Blue Moon

TO THE MOON
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a Joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

_____________________

Thanks, Percy! Looks like our good wishes for the wayward whales worked, and now tonight they'll be swimming under a blue moon, a second full moon during the same month. Did you know that blue moons are not really that uncommon—that they happen about once every three years? Let's have a drive-by give-away: send a poem about Blue Moons into Medusa's Kitchen before midnight tomorrow night (Friday, June 1, as the moon begins to wane) and I'll send you a poetry surprise! That's kathykieth@hotmail.com/ And check the "Scene" section of today's Sacramento Bee for more info about blue moons.

I'll start, but this poem doesn't count because it's not about a BLUE moon...


MOONLIGHT IN BALI
—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines

Maybe I’m just chasing fool’s gold: waking up
Monday morning feeling like that thing the cat
coughed up: achy/fuzzy/no-more-weekend
blues: head full of mucus and bad dreams: but still

chasing fool’s gold: thinking you and I can beat
those awful odds, catch a chimera or two as they
pass us on the way to the grocery, the laundromat:
thinking we can catch a few friends that keep

calling, a house that doesn’t burn down, a buck
or two left in the purse after the gas man is done:
lives that don’t murder our skinny little dreams
that won’t let go. Thinking we just might be able,

after the bills are paid, to catch a sunbeam or two,
the wee tail of a rainbow, maybe even
a little moonlight in Bali. . .

_____________________

Tonight in poetry (under the blue moon):

•••Tonight (Thursday, 5/31), 8 PM: An evening of Prose and Poetry at Poetry Unplugged, brought to your ears by Sacramento author Bill Pieper, whose previous reading at Luna’s featured his brilliant and sometimes salacious novel, Gomez. Mr. Pieper returns with more prose and stories to show and tell. Bill is an engaging writer and in-demand speaker and is sure to take the audience into new spaces and places via the power of the word. Co-reader Peter Samis has a few of his own stories and some favorite poems to share. By request, Peter will read his amazing short story re: Art ownership and blazing flames (a tease) that has wowed SF audiences. An evening bound to be full of wordful surprise and authorship unique to the writers. Hosted by frank andrick. Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Open mic before and after.

•••Also tonight (call for the time): Colored Horse Studio (780 Waugh Lane, Ukiah) features Nevada County poet Will Staple, author of the dual language editions Klapperschlangenfrau (German and English) and Luminosita Numinosa (Italian and English) and the award-winning collections, I Hate the Men You Sleep With, The Only Way to Reduce Crime Is to Make Fewer Acts Illegal and Dr. Montoya's Medicine. His work can also be heard on the CD, Black Dress On. Will has been a very popular and successful California Poet in the Schools in Nevada, Placer and Mendocino Counties. Outside of California he has read his work in Lubeck, Germany, Locarno, Switzerland and at the renowned Shakespeare and Co. bookstore in Paris. Friends and fans know that, if they're lucky they can get Will to read palms as well as poems. $5 donation suggested. Open mic and refreshments. Waugh Lane runs between Gobbi Street and Talmage Road. Info: (707) 463-6989 or (707) 468-9488.


Ina Coolbrith contest:

The INA COOLBRITH CIRCLE 88th ANNUAL POETRY CONTEST is now open for entries. Postmark deadline is August 15, 2007. All ICC members (including out of state) and non-member California residents may enter. For contest rules and more info on the ICC, visit the website: www.coolpoetry.org


New Snakelets!

The latest edition of Snakelets, the journal of poetry from youngsters ages 0-12, is now available, either at The Book Collector (free) or from me (send $2 per book for postage to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726). This is a a HUGE edition, including 44 pages of poems from kids, as well as poetry puzzles to increase children's awareness of imagery and word-play. Get your copies today and pass them on to some youngsters who have a whole summer stretching out ahead of them...


_____________________

More moon inspiration, these from Walter de la Mare, children's poet par excellence:

FULL MOON
—Walter de la Mare

One night as Dick lay fast asleep,
Into his drowsy eyes
A great still light began to creep
From out the silent skies.
It was the lovely moon's, for when
He raised his dreamy head,
Her surge of silver filled the pane
And streamed across his bed.
So, for a while, each gazed at each—
Dick and the solemn moon—
Till, climbing slowly on her way,
She vanished, and was gone.

_______________________


SILVER
—Walter de la Mare

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy coat the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

____________________

—Medusa (And may you live to see many, many blue moons)

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 (free publications): Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; RR #14 will be out in mid-June. (Next deadline, for RR #15, is August 15.) VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets #10 (for kids 0-12) is now available at The Book Collector. Next deadline is 10/1.

Books/broadsides: May's releases are Grass Valley Poet Ron Tranquilla’s Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006, plus a littlesnake broadside by Julie Valin (Still Life With Sun) and a Rattlesnake Interview Broadside (#2) featuring Khiry Malik Moore and B.L. Kennedy. All are now available at The Book Collector. Rattlechaps are $5; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com or rattlesnakepress.com for ordering information.

Next rattle-read: Rattlesnake Press will present Sacramento Poet Tom Miner at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, June 20 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, North of Everything. Also featured that night will be a new littlesnake broadside (Cominciare Adagio) from Stockton Poet/Publisher David Humphreys, plus #3 in the Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Jane Blue. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/ NOTE: For June, and for June only, our monthly Rattlesnake reading will be on the THIRD Weds. instead of the second one. There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August.

Breaking Into Blossom

Cambridge, UK
Photo by Anyssa Neumann, Germany

MAY 25, 2007
—Anyssa Neumann

For three minutes today
I lost my cool
uttered nothing but expletives
thought only in screams
Then
I folded my sorrow
swallowed my dreams
and walked into the rain-washed street

______________________

Thanks, Anyssa! Anyssa Neumann is an ex-Sacramentan who now lives in Germany. See the next Rattlesnake Review, coming in mid-June, for more of her poetry.

So where are we? The new Snake goes into production next week, and will be ready in mid-June. The new Snakelets, #10, will go into The Book Collector this afternoon; pick up the latest Vyper while you're there. The next book release/reading will be by Tom Miner (North of Everything) on June 20, and at that time a new B.L. Kennedy interview will be released (#3: Jane Blue), along with littlesnake broadside #35 by David Humphreys (Cominciare Adagio). Then the whole Snake kit and kaboodle will go on a wee break until Sept., except for the industrious Medusa, who can't keep her mouth shut, so she'll keep on nattering, day by day...

_____________________

Mention of James Wright yesterday, with the new anthology that's being put together. Here are three of his poems, including, of course, the ponies:

BEGINNING
—James Wright

The moon drops one or two feathers into the fields.
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon's young, trying
their wings.
Between trees,
a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow
of her face, and now she steps into the air,
now she is gone
wholly, into the air.
I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe
or move.
I listen.
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,
and I lean toward mine.

_____________________

LYING IN A HAMMOCK AT WILLIAM DUFFY'S FARM IN PINE ISLAND, MINNESOTA
—James Wright

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly
asleep on the black truck,
blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
the cowbells follow one another
into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
in a field of sunlight betwen two pines,
the droppings of last year's horses
blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.

_____________________

A BLESSING
—James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
to welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely,
they can hardly contain their happiness
that we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more, they begin munching the young tufts of spring in
the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
for she has walked over to me
and nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
her mane falls wild on her forehead,
and the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
that is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
that if I stepped out of my body I would break
into blossom.

_____________________

—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 (free publications): Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; RR #14 will be out in mid-June. (Next deadline, for RR #15, is August 15.) The new VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets #9 (for kids 0-12) is available; Snakelets #10 will be out this month. Next deadline is 10/1.

Books/broadsides: May's releases are Grass Valley Poet Ron Tranquilla’s Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006, plus a littlesnake broadside by Julie Valin (Still Life With Sun) and a Rattlesnake Interview Broadside (#2) featuring Khiry Malik Moore and B.L. Kennedy. All are now available at The Book Collector. Rattlechaps are $5; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com or rattlesnakepress.com for ordering information.

Next rattle-read: Rattlesnake Press will present Sacramento Poet Tom Miner at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, June 20 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, North of Everything. Also featured that night will be a new littlesnake broadside (Cominciare Adagio) from Stockton Poet/Publisher David Humphreys, plus #3 in the Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Jane Blue. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/ NOTE: For June, and for June only, our monthly Rattlesnake reading will be on the THIRD Weds. instead of the second one. There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August.

Out of the Woods

Dawn DiBartolo, Sacramento

tri-ternity
—dawn dibartolo

& as i carried
the sun on my back,
the moon of jealousy
began methodical cracks,
drew pixel portraits
to gain my favor.

craters stemmed
to resemble youth,
and desire, holding hands,
grew long in the tooth,
love, lifetime ~
held, and savored.

never one
to covet the rose,
i begrudged the earth,
dug in driven toes,
found soil, kind to bear
the weight.

planet, moon, & sun
in enigmatic tryst
bound together by a rope of stars
& a flick of my wrist,
became the bind, eternal

and all at once, too late.

_____________________

Thanks, Dawn! Dawn DiBartolo lives in Sacramento, California with her three children, and works for the State as an analyst. She has been published in Rattlesnake Review, Green Silk Journal, and StrangeRoad.com. Her poetry has also appeared on the poetry blogs of Medusa's Kitchen, The Woodlands, and the Pink Palace. Dawn has previously published a collection of poetry entitled Love and Other Eternities, available at http://www.publishamerica.com/orderinginfo.htm/


Honoring James Wright: Guidelines

Robert Johnson, Founder of Melia Press in Minneapolis, seeks submissions for a book of poems in honor of James Wright. The book will be a standard trade edition of about 70 pages. Each contributor will receive two copies of the book, and a small number of poems in the book will also be printed in broadside format suitable for framing. Robert has had a distinguished career as an artist/printer and has crafted limited edition collections, in the livre deluxe tradition, of poems by William Stafford and by Robert Bly. Bruce Henricksen, a past editor of New Orleans Review and a fiction writer, will help in a secretarial capacity in the Wright project. Robert and Bruce both attended the University of Minnesota during the years that Wright taught there, and they have long been admirers of his work.

Submissions to the James Wright project should be no more than two pages of poetry in any form. Your name and contact information should appear in an upper corner. Poems may refer directly or indirectly to Wright’s work, to his themes, and to the regions he wrote about. It is not desirable that more than a few of the poems in the book mention Wright by name. No handwritten submissions, please. Limit your cover letter to one page. Identify yourself and describe your publishing background, if any. Say something about your relation to Wright’s work, and explain how your poem honors that work. Please include a SASE. E-mail submissions will not be read. Deadline is October 1, 2007. These guidelines are available at bhenricksen@charter.net/ Please type "James Wright" on the subject line.

Submissions should be sent to:
Bruce Henricksen
P.O. Box 3054
Duluth, MN 55803

_____________________

artless
—dawn dibartolo

draw an empty picture,
puzzle pieces
out of synch,
some sharp,
some round,
all one color.
you pick the color,
but it doesn't resonate
with mood,
so you choose
a softer hue,
wiping clean
any meaning not intended,
and end up
with basically
a blank slate.

_____________________

the messenger
—dawn dibartolo

he said
the hummingbird
is a soul-messenger ~
its up to the individual
to decipher what they hear.
i heard
a blur of wings
as suspended in flight, she
looked at me
and spoke the soft silence
of my longing ~
soul for skin
accepting the quiet sunshine
of mid-morning
~ despite ~
hustle/bustle spring clouds ~
stop
and smell the flowers.

_____________________

the leaves are red
—dawn dibartolo

there was a little girl
who saw her mother ~
with split lips
and blackened eyes ~
yet mother maintained
a deep love
for the beast
that consumed her.
the little girl feared
most, growling echoes
in the tree-tops ~
they always led back
to blood-shed ~
and she vowed never
to allow fear of the forest.
she walked into the woods,
once she was old enough
to love,
careful enough
to watch her step,
but stumbled upon the wild,
like an old tree root
jutting from the ground.

she promptly left the trees
for the clearing,
swearing never to return ~

_____________________

—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 (free publications): Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; RR #14 will be out in mid-June. (Next deadline, for RR #15, is August 15.) The new VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets #9 (for kids 0-12) is available; Snakelets #10 will be out this month. Next deadline is 10/1.

Books/broadsides: May's releases are Grass Valley Poet Ron Tranquilla’s Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006, plus a littlesnake broadside by Julie Valin (Still Life With Sun) and a Rattlesnake Interview Broadside (#2) featuring Khiry Malik Moore and B.L. Kennedy. All are now available at The Book Collector. Rattlechaps are $5; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com or rattlesnakepress.com for ordering information.

Next rattle-read: Rattlesnake Press will present Sacramento Poet Tom Miner at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, June 20 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, North of Everything. Also featured that night will be a new littlesnake broadside (Cominciare Adagio) from Stockton Poet/Publisher David Humphreys, plus #3 in the Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Jane Blue. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/ NOTE: For June, and for June only, our monthly Rattlesnake reading will be on the THIRD Weds. instead of the second one. There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August.

As If We Could Forget

War Memorial
Beverly Minster, Yorkshire
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

MEMORIAL DAY, 2007
As If We Could Forget . . .

the scrawny kid who mowed our lawn every Sunday
the freckled boy who sat by the window in algebra
the granddad who hid a box of medals in a drawer
the uncle who lost an arm in the second World War
the son who lost his innocence in Vietnam

As if we could forget
the young woman who tended the wounded in Korea
the sister who flew helicopters in the desert
the mother who cleaned her rifle beside her tent
the girl down the street who longed to see the world
the teenager who watched our kids on Saturday nights

As if we could forget
any of the world’s children drawn into war
any of the men and women who
served near a compound
stood too near a
shell
grenade
bomb

As if we could forget
the sound of their laughter
the music they hummed in idle hours
the last letter they sent home
the empty chair


—Katy Brown, Davis

_____________________

Thanks, Katy! See Medusa's March 24, 2007 post for the Complete Skinny on Katy Brown, Privateer-in-Residence for Rattlesnake Review. What's a Privateer? Check out her column in the next Review, due out in mid-June, and see.


This week in poetry:

•••First, a couple of errata: In yesterday's "Ticket" section, The Sacramento Bee had William O. Daly of Auburn listed as reading at Sacramento Poetry Center tonight; that event has been postponed, and there will be no reading there tonight. Instead, go to the Whitman reading on Saturday (see below). ALSO: Poetry Now, the Sacramento Poetry Center's monthly journal, has a reading listed for PoemSpirits this Sunday, but they are on their summer break.

•••Thursday (5/31), 8 PM: An evening of Prose and Poetry at Poetry Unplugged, brought to your ears by Sacramento author Bill Pieper, whose previous reading at Luna’s featured his brilliant and sometimes salacious novel, Gomez. Mr. Pieper returns with more prose and stories to show and tell. Bill is an engaging writer and in-demand speaker and is sure to take the audience into new spaces and places via the power of the word. Peter Samis has a few of his own stories and some favorite poems to share. By request, Peter will read his amazing short story re: Art ownership and blazing flames (a tease) that has wowed SF audiences. An evening bound to be full of wordful surprise and authorship unique to the writers. Hosted by frank andrick. Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Open mic before and after.

•••Thursday (5/31), (call for the time): Colored Horse Studio (780 Waugh Lane, Ukiah) features Nevada County poet Will Staple, author of the dual language editions Klapperschlangenfrau (German and English) and Luminosita Numinosa (Italian and English) and the award-winning collections, I Hate the Men You Sleep With, The Only Way to Reduce Crime Is to Make Fewer Acts Illegal and Dr. Montoya's Medicine. His work can also be heard on the CD, Black Dress On. Will has been a very popular and successful Poet in the Schools in Nevada, Placer and Mendocino Counties. Outside of California he has read his work in Lubeck, Germany, Locarno, Switzerland and at the renowned Shakespeare and Co. bookstore in Paris. Friends and fans know that, if they're lucky they can get Will to read palms as well as poems. $5 donation suggested. Open mic and refreshments. Waugh Lane runs between Gobbi Street and Talmage Road. Info: (707) 463-6989 or (707) 468-9488.

•••Also in Ukiah this weekend: Friday (6/1), 7:30-9 PM and Sat. (6/2), 10 AM-5 PM: Mendocino College presents their literary festival, Mendocino LitFest. Following an evening presentation by author Gary Soto on Friday, June 1, two dozen authors will gather on Saturday, June 2 to share their latest work and discuss ideas. Independent booksellers, regional publishers, and self-published authors will sell books. Activities for children will be offered. Admission to LitFest is free. Saturday workshops will be offered for a modest fee. Call 707-468-3051 or see www.mendolitfest.org/ for information. Mendocino College, 1000 Hensley Creek Rd., Ukiah. (Take 101 Ukiah north to Lake Mendocino Dr., east to North State St, south to Hensley Creek Rd., west to campus.)

•••Sign up by this Friday, June 1 for the Manzanita Summer Writers Retreat Campout up at gorgeous Calaveras Big Trees State Park near Arnold, CA. Daily hiking, journaling, workshops, Sierra lectures, evening campfire storytelling and poetry, and camaraderie with other writers in your group with a trained writer leader. Lots of free time to explore and write. Limited to 40 writers for the week camping/hiking experience, so tell your writer friends and organize a group to come up together and reserve your spot by June 1. If you only want to come for a day workshop, then that can be arranged for Friday or Saturday, or a quiet day in the park during the week. Contact:

Monika Rose
Retreat Director
(209) 754-0577
www.manzanitacalifornia.org
mrosemanza@jps.net

•••In fact, the Manzanita folks will be in Sacramento this Friday, June 1, from 7-9 PM, when Cool Cat Gallery on 24th St. in Sacramento (just down from The Book Collector) hosts Manzanita writers. Come meet Monika Rose and the gang from the poetry journal, Manzanita. These writers will also be featured in the next Rattlesnake Review, due out in mid-June, including a wonderful summary of who they are and what they're up to by Monika. [See Medusa's May 8, 2007 post for more about Monika, the Manzanita Rose.]

•••Saturday (6/2), Noon: Words of Walt: A Walt Whitman Birthday Celebration and Open Reading will be held once again at the Oddfellows Lawn (Old City Cemetery) on Riverside Blvd and Broadway in Sacramento. The Sacramento Poetry Center first took the poems of Walt Whitman in among the Civil War veterans' graves at Oddfellows Lawn to celebrate the man about 23 years ago. The SPC Oddfellows event was held only a couple of times, but this year, to celebrate Whitman's 188th birthday (May 31), all are invited to return to the scene and participate in an open reading of Whitman's work. Bring your favorite Whitman poems and passages and a sack lunch, if you choose to, for an informal open reading of Whitman in the round among the graves of those who shared in the most significant years of Whitman's life, and whom the old nurse loved so well. Only Walt, please. There are so many great tributes to him, as well as a few notable slams, but this time is just the words of Walt. We will meet at the Civil War Monument on the Riverside edge of the cemetery (between the Riverside gate and Broadway—look for the signs) and begin reading at noon. You might also bring a cushion or folding chair if you wish. Hosted by Patrick Grizzell.

•••Saturday (6/2), 11 AM will be the regular monthly potluck & writing meeting of Writers of the New Sun/Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol at La Raza Galeria Posada, 1022-1024 22nd St., Midtown Sacramento, 916-446-5133. No charge. For more information about Los Escritores call Graciela Ramirez, 916-456-5323. Website: http://escritoresdelnuevosol.com/

•••Workshop in Paradise! On Saturday, June 2 (9 AM-1 PM), Bille Park in Paradise, CA will provide the place to reconnect with the earth for healing, and rediscovery of the self in poem-making, including a nature walk, a guided meditation, word-play, poem making, a reading, the work of nature writers such as Wendell Berry and the fellowship of other poets. This workshop, open to the beginning as well as the advanced poet, will be held at Bille Park; meet at the Council Circle. Bring a bag lunch and a lawn chair. Cost: $30. Sign-up at the Paradise Recreation Center, or contact Lara Gularte at 530-873-4275.

•••Sunday (6/3), 1-4 PM: Century House Poetry Series presents San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman reading with Latif Harris. This will be Host Cynthia Bryant’s last gig as Pleasanton Poet Laureate. Open mic (one poem, up to 40 lines); refreshments. Free. 2401 Santa Rita Road, Pleasanton.

•••Sunday (6/3), San Francisco: Poets With Trees will have a total open mic in Sutro Heights Park (west end of Geary Street overlooking the ocean) featuring you and all your friends. Info: Clara Hsu at soullesswoman@gmail.com/ or Dan Brady at creative1@creativeideasforyou.com/ or Don Brennan at brennan.don@gmail.com/
_____________________

THE EVIL MINUTE
—Rafael Alberti

When for me the wheatfields were habitations of stars and god
and frost the frozen tears of a gazelle,
someone cast in plaster my breast and shadow,
betraying me.

That was the minute of stray bullets,
of the sea's kidnapping of men who wanted to be birds,
of the inopportune telegram and the finding of blood,
of the death of water that always looked at the sky.

_____________________

REMEMBER
—Christina Georgina Rosetti

Remember me when I am gone away,
gone far away into the silent land;
when you can no more hold me by the hand,
nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
you tell me of our future that you planned:
only remember me; you understand
it will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
and afterwards remember, do not grieve:
for if the darkness and corruption leave
a vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
better by far you should forget and smile
than that you should remember and be sad.

Memorial in Yorkshire
Photo by Katy Brown

—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 (free publications): Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; RR #14 will be out in mid-June. (Next deadline, for RR #15, is August 15.) The new VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets #9 (for kids 0-12) is available; Snakelets #10 will be out this month. Next deadline is 10/1.

Books/broadsides: May's releases are Grass Valley Poet Ron Tranquilla’s Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006, plus a littlesnake broadside by Julie Valin (Still Life With Sun) and a Rattlesnake Interview Broadside (#2) featuring Khiry Malik Moore and B.L. Kennedy. All are now available at The Book Collector. Rattlechaps are $5; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com or rattlesnakepress.com for ordering information.

Next rattle-read: Rattlesnake Press will present Sacramento Poet Tom Miner at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, June 20 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, North of Everything. Also featured that night will be a new littlesnake broadside (Cominciare Adagio) from Stockton Poet/Publisher David Humphreys, plus #3 in the Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Jane Blue. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/ NOTE: For June, and for June only, our monthly Rattlesnake reading will be on the THIRD Weds. instead of the second one. There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August.

Of Plums and Snake-Eaters

Mt. Shasta
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis


Mountain path —
sun rising
through plum scent.

***

Violets —
how precious on
a mountain path.

•••

Do not forget the plum,
blooming
in the thicket.

•••

Spring air —
woven moon
and plum scent.

•••

Behind the virgins'
quarters,
one blossoming plum.

•••

How terrible
the pheasant's call —
snake-eater.

•••

Poet grieving over shivering
monkeys, what of this child
cast out in autumn wind?

(Today's poetry was from On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho, translated by Lucien Stryk)

***

—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.)

The Poems We Ask For

DAY THIRTEEN OF WHALE WATCH
—Patricia A. Pashby, Sacramento

A circus atmosphere
just short of tee shirt booths
and hot dog stands
follows Delta and Dawn,
now everyone’s pets.

Let the river muse
lift the Rio Vista Bridge,
serenade them under
and sing a happy ending
for the little ones watching
bug-eyed from the levee.

_____________________

Thanks, Pat, and everyone who participated in the whale poem give-away. Keep these two vagabonds in your thoughts, especially during this gnarly boating holiday.

Speaking of Memorial Day, there will be no Sacramento Poetry Center reading Monday.


Some journals to keep you busy:

•••The Yolo Crow (a journal publishing the work of local writers) is issuing a call for haiku for its summer edition. All subjects welcome. Submissions are due by June 1st. Submission guidelines and submissions form can be found at http://www.yolocrow.com/submission.html/

•••Bakersfield's inaugural issue of The Noveltown Review is now available. The launch of this new Valley literary magazine was the brainchild of Yosemite Writers Conference speaker, Nick Belardes. The first issue included fiction from L.A. Times award-winning fiction writer, Brad Listi, amongst others. Nick is looking for submissions for the next issue. The deadline is June 15th, and he's accepting short fiction, flash fiction, poetry, articles, and essays. You can pick up a copy of the first issue at http://noveltown.net/noveltownreview.html/ The cost of the first issue is only $3.00 plus shipping. Here's a current breakdown of the themes in their quarterly magazine (themes can be subject to change, so keep checking back):

Spring: Contemporary literary + industry-related articles
Summer: Raw, London and American Brutalist literary + industry-related articles
Fall: Non-fiction/memoir + industry-related articles
Winter: Contemporary literary/Young Adult + industry-related articles

Fiction/non-fiction submission inquiries: melinda@noveltown.net
Poetry submission inquiries: poets@noveltown.net

•••Ginosko (ghin-oce-koe, ezine, circulation 2200+) is accepting short fiction & poetry for its 5th issue. Editorial lead time is 1-3 months; accept simultaneous submissions and reprints; receives email & postal submissions. Length flexible. Copyright reverts to author. Publishing as semiannual ezine—summer & winter. Moving towards printed version to be distributed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Selecting material for anthology. Downloadable issues on website: http://www.ginoskoliteraryjournal.com/ Also looking for artwork, photography, CDs to post on website, and links to exchange. Ginosko: To perceive, understand, realize, come to know; knowledge that has an inception, a progress, an attainment. The recognition of truth by experience.

GINOSKO LITERARY JOURNAL
Robert Paul Cesaretti
PO Box 246
Fairfax, CA 94978

•••Third Wednesday, a new East Coast publication, is accepting submissions now for their first issue, due out in Fall 2007. Check it out at http://thirdwednesday.org/

•••Voices is an online journal that accepts poetry submissions on an ongoing basis. Check it out: www.voicesonline.ws

•••Two submissions opportunities from The Frank Bette Center for the Arts in Alameda:

FBCA is seeking poems on the themes of their monthly art shows. Winning poem on each theme will be framed and hung in the gallery for that month and the poet will be invited to read the poem at the show opening. The themes and deadlines are:

June: Peaches & Cream (May 26)
July: Patterns, Portions & Pieces (June 31)
August: Plein Air, Landscape (July 28)
September: Reading Between the Lines (August 31)
October: Celebrating Creativity (September 30)
November: A Partridge & A Pear Tree (October 27)

(for more info on themes go to http://www.frankbettecenter.org/exhibits.html)

Send poems to: Patricia Edith, Literary Arts at FBCA, 1601 Paru, Alameda, CA 94501, 510 523-6957. Sorry, no email submissions. Be sure your name, address, and phone number appear on the right hand corner of work. Poems should not exceed 25 lines.

ALSO: I hear they have a Jewel By The Bay Poetry Contest coming up, but I can't find it on the website. You might give them a call if you're interested. Submissions may be dropped off at the Frank Bette Center or mailed to the above address. Deadline is supposedly (postmarked) July 7. Sorry, no email submissions.

________________

THE POEM YOU ASKED FOR
—Larry Levis

My poem would eat nothing.
I tried giving it water
but it said no,

worrying me.
Day after day,
I held it up to the light,

turning it over,
but it only pressed its lips
more tightly together.

It grew sullen, like a toad
through with being teased.
I offered it money,

my clothes, my car with a full tank.
But the poem stared at the floor.
Finally I cupped it in

my hands, and carried it gently
out into the soft air, into the
evening traffic, wondering how

to end things between us.
For now it had begun breathing,
putting on more and

more hard rings of flesh.
And the poem demanded the food,
it drank up all the water,

beat me and took my money,
tore the faded clothes
off my back

said Shit,
and walked slowly away,
slicking its hair down.

Said it was going
over to your place.

_________________

—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 (free publications): Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; RR #14 will be out in mid-June. (Next deadline, for RR #15, is August 15.) The new VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets #9 (for kids 0-12) is available; Snakelets #10 will be out this month. Next deadline is 10/1.

Books/broadsides: May's releases are Grass Valley Poet Ron Tranquilla’s Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006, plus a littlesnake broadside by Julie Valin (Still Life With Sun) and a Rattlesnake Interview Broadside (#2) featuring Khiry Malik Moore and B.L. Kennedy. All are now available at The Book Collector. Rattlechaps are $5; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com or rattlesnakepress.com for ordering information.

Next rattle-read: Rattlesnake Press will present Sacramento Poet Tom Miner at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, June 20 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, North of Everything. Also featured that night will be a new littlesnake broadside (Cominciare Adagio) from Stockton Poet/Publisher David Humphreys, plus #3 in the Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Jane Blue. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/ NOTE: For June, and for June only, our monthly Rattlesnake reading will be on the THIRD Weds. instead of the second one. There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August.

Buzzing at the Sill

Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

WISH FOR THE STRAY WHALES
called Delta and Dawn
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

We wish you whales a swift return.
Your voices can evoke wayshape.
Untwist these channels. Please relearn.
We wish you whales a swift return.
These long fresh inlets, chokepoints, traps.
Speak ricochet, sculpt oceanscape.
We wish you whales a swift return.
Your voices, we invoke. Escape.

____________________

Thanks, Tom and Katy! Watch for more from Tom Goff and Katy Brown in Rattlesnake Review #14, due out in mid-June.

Send me a poem about whales by midnight tonight, Friday, May 25 (e-mailed or postmarked) and I'll send you a copy of Ron Tranquilla's new chapbook, Playing Favorites (or any other rattlechap of your choosing). That's kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. And think good thoughts about our recent visitors and their travels. [Sorry I didn't properly credit Colette Jonopulos' haibun yesterday on Medusa's early edition; thanks to Jane Blue for pointing it out.]


This weekend:

•••Saturday, May 26, 7-9 PM: "The Show" presents Rodzilla, Random Abiladeze, S.O.U.L.J.A.S praise dancers, Mario Ellis Hill, Angela Wilson, Hot Crew hip-hop dancers at Wo'se Community Center, 2863 35th St., Sacramento. $5. 916-455-7638.

____________________

IN A DARK TIME
—Theodore Roethke

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood—
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks—is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.

A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing mind.


Today, Theodore Roethke would've been 99 years old.

_____________________

THE RHODORA
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.

Today, Ralph Waldo Emerson would've been 204 years old.

______________________

THE COUGAR
—Raymond Carver

For John Haines and Keith Wilson

I stalked a cougar once in a lost box-canyon
off the Columbia River gorge near the town and river
of Klickitat. We were loaded for grouse. October,
gray sky reaching over into Oregon, and beyond,
all the way to California. None of us had been there,
to California, but we knew about that place—they had
restaurants
that let you fill your plate as many times as you wanted.

I stalked a cougar that day,
if stalk is the right word, slumping and scraping along
upwind of the cougar, smoking cigarettes too,
one after the other, a nervous, fat, sweating kid
under the best of circumstances, but that day
I stalked a cougar...

And then I was weaving drunk there in the living room,
fumbling to put it into words, smacked and scattered
with the memory of it after you two had put your stories,
black bear stories, out on the table.
Suddenly I was back in that canyon, in that gone state.
Something I hadn't thought about for years:
how I stalked a cougar that day.

So I told it. Tried to anyway,
Haines and I pretty drunk now. Wilson listening, listening,
then saying, You sure it wasn't a bobcat?
Which I secretly took as a put-down, he from the Southwest,
poet who had read that night,
and any fool able to tell a bobcat from a cougar,
even a drunk writer like me,
years later, at the smorgasbord, in California.

Hell. And then the cougar smooth-loped out of the brush
right in front of me—God, how big and beautiful he was—
jumped onto a rock and turned his head
to look at me. To look at me! I looked back, forgetting to shoot.
Then he jumped again, ran clear out of my life.

Today Raymond Carver would've been 69 years old.

_____________________

—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 (free publications): Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; RR #14 will be out in mid-June. (Next deadline, for RR #15, is August 15.) The new VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets #9 (for kids 0-12) is available; Snakelets #10 will be out this month. Next deadline is 10/1.

Books/broadsides: May's releases are Grass Valley Poet Ron Tranquilla’s Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006, plus a littlesnake broadside by Julie Valin (Still Life With Sun) and a Rattlesnake Interview Broadside (#2) featuring Khiry Malik Moore and B.L. Kennedy. All are now available at The Book Collector. Rattlechaps are $5; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com or rattlesnakepress.com for ordering information.

Next rattle-read: Rattlesnake Press will present Sacramento Poet Tom Miner at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, June 20 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, North of Everything. Also featured that night will be a new littlesnake broadside (Cominciare Adagio) from Stockton Poet/Publisher David Humphreys, plus #3 in the Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Jane Blue. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/ NOTE: For June, and for June only, our monthly Rattlesnake reading will be on the THIRD Weds. instead of the second one. There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August.

The Salty Taste of Home

What the eye of the whale sees...

EYE OF WHALE
—Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Tehama

The eye of the whale
seems to watch us
bobbing outside the bay
in our boat
With a boom
a slap of the tail
as large as our back bedroom
he dives deep
We rock in his wake
feeling helpless
as broken scraps
of driftwood

_____________________

Thanks, Patricia! The rest of you: Send me a poem about whales by midnight tomorrow (Friday, May 25), e-mailed or postmarked, and I'll send you a copy of Ron Tranquilla's new chapbook, Playing Favorites (or any other rattlechap of your choosing). That's kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. And think good thoughts about our recent visitors and their travels; looks like things are getting difficult...


Tonight:

•••Thursday (5/24), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged @ Luna's presents frank andrick and Terry Moore at Luna's Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Info: (916) 441-3931. Free. Open mic precedes and follows this classic double feature, [See Monday’s post for info on frank and Terry.]


Three up-coming contests:

•••Tiger's Eye is having a blog contest. This one is for formal poetry only! Send your sestinas, sonnets, villanelles, haibun, haiku—you choose the form, but no free verse. There will be three winners, each receiving the latest copy of Tiger's Eye: A Journal of Poetry. Send 3 poems e-mail only to: tigerseyetracks@yahoo.com/ The first place winner will also receive a surprise! Deadline: June 30, 2007. Visit http://tigerseyepoet.blogspot.com/ for a sample of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry. [See below for TE Co-Editor Colette Jonopulos' whale haibun.]

•••David Humphreys is proud to present a Sonnet Contest from Poets Corner Press, deadline Sept. 1, 2007. Please see guidelines on poetscornerpress.com. Send formal or free-form sonnets with $10 reading fee for each entry to Poets Corner Press, 8049 Thornton Rd., Stockton, CA 95209. Winner will be announced Nov. 1; Judge will be rattlechapper Susan Kelly-DeWitt. First Place Award is $500! [David also has a littlesnake broadside coming June 20: Cominciare Adagio, and Susan's rattlechap, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree, will be released in September.]

•••The Towe Auto Museum is pleased to announce its Fourth Annual Automotive Poetry Contest for poems related in some way to the automobile or some form of personal land transportation. From the Pierce Arrow to the Hot Rod, what are your expressions? To our knowledge, this is the only car poetry contest in the world! Deadline is November 10, 2007. First prize winner receives $200, second prize gets $100 and third prize wins $50. All three winners will receive a Museum membership for one year. Entrance fee is $10 for up to three (3) poems submitted. The length of each poem is limited to 40 lines, any form, and any style (line-length in Museum poetry publications is 4 inches, so consider how your poem will look in that space). Poems that have character and images that draw the reader in are the poems that the judges go back to again and again; a poem that looks good on the page, is neat and has a good title and interesting content will appeal to the judges. Chapbooks of past years' submissions are available in the Museum’s Gift Shop, or post-paid for $7. Contact Karen McClaflin, Executive Director, Towe Auto Museum, 2200 Front St., Sacramento, 916-442-6802 or (fax) 916-442-2646 or google up PoetryContest@toweautomuseum.org/ for details and further submission guidelines, of which there are several.

The Towe contest was the brainchild of Snake-pals Don and Elsie Feliz, who are docents at the Museum. Congrats to them for bringing poetry to a wider audience, and watch for their joint Rattlechap about their adventures in Germany when Don was in the Army, coming in February of 2008. Elsie also has rattlechap of her own, Tea With Bunya, and Don has a littlesnake broadside: Switchback Path.

_____________________

MOVING TO HIGHER GROUND
Cape Perpetua, Oregon, January 2005
—Colette Jonopulos, Eugene, OR

i.
We hike the cliffs above the ocean, the air ten degrees warmer here than inland. Sword ferns reach their spindly fingers toward our thighs and knees.

ii.
Pine needles, brown and flattened underfoot, release the scent of Christmas remembered: my father in his plaid robe belted at the waist, my mother’s unruly hair, the waiting to open gifts while coffee brewed. What odd memories as we breathe heavily into the sea air, suspended above the Pacific, her waters calm and even.

this new year
we watch for whales
swimming south

iii.
Tsunami signs warn us to move to higher ground if a wave outgrows itself and pushes inland.
I imagine the ocean receding, and then growing beyond belief, beyond our ability to outrun its need to enfold.

a boy stacks
broken pieces of trees
limbs unearthed

iv.
The day after Christmas, along Asia’s coast—tourists washed to sea with the locals. Thousands let go in unison; their unending silence haunts me still. I didn’t watch television at first, and then huddled in pajamas for an entire morning with images of fishing boats and cars piled like discarded toys, miles of gutted land, bodies stacked for burning.

v.
The path off the loop trail is steeper than we’d thought; we force ourselves to continue upward to make it a five-mile hike. Our breathing is steady now, thoughts slowed to the rhythm of each footfall. We talk quietly about our good fortune that it isn’t raining, that there are so few people on the trails; we talk of anything but death.

vi.
A tree has split itself and fallen into the branches of another tree, crossing overhead. I take a photograph of its trajectory, the timing of it. As we climb higher, the slight sway of trees draws our eyes upward. Their wooden arms rub together; create the single keening sound of loss.

every March
gray whales swim north
calves in their wake

(Originally appeared in In the Arms of Words: Poems for Disaster Relief)

_____________________

WHAT THE WHALES ARE TOLD
—Katy Brown, Davis

They hear it from the young Chinook
who tumble down the Sacramento:
there is one pure, icy spring

at the foot of a sacred mountain —
and an endless lake where the food
never runs out and the water never goes dry —

and a delta where the water tastes salty
as it enters the great Bay — an island guarded by sharks,
and a bridge the color of the Great Golden Trout.

The fingerlings follow the humpback
bubble-trails and tell them of their home
under clear mountain skies:

There is a river of crystal water which flows
into a vast, sky-colored lake with plenty
of food — with stars, bright enough to hunt by.

The whales hear these tales and scoff:
who can live in water without salt?
what kind of wall can hold back the water?

One or two whales find their way
into the great Bay and taste river water
for the first time. It tastes like crystal sky.

They follow the intoxicating change
and find themselves beyond the bridges,
beyond the krill, beyond the song of others.

They try to turn back, but the river is narrow
and shallow and there is no room and there
are boats everywhere and the fingerling salmon

are all out at sea or hunted by the sea lion
who tumbles and barks in the shallows.

Where is the salty taste of home?

_____________________

—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 (free publications): Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; RR #14 will be out in mid-June. (Next deadline, for RR #15, is August 15.) The new VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets #9 (for kids 0-12) is available; Snakelets #10 will be out this month. Next deadline is 10/1.

Books/broadsides: May's releases are Grass Valley Poet Ron Tranquilla’s Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006, plus a littlesnake broadside by Julie Valin (Still Life With Sun) and a Rattlesnake Interview Broadside (#2) featuring Khiry Malik Moore and B.L. Kennedy. All are now available at The Book Collector. Rattlechaps are $5; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com or rattlesnakepress.com for ordering information.

Next rattle-read: Rattlesnake Press will present Sacramento Poet Tom Miner at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, June 20 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, North of Everything. Also featured that night will be a new littlesnake broadside (Cominciare Adagio) from Stockton Poet/Publisher David Humphreys, plus #3 in the Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Jane Blue. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/ NOTE: For June, and for June only, our monthly Rattlesnake reading will be on the THIRD Weds. instead of the second one. There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August.

Tearing Into the Taste of Song

SONG-RUNNERS
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

They break in while you're away
to steal your songs — your CDs,
tapes, guitar, your
sheet music and the kid's trombone
and even
wind-chimes. Could there
be black market for a song?
Or do they hoard it high
on a mountain fastness, only wind
for counterpoint?
Do they run for the Argentine
in a sailboat loaded with song?
Listen.
If that ship takes on water,
coast guard in pursuit, do they
drop ballast, strewing lyrics
on the surface, sinking melodies
to the deep?
Snatches for the seabirds,
great rolling refrains
the whales repeat
much deeper, crooning
sea to sea. And sharks
with teeth and tail and muscle
tear into thieves
for the taste
of song.

_____________________

Thanks, TG! Taylor Graham is the most recent taker for Medusa's current give-away: Send me a poem about whales by midnight this Friday, May 25 (e-mailed or postmarked) and I'll send you a copy of Ron Tranquilla's new chapbook, Playing Favorites (or any other rattlechap of your choosing). That's kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. And think good thoughts about our recent visitors and their travels.

Whee-haw! Jane Blue managed to get a comment onto yesterday's Medusa, a feat which is not, apparently, all that easy, techno-wise. Thanks, Jane! (Click on the "1 comment" at the bottom of yesterday's post if you want to see what she said.) And watch for Rattlesnake Interview Series #3, B.L. Kennedy's interview of Jane, coming June 20.


Tonight:

•••Wednesday (5/23), 6-7 PM: Hidden Passage Poetry Reading at Hidden Passage Books, 352 Main St., Placerville. It's an open-mike read-around, so bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share, or just come to listen.


Addition to this week's calendar:

•••Saturday (5/26), 1 PM: Mendocino Spring Poetry Celebration hosted by Sharon Doubiago and Dan Roberts at Hill House in Mendocino. Afternoon open mike starts at 1 PM. Evening session featuring Jack Hirschman and Agnetta Falk starts at 6:30 PM. Another open mike session follows. Free event. Arrive early to sign up for open mikes. More info: Gordon Black, gblack@mcn.org, (707) 937-4107.


Boot Camp and Boulder:

Molly Fisk writes: The Internet June Poetry Boot Camp takes place from Sunday, June 10 to Friday, June 16. If you'd like to add six new poems to your inventory between Memorial Day and the 4th of July, this is your chance. Poetry Boot Camp is an on-line workshop that I teach monthly. All experience levels are welcome. For more information, visit: http://www.poetrybootcamp.com. I also run a concurrent on-line workshop for people who would like to work on revisions of earlier poems. For more about this Revision Workshop, contact me directly at molly@mollyfisk.com. For Boot Camp alumnae, I'm doing some work revamping the PBC website this week, and would like to update the Camper News page—if
you have news about your writing, send it along. And thank you.

We still have five spaces left in the Boulder, Utah workshop, Writing in Place, Aug. 27 - Sept. 1, in case you're looking for a summer adventure. This four-day workshop in Utah's amazing Red Rock country includes daily writing and critiquing with me, and daily yoga with Triyoga instructor Marilyn Kriegel. A good place to come if you want to take stock, let your mind and body work a little more closely
together, or just relax in an ancient landscape and listen to the wind in the trees. More info at: http://www.mollyfisk.com/html/writinginplace.htm


June 14 in Modesto:

•••Thursday (6/14), 4-9 PM: Lost Cow Press in Modesto (publishers of Hardpan) presents "Coyote Caffeine" featuring Brandon Cesmat from San Diego, reading from his collection "driven from the shade" and inspiring you. Arrive on the cusp of the wilderness (Modesto) around 4 and be thirsty, hungry, empty, and plan to fill up. Brandon is a very special poet, and $40 gets you a seat at the Italian Grill, opening just for us, plus you will be writing, eating, drinking, sighing, listening, crying—maybe even sobbing and reading. (It is a school night, yeah.) Pre-registration closes June 10. Don't miss this inaugural session. Wise coyote will be lurking and waiting to greet your shadow. Send $40 registration to: lost cow press, c/o debee loyd, p.o. box 1065, modesto, ca 95353. [The Hardpan crew will be in Sacramento to read at the Sacramento Poetry Center on June 25. Come check them out; two of them, debee loyd and Karen Baker, have rattlechaps available from Rattlesnake Press.]


July Poetry Marathon in Willits:

•••Saturday (7/7), 4 PM: Poetry Marathon at the Willits Library: the Willits Poets are hosting a marathon to help out the Veterans for Peace, whose bus, The White Rose, is down, needing repairs to the tune of $5,000. As most of you know, The White Rose was taking Cindy Sheehan to George Bush's summer ranch to ask him why her son had to die in Iraq, when Hurricane Katrina hit. The bus, loaded with food and supplies, made a run for Mississippi to help out small towns ignored by Red Cross until the White Rose showed up. The Vets have been helping out ever since and it's time to help them out now. If you can't make the marathon, you can send donations to Patrick Tate, 28500 Sherwood Road, Willits, CA 95490. Bring poems enough for many five-minute sessions. We will also play Basho, our own poetic form of Bingo. Everyone will be asked to donate, readers and listeners alike, though as always, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS: In conjunction with the Veterans for Peace Marathon, an anthology is planned: "Deja Vu All Over Again: Poems about War". If you are interested in contributing, please send poems to: Poetry For Peace, c/o Mary N. Korte, P.O. Box 342, Willits, CA 95490.

_____________________

ON SHIPBOARD
—Taylor Graham
(for Elihu Burritt, 1863)

Crossing the Atlantic again by steamer,
do you imagine you can bind two continents in peace
just by the effort of traveling in-between?

Do you wait at the railing, hoping for surfacings —
dolphins in schools like a brotherhood of man?
Do you listen for the songs of whales, and wonder

about their language? Might it stem from the same root
as Indo-European, but branched off eons before?
Do you listen so you might catch patterns,

speculate on grammar and phonetics,
begin to translate their sagas and history,
their mythologies, their faith?

_____________________

—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 (free publications): Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; RR #14 will be out in mid-June. (Next deadline, for RR #15, is August 15.) The new VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets #9 (for kids 0-12) is available; Snakelets #10 will be out this month. Next deadline is 10/1.

Books/broadsides: May's releases are Grass Valley Poet Ron Tranquilla’s Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006, plus a littlesnake broadside by Julie Valin (Still Life With Sun) and a Rattlesnake Interview Broadside (#2) featuring Khiry Malik Moore and B.L. Kennedy. All are now available at The Book Collector. Rattlechaps are $5; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com or rattlesnakepress.com for ordering information.

Next rattle-read: Rattlesnake Press will present Sacramento Poet Tom Miner at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, June 20 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, North of Everything. Also featured that night will be a new littlesnake broadside (Cominciare Adagio) from Stockton Poet/Publisher David Humphreys, plus #3 in the Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Jane Blue. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/ NOTE: For June, and for June only, our monthly Rattlesnake reading will be on the THIRD Weds. instead of the second one. There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August.

Whales (& Poets) Getting Away

Noel Kroeplin

CHECKOUT
—Noel Kroeplin, Grass Valley

Waiting in line
for the woman
with 200 frozen dinners
each on sale
at a different price
gives me the quiet time
I desperately need
to find out
who’s banging who
in Hollywood.

______________________

Thanks, Noel! Noel Kroeplin is a recent Wisconsin–California transplant. Some think she’s an environmentalist but she’s really an existentialist in disguise. She often disputes the existence of time and uses it as a justification for her extensive tardiness in the world. Her day jobs with local environmental non-profit groups in the Nevada City and Grass Valley areas allow her the flexibility necessary in order for her to function properly. She is an avid reader and fan of Carl Jung, Hermann Hesse and Charles Bukowski. She says she has won no awards and is basically unknown.

Noel was only recently published in the Six Ft. Swells chapbook, Cocktails and Confessionals. This is not due to a lack a talent, but rather the public university system she attended for seven long years stole her creative brain and only recently has she been able to retrieve it. And hallelujah for that, she says. When she’s not saving the world through her words and environmental maneuvers, Noel enjoys beer in the afternoon, getting caught in the rain and long romantic walks (often by herself) along the Yuba River.

Be sure to watch for another Six Ft. Swells release party, this one in Sacramento in June at Luna's. More about that later. And watch for another of Noel's poems in Rattlesnake Review #14, due out in mid-June. More from Noel:

TODAY
—Noel Kroeplin

Today
the sun burned
two horizons
into the sky
and onto my brain
light and dark
a storm is on the way

____________________

HOW CAN YOU LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT AND ONLY LOOK?
—Noel Kroeplin

I feel
your eyes
searing my skin
every time
we are together
until I am nothing
but a pile of ashes
that you feel the need
to repeatedly
blow away

____________________

Need to get away? Lots coming up in June and beyond:

•••Mendocino College presents Mendocino LitFest on June 1-2. Following an evening presentation by author Gary Soto on Friday, June 1, two dozen authors will gather on Saturday, June 2 to share their latest work and discuss ideas. Independent booksellers, regional publishers, and self-published authors will sell books. Activities for children will be offered. Admission to LitFest is free. Saturday workshops will be offered for a modest fee. Call 707-468-3051 or see www.mendolitfest.org. for information.

•••Fee deadline is June 1 for Manzanita camp! Mark your calendar and sign up soon for the Manzanita Summer Writers Retreat Camp-out up at gorgeous Calaveras Big Trees State Park near Arnold, CA. Daily hiking, journaling, workshops, Sierra lectures, evening campfire storytelling and poetry, and camaraderie with other writers in your group with a trained writer leader. Lots of free time to explore and write. Limited to 40 writers for the week camping/hiking experience, so tell your writer friends and organize a group to come up together and reserve your spot by June 1. See below for details. If you only want to come for a day workshop, then that can be arranged for Friday or Saturday, or a quiet day in the park during the week. Contact:

Monika Rose
Retreat Director
(209) 754-0577
www.manzanitacalifornia.org
mrosemanza@jps.net

When: June 25 to July 1, 2007: Share a campsite with other writers. Bring your own equipment and food. Tents only; no RVs. Quiet time to walk, reflect, write, and share daily live journals. Where: Calaveras Big Trees State Park Campground. Arnold, CA. Activities: Daily walks with writer teachers/leaders and journaling on the North Grove and SouthGrove trails, joined by park docents. Guided workshops for daily writing, craft talks, and group campfire/sharing in the evening. Lots of time to write and reflect. Resources available: field guides, Sierra texts, pamphlets and park material, and other guides. Invited speakers include representatives from the Park Service, Big Trees Association, and those involved with the Sierra habitat. Friday and Saturday craft workshops presented by writers from different genres. Reserve your place now. Limited to 40 participants. First reserved, first served. $180 for the entire week, Monday-Sunday. Friday and Saturday workshops: $50 per day. Friday or Saturday fees do not include park entrance fees per day, an additional $6 per carload, per day. Fee Deadline: June 1. Send check made out to Writers Unlimited for $180 for the retreat or $50 per day fee to: Writers Unlimited PO Box 632, San Andreas, CA 95249.

Friday and Saturday Workshops (June 29 and June 30) will feature Molly Fisk, Poet; Antoinette May, Novelist, nonfiction and travel writer; Lucy Sanna, Nonfiction, marketing; Sally Ashton, Poet, ed. DMQ Review; Kevin Arnold, Poet; David Alpaugh, Poet, Editor; Jeff Knorr, Poet and nonfiction; Ron Pickup, Poet, Photographer, Essayist (Photography/poetry); Conrad Levasseur, Poet (Creative Sensory Journaling); Beau Blue, electronic publisher, online editor (Digital writers seminar). Plus a Small Press Panel, the Manzanita writers and editors, and Digital workshops (Discovery Education). Sponsored by Writers Unlimited, An Affiliate of the Calaveras County Arts Council, and other sponsors: Ironstone Vineyards, Sierra Seasons, and Poets & Writers.

•••Workshop in Paradise June 2! Bille Park in Paradise, CA will provide the place to reconnect with the earth for healing, and rediscovery of the self in poem-making, including a nature walk, a guided meditation, word-play, poem making, a reading, the work of nature writers such as Wendell Berry and the fellowship of other poets. This workshop, open to the beginning as well as the advanced poet, will be held at Bille Park; meet at the Council Circle on Saturday, June 2 from 9 AM to 1 PM. Bring a bag lunch and a lawn chair. Cost: $30. Sign-up at the Paradise Recreation Center, or contact Lara Gularte at 873-4275.

Instructor Lara Gularte is the editor of the online journal, Convergence. She has an MFA degree in creative writing and received the 2005 Anne Lillis Award for writing and Phelan Awards for several of her poems. Her poetry has appeared in such journals as the Santa Clara Review, Watershed, Kaleidoscope, and Art/Life. Gularte’s work was presented at an international conference on storytelling and cultural identity in June of 2005.

•••The deadline for applying to the Surprise Valley Writers Conference (see www.modocforum.org) has been extended from June 1 to June 15 at the request of writers needing a little more time to polish their manuscripts. Workshops will be held for poetry, fiction and literary nonfiction writers. William Kittredge is the keynote speaker. The dates for the conference are Sept. 20-23. Michael Croft is the Conference Director. To reserve your space, call Modoc Forum, 530-279-2099. Check out their Website at www.modocforum.org.

•••There may still be space available at The Writing Life: June 8-10 at Esalen in Big Sur with Ellen Bass, who says, This weekend will allow you to leave the rush of your busy lives and be still enough to hear the stories and poems that gestate within. You'll write, share our writing, and hear what our work touches in others. We'll help each other to become clearer, go deeper, take new risks. With the safety, support, and inspiration of this gathering, you will have the opportunity to create writing that is more vivid, more true, more complex and powerful than you've been able to do before. Esalen fees cover tuition, food and lodging and vary according to accommodations—ranging from $320 to $605. The sleeping bag space is an incredible bargain. Some work-scholarship assistance is available, as well as small prepayment discounts and senior discounts. All arrangements and registration must be made directly with Esalen, but if you have questions about the content of the workshop, feel free to email me or call me at 831-426-8006. Please register directly with Esalen at 831-667-3005 or at www.esalen.org

•••Grant Pound, Executive Director of Colorado Art Ranch, writes: I am getting the word out about the Durango (Colorado) residency. The applications are being accepted and there is a deadline of July 1, 2007. We had a dearth of poets apply last time. All the information is online at http://www.coloradoartranch.org/residences.htm/ or call 303-279-5198, or e-mail grant.pound@coloradoartranch.org.


Tonight in Davis:

•••Tuesday (5/22), 8:30 PM: The Bistro 33 Literature Night Series presents Francisco Alarcón and open mic. 226 F St. (3rd and F Streets), Davis. Francisco X. Alarcón, Chicano poet and educator, is the author of ten volumes of poetry, including From the Other Side of Night / Del otro lado de la noche: New and Selected Poems (University of Arizona Press 2002). His most recent book of bilingual poetry for children, titled Poems to Dream Together, was published by Lee & Low Books, New York in Spring 2005, and was awarded the 2006 Jane Addams Honor Book Award. He currently teaches at the University of California, Davis, where he directs the Spanish for Native Speakers Program. [See an Alarcón poem that was posted on Medusa’s Kitchen, Feb. 28, 2007.]

_____________________

HUMPBACKS IN SAC
—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

Sacramentans gawked over their Delta
at a swimming Humpback and her calf
perhaps a single mother
driven from a herd
like given a scarlet letter
from her sickness from ship hits
as her battered body showed,
and searching for a home here,
maybe some human kindness.
But sea-water is their salvation
and they face starvation
without their meals of krill.
But the sea is also hungry
depleted in modern ecology
straining to feed great beasts
that it once easily provided for.
The U.S Coast Guard came,
banged on metal tubes
playing whale screeches
stopping short of
using rap or rock music
to drive them back
in spite of being homeless
in the coastline vastness.
Delta and Dawn
they were named
couldn't see the governor
about protection of their species
or maybe about Sea World in Vallejo—
how they should also free Shamo
and all captured sea creatures too!

_____________________

Thanks, Michelle! Michelle Kunert was the first to respond to the current Medusa give-away. Send me a poem about whales by midnight this Friday, May 25 (e-mailed or postmarked) and I'll send you a copy of Ron Tranquilla's new chapbook, Playing Favorites (or any other rattlechap of your choosing). That's kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. And think good thoughts about our recent visitors and their travels. [See Medusa's Thursday, May 3 post for a picture of Michelle and more of her poems.]

_____________________

—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 (free publications): Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; RR #14 will be out in mid-June. (Next deadline, for RR #15, is August 15.) The new VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets #9 (for kids 0-12) is available; Snakelets #10 will be out this month. Next deadline is 10/1.

Books/broadsides: May's releases are Grass Valley Poet Ron Tranquilla’s Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006, plus a littlesnake broadside by Julie Valin (Still Life With Sun) and a Rattlesnake Interview Broadside (#2) featuring Khiry Malik Moore and B.L. Kennedy. All are now available at The Book Collector. Rattlechaps are $5; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com or rattlesnakepress.com for ordering information.

Next rattle-read: Rattlesnake Press will present Sacramento Poet Tom Miner at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, June 20 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, North of Everything. Also featured that night will be a new littlesnake broadside (Cominciare Adagio) from Stockton Poet/Publisher David Humphreys, plus #3 in the Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Jane Blue. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/ NOTE: For June, and for June only, our monthly Rattlesnake reading will be on the THIRD Weds. instead of the second one. There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August.