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.
—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.