Lost Memories of Wildness

Shawn Pittard, Sacramento

THE SILVER FISH
—Shawn Pittard

I killed a great silver fish,
cut him open with a long

thin knife. The river carried
his heart away. I took his

dead eyes home. His red flesh sang
to me on the fire I built

in my backyard. His taste was
the lost memory of my

wildness. Behind amber clouds
of cedar smoke, Orion

drew his bow. A black moon rose
from the night’s dark waters,

a sliver of its bright face
reflecting back into the universe.

(first published in Runes)

_______________________

Thanks, Shawn. Next Monday (2/5), 7:30 PM: The Other Voice in Davis presents Tim Bellows and rattlechapper Shawn Pittard reading their poetry at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, 27074 Patwin Road, Davis. There will be an open reading following the poets. This is a free event. James Lee Jobe will host. Call 530-750-3514 for details. Please check out http://uupoetry.blogspot.com for bios, sample poems, directions, and a map. Shawn is the author of Rattlechap #6 (was it that long ago??), These Rivers, as well as a littlesnake broadside. Here's another poem from Shawny:

PROPHECY
—Shawn Pittard

Acrid haze scrolls
across the valley from the foothills:

incense of pine and bitter cedar
scorched by a wildfire’s fierce heat.

The coarse sky cloaks a scarlet moon,
sleeves its bright circumference.

*

In Sunday School,
I was taught that a blood-red moon

was a portent of the Apocalypse.
I watched each moonrise

with rapt attention—imagined the beast,
horsemen, and a great red dragon

unleash God’s wrath
on the four corners of the earth.

On a night like this, I asked my father:
Will we burn in judgment tonight?

*

White ash falls
like charred confetti, settles

on black lawn chairs in the garden.
A moonflower’s ivory petals

open from its heart-shaped leaves.

(first appeared in Manzanita)

_______________________

Send in those baby snakes:

Tomorrow (2/1) is the deadline for Snakelets, the journal of poetry from kids 0-12. We have a nice fat issue this time, so don't drag your tails about getting those submissions in!


For grown-ups: Indiana Review Poetry Prize: $1000 and publication:

Postmark deadline: March 30, 2007. Send no more than three poems per entry. Reading Fee: $15, includes one-year subscription. Final Judge: Joy Harjo. For details, visit: www.indiana.edu/-interview


Call for submissions:

Universal Table call for submissions on the themes of “Illness and Grace” and “Terror and Transformation”. Stories, poems, personal essays for two anthologies; deadline is May 1. Stories/essays to 5,000 words; poems 1-5 pages. Payment in copies. Submit electronically as Word or RTF attachments to: wisingup@universaltable.org. Submissions also featured on website: www.universaltable.org

______________________

Here's a new poem from another local gal, Rhony Bhopla:

THE ONLY STANDARD
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

Green as lush garden of milk
flowing over the black chalked shivling

Standards only find themselves on
a spinning wheel, swollen in answer circum

Keep above the line, says the reincarnate
—eyes dole knowledge randomly in a pattern
of red pepper seeds among smart black cloves

Voice of hesitance I heard, answering
the call of my woman and solace

Mark this day as a standard, and understand
later what we did and who we meant to save.

_______________________

Thanks, Rhony! Rhony's littlesnake broadside, Tulip Stem, can be had for free by sending me an SASE, as can Shawn's. Shawn's rattlechap is at The Book Collector, or order it online from rattlesnakepress.com. Or, heck, come to the reading! I suspect Shawn will have some available...

—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 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.)

As Wide As Death

photo from England (Lake District) by Katy Brown, Davis




A WORD IN EDGEWAYS
—Charles Tomlinson

Tell me about yourself they
say and you begin to
tell them about yourself and
that is just the way I
am is their reply: they play
it all back to you in another
key, their key, and then in mid-
narrative they pay you a
compliment as if to say what a good
listener you are I am
a good listener my stay
here has developed my faculty I will
say that for me I will not
say that every literate male in
America is a soliloquist, a
ventriloquist, a strategic
egotist, an inveterate
campaigner-explainer over and
back again on the terrain of him-
self—what I will
say is they are not un-
interesting: they are simply
unreciprocal and yes it was a
pleasure if not an unmitigated
pleasure and I yes I did enjoy our
conversation goodnightthankyou

______________________

A British poet today to go with Katy's picture of England.


Between the Sheets:

Monika Rose, of Manzanita fame, writes:

Dear Poets, Writers, and lovers of literature:

Mark your calendars for an achingly lovely poetry and prose reading Feb. 11, 2-5 PM, at Mokelumne Hill's historic Leger Hotel. Dig out those hidden love poems you wrote to your sweetheart when you first met. Write a new poem for the love of your life and read it to her or him, watching eyes glisten in a melancholy swoon. Croon some words of passion to someone in the audience, or delight the adoring crowd with humorous, wry depictions of romance—your choice! If you don't come with an original poem, then bring some great love poems from your favorite poets. Andrew Marvell, anyone? Keats or Shelley? How about those Brownings? Billy Collins or Rita Dove might have a few love notes hidden in their volumes. We will have some poetry volumes on hand to share in the event you come with empty arms. Come share with us and enjoy an afternoon of love words at the Leger Hotel, Sunday afternoon, Feb. 11, from 2-5 PM. Then, enjoy some libations from the historic bar, and a lovely, romantic dinner afterwards to celebrate Valentine's Day. What could be more romantic? Could be a precursor to more romance later....

Billed as "Between the Sheets," a romantic poetry and prose reading at the Leger Hotel in Mokelumne Hill on Sunday, Feb. 11, from 2-5 PM, poets, authors, and the public will entertain us and those special someones for the Valentine week coming up in February. Included will be featured poets and writers involved with Manzanita who have prepared some sensual and romantic poetry and prose for a delicious, sizzling afternoon. Generous open mic time will be provided for the public to read and share favorite love poems, love notes, and nuptial poems--original fare or those by favorite authors. Humorous, sexy, rollicking, serious, heartfelt, sensual poetry and prose will be solicited and shared. David Sackman will accompany writers on stand-up bass for sultry rhythms. Benefit entrance: $5.00 per person. Additional: $15-25 range for a special Valentine menu from 5:00 on, following the event, prepared by the talented Leger Hotel chef. Bonus highlights: creative and fun sensations available from a chocolate confectioner, winery samplings, samples from other vendors, and an afternoon love fest of words. There will be author book signings and chat time during the break. Event hosted by Writers Unlimited (publishers of Manzanita), an affiliate of the Calaveras County Arts Council, and the Leger Hotel. For inquiries and reading reservations, e-mail mrosemanza@jps.net or phone: (209) 754-0577. Open mic signups via e-mail or phone are best to guarantee optimum mic time.


_______________________

A DEATH IN THE DESERT
In Memory of Homer Vance
—Charles Tomlinson

There are no crosses
on the Hopi graves. They lie
shallowly
under a scattering
of small boulders. The sky
over the desert
with its sand-grain stars
and the immense equality

between desert and desert sky,
seem
a scope and ritual
enough to stem
death and to be its equal.

"Homer
is the name," said
the old Hopi doll-maker.
I met him in summer. He was dead
when I came back that autumn.

He had sat
like an Olympian
in his cool room
on the rock-roof of the world,
beyond the snatch
of circumstance
and was to die
beating a burro out of his corn-patch.

"That,"
said his neighbour
"was a week ago." And the week
that lay
uncrossably between us
stretched into sand,
into the spread
of the endless
waterless sea-bed beneath
whose space outpacing sight
receded as speechless and as wide as death.

________________________

—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 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.)

Ya Gotta Love This Face!

SHE ALWAYS PREFERRED PIGS

—babirusa or pigling: pudginess
of even the slimmest ones: pork-
belly rotundery propped up on

pointed toes: ballet of chubbiness:
good-humored mincing, rut-
rutting in the cool mud by

the pond. Well-kept snouts
speak French: root out truffles
to sell for thousands. Or

potbellies from Viet Nam doze
on cushy beds: fubsy pork-pets
dodging the butcher—luckier

than more cumbrous breeds. . .
But still she preferred pigs, their
good-natured corpulence: ballet

of chunkies: pursy dancers tossing
pink roses as they root-root in
the cool mud by the pond. . .


—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines

________________________

I have always had an inordinate fondness for pigs. Maybe Cynthia Bryant, Pleasanton Poet Laureate of Poet's Lane fame, shares it, because she writes:
Send me your poetry with themes FEBRUARY-Eros, Pigs, African American History (this year will be The Year of the Pig in Chinese New Year) or perhaps you need to rant in a poem about the injustices of life, send me a poem for Get it Off Your Chest (mental health poetry) page. Send your poems to PoetsLane@comcast.net . Pigs! Pigs and Eros? Get to work...


Tonight at SPC:

Sacramento Poetry Center will present Michael Pulley and Kimberly White at HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sac., 7:30 PM. Michael Pulley is an award-winning poet and journalist. He grew up in Georgia and the Carolinas but has lived in the Sacramento area since 1978. He recently completed a Master's in Creative Writing at California State University, Sacramento (CSUS) where he now teaches English composition. In 2005, he won a CSUS Bazanella for expository prose, and he was the 2004 recipient of the CSUS Kathryn Hohlwein poetry scholarship. Pulley is a past SPC board member and edited one issue of the SPC Rivers series: Eden, 1992: Poets from the Time Tested Books Reading Series. His poems have appeared in journals throughout California, and in 1991 he published one chapbook, The Coffee Shop Blues. In a 22-year journalism career, Pulley has won Associated Press and United Press International awards and his work has appeared in The Sacramento Bee, The San Francisco Examiner, The Sacramento Business Journal, and Sacramento News & Review, among others.

Kimberly White's work has won awards from the Bay Area Poets Coalition and has been published in North Coast Literary Review, Comstock Review, Rattlesnake Review and other journals and anthologies. She has published two chapbooks and is the author of two unpublished novels. Most recently, she has been involved in ekphrasic projects with the Livermore Poet Laureate Project and with visual artist Victoria Corona, in a project produced by the Rice University Print Shop. She has lived in Sacramento since 1983.

A week from tonight (2/5), SPC will feature Theresa McCourt and Judy Halebsky.


Also this week:

•••Weds., (1/31), 10 PM-Midnight: Mics and Moods, Capitol Garage, 1500 K St., Sacramento. Features and open mic. $5; ages 21 and over. Info: 916-492-9336 or malikspeaks.com

•••Thursday (2/1), 8-11 PM: Vibe Sessions Open Mic at Cobbler Inn, 3520 Stockton Blvd. (next to Colonial Theater). $5, all ages.

•••Also Thursday (2/1), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac. Features and open mic before/after. Free. Info: 916-441-3931 or www.lunascafe.com.

•••Sunday, 2/4, 6 PM: After Loss: Companion Spirit: The PoemSpirits of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento are pleased to announce the next featured reader: Jan Haag, a full-time, tenured professor in the Journalism and English departments at Sacramento City College. A prolific news reporter, copy editor and essayist, Jan also advises on student publications, especially Susurrus, the award-winning SCC literary journal. She turned to poetry, publishing Companion Spirit (by LAMP Press) after the loss of her husband, and with her subsequent involvement in the Sutter Writers Program. Co-Host Tom Goff will also offer a brief presentation on the writings of Michelangelo. These monthly presentations are free and open to the public. Place: Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, 2425 Sierra Blvd [north of Fair Oaks Blvd., between Howe and Munroe/Fulton], Main Building. Free; refreshments provided. Open mic: You are encouraged to bring a favorite poem to share, yours or another’s. This monthly event is presented by UUSS members Tom Goff, Nora Staklis, and JoAnn Anglin. For info on reading, contact: Tom or Nora at 916-481-3312; or JoAnn at 916-451-1372. For info on UUSS: www.uuss.org

•••Next Monday (2/5), 7:30 PM: The Other Voice in Davis presents Tim Bellows and rattlechapper Shawn Pittard reading their poetry at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, 27074 Patwin Road, Davis. There will be an open reading following the poets. This is a free event. James Lee Jobe will host. Call 530-750-3514 for details. Please check out http://uupoetry.blogspot.com for bios, sample poems, directions, and a map.

____________________

SLEEP
—Charles Simic

The woodpecker goes beating a little drum.
The shadow of the hyena blackens my face.
In my legs which are to be judged harshly,
And my hands with their false fury,
The bones lull each other tenderly.
I am with all that shivers,
All that hangs limp and without life.

It rains toads. My blood runs
Past dark inner cities on fire.
I climb into deep wells,
Rock bottoms and bone bottoms
Where gall of my birth steams.

Things slip out of my grasp,
Other things come to a quiet end.
This is my song. Nothing of us remains.
Almost nothing. I am whatever beast inhabits me.

When the rain turns into snow
Every beast shall see its track and wonder.

__________________

—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 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.)

Only in Apparition

ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT
—Walt Whitman

On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.

From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.

Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
Juliter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.

Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?
Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection.)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter,
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.

_______________________

Those of you who know Tehama Poet and Snake-Pal Patricia Wellingham-Jones will be saddened to learn that her husband, Roy, has passed away.

Today's photo is by another Snake-Pal, Colette Jonopulos, of her grandson, and originally appeared in Rattlesnake Review.

—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 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.)

Trepidant Mutinies of Desire

Chez Kieth, 2007—
The New Snake Digs
(photo by Kim Miller)




HANDS
—Donald Finkel

The poem makes truth a little more disturbing,
like a good bra, lifts it and holds it out
in both hands. (In some of the flashier stores
there's a model with the hands stitched on, in red or black.)

Lately the world you wed, for want of such hands,
sags in the bed beside you like a tired wife.
For want of such hands, the face of the moon is bored,
the tree does not stretch and yearn, not the groin tighten.

Devious or frank, in any case,
the poem is calculated to arouse.
Lean back and let its hands play freely on you:
there comes a moment, lifted and aroused,
when the two of you are equally beautiful.

_______________________

Submit! Submit!

•••The editors of cæsura, from Poetry Center San Jose, invite you to submit 1-3 poems addressing the issue of MORTALITY and the general theme of mortality in our age. Submissions should not exceed 4 pages in total. All styles are welcome. Deadline is February 15, 2007. In addition to poetry, we are interested in essays and reviews of poetry or mixed genre collections (please query). The Spring 2007 issue of cæsura will be published in May of 2007. Provide the following contact information with your submission: name, address, phone number, and email address. Previously published work (in print or online) will not be considered. We accept simultaneous submissions on the condition that you notify us immediately upon acceptance elsewhere. Send your work in an email attachment in Word.doc format or pasted as plain text into the body of an email message to caesura@pcsj.org. If your work requires the preservation of a particular visual format or contains special characters, also send a hard copy to:

caesura
Poetry Center San José
1127 Polk Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94086

•••The Pedestal Magazine is also accepting submissions of poetry and fiction. For further info and to review the work of previous contributors, please visit website: www.thepedestalmagazine.com

By the way, Medusa does not claim to like or dislike any of these magazines that she posts info about; it's up to you to do the research and find out if any of them suits you and your work. I always advise people to get a copy—or nowadays you can find out a tremendous amount about journals online—before they submit. Why send one kind of poetry when the editors clearly want another? Or, heck, you may discover that you wouldn't want your poetry or your name to be seen dead there—that happens to the Snake all the time! :-) Then again, if you're a Poetry Slut like Medusa, you figure a credit's a credit, and there's no such thing as Too Many...

_______________________

DINNER AT THE HOTEL DE LA TIGRESSE VERTE
—Donald Evans

1-Terrace
As they sat sipping their glasses in the courtyard
Of the Hotel de la Tigresse Verte,
With their silk-swathed ankles softly kissing,
They were certain that they had forever
Imprisioned fickleness in the vodka—
They knew they had found the ultimate pulse of love.

Story upon story, the dark windows whispered down
To them from above, and over the roof's edge
Danced a grey moon.

The woman pressed her chicken-skin fan against her breast
And through her ran trepidant mutinies of desire
With treacheries of emotion. Her voice vapoured:
"In which room shall it be to-night, darling?"
His eyes swept the broad facade, the windows,
Tier upon tier, and his lips were regnant:
"In every room, my beloved!"

2-Loyalty
I am kissing your wayward feet—
The rumours of flight are broken,
Your hands are a dear pale token.
I adore you to touch me, sweet,
And now are the frail vows spoken.
It is bravely the words are said,
Faith is a flash on our faces—
We mock as the mummer traces
The dawn when the month is dead,
Loyalty mussed like your laces.

_______________________

—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 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.)

Watching You Watch the Stars

photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento



WHERE THE PICNIC WAS
—Thomas Hardy

Where we made the fire
In the summer time
Of branch and briar
On the hill to the sea,
I slowly climb
Through winter mire,
And scan and trace
The forsaken place
Quite readily.

Now a cold wind blows,
And the grass is gray,
But the spot still shows
As a burnt circle—aye,
And stick-ends, charred,
Still strew the sward
Whereon I stand,
Last relic of the band
Who came that day!

Yes, I am here
Just as last year,
And the sea breathes brine
From its stange straight line
Up hither, the same
As when we four came.

—But two have wandered far
From this grassy rise
Into urban roar
Where no picnics are,
And one—has shut her eyes
For evermore.

_______________________

Today Tom Goff sends us another poem about Hardy, with this introduction: One for your blog, if you wish; it's a serious thing about Hardy, since poetic karma demands that after my last endeavor [see Jan. 17 post below, about Hardy's heart]. I'm assembling, now that I've stumbled on it, another, perhaps much longer found poem on the whole business of Hardy's heart—it's quite the literary anecdote, apparently—since looking at all the different versions amounts to a great big academic game of "telephone."

HARDY'S BIKE
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

He calls it his “Red Cob” American,
the name stemming from a Tennessee
strain of corn, red in the ear, white in the kernel.
The country wellbred think his freethinking
part Yankee heresy part Darwin balderdash,
but in any case, a gloom affected,

poor fellow he’s lost it if he ever had it,
so low of birth. The poor fellow’s right this minute
freewheeling, not so much thinking thinking,
wind-assailed, through Wessex, that is,
Dorset cliffs, pedalling wherever ridgecrest
permits. Alongside him, Emma, sunlit face
reflecting the red of the Cob or the strain of the hill;

she on her Grasshopper with step-through frame, garbed
in green velvet, absurd as Thomas to the town
muffling its smirk with a palm. A way to escape them,
furious whirling or allegro ma non troppo
idling: how can a born poet, a trained novelist,
not relish movable theater, this diorama-cyclorama
slash through life? He can write confident vignettes
of one instant’s glimpse sidelong from the road:
a milkmaid’s underbrush-bent bonnet,
a peddler’s back-deforming knapsack…

So: why so uncertain how Emma now feels as they peel
the landscape? Her hair horsewoman’s hair that’d stream
as she faced him obliquely (even her smile sidesaddle),
chestnut tresses tumbling crimson in day’s last good light
now pinchbeck-beneficent under that same sun,
white gold hedged in a green velvet hat…
From her who was once all richness and laughter, barely

a blurt pert breathless retort. Should he,
though then so young, his frame capable
of nothing not found on a spectrum from glint to gleam
to glow, not have reflected: What is it to be a ripe red
cob under a grasshopper’s legs, the brimful kernels
clean white, the grasshopper’s thousand
thousand cousins coming Who knows when
to devour?

_______________________

Thanks, Tom! The saga will continue...


This weekend:

•••Friday (1/26), 7 PM: Stockton Youth Advisory Commissioners (YAC) are sponsoring “By Word of Mouth”, an open mic for teens; others are most welcome to come out and support. Podesto IMPACT Teen Center, 725 N. El Dorado St., Stockton. Cost is $3. Poets interested in performing should e-mail lorienelms89@yahoo.com

•••Saturday (1/27), 9 PM: "The Show" Poetry Series features Ike Torres (Sac slam team), Izreal, and Damnyo Lee (L.A. slam team). Wo'se Community Center, 2863 35th St. (off 35th & Broadway). $5. Info: T.Mo at 916-455-POET.

•••Also, Saturday (1/27) is the deadline for Harvest International, an annual arts and literature magazine produced by Cal Poly Pomona. They’re looking for poetry, Short Poetry Fiction, Drama, Song Lyrics, Personal Essays, Analytical/Critical Essays, and Artwork (pen or ink drawings; no color artwork, please). See last Monday's post (1/22) for details.

•••Sunday (1/28), 2-4 PM, hear frank andrick host The Pomo Literati (KUSF, 90.3 FM). Special guests: Beth Lisick, Michelle Tea, Tara Jepsen, Becca Costello, Rachel Leibrock, Rachel Gregg, Rachel Savage. Pre-recorded works include Patti Smith reading Television, Hannah Marcus, The Glove (robert smith), Allen Ginsberg, Mirah, Kristen Hersh, William Burroughs, Edie Lambert, Germ ‘n’ frank, Lisa Gerrard, David Houston, The Haints and more. Hosted by frank andrick, co-hosted and engineered by Jim ‘The Germ’ Smith. The Pomo Literati is part of the KUSF Spotlight series. Also on the global airwaves at www.live365.com/stations/kusf. Questions? fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com or 209-727-5179.


Coming up February 1:

•••Call for Submissions: Salem College Center for Women Writers (but men can submit too): 2007 National Literary Awards, deadline February 1, 2007. Includes:

Reynolds Price Short Fiction Award
for a single short story up to 5000 words
Judge: Pinckney Benedict

Rita Dove Poetry Award
for a poem up to 100 lines (up to 2 poems per submission, any style)
Judge: Beth Ann Fennelly

Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Award
for a single piece of creative nonfiction, including personal essay
and memoir, up to 5000 words
Judge: Emily Herring Wilson

The winner in each genre will receive $1000 plus round trip travel and lodging for a reading of his/her work at Salem College. The two honorable mentions named in each genre will receive $100. Competitions are open to anyone living in the U.S. and writing in English except Salem Academy & College employees and students. All submissions must be unpublished. Postmark deadline: February 1, 2007. Winners will be announced by May 1, 2007. For submissions guidelines, a list of frequently asked questions, or information on our creative writing major, please visit http://www.salem.edu/go/cww/

•••Call for Submissions: The Bellevue Literary Review seeks fiction, non-fiction and poetry on the theme of Aging (something Medusa knows nothing about, being, of course, ageless). Up to 3 poems or 5,000 words. Submit at: www.blreview.org
Deadline: February 1, 2007.

_______________________

Yesterday we mentioned that both Philip Levine and Edgar Allan Poe had birthdays this month which we failed to acknowledge. Here's a poem that solves that. Well, sort of:

ON THE EDGE
—Philip Levine

My name is Edgar Poe and I was born
In 1928 in Michigan.
Nobody gave a damn. The gruel I ate
kept me alive, nothing kept me warm,
But I grew up, almost to five foot ten,
And nothing in the world can change my weight.

I have been watching you these many years,
There in the office, pencil poised and ready,
Or on the highway when you went ahead.
I did not write; I watched you watch the stars
Believing that the wheel of fate was steady;
I saw you rise from love and go to bed;

I heard you lie, even to your daughter.
I did not write, for I am Edgar Poe,
Edgar the mad one, silly, drunk, unwise,
But Edgar waiting on the edge of laughter,
And there is nothing that he does not know
Whose page is blanker than the raining skies.

_______________________

Thanks, Phil!

—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 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.)

Rousing the Slumb'ring Dead

photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento

HIRELING
—R.S. Thomas

Cars pass him by; he'll never own one.
Men won't believe in him for this.
Let them come into the hills
And meet him wandering a road,
Fenced with rain, as I have now;
The wind feathering his hair;
The sky's ruins, gutted with fire
Of the late sun, smouldering still.

Nothing is his, neither the land
Nor the land's flocks. Hired to live
On hills too lonely, sharing his hearth
With cats and hens, he has lost all
property but the grey ice
Of a face splintered by life's stone.

_______________________

Thanks to Jane Blue for her Medusa photo! You may've noticed more photos on the blog lately; I'm aiming for one a day, now that I more-or-less have the hang of it. Feel free to send 'em in—any subject—either by e-mail (kathykieth@hotmail.com) or snail (P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA). As with poems, you retain the rights.

THE WAY OF IT
—R.S. Thomas

With her fingers she turns paint
into flowers, with her body
flowers into a remembrance
of herself. She is at work
always, mending the garment
of our marriage, foraging
like a bird for something
for us to eat. If there are thorns
in my life, it is she who
will press her breast to them and sing.

Her words, when she would scold,
are too sharp. She is busy
after for hours rubbing smiles
into the wounds. I saw her,
when young, and spread the panoply
of my feathers instinctively
to engage her. She was not deceived,
but accepted me as a girl
will under a thin moon
in love's absence as someone
she could build a home with
for her imagined child.

_______________________

Poetry tonight:

•••Thursday evening, Jan. 25, at 7:30 PM, University of the Pacific in Stockton will present David Keplinger, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for The Rose Inside and author of The Prayers of Others. Reynolds Art Gallery, UOP Campus on Pacific Avenue.

•••Also tonight, 8-11 PM: Vibe Sessions Open Mic at Cobbler Inn, 3520 Stockton Blvd. (next to Colonial Theater). $5, all ages.

•••Also tonight, 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac. Features and open mic before/after. Free. Info: 916-441-3931 or www.lunascafe.com.


Listen to frank on Sunday:

This Sunday (1/28), hear frank andrick host The Pomo Literati (KUSF, 90.3 FM) from 2-4 PM. Special guests: Beth Lisick, Michelle Tea, Tara Jepsen, Becca Costello, Rachel Leibrock, Rachel Gregg, Rachel Savage. Pre-recorded works include Patti Smith reading Television, Hannah Marcus, The Glove (robert smith), Allen Ginsberg, Mirah, Kristen Hersh, William Burroughs, Edie Lambert, Germ ‘n’ frank, Lisa Gerrard, David Houston, The Haints and more. Hosted by frank andrick, co-hosted and engineered by Jim ‘The Germ’ Smith. The Pomo Literati is part of the KUSF Spotlight series. Also on the global airwaves at www.live365.com/stations/kusf. Questions? fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com or 209-727-5179.


Poet's Espresso deadline is NOW:

Donald Anderson writes: Send in your last minute poetry/art/photo submissions for the February-March 2007 issue of Poet’s Espresso ASAP to: poetsespresso@yahoo.com and maybe we can fit them into this issue! The themes are Valentine's and Black History Month. Limit 31 lines.

________________________

Medusa has fallen off the poets'-birthday wagon, maybe because hers is coming up. Normally we post the birthdays of famous poets; during The Move we've been remiss. Yesterday I was reminded that Robert Burns' birthday is in January; turns out, it's today! Happy Birthday, Bobbie! And in case you're wondering who we've missed, we did talk about William Stafford (1/17), but missed Sandburg (1/6), Philip Levine (1/10), Poe (1/19), and Lord Byron (1/22). Happy B-Day, fellas! Here's one from Bobby; read it out loud and listen to the music:

A VISION
—Robert Burns

As I stood by yon roofless tower,
Where the wa'flower scents the dewy air,
Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower,
And tells the midnight moon her care.

The winds were laid, the air was still,
The stars they shot alang the sky;
The fox was howling on the hill,
And the distant echoing glens reply.

The stream, adown its hazelly path,
Was rushing by the ruin'd wa's,
Hasting to join the sweeping Nith,
Whase distant roaring swells and fa's.

The cauld blae North was streaming forth
Her lights, wi' hissing, eerie din;
Athwart the lift they start and shift,
Like Fortune's favors, tint as win.

By heedless chance I turn'd mine eyes,
And, by the moonbeam, shook to see
A stern and stalwart ghaist arise,
Attir'd as Minstrels wont to be.

Had I a statue been o' stane,
His daring look had daunted me;
And on his bonnet grav'd was plain,
The sacred posy—"Libertie!"

And frae his harp sic strains did flow,
Might rous'd the slumb'ring Dead to hear;
But oh, it was a tale of woe,
As ever met a Briton's ear!

He sang wi' joy his former day,
He, weeping, wailed his latter times;
But what he said—it was nae play,
I winna venture't in my rhymes.

_______________________

—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 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.)

Tickets for the Vale of Peace (Get Stuffed)

Photo by Katy Brown, Davis









FIRST SIGHT
—Philip Larkin

Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.

As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasurable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.

______________________

Tonight:

•••Wednesday (1/24), 6-7 PM: Hidden Passage Books, 352 Main St., Placerville presents an open-mic read-around; bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share with other poets and the skeleton in the floor, or just come to listen. We hope to see you there!

•••Also tonight, 10 PM-Midnight: Mics and Moods, Capitol Garage, 1500 K St., Sacramento. Features and open mic. $5; ages 21 and over. Info: 916-492-9336 or malikspeaks.com


Calendar addition for tomorrow night:

•••Thursday evening, Jan. 25, at 7:30 PM, University of the Pacific in Stockton will present David Keplinger, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for The Rose Inside and author of The Prayers of Others. Reynolds Art Gallery, UOP Campus on Pacific Avenue.

____________________

IGNORANCE
—Philip Larkin

Strange to know nothing, never to be sure
Of what is true or right or real,
But forced to qualify or so I feel,
Or Well, it does seem so:
Someone must know.

Strange to be ignorant of the way things work:
Their skill at finding what they need,
Their sense of shape, and punctual spread of seed,
And willingness to change;
Yes, it is strange,

Even to wear such knowledge—for our flesh
Surrounds us with its own decisions—
And yet spend all our life on imprecisions,
That when we start to die
Have no idea why.

________________________

ULTIMATUM
—Philip Larkin

But we must build our walls, for what we are
Necessitates it, and we must construct
The ship to navigate behind them, there.
Hopeless to ignore, helpless instruct
For any term of time beyond the years
That warn us of the need for emigration:
Exploded the ancient saying: Life is yours.

For on our island is no railway station,
There are no tickets for the Vale of Peace,
No docks where trading ships and seagulls pass.

Remember stories you read when a boy
—The shipwrecked sailor gaining safety by
His knife, treetrunk, and lianas—for now
You must escape, or perish saying no.

_______________________

LOVE
—Philip Larkin

The difficult part of love
Is being selfish enough,
Is having the blind persistence
To upset an existence
Just for your own sake.
What cheek it must take.

And then the unselfish side—
How can you be satisfied,
Putting someone else first
So that you come off worst?
My life is for me.
As well ignore gravity.

Still, vicious or virtuous,
Love suits most of us.
Only the bleeder found
Selfish this wrong way round
Is ever wholly rebuffed,
And he can get stuffed.

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry, photos and art, 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.)

Have Your Cake & Eat It

(kk & friends, none of whom are named Fluffy)







FLUFFY
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

I left it on the livingroom carpet
just inside the door
where they can’t miss it. I purr
to their shrieks and pointings
till master lifts
it by its scrawny tail
between two fingers,
“disposes” of it.

What do they know
of dispositions, desires
niggling as the tooth of mouse
inside walls? In dream
I stalk its ghost
as the moon slants shadows
across a world
humans sleep through.

________________________

Thanks, TG! This is part of Taylor Graham's reminder that the deadline for submissions to Rattlesnake Review Lucky #13 is coming up February 15. Before that, though, send in poems for Snakelets, the journal of poetry from kids 0-12, by February 1. Next VYPER deadline (the journal by folks 13-19) is March 1.


Submissions for Six Ft. Swells:

Rattlechapper and After Hours Poet Todd Cirillo from Grass Valley writes: Six Ft. Swells Press is now accepting poety submissions for the next chapbook in their famed Cheap Shots Poetry Series. This will be a themed issue featuring a collection of the best poetry that reflects those goodtime evenings of drinking, music, and streetlight love affairs, and/or the painful reality of the morning after and the vague remembrance of what may or may not have occurred in the neon night before. Either way, no apologies are given. We believe poetry is meant to be a good time, so we are only looking for poems that explore these themes in an entertaining, fun, humorous, and/or enthusiastic manner. We will not accept sappy, depressing, AA recovery, or the evils-of-alcohol poems. Send 3-5 poems with cover letter and SASE to 417 Neal St., Grass Valley, CA 95945 or (preferably) email to Todd & Julie at sixfootswells@yahoo.com; please use “Bottoms Up” in the subject line. Poems should not exceed 40 lines; previously-published okay if indicated. Deadline is March 16, 2007. Info: www.myspace.com/sixftswells


Addendum to tonight's calendar:

Tonight (Tues., 1/23), Indigo Moor will be reading at The Bistro on 3rd & F Sts. in Davis, 8:30 PM. Indigo is a 2003 recipient of Cave Canem’s Writing fellowship in poetry and Vice President of the Sacramento Poetry Center and editor for Tule Review. He is the author of Tap-Root, part of the Main Street Rag Editor’s Select Poetry Series. Winner of the Vesle Fenstermaker Poetry Prize for Emerging Writer, Indigo was also a 2005 T.S. Eliot prize finalist. He has received scholarships to the Summer Literary Series in St. Petersburg, Russia; the Idyllwild Summer Poetry Program; the Indiana University Writer’s Conference; and the Napa Valley Writer’s Conference. His work has appeared in the Xavier Review, LA Review, Mochila Review, Boston University’s The Comment, the Pushcart Prize-nominated Out of the Blue Artists Unite, Poetry Now, The Ringing Ear, the NCPS 2006 Anthology, and Gathering Ground. He also has a littlesnake broadside from Rattlesnake Press.

_______________________

PIECE OF CAKE
—Taylor Graham

Have your cake and eat it
before it’s snatched away.
So said the mothers,
putting on pinched faces
in the dark before dawn.
We could hear them descend
the stairs to get
the fire going.
As they creamed the sugar
into margarine,
or whipped the batter,
they recounted wars
and famine.
We never got up early enough
to know how it was.
They pulled the corners
of their lips tight
to carve the sweet
wedges. Eat,
they said, before
it’s gone.

______________________

Trümmerfrauen
—Taylor Graham

The rubble-wives are stooped against the wind,
gathering broken bricks that once were wall,
re-engineered now by the whims of war.

Come see what’s left from bombs and fire and war:
an endless winter, famine, bitter wind
that sings through ruined whistle-stops of wall.

Look, brick by brick they improvise a wall—
what husbands built who won’t come home from war.
Is that the piping of their breath, or wind,

chill wind chanting, through walls, the oaths of war?

_______________________

One final note: Those of us who know Sacramento Poet and Publisher James DenBoer and his lovely, vivacious wife Leah will be saddened to know that she passed away Sunday. James is accepting letters and e-mail right now, but not phone calls.

——

Leah Zeff DenBoer
June 20, 1932 — January 21, 2007

Gone, gone,
gone beyond,
gone altogether beyond.
O what an awakening!

(from The Heart Sutra)

——

Addresses: James DenBoer/ 330 N Street #18/ Sacramento, CA 95814 or
jamesdb@paperwrk.com/ www. paperwrk.com

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry, photos and art, 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.)

White Wings and Tulips

photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento



THE PRESENCE
—Denise Levertov

To the house on the grassy hill
where rams rub their horns against the porch

and your bare feet on the floors of silence
speak in rhymed stanzas to the furniture,

solemn chests of drawers and heavy chairs
blinking in the sun you have let in!

Before I enter the rooms of your solitude
in my living form, trailing my shadow,

I shall have come unseen. Upstairs and down with you
and out across road and rocks to the river

to drink the cold spray. You will believe
a bird flew by the window, a wandering bee

buzzed in the hallway, a wind
rippled the bronze grasses. Or will you

know who it is?

______________________

First of all, thanks to Jane Blue for her beautiful photo! Last week I said, Think Tulips, and she did.

Then there's The Presence that's been lurking in my psyche since we moved house. Those of you who've had the patience to listen to me gripe about moving will be glad to know that I'm done with my bitching, at least for now. The Red Fox Underground poets of El Dorado County took mercy on Sam and me this weekend and performed a house-blessing, complete with sage and much good fellowship and poetry. Mary Field even brought bright yellow tulips! Thanks to them from Sam, me, Medusa and, of course, that wily Snake (and Lola and littlesnake). Here's a poem about transformation of such things; may your Monday be full of such transformations and the release of pure energy:

THE WINGS
—Denise Levertov

Something hangs in back of me,
I can't see it, can't move it,

I know it's black,
a hump on my back.

It's heavy. You
can't see it.

What's in it? Don't tell me
you don't know. It's

what you told me about—
black

inimical power, cold
whirling out of it and

around me and
sweeping you flat.

But what if,
like a camel, it's

pure energy I store,
and carry humped and heavy?

Not black, not
that terror, stupidity

of cold rage; or black
only for being pent there?

What if released in air
it became a white

source of light, a fountain
of light? Could all that weight

be the power of flight?
Look inward: see me

with embryo wings, one
feathered in soot, the other

blazing ciliations of ember, pale
flare-pinions. Well—

could I go
on one wing

the white one?

_______________________

This week in poetry:

•••Tonight (Monday, 1/22), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center features Meg Withers and Truong Tran at HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sac. Meg, who is currently working on her MFA at San Francisco State, is a poet, teacher, and mixed media artist from the San Francisco Bay Area who is also the author of Must Be Present to Win (Ghost Road Press, 2000) and a recent winner of the Open Windows award. Her work has appeared in New Millennium Writings, American River Literary Review, Nimrod, Poetry Now and others. Next Monday (1/29), SPC will feature Kimberly White and Michael Pulley.

•••Wednesday (1/24), 6-7 PM: Hidden Passage Books, 352 Main St., Placerville. Open-mike read-around; bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share with other poets and the skeleton in the floor, or just come to listen. We hope to see you there!

•••Also Weds., 10 PM-Midnight: Mics and Moods, Capitol Garage, 1500 K St., Sacramento. Features and open mic. $5; ages 21 and over. Info: 916-492-9336 or malikspeaks.com

•••Thursday (1/25), 8-11 PM: Vibe Sessions Open Mic at Cobbler Inn, 3520 Stockton Blvd. (next to Colonial Theater). $5, all ages.

•••Also Thursday (1/25), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac. Features and open mic before/after. Free. Info: 916-441-3931 or www.lunascafe.com.

•••Friday (1/26), 7 PM: Stockton Youth Advistory Commissioners (YAC) are sponsoring “By Word of Mouth”, an open mic for teens; others are most welcome to come out and support. Podesto IMPACT Teen Center, 725 N. El Dorado St., Stockton. Cost is $3. Poets interested in performing should e-mail lorienelms89@yahoo.com

•••Saturday, 9 PM: "The Show" Poetry Series features Ike Torres (Sac slam team), Izreal, and Damnyo Lee (L.A. slam team). Wo'se Community Center, 2863 35th St. (off 35th & Broadway). $5. Info: T.Mo at 916-455-POET.

•••Also, Saturday (1/27) is the deadline for Harvest International, an annual arts and literature magazine produced by Cal Poly Pomona. They’re looking for poetry, Short Poetry Fiction, Drama, Song Lyrics, Personal Essays, Analytical/Critical Essays, and Artwork (pen or ink drawings; no color artwork, please).

Topics:
• Psychological/ Physical/ Learning disabilities
• Gender Issues
• Culture
• War
• Poetry written in any language
• Personal Experiences/ Triumphs, etc.

Cash Awards:
Steve Whaley Poetry Prize
Other Voices Poetry Prize

Submit to: Professor Gill-Mayberry: bigillmayber@csupomona.edu
Jennifer Maldonado: jnmaldonado.harvest@gmail.com
Megan Carey: mecarey@csupomona.edu or:

Harvest International, c/o Harvest Editorial Board
Cal Poly University, English and Foreign Languages Department
3801 West Temple Ave., Pomona, CA 91768

_______________________

Last week, David Humphreys told us about a contest at The Stockton Record, which was looking for 55-Word "Tidbits". David won the contest, and here is his winning entry:

WHAT'S NOT THERE
—David Humphreys, Stockton

Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there
is how Miles Davis said it cool as cashmere in
a leather lined limo on the way to the jet flying
to palm trees and a white sand beach blowing in
time to waves wondering where is the loveliness
who started this jam session to begin with?

________________________

Thanks, David, and thanks for the heads-up about the contest, even if you did run away with the $60 prize.....! Congratulations! (Sorry Medusa can't indent the last line.)

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry, photos and art, 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.)

So Deep the Woods

The old dog
is leading the way—
visiting family graves

—Issa

***

Wolves
are keening in harmony—
this snowy evening

—Joso

***

Hiding its tail
among the ears of barley—
an old fox

—Tesshi

***

Even small birds
fly past and do not enter—
so deep the woods

—Chine

***

If it had no voice
the heron might disappear—
this morning's snow

—Chiyo

***

A thin layer of snow
coats the wings of mandarin ducks—
such stillness!

—Shiki

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry, photos and art, 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.)

Bears, Books, Tulips & Dungrollers (Working Survivors)

CONTINUUM
—Denise Levertov

Some beetle trilling
its midnight utterance.

Voice of the scarabee,
dungroller,
working survivor...

I recall how each year
returning from voyages, flights
over sundown snowpeaks,
cities crouched over darkening lakes,
hamlets of wood and smoke,
I find
the same blind face upturned to the light
and singing
the one song,

the same weed managing
its brood of minute stars
in the cracked flagstone.

_______________________

"Continuum" was sent to me by Stephani Schaefer of Los Molinos, who writes: Thanks for the poem by Wm. Stafford [see Wednesday's post—and it's Peggy Hill who deserves the thanks], one of my very favorites, especially his essays about writing. For that, and since it's been his birthday [see Thursday's post], I'm sending you the poem I wrote in honor of him:

SONGBIRD AT STAFFORD SPRINGS
—Stephani Schaefer

There are days when the
sky, not overcast,
allows the eye infinity.

Beyond the polished
blue you sense the black void
but the songbird knows

the secret hidden in
the folded wing
and is not daunted.

Life, he sings, lies
in the warmth of the fold,
the tucked in

intricacies, each
barbed feather in place,
each note fitting what is.

______________________

Thanks, Stephani!

This just in:

In browsing through The Mountain Democrat, a wee local newspaper that serves mostly El Dorado County, I came across the announcement that Books 'N Bears in the town of El Dorado will host Poetic License today at 3 PM, featuring a group of "poetry enthusiasts". This month's subject is "Political" (apparently they meet monthly). Everyone is invited to attend and listen to and share poems. Books 'N Bears is located at 6211-A Main St. in El Dorado (I've been in there; it's 'way cute.) Info: Marti Dunn, 530-621-1766 or bnb@direct-con.net. Medusa's mission in life is to root out and advertise poetry readings wherever they pop up in the NorCal area, and she is always gleeful at finding one she didn't know about. El Dorado is easy to get to; just take Hwy 50 east and take the El Dorado exit.

_______________________

Think tulips! One of the good things about all this cold weather is that tulips need a certain number of freezing temperatures to keep on truckin'. More Levertov:

THE TULIPS
—Denise Levertov

Red tulips
living into their death
flushed with a wild blue

tulips
becoming wings
ears of the wind
jackrabbits rolling their eyes

west wind
shaking the loose pane

some petals fall
with that sound one
listens for

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry, photos and art, 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.)

Dreaming of Spring

photo by Katy Brown, Davis


each one i tucked carefully beneath the required soil
added a bit of bone meal, compost
knowing i would forget where... after a day or two...
then a magic surprise at blooming time.
smiling, grasping their tiny colorful faces
in the cusp of my hands
as if a child finding easter eggs
everyone painted, planted especially for me
on this cool winter's day in the sun
dreaming of spring.

—Song Kowbell, Penn Valley

_____________________

Thanks, Song! I thought we could use a little color today, a few glimpses of Spring. And look for Song Kowbell's rattlechap, Lick Your Wounds and Want Again, in The Book Collector.

Speaking of Song and her home of Penn Valley (which is just outside of Grass Valley), Kim Addonizio will be the featured reader tonight at 7:30 PM at the Nevada County Poetry Series Annual Fundraiser. Kim Addonizio is a passionate poet, fiction writer, and teacher, finalist for the 2000 National Book Award, and recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Pushcart Prize, and a Commonwealth Club Poetry Medal. Kim has authored four collections of poetry, most recently What Is This Thing Called Love (2004, W.W. Norton). Her previous three books of poetry are from BOA Editions: The Philosopher's Club, Jimmy & Rita, and Tell Me, which was a finalist for the 2000 National Book Award. A book of stories, In the Box Called Pleasure, was published by Fiction Collective 2. She is also co-author, with Dorianne Laux, of The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (W.W. Norton). With Cheryl Dumesnil she co-edited Dorothy Parker's Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos (Warner Books). Her first novel, Little Beauties, was published by Simon & Schuster in September 2005. Check her out at blueflowerarts.com or kimaddonizio.com. Tickets can be purchased at The Book Seller in Grass Valley, Cherry Records in Auburn and at the door for $10 general, seniors and students, and $2 for those under 18, refreshments included. The show will be in the Main Theater at the Center for the Arts, 314 W. Main St., Grass Valley, CA. Info: 530-432-8196 or 530-274-8384.

•••Also tonight (Friday, 1/19), 7 PM: Our House Poetry Series features Elsie Whitlow Feliz and Don Feliz. Our House Gallery is in the El Dorado Hills shopping center; take the Latrobe exit south. Open mic after. See yesterday's post for samples from these two fine poets, both of whom are Snake pals. Don's littlesnake broadside is available free at The Book Collector (or send me an SASE); Elsie also has a littlesnake broadside, as well as her rattlechap, Tea With Bunya.


Later this weekend:

•••Saturday (1/20), 7:30 PM: "Raíces Latinas" (Latin Roots): Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol presents Adrián Arias, a Spanish-language poet from San Francisco’s Mission Cultural Center, who is also a graphic artist. More on him at: http://adrian-arias.blogspot.com. Joining Adrián as MC and co-reader will be our member Jim Michael. Cost is $5 or as can be afforded; no one turned away for lack of $. Info: Graciela at 916-456-5323; more info at the website: www.escritoresdelnuevosol.com. [NOTE: Sacramento Poetry Center's Poetry Now listed this reading for Friday, Jan. 19; then the reader called to say he would have to shift it to Saturday. Hence some confusion. The reading is Saturday.]

•••Also Saturday, 11:30 AM to 3:30 PM: Artists Embassy International presents Confluence of the Arts: Poetry Reading, Art Show, Dance Performance with Notable Poets, Laureates, Dancing Poetry Festival Grand Prize Winners, Poetic Dance, Poetic/Visual Art, refreshments. The Alameda Historical & Art Museum, 2324 Alameda Ave., Alameda, CA. Info: 510-235-0361 or naticaaei@aol.com. (This event is not to be confused with their annual Dancing Poetry Contest, which is held each Fall.)

•••Also Saturday, 2-4 PM: The Central California Art Association & Mistlin Art Gallery announces a poetry reading at the gallery, 1015 J St., downtown Modesto. This reading will feature Mark Nicole Johnson, author of 3x3, Salvatore Salerno, author of Sunleaf, and Gordon Preston, author of Violins. Reception following. The public is welcome.

•••Also Sat., 7-9 PM: Underground Poetry Series at Underground Books, 2814 35th St. (35th & Broadway), Sac. Open mic; $3.

•••Sunday (1/21), 12-2 PM: Sacramentans Chip Spann and Elizabeth Robinson will be reading at Vesuvio in San Francisco, 255 Columbus Ave. at Jack Kerouac Alley (between Broadway and Pacific), San Francisco, CA 94133. Vesuvio, world-renowned saloon (across from City Lights Bookstore) in San Francisco’s North Beach, remains a historical monument to jazz, poetry, art and the good life of the Beat Generation. Chip and Elizabeth say: Each year we gather at Vesuvio to rattle our raucous souls, scream against the injustices and celebrate the joy of being alive. Join in the fun with business people, foreign visitors, healers, philosophers, mythologists, cab drivers, wise elders, off duty exotic dancers and bon vivants. Info: www.vesuvio.com, (916) 446-6160, chipspann@sbcglobal.net or elizabethmyth@sbcglobal.net.

•••Also Sunday: Molly Fisk's January's Boot Camp begins on Sunday (1/21) and runs through Friday, 1/26. You can join the regular camp and write new poems, or you can work on revisions by yourself (same format, same price). This is a great time of year to look at older poems and see what they might need to be presentable. If you don't know about Poetry Boot Camp, here's where you can find out: http://www.poetrybootcamp.com. It's a six-day workshop conducted via e-mail. Molly says it's enormously productive, and tons of fun.

•••Monday (1/22), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center features Meg Withers and Truong Tran at HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sac. Meg, who is currently working on her MFA at San Francisco State, is a poet, teacher, and mixed media artist from the San Francisco Bay Area who is also the author of Must Be Present to Win (Ghost Road Press, 2000) and a recent winner of the Open Windows award. Her work has appeared in New Millennium Writings, American River Literary Review, Nimrod, Poetry Now and others.

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CHRISTMAS POEM
—Song Kowbell

It was overwhelming
the flood of consuming
flowing through the streets of local cities
filling the highways and side roads.
it flowed out before them as if it was invisible
and they willingly went with it
completely unaware they were going to drown
in the waste of dogma
wrapped in paper and sealed with tape.
parents giving the gift of future land fills,
oceans floating color coated waxed paper
with smiling santa's and frosty snowmen.
In so deep, they don't even know
they are wet.

________________________

A POEM...
—Song Kowbell

I wanted to write you a poem
of flowers
with no thorns
or broken twigs
but perfect
to heal
pretend it never hurt
in the first place
I wanted to write a poem
that would erase the pain
between us
a poem to unite the broken mangled
pieces of our souls
a poem to squelch the fires
burning in the memory
of our bodies
where anger found a
stopping place
when hurled from mean mouths
of those we've loved.
I wanted to write a poem for you
opening myself
for viewing

_______________________

—Medusa (who dreams of Spring...)

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry, photos and art, 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.)

Feeding the Snakes

WATCHING SABINE IN SUNLIGHT
Sophie-Charlottenstr. 21 Berlin, 1962
—Elsie Whitlow Feliz, Sacramento

From the window of our kitchen—
actually this is our bathroom—I am

cooking breakfast on the hot plate.
Dishes drain over the bathtub. I can see

Frau Kamps-Smith's garden: the green
lawn, the yellow tulips, and gray stones.

Her granddaughter, Sabine, golden hair,
six, and barefoot, waiting for someone

to open the faucet, so she can race her
paper boat in the rushing rapids of a silver

river flowing under warm sun, over
the rocks, into the dark green pool

where reeds and lilies grow, and the
large frog watches us from his corner.

(first appeared in Poets' Forum Magazine, 2006)

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Thanks, Elsie! Tomorrow (Friday, 1/19) at 7 PM, Our House Poetry Series will feature Elsie Whitlow Feliz and Don Feliz. Our House Gallery is in the El Dorado Hills shopping center; take the Latrobe exit south and turn left into the Center, then turn left again at the stop sign. Open mic after the features. Here's a poem from Don:

FOREST VISION
West Berlin, 1961
—Don Feliz, Sacramento

At sunrise in Berliner Forest among legions
of fallen leaves and a company of fellow
soldiers some of us saw a vision in bands
of sunlight between distant trees and shadows

floating two meters high a white billowy shape
coming nearer it showed long blond hair tied
with a bright ribbon then a horse the color of
trees and of its rider’s breeches and boots

riding elegantly on her beautiful steed the vision
became something new an aristocrat among her
subjects subdued sons of a conquering nation
watched her dissolve back into a white vision

______________________

Tonight:

•••Thursday (1/18), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac. features Beth Lisick, Michelle Tea, and Tara Jepsen traveling to Luna's from San Francisco, to be joined by local lit-wonders Becca Costello, Rachel Leibrock, and Rachel Gregg. Open mic before/after. Free. Info: 916-441-3931 or www.lunascafe.com.

•••Also Thurs., 8-11 PM: Vibe Sessions at Cobbler Inn, 3520 Stockton Blvd. (next to Colonial Theatre). Open mic, all ages, $5.


Homer and The Bee:

Check out today's "Metro" section of The Sacramento Bee for an article about Sacramento's Kathryn Holhwein and her on-going mission to bring Homer's poetry around the world.

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Corvallis Pal (and ex-Sacramentan) Be Davison Herrera sends two poems, the first about moving:

endless sympathy over moving
as extraction makes so many
decisions hopelessly entangled
with the spirit of the old place
lost, caving like soil removed for
new plantings, whole fresh
responses demanded and lord!
the decisions required all over
again and then again

You got that right, Be! I'm still paralyzed by all those decisions. Where to put the cookie sheets, when there are no cupboards big enough? Take this bowl to the thrift or keep it? And what about all those books......!

Coincidentally, Medusa posted a William Stafford poem yesterday. Be writes: Here's a quatrain (Herrera style) which is part of a "Spirit of Place" poetry exhibition at our local library honoring William Stafford's birthday:

snowflakes
clarify sound
but only for
ears tuned to butterfly
wings

Thanks for these, Be! We've managed to post almost all local and semi-local poetry this week, which is Medusa's ultimate goal. So keep 'em coming! The Snakes of Medusa are always hungry......

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry, photos and art, 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.)

But Of Course I Sealed the Tin...

Tom Goff writes: Couldn't resist the invite to send a found poem. This is a bizarre item. Now, I love Thomas Hardy's poetry, and admire the man, but the piece that follows, ripped out of context from what is essentially a knowing appraisal of Hardy biographies, needed only the line breaks to, well, er, write itself.

THE HEART OF THOMAS HARDY
(poem "found" by Tom Goff, Carmichael)

Dr Edward Mann, Hardy's doctor,
was still vigorous when I met him
in 1967. Thomas Hardy's old grandfather
clock, which the doctor had received
as a legacy, ticked away in his
sitting room. He showed me
a note slipped through his door in 1928
by waiting reporters: ‘Can you inform
the Press if Mr Hardy's heart
has been removed?’ It was signed
by the Chronicle, Express, and Press
Association. He said he wrapped the heart
in a towel and put it in a biscuit tin. Years later
he heard a Bishop of Sherborne,
telling an after dinner story, say
the cat got at it. But it
couldn't have done, said Dr Mann.
He sealed the biscuit tin.

________________________

Thanks, Tom, and thanks to the rest of you who played along with our found-poem-a-thon, which is now officially over.


This was posted late yesterday on Medusa; you may've missed it:

David Humphreys writes: Michael Fitzgerald, columnist at the Stockton Record, is taking entries in his tidbit contest, which is what he's calling a prose poem. Count 55 words in the body of the text; don't count your title. Deadline is Weds (1/17), 5:30 PM (that's today!). Send submissions to michaelf@recordnet.com; best way is to paste into body of message or attach a Word document. Be sure to give your day phone # so he can give the winner an interview and the brass ring; there's a $60 prize!


Also today and tonight:

•••Weds. (1/17), 10 PM-midnight: Mics and Moods at Capitol Garage, 1500 K St. Features and open mic.

•••81st Poet's Dinner/Contest postmark deadline for entries is today (Weds., 1/17). Event date is 3/17/07; you must be present to win. For complete rules and info, visit www.bayareapoetscoalition.org and click on the Poet's Dinner/Contest link.


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Finally, Peggy Hill, who started the whole found-poem-a-thon thing, sends one last found poem, this one from William Stafford:

WHAT'S IN MY JOURNAL
—William Stafford

Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
things, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry, photos and art, 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.)