JUROR NUMBER FIVE
indulges us with fortune cookies,
small luxury from the Panda Express
where he beams down on guests
when he isn’t sitting here with us
listening to a fragment
of the world’s misfortune, some-
body’s run-out luck testified
and cross-examined, minced
yet finer on redirect.
Does our fellow juror bow, ever so
slightly, as he holds out this fortune
cookie wrapped in cellophane,
which I accept? Thin wafer pinched
together at the seams, baked
till golden. Is there truth inside?
I ask. He only shrugs. A fortune
cookie, sweet and fragile as
good luck.
—Taylor Graham, Somerset
_______________________
Thanks, TG! Taylor Graham, Steph Schaefer and James Lee Jobe caught the one-day giveaway offer in the middle of yesterday's post and sent me poems about luck, in honor of Friday the 13th. Thanks to all three of you; poetry presents will be winging your way. I've decided to start doing these little one-day, "drive-by" giveaways, so keep yer peepers peeled.
And be sure to check The Sacramento Bee Metro section today for a huge article on Julia Connor and her Poet Laureate postcard project.
This weekend:
•••Saturday: CSU Sacramento Festival of the Arts continues through Saturday, featuring plays, art, music and more. 6000 J St., Sacramento. Info: 916-278-4323.
•••Sunday (4/15), 7-8 PM: California Poet Laureate Al Young reads in CSU, Chico in the Performing Arts Center, Room 134. A reception in his honor will be held after the reading. The AS Bookstore will offer books for sale at this event. The reading is free and open to the public. Earlier that day, at 3:30 PM, he will appear at Lyon Books in Chico.
•••Every Sunday in April, 1-3 PM: The Nevada County Poetry Series is celebrating National Poetry Month by holding its annual April open-mic readings at Booktown Books & Tomes. Bill Gainer says, This year we again had the opportunity to partner with Booktown to be part the largest literary celebration in the world and we jumped on it! What better place to showcase National Poetry Month than the community's largest independent, co-operative bookstore? It is a great location and a great venue. The place is alive with poetry! Everyone is invited to bring a friend and a poem and be part of the largest annual literary celebration in the world! Booktown is a fun, safe and often enchanting place to spend a Sunday afternoon in April. Free at Booktown Books and Tomes, 107 Bank Street (corner of South Auburn) in Grass Valley. For more info, call: (530) 432-8196 or (530) 272-4655.
Rappin' with Wordsworth:
Mary Zeppa sent around an e-address that is, to say the least, interesting. Check it out: http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2054284,00.html
_______________________
TRUSTING TO BLIND LUCK
—Stephani Schaefer, Los Molinos
you hear about
the wrecks the rapes the wrath the waste
you wake with the uneasy feeling
you might have been there
there's the bitter taste of bile on your tongue
and the only thing to fix it
is the burn of raw whiskey going down
each time
the black curtain drops sooner and longer
________________________
TOUR GUIDE
—James Lee Jobe, Davis
"If I were your tour guide I sure wouldn't bring you this way,"
said the man wearing the dirty badge marked INFORMATION.
"Nothing happens here. The wind eats the very skin from our bones,
we breathe winter breaths on the cold windows and write messages
in the wet fog. The brittle glass doesn't remember what we write."
"What about pretty girls, fun, stuff like that?" He doesn't answer
for a long time, finishes his fat cigarette first; it's brown and smells
of the 1970s. Time passes. Finally, as southbound geese pass
overhead, he offers, "No girls, no fun, no such luck. A decent tour guide
wouldn't even bring you this way." "Where, then?" "Baltimore, maybe.
Yeah, or Wilmington. Might be fun there." Years later,
I knew for sure that Wilmington wasn't any fun either.
_______________________
—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.)
SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:
Journals: Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; next deadline is May 15. The new VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) will be out the week of April 16; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets #10 (for kids 0-12) is available; next deadline is May 1.
Books/broadsides: April’s releases are SnakeRings SpiralChap #7 from D.R. Wagner: Where The Stars Are Kept, and littlesnake broadside #33: Swallowed By This Whale Of Time by Ann Menebroker. Both are now available at The Book Collector. SpiralChaps are $8; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com for ordering information. Coming in May: Playing Favorites by Ron Tranquilla; littlesnake broadside by Julie Valin; Rattlesnake Interview Series #2 by B.L. Kennedy: Malik.
Something new: Rattlesnake Interview Series with B.L. Kennedy is now available (free) at The Book Collector (or contact Kathy Kieth). #1 is Ann Menebroker.
Also: check out the Rattlechaps Chapbook Series page on the rattlesnakepress.com website! We've started generating separate pages for each rattlechapper/spiralchapper; scroll down through the list of books we've published and click on the names that are in red. That should lead you to a separate page for each of them, including photos, bios, poems, contact info—and more to come, once we get them all up and running. Sweet!