How Could I Forget Walt???

I SAW IN LOUISIANA A LIFE-OAK GROWING
—Walt Whitman

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself.
But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near, for I knew I could not.
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.

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Yesterday Walt Whitman would've been 187 years old. Sorry to forget you, Walt!

Tonight, (6/1), Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac. presents The Sacramento Slam Team, plus Open Mic., 8 pm. Info: 916-441-3931.

Some calendar additions for this week:

•••Saturday (6/3), Escritores del Nuevo Sol’s monthly writing workshop meeting/potluck is open to all, 11 AM, at La Raza Galeria Posada, 15th & R Sts., Sac., second floor. Info: Graciela, 916-456-5323.

•••Sunday (6/4), attend the Friends of the Lincoln Library Book Bonanza, from 9 AM to 9 PM at the Barnes and Noble on Galleria Blvd. in Roseville. Youngsters will read their prize-winning poems from 2-4 pm, and there will be an open mic at 4 (call Sue Clark at 916-434-9226 to sign up), including Sondra Bozarth, an award-winning poet and author of A Scattering of Cats. Other events throughout the day will include author presentations, artist appearances, and a Children’s Story Time with Francis Newman at 11 AM.

•••This Sunday (6/4), get ready to cut, tear, paste, scribble, color. Think Postcards — At the Library! All are welcome to create artistic poetic postcards at the Central Branch of the Sacramento Library, 818 I St., Sac., at 2 PM. Presenters Poet JoAnn Anglin and Visual Artist Kim Scott will bring the large postcards that will be your ‘canvas,’ and also stamps and decorative materials and tools. This is one of two dozen workshops being held as part of the mail-art project, Think Postcards, one of the projects of Sacramento’s Poet Laureate Julia Connor. More info on it can be found at http://www.sacculture.com/grants_poet.htm, the website of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission (SMAC). Come be creative, then mail your completed postcards in to the Commission to be considered as part of a later Public Art display to be presented by SMAC’s Art in Public Places Committee.

•••Next Monday (6/5), The Sacramento Poetry Center is helping to launch Kathleen Lynch's new book, Hinge, at the weekly poetry reading at 7:30 PM at HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.). Hinge is the winner of the 2004 Black Zinnias Poetry Award, the journal published by the California Institute of Arts and Letters.

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In the mood for a BIG contest? Poets & Writers is pleased to announce the 2007 California Writers Exchange Contest. The winners of the contest, one poet and one fiction writer (both from California), will receive a $500 honorarium and an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City, where they will meet with agents, editors, and prominent writers, and give a public reading of their work in Spring 2007. The winners will be selected by Cristina Garcia (fiction) and Charles Harper Webb (poetry). The contest is open to poets and fiction writers who have never published a book, or have published no more than one full-length book in the genre in which they are applying, AND have resided in California for at least two consecutive years prior to the date they submit their manuscripts. An application must accompany all manuscripts. For complete guidelines and an application, please contact (310) 481-7195 or cainfo@pw.org or send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:

Poets & Writers, Inc.
California Writers Exchange
2035 Westwood Blvd., Suite 211
Los Angeles, CA 90025

Completed applications must be postmarked no later than August 31, 2006. Founded in 1970, Poets & Writers is the nation's largest nonprofit organization serving creative writers. P&W is grateful to The James Irvine Foundation for a major grant which makes the California Writers Exchange possible.

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Speaking of postcards:

POSTCARDS
—Phil Weidman, Pollock Pines

Got a postcard from an east
coast poet asking to see
some of my new work.
Still consider such a request
flattering, so mailed him
half a dozen new poems.
He wrote back: As usual
your poems are good solid
reading—thanks so much...
Fair enough, but he sent
another card. This one
scrawled in large letters,
the address smeared,
which read: Your poems are
superb as usual—thanks.
I guess he forgot he'd
already thanked me
and likes my poems
best when tipsy.

_______________________

OKIE POET
—Phil Weidman

Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel
became a Catholic
and not unlike Padre Pio
stretched the seams
of her chosen church
without neglecting Jesus.
She sees the sacred
in the mundane (Prince
Albert tobacco tin,
crossword puzzles,
icicles, a thinning
straw hat) and opens
our eyes with her
gift of poetry.

________________________

Thanks, Phil, for the poems and for the tribute to Wilma McDaniel. Watch for a rattlechap from Phil, to be released in September.

—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. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)