlos Williams

This, with a face
like a mashed blood orange
that suddenly

would get eyes
and look up and scream
War! War!

clutching her
thick, ragged coat
A piece of hat

broken shoes
War! War!
stumbling for dread

at the young men
who with their gun-butts
shove her

sprawling—
a note
at the foot of the page

__________________

WHEN THE WAR IS OVER
—W.S. Merwin

When the war is over
We will be proud of course the air wil be
Good for breathing at last
The water will have been improved the salmon
And the silence of heaven will migrate more perfectly
The dead will think the living are worth it we will know
Who we are
And we will all enlist again

________________________

Well, okay—maybe not all of us...

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.

FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE~

Area journals to check out:

•••Brevities, the wee monthly published by Joyce Odam, seeks submissions of the proper size. Write to Joyce at joyceofwords@gmail.com for info.

•••Tule Review from Sac. Poetry Center: www.sacramentopoetrycenter.com

•••Canary, an environmental poetry journal, is ed. by Gail Entrekin, at www.canarylitmag.org

•••Ginosko; see GinoskoLiteraryJournal.com

•••Song of San Joaquin: www.chaparralpoets.org/SSJsubmissionGuide.html

For more journals, scroll down past this green box to the blue box below it, then keep scrolling past the calendar info to "Hot, Hot Journals Full of Hot, Hot Poetry!".

THE REST OF THE B-BOARD! Enter at your own risk; NorCal poetry is SMOKIN'!

Watch Medusa's UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS page on a daily basis for what cooks in NorCal poetry! (Like everything else, it keeps on changing...) Other sites to check for poetry news and area events include: •••www.facebook.com/sacpoetry.center

•••SPC's Community Calendar of Lit. Events: www.facebook.com/groups/SPCgroup/?notif_t=group_name_change&notif_id=1468146125061336

•••poetryindavis.com/archive/2016/10/2812

•••www.facebook.com/El-Dorado-Poetry-1237910429583182 for news about what's going on in El Dorado County poetry

•••sacramento365.com (go to Poetry & Literature under Performance)

•••Want to learn about some Bay Area events? Debralee Pagan (debralee@astoundnet) publishes an e-newsletter called "Strictly East" (Poetry Past the Caldecott Tunnel)—email her for a free subscription. See also www.poetryflash.org/.

Don't see your reading event listed on Medusa? That's probably because you didn't send it to us! It's such a shame to invite poets to read for you, and then fail to advertise them. So try to get your message out in a timely manner.

Online and otherwise—

Here are some journals and other publications that are local-ish (okay, there are some Bay Area ones in here, too). If we've left anybody out, let us know!

Plus, keep an eye on the college scene. Some of those journals accept submissions from non-students, though they usually have more limited (mostly annual) deadlines. Go to Medusa's Hot Links for Calaveras Station, Penumbra, Suisun Valley Review, Cosumnes River Journal, but be aware that college journals come and go in this time of tight funding.