Ron Tranquilla (and Mae)
MOWING
—Ron Tranquilla, Grass Valley
Mowing the grass was my boyhood chore;
I took all Saturday for twenty minutes’ work.
I’d stop to watch the bees fondle
the flowers, their legs heavy with pollen,
follow the trails of ants through the jungle
of grass to find their nests, and O
the black and yellow garden spider
centered on its silken circles
like a gaudy jewel on the breast of a queen.
Sometimes my father would yank the mower
from my hands, pushing, whirring, flying
down a swipe of lawn then wheel,
his red-faced glare: “That’s how you do it
in twenty minutes!” In his fiftieth year,
after forcing a path through snow,
he fell to the kitchen floor like a stalk
of Joe Pye Weed on the bank behind
our yard I scythed twice a summer.
I always said if I reached fifty
I’d throw a party—instead I walked
into my yard and lay down on the grass:
a beetle black as onyx scrambled
through the blades; nearby, a spider
with delicate stripes of copper and gold;
ants, tunneling their labyrinth,
raised their little pyramid
one grain after another.
Father, I thought, what was your hurry?
(originally appeared in Nevada County Poetry Series Anthology 2004)
_____________________
Thanks, Ron! Ron Tranquilla is a retired professor of English from St. Vincent College, Latrobe, Pennsylvania, who now lives with his wife, Penny, in Grass Valley, California. He is an award-winning short story writer and, since 1971, has published poems in such journals as New: American and Canadian Poetry; The Marginal Review; The Rocky Mountain Review, Hollins Critic, and West Branch.
While a visiting exchange professor at Fu Jen Catholic University, Ron published a collection of poetry, Loitering at Heavens Gate; Taiwan Poems. He is also listed in Poets and Writers’ A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers. His latest chapbook, An Ocean Front Hotel Room, was published in 2005 by Rattlesnake Press.
Ron will read at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, April 11 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006. Also released that night will be a littlesnake broadside from fellow Grass-Valley Poet Julie Valin, Still Life With Sun, and #2 in the new Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poetry Promoter and Poet Malik.
Also this week:
•••Tonight (Monday, 5/7), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center will host a reading for the American River Review, 2006 winner of the CSPA Gold Crown (top five of all collegiate magazines) and CCHA Best in the Nation (best literary magazine among all community colleges, 2006). Featured readers include James Wooden, Marilyn Wallner, Isaac Chilton, Judith Ryan and more. HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Info: 916.451.5569.
•••Also tonight, The Other Voice presents Julia B. Levine and Jennifer K. Sweeney at The Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, 27074 Patwin Road, 7:30 PM. James Lee Jobe will host. There will be an open reading following the poets. This is a free event. Call 530-750-3514 for details.
•••Tuesday (5/8), 8:30 PM: The Bistro 33 Literature Night Series presents Alan Williamson and open mic. 226 F Street (3rd and F Streets), Davis.
•••Also Tuesday (5/8), 7 PM: Writers in the Garden presents poet Eve West Bessier. Wyatt Deck, Old Davis Road, UC-Davis Arboretum, Davis.
•••Also Tuesday (5/8), 8 PM: Join California Film Arts Alliance in welcoming Mary Mackey, screenwriter, novelist and poet, at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Mary will give a talk on adapting fiction into screenplays, and will also celebrate the release of her new novel, The Notorious Mrs. Winston, now available from Putnam/Berkeley books. $5 donation requested to help support CFAA.
•••Did we mention that Rattlesnake Press will present Grass Valley Poet Ron Tranquilla at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, May 9 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006? Also released that night will be a littlesnake broadside from Julie Valin, Still Life With Sun, and #2 in the new Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poetry Promoter Malik. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com
•••Thursday, May 10 (7:30 PM): Reading to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Watershed (CSU, Chico's bi-annual literary magazine which was founded in 1977). Contributors for the Spring 2007 issue will read in BMU 210 at CSUC. Watershed is a literary magazine that includes prose, poetry, photography, and sometimes essays, scenes from plays, and illustrations. It is edited by students in English 415 (Literary Editing). The magazine, founded in 1977, is published bi-annually by the English department of California State University, Chico, and goes on sale the last week of each semester. Watershed, one of the oldest continuously published student-edited literary magazines in the nation, was proud to be the recipient of the first ANNIE award from the Chico Council of the Arts for Contribution to Literature by an Organization. The best way to obtain an issue of Watershed is to contact the A.S. Bookstore, located in the Bell Memorial Union on the CSU, Chico campus. The General Books number is 530-898-6044.
••Also Thursday (5/10), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Open mic before and after.
•••Saturday, (5/12), 7:30 PM: Book release party and reading by Jacquelyn Shaffer and Robbie Grossklaus at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento.
____________________
NOT A WILD GOOSE CHASE
(for a sick friend)
—Ron Tranquilla
Last night I heard three flocks of geese
flying south. I didn’t hear them
for literary purposes, the symbolism
of night and empty fields,
the gathering of icy knives and the geese
getting out while they still can.
In truth I heard them because
I was awake, worried about you.
These lines are not for nothing:
to tell you I won’t fly away
when the chill wind comes to you.
(originally published in Rattlesnake Review)
____________________
Thanks again, Ron!
Today would've been Robert Browning's 195th birthday.
LOVE IN A LIFE
—Robert Browning
I
Room after room,
I hunt the house through
We inhabit together.
Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her—
Next time, herself!—not the trouble behind her
Left in the curtain, the couch's perfume!
As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew:
Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.
II
Yet the day wears,
And door succeeds door;
I try the fresh fortune—
Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.
Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.
Spend my whole day in the quest,—who cares?
But 'tis twilight, you see,—with such suites to explore,
Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!
_____________________
—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; next deadline is May 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.
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. Rattlesnake Interview Series #1 with Ann Menebroker and B.L. Kennedy is also available (free) at The Book Collector (or contact Kathy Kieth).
Next rattle-read: May's releases will be 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. Come check all these out on May 9 at 7:30 PM at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else’s.
—Ron Tranquilla, Grass Valley
Mowing the grass was my boyhood chore;
I took all Saturday for twenty minutes’ work.
I’d stop to watch the bees fondle
the flowers, their legs heavy with pollen,
follow the trails of ants through the jungle
of grass to find their nests, and O
the black and yellow garden spider
centered on its silken circles
like a gaudy jewel on the breast of a queen.
Sometimes my father would yank the mower
from my hands, pushing, whirring, flying
down a swipe of lawn then wheel,
his red-faced glare: “That’s how you do it
in twenty minutes!” In his fiftieth year,
after forcing a path through snow,
he fell to the kitchen floor like a stalk
of Joe Pye Weed on the bank behind
our yard I scythed twice a summer.
I always said if I reached fifty
I’d throw a party—instead I walked
into my yard and lay down on the grass:
a beetle black as onyx scrambled
through the blades; nearby, a spider
with delicate stripes of copper and gold;
ants, tunneling their labyrinth,
raised their little pyramid
one grain after another.
Father, I thought, what was your hurry?
(originally appeared in Nevada County Poetry Series Anthology 2004)
_____________________
Thanks, Ron! Ron Tranquilla is a retired professor of English from St. Vincent College, Latrobe, Pennsylvania, who now lives with his wife, Penny, in Grass Valley, California. He is an award-winning short story writer and, since 1971, has published poems in such journals as New: American and Canadian Poetry; The Marginal Review; The Rocky Mountain Review, Hollins Critic, and West Branch.
While a visiting exchange professor at Fu Jen Catholic University, Ron published a collection of poetry, Loitering at Heavens Gate; Taiwan Poems. He is also listed in Poets and Writers’ A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers. His latest chapbook, An Ocean Front Hotel Room, was published in 2005 by Rattlesnake Press.
Ron will read at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, April 11 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006. Also released that night will be a littlesnake broadside from fellow Grass-Valley Poet Julie Valin, Still Life With Sun, and #2 in the new Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poetry Promoter and Poet Malik.
Also this week:
•••Tonight (Monday, 5/7), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center will host a reading for the American River Review, 2006 winner of the CSPA Gold Crown (top five of all collegiate magazines) and CCHA Best in the Nation (best literary magazine among all community colleges, 2006). Featured readers include James Wooden, Marilyn Wallner, Isaac Chilton, Judith Ryan and more. HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Info: 916.451.5569.
•••Also tonight, The Other Voice presents Julia B. Levine and Jennifer K. Sweeney at The Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, 27074 Patwin Road, 7:30 PM. James Lee Jobe will host. There will be an open reading following the poets. This is a free event. Call 530-750-3514 for details.
•••Tuesday (5/8), 8:30 PM: The Bistro 33 Literature Night Series presents Alan Williamson and open mic. 226 F Street (3rd and F Streets), Davis.
•••Also Tuesday (5/8), 7 PM: Writers in the Garden presents poet Eve West Bessier. Wyatt Deck, Old Davis Road, UC-Davis Arboretum, Davis.
•••Also Tuesday (5/8), 8 PM: Join California Film Arts Alliance in welcoming Mary Mackey, screenwriter, novelist and poet, at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Mary will give a talk on adapting fiction into screenplays, and will also celebrate the release of her new novel, The Notorious Mrs. Winston, now available from Putnam/Berkeley books. $5 donation requested to help support CFAA.
•••Did we mention that Rattlesnake Press will present Grass Valley Poet Ron Tranquilla at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, May 9 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006? Also released that night will be a littlesnake broadside from Julie Valin, Still Life With Sun, and #2 in the new Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poetry Promoter Malik. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com
•••Thursday, May 10 (7:30 PM): Reading to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Watershed (CSU, Chico's bi-annual literary magazine which was founded in 1977). Contributors for the Spring 2007 issue will read in BMU 210 at CSUC. Watershed is a literary magazine that includes prose, poetry, photography, and sometimes essays, scenes from plays, and illustrations. It is edited by students in English 415 (Literary Editing). The magazine, founded in 1977, is published bi-annually by the English department of California State University, Chico, and goes on sale the last week of each semester. Watershed, one of the oldest continuously published student-edited literary magazines in the nation, was proud to be the recipient of the first ANNIE award from the Chico Council of the Arts for Contribution to Literature by an Organization. The best way to obtain an issue of Watershed is to contact the A.S. Bookstore, located in the Bell Memorial Union on the CSU, Chico campus. The General Books number is 530-898-6044.
••Also Thursday (5/10), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Open mic before and after.
•••Saturday, (5/12), 7:30 PM: Book release party and reading by Jacquelyn Shaffer and Robbie Grossklaus at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento.
____________________
NOT A WILD GOOSE CHASE
(for a sick friend)
—Ron Tranquilla
Last night I heard three flocks of geese
flying south. I didn’t hear them
for literary purposes, the symbolism
of night and empty fields,
the gathering of icy knives and the geese
getting out while they still can.
In truth I heard them because
I was awake, worried about you.
These lines are not for nothing:
to tell you I won’t fly away
when the chill wind comes to you.
(originally published in Rattlesnake Review)
____________________
Thanks again, Ron!
Today would've been Robert Browning's 195th birthday.
LOVE IN A LIFE
—Robert Browning
I
Room after room,
I hunt the house through
We inhabit together.
Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her—
Next time, herself!—not the trouble behind her
Left in the curtain, the couch's perfume!
As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew:
Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.
II
Yet the day wears,
And door succeeds door;
I try the fresh fortune—
Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.
Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.
Spend my whole day in the quest,—who cares?
But 'tis twilight, you see,—with such suites to explore,
Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!
_____________________
—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; next deadline is May 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.
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. Rattlesnake Interview Series #1 with Ann Menebroker and B.L. Kennedy is also available (free) at The Book Collector (or contact Kathy Kieth).
Next rattle-read: May's releases will be 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. Come check all these out on May 9 at 7:30 PM at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else’s.