The Many Faces of Josh Fernandez
ABSENCE
—Josh Fernandez
I teach the class how to spell “Moonlight.”
Two O’s, I tell them, like a couple of moons.
Somewhere outside, my father wonders
Where he’ll sleep tonight.
He checks the bushes ten times
For the whiskey he hid from himself.
Robert put three moons in moonlight
To make the word prettier, he said.
In five minutes
A boy will leave a suicide note
In his form of poetry.
Only seven,
Gone to heaven
It reads.
When I have children
I will never teach them
Everything I know
Nor everything I’ve learned
Nor everything
I’ve ever found out.
____________________
Thanks, Josh! Josh Fernandez is a Sacramento-based poet who has been published in many small journals across the country. He says that, while he was once known for his drug-fueled alcoholic rants, he's older now and his liver has turned to a stinking puddle in his gut. Even in the absence of whiskey and pills, the poems, somehow, have remained very much the same — full of anger and cynicism. He currently enjoys a job as the Arts & Entertainment Editor at The Daily Democrat in Woodland and is glad for every single day on this earth.
Josh encourages you to send poems to The Democrat for his new poetry column. He says: I will be featuring a poet every month with a poem and a short bio. The poems should be reasonably small (20 lines?) and free of obscenities (family newspaper); however you can make them as edgy as you can and I will be the final judge. If published, your poem and bio will appear in print and on the Web site. (p.s. The first poetry section appeared in the paper on Sunday, April 22 and despite serious backlash from other editors, the design team and other assholes who work there, it was a huge success.) Send them to:
Josh Fernandez/ Arts & Entertainment Editor
The Daily Democrat
711 Main Street
Woodland, California 95695
P (530) 406-6233
F (530) 406-6262
_____________________
Six Ft. Swells Release Party Saturday:
This weekend, hosts Todd Cirillo, Julie Valin and Matt Amott of Six Ft. Swells Press present the third chapbook in their Cheap Shots Poetry Series: Cocktails and Confessions: A collection of the greatest poetry inspired by lust and libations. This is After Hours Poetry at its finest, featuring contributors such as Christine Irving, Laura and Dave Pendell, Bill Gainer, Chris Olander, Will Staple, and other special surprise guests. Jason's Studio Cafe (at Booktown Books), 134 S. Auburn St., Grass Valley, 7 PM, free. Info: sixfootswells@yahoo.com or www.myspace.com/sixftswells or 530-271-0662.
Tonight:
•••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—or go to the reading tonight! The General Books number is 530-898-6044.
••Also tonight, 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Open mic before and after.
____________________
to the stranger in the liquor store who told me not to blaspheme
—josh fernandez
fuck your god
until he comes
down,
works fourteen hour days
on the dock, smelling like fish
and gasoline,
smokes speed
from broken light bulbs
and dies,
not for your sins,
but from pure
exhaustion.
_____________________
MIDTOWN BLUEBIRD BANGING AT THE WINDOW
—Josh Fernandez
Little
blue
bird,
don’t come in.
There’s
no-
thing
here for you.
A
few
books
cup of rum
and a head,
heavier
than your tiny
wings
can carry.
_____________________
—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 next Tuesday, 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. Next deadline is Oct. 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 and 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.
ABSENCE
—Josh Fernandez
I teach the class how to spell “Moonlight.”
Two O’s, I tell them, like a couple of moons.
Somewhere outside, my father wonders
Where he’ll sleep tonight.
He checks the bushes ten times
For the whiskey he hid from himself.
Robert put three moons in moonlight
To make the word prettier, he said.
In five minutes
A boy will leave a suicide note
In his form of poetry.
Only seven,
Gone to heaven
It reads.
When I have children
I will never teach them
Everything I know
Nor everything I’ve learned
Nor everything
I’ve ever found out.
____________________
Thanks, Josh! Josh Fernandez is a Sacramento-based poet who has been published in many small journals across the country. He says that, while he was once known for his drug-fueled alcoholic rants, he's older now and his liver has turned to a stinking puddle in his gut. Even in the absence of whiskey and pills, the poems, somehow, have remained very much the same — full of anger and cynicism. He currently enjoys a job as the Arts & Entertainment Editor at The Daily Democrat in Woodland and is glad for every single day on this earth.
Josh encourages you to send poems to The Democrat for his new poetry column. He says: I will be featuring a poet every month with a poem and a short bio. The poems should be reasonably small (20 lines?) and free of obscenities (family newspaper); however you can make them as edgy as you can and I will be the final judge. If published, your poem and bio will appear in print and on the Web site. (p.s. The first poetry section appeared in the paper on Sunday, April 22 and despite serious backlash from other editors, the design team and other assholes who work there, it was a huge success.) Send them to:
Josh Fernandez/ Arts & Entertainment Editor
The Daily Democrat
711 Main Street
Woodland, California 95695
P (530) 406-6233
F (530) 406-6262
_____________________
Six Ft. Swells Release Party Saturday:
This weekend, hosts Todd Cirillo, Julie Valin and Matt Amott of Six Ft. Swells Press present the third chapbook in their Cheap Shots Poetry Series: Cocktails and Confessions: A collection of the greatest poetry inspired by lust and libations. This is After Hours Poetry at its finest, featuring contributors such as Christine Irving, Laura and Dave Pendell, Bill Gainer, Chris Olander, Will Staple, and other special surprise guests. Jason's Studio Cafe (at Booktown Books), 134 S. Auburn St., Grass Valley, 7 PM, free. Info: sixfootswells@yahoo.com or www.myspace.com/sixftswells or 530-271-0662.
Tonight:
•••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—or go to the reading tonight! The General Books number is 530-898-6044.
••Also tonight, 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Open mic before and after.
____________________
to the stranger in the liquor store who told me not to blaspheme
—josh fernandez
fuck your god
until he comes
down,
works fourteen hour days
on the dock, smelling like fish
and gasoline,
smokes speed
from broken light bulbs
and dies,
not for your sins,
but from pure
exhaustion.
_____________________
MIDTOWN BLUEBIRD BANGING AT THE WINDOW
—Josh Fernandez
Little
blue
bird,
don’t come in.
There’s
no-
thing
here for you.
A
few
books
cup of rum
and a head,
heavier
than your tiny
wings
can carry.
_____________________
—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 next Tuesday, 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. Next deadline is Oct. 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 and 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.