New Eyes for Old Things

COUPON MADNESS SIDE BY SIDE
—"found" poem by Margaret Ellis Hill, Wilton

Cold weather ensembles: Magic stud
setting tool: flat fold colander: clever clasps.
The Bruce Lee Kung Fu legend DVD's: musical
CDs for babies: hummingbird calendars.

Austrian crystal stretch bracelets: Insta dip:
Tiny peanut butter candies: gas pump replicas.
Skin cremes: old Cowboy movies: Unisex down
slippers: 7 in 1 Casino games palm player.

Genuine fleece running horses blanket: spinning
shower brush: deviled egg holder: door draft guards.
Healing Powers of garlic, vinegar and oil: tractor clock:
Elvis magnets: advanced sexual techniques video.

The telescopic multipurpose duster: suede cases
for thirty-six credit cards: gorilla tape: penny collection.
Wolf portraits: die cast scale model Shelby cars:
musical teapots: enzymatic drain cleaner.

The Vidalia chop wizard: toilet cleaning systems:
wrist blood pressure taker: set of colorized quarters.
CDs of most loved hymns: Betty Boop playing cards:
Church chuckles: ceramic hurricane candle holders.

A motorized coin bank: cat pins with genuine stone eyes:
Mouse salt and pepper shakers: military wall clocks.
Book of Uncommon cures: scratch remover:
waterfall soap savers: lingerie mesh bags.

Long handled angled scissors: large print dictionary:
LED lit, magnifying eyebrow tweezers: grease bullets—
each item for $4.99, four month installments, plus
the million dollar prize winning ticket bonus,

guaranteed.

_______________________

Ah, what a panoply of Things we live with. Thanks, Peggy! There's poetry all around us! Use new eyes, the way Katy Brown suggested in the most recent issue of Rattlesnake Review. You can see what a "found" poem is from Peggy's great example; it's usually a kind of list poem that's generated from unlikely sources such as newspaper articles, catalogs, junk mail—any collection of words that seems to have elements that strike you as somehow poetic, either re-arranged or just as they are. Or it might be something less commercial: a note you found on the ground, or the juxtaposition of two graphitti, or some inadvertant slip of the tongue...

Here's a challenge: send me a found poem by midnight next Tuesday (1/16), and I'll post it and send you a free copy of Pearl Stein Selinsky's new rattlechap, Vic & Me (or other Snake book, if you prefer). Send it/them to kathykieth@hotmail.com or POBx 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. Obviously, the definition of what a "found" poem is is pretty loose, and I'm not picky. Just look at this wordy world around you and see what you can come up with, see what seems to string together for you in an interesting way.


Saturday benefit reading postponed:

Richard Hansen writes: The Jan. 14 fundraiser for frank andrick has been postponed until March. The outpouring of support for frank has been overwhelming. Thank you to all who have given in an effort to get him through his health care crisis. As Edie Lambert indicated in the letter we sent out, we'd planned a poetry reading this Sunday to help "form a safety net for Frank." Unfortunately, we have to postpone that event until sometime in March. We'll follow-up with a NEW date and location when it’s been determined. For those who'd like to check in on frank and see how he's doing, you can contact him at fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com


Contests coming up:

•••New Meridian Contest for Prose Poems! Short-shorts and prose poems accepted. The winning entry will be printed on a 4X6" postcard which will be given out at the AWP 2007 Conference (http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/2007awpconf.php) to promote Meridian. The postcard will also be included with the May 2007 issue of Meridian. The winner will receive a $100 prize and 100 stamped postcards so you can send copies to all your friends, acquaintances, uneasy allies, etc. This is a great opportunity to get your writing noticed in a unique way. The entry has to fit on a postcard. Visual appeal is a plus. You may send either word processor/text files, or—if you're artistically inclined—an Adobe PDF mockup of what your postcard might look like. Entry fee is $3. Deadline is midnight EST on Jan. 31, 2007. Entry is online only. To enter, visit: http://readmeridian.org/?page=pppp

•••Burning Bush Poetry Prize 2007 honors work that inspires others to work for social and economic justice. First Prize: $200 and online publication in In Our Own Words. Send 3 poems, SASE, and $10 reading fee by 6/1/07 to: Burning Bush Publications, P.O. Box 4658, Santa Rosa, CA 95402, www.bbbooks.com

________________________

Taylor Graham writes:

Your odes to Tower and the listening booths got me thinking back. I couldn't even remember the name of my first music store. And then, as if by magic, it popped into my head. Isn't the mind an amazing thing?

CASSELL’S MUSIC
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

In my bedroom dark, I’d tune
the radio dial till all the angels
were singing in Italian.
How I coveted those voices grooved
in vinyl—imagined in my hand
a boxed set with libretto, library-
card to foreign languages of love
and tragedy.

The music store an hour drive away,
one Saturday morning at Cassell’s—
without a map of Egypt, the poor
Paris of La Bohème, fairyland
of Zauberflüte (yes, angels sang
sometimes in German), Sevilla
in French—I had my choice
to make.

I never could buy so many silver
tongues. That Saturday, just
one.

_______________________

Thanks, TG! The new year seems to have triggered some wistfulness in all of us:

UNINHABITED
—Ellaraine Lockie, Sunnyvale

The one-room schoolhouse
is weathered by a hundred years
on the High Plains
Emptied of my mother, aunts, uncles
and the bell in the tower
that tolled their welcome
to the middle of nowhere

I bring my daughter here
for an optical history lesson
Me to summon ancestor stories
that have been silenced by the din
of decades in cities

She forges in front of me
ever anxious to embrace anything abandoned
And I'm struck dumb by the assault
of some instinct as old and tongue-tied
as those stories

At the doorframe she hears the hiss
before the rattle that roots her
to the cactus-covered earth
As the snake slithers away
And elementary education continues
two generations after it began
in the one-room schoolhouse

_______________________

Thanks, 'Rainy! Ellaraine Lockie has been attending workshops around the world and is having many great adventures which I hope she'll write about for the rest of us.

Everybody else remember: Go out and "find" me a poem by Tuesday!

—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.)