Forgotten Showtunes

Sleeping Beauty
Painting by Thomas Ralph Spence

INTRODUCTION
—John Ashbery

To be a writer and write things
You must have experiences you can write about.
Just living won't do. I have a theory
About masterpieces, how to make them
At very little expense, and they're every
Bit as good as the others. You can
Use the same materials of the dream, at last.

It's a kind of game with no losers and only one
Winner—you. First, pain gets
Flashed back through the story and the story
Comes out backwards and woof-side up. This is
No one's story! At least they think that
For a time and the story is architecture
Now, and then history of a diversified kind.
A vacant episode during which the bricks got
Repinted and browner. And it ends up
Nobody's, there is nothing for any of us
Except that fretful vacillating around the central
Question that brings us closer,
For better and worse, for all this time.

_____________________

This weekend:

•••Saturday (9/1), 7 PM: Kick-off Reading for the new First-Saturday Poetry Series at Cody's Books at 1730 4th Street, Berkeley will feature David Alpaugh and Lynne Knight. Info: (510) 559-9500. David Alpaugh will also be reading with Jeff Knorr at The Sacramento Poetry Center on Monday, Sept. 24. See last Wednesday's post for bios of Alpaugh and Knight.

•••Sat. (9/1), 11 AM: Monthly writing meeting and potluck of Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol at at La Raza Galeria Posada, 1024 22nd St., Midtown Sacramento. Info: Graciela Ramirez (916-456-5323) or website: www.escritoresdelnuevosol.com/

•••Deadline is Sept. 1 for the Sonnet Contest from Poets Corner Press. 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 Susan Kelly-DeWitt. First Place Award is $500!

•••No Sacramento Poetry Center reading this Monday, due to Labor Day.

_____________________

STREET MUSICIANS
—John Ashbery

One died, and the soul was wrenched out
Of the other in life, who, walking the streets
Wrapped in an identity like a coat, sees on and on
The same corners, volumetrics, shadows
Under trees. Farther than anyone was ever
Called, through increasingly suburban airs
And ways, with autumn falling over everything:
The plush leaves the chattels in barrels
Of an obscure family being evicted
Into the way it was, and is. The other beached
Glimpses of what the other was up to:
Revelations at last. So they grew to hate and forget each other.

So I cradle this average violin that knows
Only forgotten showtunes, but argues
The possibility of free declamation anchored
To a dull refrain, the year turning over on itself
In November, with the spaces among the days
More literal, the meat more visible on the bone.
Our question of a place of origin hangs
Like smoke: how we picnicked in pine forests,
In coves with the water always seeping up, and left
Our trash, sperm and excrement everywhere, smeared
On the landscape, to make of us what we could.

______________________

The secret life of commas:

Patricia Wellingham-Jones points out a Yahoo-Pick: Strunk and White—The Movie! Check it out at http://picks.yahoo.com/picks/i/20070829.html. (Now's there's a weekend...!) Watch for PWJ's article on poets in isolation in the next Rattlesnake Review, due out in mid-September.

______________________

PARADOXES AND OXYMORONS
—John Ashbery

This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level.
Look at it talking to you. You look out a window
Or pretend to fidget. You have it but you don't have it.
You miss it, it misses you. You miss each other.

The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot.
What's a plain level? It is that and other things,
Bringing a system of them into play. Play?
Well, actually, yes, but I consider play to be

A deeper outside thing, a dreamed role-pattern,
As in the division of grace these long August days
Without proof. Open-ended. And before you know
It gets lost in the steam and chatter of typewriters.

It has been played once more. I think you exist only
To tease me into doing it, on your level, and then you aren't there
Or have adopted a different attitude. And the poem
Has set me softly down beside you. The poem is you.

______________________

—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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in August, then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. And read more about Susan at her nifty new website, http://www.susankelly-dewitt.com/. Click on "Chapbooks" for a sneak preview of Cassiopeia's cover.

Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadside from dawn dibartolo (Blush), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review (16) is November 15.

The Mysticism of Apples

MYSTIC
—D.H. Lawrence

They call all experience of the senses mystic, when the experience is considered.
So an apple becomes mystic when I taste in it
the summer and the snows, the wild welter of earth
and the insistence of the sun.

All of which things I can surely taste in a good apple.
Though some apples taste preponderantly of water, wet and sour
and some of too much sun, brackish sweet
like lagoon-water, that has been too much sunned.

If I say I taste these things in an apple, I am called mystic, which means a liar.
The only way to eat an apple is to hog it down like a pig
and taste nothing
that is real.

But if I eat an apple, I like to eat it with all my senses awake.
Hogging it down like a pig I call the feeding of corpses.

Who says I can't appreciate an apple?

Today in NorCal poetry:

•••Thursday (8/30), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured Poet: Josh Fernandez. Open mic before and after.

•••Thurs. (8/30), 7 PM: Writers Read at the Colored Horse Studio in Ukiah is pleased to welcome Dan Roberts as featured reader for the opening of the Fall season. Roberts is a poet, artist, and radio producer who has lived in Mendocino County for 30 years. He was born in Oakland, went to high school in Berkeley, and graduated from UC Davis in 1970 in Creative Writing and Modern European Literature. He read poetry in Davis, Sacramento and Berkeley from the late 1960s on. He produced the Wild Sage Poetry radio program on KZYX for ten years, has taught as a California Poet in The Schools for over 20 years, and has published two chapbooks of poetry, Hunting For The Sun At Night (1989) and Heresies (1991). His paintings and photographs have been exhibited around Northern California since the 1970s. He currently produces an internationally syndicated radio program, “The Shortwave Report”, as well as music/poetry (RhythmRunningRiver) and youth programs (YouthSpeaksOut!) on KZYX. He has raised three children while developing a homestead in the mountains northwest of Willits. The featured reading will be followed by an open mic. Refreshments available. Donation requested. Colored Horse Studio is located at 780 Waugh Lane in Ukiah. Info: (707)275-9010, (707)468-9488, (707) 463-6989 or check online at www.coloredhorse.com or poetryflash.org/.


Book festivals in September:

•••Sat. (9/15), 10 AM-5 PM: The Eighth Annual Sonoma County Book Festival will take place in Old Courthouse Square, Santa Rosa, with more than seventy booths showcasing independent booksellers and publishers. Sonoma County presents the oldest and largest general interest book festival in Northern California. Admission is free and includes readings, panels and activities for all ages. Throughout the day, poets including Kay Ryan, California Poet Laureate Al Young and Francisco X. Alarcón will read on the main stage of Old Courthouse Square. At noon, Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, will introduce The Big Read Sonoma County and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, followed by the young winners of the bilingual essay contest reading from their “Which Book Would You Save?” essays. In addition to this full day of poetry, the Festival also offers a Teen Poetry Slam at 1:00 p.m. at the Target Young People’s Tent. The Target Young People’s Tent will host events all day, with readings, a “Let’s Talk about Writing” panel and a Fantasy Hour. The spacious white tent offers young people the chance to sit or sprawl on the grass on the Square’s east side and the chance to win free books. The Art Bus will once again join the Book Festival to help celebrate creativity and the literary arts. This fully equipped mobile art studio will park close to the tent. A unique element to the Festival’s kick-off of The Big Read Sonoma County will be a group of modern day troubadours walking around reciting passages from their most cherished books. Maxine Hong Kingston will introduce Veterans of War; Veterans of Peace, the winner of the 2007 Northern California Book Reviewers Special Award in Publishing. For a full list of authors, panels, times and locations visit www.socobookfest.org.

•••Sat. (9/22), 10 AM-4:30 PM: Celebrate California's distinctive heritage of poets, poetry, and presses at Poetry Center San José's second California Poets Festival. This all-day outdoor festival will be held at History Park San José, 1650 Senter Road, San José. Open to the public and free of charge. Last year's inaugural event proved a great success with over 20 presses and 200 in attendance. Come and listen to readings throughout the day by California poets such as Francisco Alarcon, Robert Hass, and Jane Hirschfield who will sign your books. Stroll through the small press fair. Meet editors, purchase books, journals, subscriptions, and obtain submission guidelines from a variety of California publications. Enjoy a picnic or glass of wine from local restaurants offered in this historical park setting. Spend a memorable day with people from San José, the greater Bay Area and beyond. Readings on Main Stage are outdoors in partially shaded amphitheater style seating. Lawn seating also available. Info: californiapoetsfestival.org/.

_____________________

MAXIMUS
—D.H. Lawrence

God is older than the sun and moon
and the eye cannot behold him
nor voice describe him.

But a naked man, a stranger, leaned on the gate
with his cloak over his arm, waiting to be asked in.
So I called him: come in, if you will!—
He came in slowly, and sat down by the hearth.
I said to him: And what is your name?—
He looked at me without answer, but such a loveliness
entered me, I smiled to myself, saying: He is God!
So he said: Hermes!

God is older than the sun and moon
and the eye cannot behold him
nor the voice describe him:
and still, this is the God Hermes, sitting by my hearth.

_____________________

BUTTERFLY
—D.H. Lawrence

Butterly, the wind blows sea-ward, strong beyond the garden wall!
Butterfly, why do you settle on my shoe, and sip the dirt on my shoe,
Lifting your veined wings, lifting them? big white butterfly!

Already it is October, and the wind blows strong to the sea
from the hills where snow must have fallen, the wind is polished with snow.
Here in the garden, with red geraniums, it is warm, it is warm
but the wind blows strong to sea-ward, white butterfly, content on my shoe!

Will you go, will you go from my warm house?
Will you climb on your big soft wings, black-dotted,
as up an invisible rainbow, an arch
till the wind slides you sheer from the arch-crest
and in a strange level fluttering you go out to sea-ward, white speck!

Farewell, farewell, lost soul!
you have melted in the crystalline distance.
It is enough! I saw you vanish into air.



_____________________

—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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in August, then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. And read more about Susan at her nifty new website, http://www.susankelly-dewitt.com/. Click on "Chapbooks" for a sneak preview of Cassiopeia's cover.

Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadside from dawn dibartolo (Blush), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review (16) is November 15.

Lost Cows & Squash Blossoms

CUT THE GRASS
—A.R. Ammons

The wonderful workings of the world: wonderful,
wonderful: I'm surprised half the time:
ground up fine, I puff if a pebble stirs:

I'm nervous: my morality's intricate: if
a squash blossom dies, I feel withered as a stained
zucchini and blame my nature: and

when grassblades flop to the little red-ant
queens burring around trying to get aloft, I blame
my not keeping the grass short, stubble

firm: well, I learn a lot of useless stuff, meant
to be ignored: like when the sun sinking in the
west glares a plane invisible, I think how much

revelation concealment necessitates: and then I
think of the ocean, multiple to a blinding
oneness and realize that only total expression

expresses hiding: I'll have to say everything
to take on the roundness and withdrawal of the deep dark:
less than total is a bucketful of radiant toys.

_____________________

Poetry Flash readings return to (the new) Cody's in Berkeley:

•••Saturday (9/1), 7 PM: Kick-off Reading for the new First-Saturday Poetry Series at Cody's Books at 1730 4th Street, Berkeley will feature David Alpaugh and Lynne Knight. David Alpaugh's first collection, Counterpoint, won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize from Story Line Press. His new collection, Heavy Lifting (hailed as "outrageously amusing" by Light Quarterly) collects his poetry from 1995-2006 and includes his landmark essay, "The Professionalization of Poetry." His work has appeared in over 100 literary publications, including Poetry and the popular anthology, California Poetry from the Gold Rush to the Present. X. J. Kennedy has hailed Alpaugh's Heavy Lifting as "hugely the most enjoyable of the the last twenty books of poetry I've read."

Lynne Knight's third collection, Night in the Shape of a Mirror, was published by David Robert Books Press. Her first collection, Dissolving Borders, won a Quarterly Review of Literature prize and her second, The Book of Common Betrayals, won the Dorothy Brunsman Award from Bear Star Press. Other books include Snow Effects (Small Poetry Press Select Poets Series) and her award-winning chapbooks: Deer in Berkeley (Sow's Ear, 2003) and Defying the Flat Surface (just out from The Ledge). The many anthologies that have published her work include Poetry and Best American Poetry.

Info: (510) 559-9500. David Alpaugh will also be reading with Jeff Knorr at The Sacramento Poetry Center on Monday, Sept. 24.

______________________

Poetry in Modesto (and lost cows):

Susan Kelly-DeWitt is everywhere these days! She has a new rattlechap coming out on Sept. 12 at The Book Collector, she's judging the Poet's Corner Sonnet Contest (deadline 9/1), and she's leading the workshop at the next lost cow "coyote caffeine" extravaganza Sept. 14:

•••Friday (9/14), 5 PM: Celebrate downtown Modesto: dig into your psyche for those lost moments that should have fermented into poems by now as lost cow press presents “coyote caffeine”, a special poets’ dinner with writing component. Guest workshop leader Susan Kelly-DeWitt has huge credentials, including a new chapbook from Rattlesnake Press; see her bio at her new website (just add dot-com). The dinner will be held at Picasso’s Deli and Art Gallery, corner of 10th and J Sts. in downtown Modesto. Chef Jordi will be waiting with lovely antipasta and a vegetarian menu (to please even that tempermental palate). Meal includes the works: aforementioned appetizer, salad, bread, butter, lasagne (veggie, homemade of course), tea, coffee and petite dessert from Word of Mouth Bakery. Workshop begins promptly at 5:30, dinner at 6:30, accompanied by a wonderful guitarist. If you like, dress up. Wear a hat. Put a carnation in your lapel or a hibiscus behind your left ear. Celebrate poetry! Reservations required; no walk-ins. Cost: $40, including meal and workshop. send your $$ (must be in hand by Monday, Sept. 10) to: debee loyd, P.O. Box 1065, Modesto, CA 95353 (please, no checks made out to "lost cow press"; he doesn’t have an account, being lost and all.) [Lost Cow Press is run by the folks who put out the wonderful Hardpan poetry journal.]


Also in Modesto:

•••Next deadline is Sept. 15 for the Song of the San Joaquin, a quarterly publication of the Poets of the San Joaquin Chapter of California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc., which accepts submissions of poetry having to do with life in the San Joaquin Valley of California. This area is defined geographically as the region from Fresno to Stockton, and from the foothills on the west to those on the east. Send typed manuscripts to: Editor, Song of the San Joaquin, PO Box 1161, Modesto, CA 95353-1161. Please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) for return of unused poems and/or notification of acceptance. Be sure your return envelopes have the right amount of postage. Notification time may range from three weeks to three months. Send up to three poems per issue, name and contact information on each poem. E-mail submissions accepted but please put all identification on each separate poem including mailing address. Please send a three to five line bio. For more information e-mail cleor36@yahoo.com (NOTE CHANGE OF E-MAIL). For samples of poetry from previous issues: www.ChaparralPoets.org/SSJarchives.html/. Writers retain all rights. Your submission of manuscripts is considered permission for one-time publication plus publication on our website and/or our calendar. If you do not wish to be considered for these please let us know in your cover letter. The editors reserve the right to correct punctuation and spelling. Every effort will be made to contact the poet in regard to such changes. Payment is one copy of the issue in which your work appears. A single issue is $5.00, the annual subscription $18. Send to address above. Make checks out to Song of the San Joaquin. Deadlines: March 15 for Spring, June 15 for Summer, September 15 for Fall, December 15 for Winter. More about SSJ in the near future, both on Medusa and in Rattlesnake Review 15!


Boot Camp:

Molly Fisk writes: It stuns me that we're almost in September, but there you have it. Which means that it's time to sign up for the September Boot Camp if you'd like to write six poems in six days and amaze yourself. The workshop runs from Sept. 16-21, and takes place via e-mail as usual. If you're needing a jumpstart to boost your productivity, or want to finish up a section of your next book, this is the place to be. If you've never heard of Poetry Boot Camp, visit the site for more information: http://www.poetrybootcamp.com

___________________

EXTRICATION
—A.R. Ammons

I tangled with
the world to
let it go
but couldn't free

it: so I made
words
to wrestle in my
stead and went

off silent to
the quick flow
of brooks, the
slow flow of stone

____________________

WHITE DWARF
—A.R. Ammons

As I grow older
arcs swollen inside
now and then fall
back, collapsing, into
forming walls:
the temperature shoots
up with what I am not
and am: from
multiplicities, dark
knots, twanging twists,
structures come into sight,
chief of these
a blade of fire only now
so late, so sharp and standing,
burning confusion up.

_____________________

—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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in August, then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. And read more about Susan at her nifty new website, http://www.susankelly-dewitt.com/. Click on "Chapbooks" for a sneak preview of Cassiopeia's cover.

Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadside from dawn dibartolo (Blush), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review (16) is November 15.

The Ghost of Lady Day

THE PRISONERS
—Robert Hayden

Steel doors—guillotine gates—
of the doorless house closed massively.
We were locked in with loss.

Guards frisked us, marked our wrists,
then let us into the drab Rec Hall—
splotched green walls, high windows barred—

where the dispossessed awaited us.
Hands intimate with knife and pistol,
hands that had cruelly grasped and throttled

clasped ours in welcome. I sensed the plea
of men denied: Believe us human
like yourselves, who but for Grace...

We shared reprieving Hidden Words
revealed by the Godlike imprisoned
One, whose crime was truth.

And I read poems I hoped were true.
It's like you been there, brother, been there,
the scarred young lifer said.

______________________

Calendar addition for this week:

•••Thurs. (8/30), 7 PM: Writers Read at the Colored Horse Studio in Ukiah is pleased to welcome Dan Roberts as featured reader for the opening of the Fall season. Roberts is a poet, artist, and radio producer who has lived in Mendocino County for 30 years. He was born in Oakland, went to high school in Berkeley, and graduated from UC Davis in 1970 in Creative Writing and Modern European Literature. He read poetry in Davis, Sacramento and Berkeley from the late 1960s on. He produced the Wild Sage Poetry radio program on KZYX for ten years, has taught as a California Poet in The Schools for over 20 years, and has published two chapbooks of poetry, Hunting For The Sun At Night (1989) and Heresies (1991). His paintings and photographs have been exhibited around Northern California since the 1970s. He currently produces an internationally syndicated radio program, “The Shortwave Report”, as well as music/poetry (RhythmRunningRiver) and youth programs (YouthSpeaksOut!) on KZYX. He has raised three children while developing a homestead in the mountains northwest of Willits. The featured reading will be followed by an open mic. Refreshments available. Donation requested. Colored Horse Studio is located at 780 Waugh Lane in Ukiah. Info: (707)275-9010, (707)468-9488, (707) 463-6989 or check online at www.coloredhorse.com or poetryflash.org/.


And coming up next week:

•••Weds. (9/5), 7:30-11 PM (doors open at 7): On the Road… Again: Luna’s Café presents A Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Publication of On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Readers include Matt Amott, Todd Cirillo, Josh Fernandez, Patrick Grizzell, Robert Grossklaus, B. L. Kennedy (reader and host), Megan, Jackie Schaffer, D.R. Wagner, Terryl Wheat. 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Free.


Coming in November: Sign up for a weekend of poetry:

Every year for the last 21 years, people of all walks of life have gathered at Westminster Retreat, a lovely old estate near Walnut Creek, California, to enjoy poetry. Sponsor of the event is the Great Books Council of San Francisco, a not-for-profit affilliate of the Great Books Foundation. “We are not experts in poetry — just friendly people who enjoy reading and discussing poetry," says Brent Browning, chairman of the event. This year they will discuss “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, plus poems by D. H. Lawrence, Robert Hass, Robinson Jeffers, William Shakespeare, Billy Collins, and others. The event will take place Saturday and Sunday, November 10-11; the cost is $150 per person, which includes four meals, housing, a party, and all the reading materials. Contact Theda or Oscar Firschein, registrars, at 650-854-3980 or oscarf1@earthlink.net/. (If no response, call Brent Browning at 408-353-6340.)

_____________________

"FROM THE CORPSE WOODPILES, FROM THE ASHES"
—Robert Hayden

From the corpse woodpiles, from the ashes
and staring pits of Dachau,
Buchenwald they come—

O David, Hirschel, Eva,
cops and robbers with me once,
their faces are like yours—

From Johannesburg, from Seoul.
Their struggles are all horizons.
Their deaths encircle me.

Through target streets I run,
in light part nightmare
and part vision fleeing

What I cannot flee, and reach
that cold cloacal cell
where He, who is man beatified

And Godly mystery,
lies chained, His pain
our anguish and our anodyne.

_____________________

SOLEDAD
—Robert Hayden

(And I, I am no longer of that world)

Naked, he lies in the blinded room
chainsmoking, cradled by drugs, by jazz
as never by any lover's cradling flesh.

Miles Davis coolly blows for him:
O pena negra, sensual Flamenco blues;
the red clay foxfire voice of Lady Day

(lady of the pure black magnolias)
sobsings her sorrow and loss and fare you well,
dryweeps the pain his treacherous jailers

have released him from for awhile.
His fears and his unfinished self
await him down in the anywhere streets.

He hides on the dark side of the moon,
takes refuge in a stained-glass cell,
flies to a clockless country of crystal.

Only the ghost of Lady Day knows where
he is. Only the music. And he swings
oh swings: beyond complete immortal now.

_____________________

—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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in August, then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. And read more about Susan at her nifty new website, http://www.susankelly-dewitt.com/. Click on "Chapbooks" for a sneak preview of Cassiopeia's cover.

Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadside from dawn dibartolo (Blush), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review (16) is November 15.

The Art of Losing

TYPEWRITER
—Jane Blue, Sacramento

Some romantics still cling to them, the keys
a neck, a ruff, a mouth, teeth
clack-clack-clacking, stumbling
all over themselves, trying to write “l-o-v-e.”
Love takes two hands. If you were passionate
or angry, you could bang your feelings out
like a piano concerto. The keys were round,
steel-rimmed like spectacles, letters slid
under plastic, they levered the keys,
which would tangle like stork legs.
You took typing in school
so you wouldn’t have to look,
just touch the keyboard and watch words
appear on paper. The typewriter
was painted black with gilt curlicues, a loved
thing, an admired thing. A heft to it,
it wouldn’t sit in your lap.
A bell clanged when you came
to the end of the carriage, slow down,
slow down, it said. You backed up and covered
your errors with kisses, like this: XXXXXXXX.
If you wanted to send your love poem
out into the world, you used carbons, black
or blue, and erased a typo twice, three times.
The keys banged against the platen hard,
leaving holes you could see through
when you held the paper up to the light.
You threaded an inked ribbon on two spools
through metal eyes; you had to get messy,
leave fingerprints. Some lead was chipped
from the keys, identifying an individual
typewriter used in a love triangle, a murder,
a kidnapping, just as a body
is instantly known by the cast of its teeth.

____________________

Thanks, Jane Blue, for the nifty poem and for the photo she found for us. Be sure to pick up one of B.L. Kennedy's free littlesnake broadsides, Conversations with Jane Blue, at The Book Collector, or write to me and I'll send you one. And of course Jane's rattlechap, Turf Daisies and Dandelions, is also at The Book Collector, or available from Jane or from rattlesnakepress.com.


This week in NorCal poetry:

•••Monday (8/27), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Luke Warm Water at Headquarters for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento. Open mic afterwards. The American Indian poet known as Luke Warm Water is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe who was born and raised in Rapid City, South Dakota. His storytelling style of poetry is of the contemporary urban American Indian experience, intertwined with poignancy and dark humor. Since 2005, Luke has been awarded three grants for his poetry endeavors. He was the first spoken word poet to receive an Archibald Bush Foundation artist fellowship in the literature category. Luke has been featured at poetry venues throughout the United States and in Europe, and has won Poetry Slam competitions from Oregon to Germany. He has been published in various literary journals and anthologies, including Red Ink, Drumvoices Revue, and Poetry International. Recent poetry books are Iktomi’s Uprising (2007) and On Indian Time (2005). Luke currently resides in northern California.

•••Thursday (8/30), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured Poet: Josh Fernandez. Open mic before and after.

•••Sat. (9/1), 11 AM: Monthly writing meeting and potluck of Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol at at La Raza Galeria Posada, 1024 22nd St., Midtown Sacramento. Info: Graciela Ramirez (916-456-5323) or website: www.escritoresdelnuevosol.com/

•••Deadline is Sept.1 for the Sonnet Contest from Poets Corner Press. 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 Susan Kelly-DeWitt. First Place Award is $500!

____________________

ONE ART
—Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

_____________________

—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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in August, then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. And read more about Susan at her nifty new website, http://www.susankelly-dewitt.com/. Click on "Chapbooks" for a sneak preview of Cassiopeia's cover.

Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadside from dawn dibartolo (Blush), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review (16) is November 15.

Touched by Moonlight

Cemetery Cat II
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis


There's nothing
he doesn't know—
the cat on the stove

—Fusei

***

Between boiled barley
and romance, the female cat
has grown thin

—Basho

***

Out from the darkness
back into the darkness—
affairs of the cat

—Issa

***

Now cat's done
mewing—bedroom's
touched by moonlight

—Basho

***

—Medusa

After Excitement

Horned God
Photo by Katy Brown

THE HORNED GOD

lingers on the outskirts of suburbia.
He moves with shadows on the edges
—appears when you least expect.

He eats peaches from your trees,
unsettles the neighborhood dogs,
and takes your most tender rosebuds for himself.

His hooves leave no marks
on the well-watered lawns, no marks
in the manicured flowerbeds under windows.

Good religious men have tried
for two thousand years to drive him
back into the earth, out of existence, out of sight

but the Horned God has sheltered
under the trimmed juniper and boxwood—
and now steps boldly into the light of an evening party.

—Katy Brown, Davis

____________________

We end our recent giveaway the way we began it, with poetry and photos from Katy Brown. Thanks, Katy! Watch for Katy's column, re-titled "Snake Eyes", in Rattlesnake Review 15, due out in mid-September.

More critter poems, this time in prose poems by Mary Oliver, the CritterMeister of the World:

MAY
—Mary Oliver

What lay on the road was no mere handful of snake. It was the copperhead at last, golden under the street lamp. I hope to see everything in this world before I die. I knelt on the road and stared. Its head was wedge-shaped and fell back to the unexpected slimness of a neck. The body itself was thick, tense, electric. Clearly this wasn't black snake looking down from the limbs of a tree, or green snake, or the garter, whizzing over the rocks. Where these had, oh, such shyness, this one had none. When I moved a little, it turned and clamped its eyes on mine; then it jerked toward me. I jumped back and watched as it flowed on across the road and down into the dark. My heart was pounding. I stood a while, listening to the small sounds of the woods and looking at the stars. After excitement we are so restful. When the thumb of fear lifts, we are so alive.

______________________

SNAILS
—Mary Oliver

You stand inside the lime-green house of the salt marsh and you hear a faint, gritty music. It does not rise then fall like the wind rounding a distant corner; it does not explode suddenly, like the heron you rustled up from the glossy storerooms of water. It simply remains, dull and constant. It is everywhere.

And then you see them. Snails.

Snails gliding on the sticky thumbs of their bodies up and down the stems and blades of the marsh grass, and across the damp sand, everywhere, sucking and scraping whatever it is they eat—algae, things too small to have a name that you know. Above the hurried murmur of the draining water, the snails, flowing and eating, are making the sound you hear. You do not find

the tufts of their bodies attractive. When you look at them, nothing happens, not like the startle of your heart when the heron rises, or when the wind shutters shut then opens and falls over the hill. Still, you know this

moment is important, like a page from an ancient document, found in a dusty jar, in a dry cave. Who are we? What are our chances? Where have we made the terrible mistake we must turn from, or perish? The snails

are everywhere, nibbling, sucking, climbing the billows of sand, shuffling up into the marshes, by the millions, all doing something incredible. Not pretty, but incredible. You lift

your own delicate hands, you touch your lips.




—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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in August, then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. And read more about Susan at her nifty new website, http://www.susankelly-dewitt.com/. Click on "Chapbooks" for a sneak preview of Cassiopeia's cover.

Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadside from dawn dibartolo (Blush), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review (16) is November 15.

Poets & Other Über-Bandits

Procyon lotor
The Über-Bandit of Suburbia

RICHARD
—Jame Lee Jobe, Davis


It's mid-winter and the sunrise knows it, and wakes me

with a shudder; I'm just a man.



For 5 cold mornings in a row, the beautiful pheasant

has come to our patio to steal some of the dry catfood,

sometimes right in front of my cat.



The house is still, and I enjoy the Sunday newspaper

with strong, dark coffee; the smell of it dances

around in the early darkness.



Driving to church there is bright, eager sunshine,

and the shadows of bare winter oaks stripe the lane

like a zebra; shadow, light, shadow.



At church I pray for my favorite aunt, Anna, her clock

seems to be quickly winding down, dear lady, widow

of my favorite uncle, Richard; mostly I just pray

that she finds her center.



The pheasant is a male, strikingly colored,

so beautiful, in fact, that I've begun to scatter extra catfood

to draw him back; we have become his grocery store.



I tell my wife that if he comes a 6th day, I'll give him a name,

Richard; but he never comes again.

_____________________

Thanks, JLJ! James Lee Jobe's poems today were sent to us for our "Wild Things in Suburbia" give-away; send me poems/photos/etc. about man's tendency to plop his houses down in the middle of the wilds and then complain that there are critters around. Every contribution will receive a rattlechap; let me know which ones you don't have. Get it all to me by midnight tonight (Friday, August 24—postmark is okay if you snail): email kathykieth@hotmail.com, or snail to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. James Lee Jobe also has a rattlechap entitled What God Said When She Finally Answered Me; pick one up at The Book Collector or order it through rattlesnakepress.com.

For the past year, JLJ has given Allegra Silberstein a respite by taking over hosting duties for The Other Voice, the monthly poetry reading sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Church in Davis. Allegra is back in harness now, and the reading has been changed back from Monday nights to Friday. The first reading of the season will be on Sept. 7 and will feature a presentation by the poets and writers from In This Quiet Light, a book of writings by the Worship Associates of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Davis. Along with other writers, the poets featured are Ray Coppock, Ruth Hall, Nancy Jungerman, Alexandra Lee-Jobe, Bryan and Rebecca Plude, and Carlena Wike. More details next week.


Coming from RP September 12:

As you know, Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree, will be released by Rattlesnake Press at The Book Collector in September. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from it (http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/). And be sure to read more about Susan at her nifty new website, http://www.susankelly-dewitt.com/. Click on "Chapbooks" for a sneak preview of Cassiopeia's cover.


'Way cool, Dewell!

Last month the Angels Without Wings Foundation designated SnakePal Dewell Byrd as Senior Citizen Poet Laureate for California for 2007/2008, based on an open competition. From the five poems he submitted, the twelve judges chose "Not Every Day" as his signature poem. This poem was automatically entered into competition by the judges for national consideration. This week Dewell received notice that he has been designated National Senior Citizen Poet Laureate Runner-Up for 2007/2008! (A very nice check accompanied the notice.) Congrats, Dewell! Watch for his poetry in Rattlesnake Review #15, due out in mid-September (and he has work in just about every past issue, too).


Speaking of Poets Laureate:

You may have heard that Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has announced the appointment of Charles Simic to be the Library’s 15th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. Simic will take up his duties in the Fall, opening the Library’s annual literary series on Oct. 17 with a reading of his work. He also will be a featured speaker at the Library of Congress National Book Festival in the Poetry Pavilion on Saturday, Sept. 29, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Simic succeeds Donald Hall as Poet Laureate and joins a long line of distinguished poets who have served in the position, including, most recently, Ted Kooser, Louise Glück, Billy Collins, Stanley Kunitz, Robert Pinsky, Robert Hass and Rita Dove. The Laureate generally serves a one- or two-year term.


This weekend, in between fighting off the critters:

•••Saturday (8/25), 7 PM: “The Show” presents Michael Guinn, frank andrick, Simoetry, Cleo Cartel, The Forgotten One and Five Stunners reading their poems while house band LSB provides live music. Wo’se Community Center, 2863 35th St., Sacramento. $5. Info: 916-455-7638.

•••Also Saturday (8/25), 8 PM: "In the Grip of Official Treason", a spoken-word show with Jello Biafra at Center for the Arts, 314 W. Main St., Grass Valley. $18. Inifo: 530-274-8384, ext. 14.

•••Sunday (8/26), 11 AM-3 PM: Poets with Trees reading at The Jerry Garcia Amphitheater, 45 Shelly Dr., John McLaren Park, San Francisco. Bring a picnic lunch and something to share. Read poems of your own or those by favorite poets. Free, but donations for use of the park will be accepted. Info: http://www.clarahsu.com/hotel.html/.

•••Sunday (8/26), 6 PM: Borders in Stockton presents another book-release party for Sun Shadow Mountain, a book celebrating an extraordinary spectrum of poets and artists! Sun Shadow Mountain is a paperback book of 38 poets, artists, and photographers: talent from Stockton and elsewhere—rising and established stars who will enthrall and quench. The book is available at Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com/. Come and enjoy an evening of fun & entertainment at Borders Cafe, 10776 Trinity Pkway, Stockton (just off 8-Mile Road). Free.

•••Speaking of the Sun Shadow Mountain folks (Donald Anderson and Nikki Quismondo), the Aug/Sept issue of their free poetry newsletter, Poet's Espresso, is out, and it includes lots of NorCal events, art and poetry from SnakePals such as Taylor Graham, Indigo Moor and Marie Ross. Email them at poetsespresso@yahoo.com for issues or subscriptions or submission info. An online version is also available at www.rainflowers.org/.

•••Monday (8/27), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Luke Warm Water at Headquarters for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento. Open mic afterwards. The American Indian poet known as Luke Warm Water is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe who was born and raised in Rapid City, South Dakota. His storytelling style of poetry is of the contemporary urban American Indian experience, intertwined with poignancy and dark humor. Since 2005, Luke has been awarded three grants for his poetry endeavors. He was the first spoken word poet to receive an Archibald Bush Foundation artist fellowship in the literature category. Luke has been featured at poetry venues throughout the United States and in Europe, and has won Poetry Slam competitions from Oregon to Germany. He has been published in various literary journals and anthologies, including Red Ink, Drumvoices Revue, and Poetry International. Recent poetry books are Iktomi’s Uprising (2007) and On Indian Time (2005). Luke currently resides in northern California.

•••Then, of course, there's always the California State Fair, the signal that summer is just about over in Sacramento. Check the schedule for poetry readings.

_____________________

More critter poems:

PIDGEON WALK
—James Lee Jobe


Pidgeons walk as if constantly

saying Thank You Thank You Thank You

Bobbing their tiny heads

up & down with every step

Bouncy little Buddhas

in a perfect state of grace

_____________________

COURAGE
—James Lee Jobe


It took weeks to train

the skittish little finch

to sit and walk on my hand.

I would praise her,

"You are a mighty eagle."

Then one day

she escaped

and was never seen again.

I think she believed me.

_____________________

—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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in August, then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. And read more about Susan at her nifty new website, http://www.susankelly-dewitt.com/. Click on "Chapbooks" for a sneak preview of Cassiopeia's cover.

Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadside from dawn dibartolo (Blush), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review is November 15.

Connected by the Root

Thomomys talpoides
Northern Pocket Gopher

BY THE ROOT
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

The day the Chinese pistachio went up
in flames of September foliage,
the first hole appeared. Gophers.

I probed and found more outlets,
a great underground gallery.
I turned the garden-hose full-force
to drown the tunnels. Water
cut gullies down the hillside.

Next morning there was fresh
turning of the earth: gophers low
at their dirty work.
I rigged tailpipe to under-
kingdom and gassed them
with exhaust.

This morning, no sign of life.
The pistachio has given up
its leaves.
I listen to subterranean
silence.

Is everything connected
by the root?

____________________

Thanks, TG! Taylor Graham's poems today were sent to us for our "Wild Things in Suburbia" give-away; send me poems/photos/etc. about man's tendency to plop his houses down in the middle of the wilds and then complain that there are critters around. Every contribution will receive a rattlechap; let me know which ones you don't have. Get it all to me by midnight this Friday, August 24 (that's tomorrow!): email kathykieth@hotmail.com, or snail to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.


Tonight in NorCal poetry:

•••Thursday (8/23), 7-8:30 PM: “Telling Our Stories” First Anniversary Celebration at Enloe Cancer Center, Chico. Good food, good company, good stories, good time! We invite patients and their families, staff, volunteers and anyone interested in using writing to heal to join us for an evening of celebrating and sharing our stories. Cancer Center Conference Room, 251 Cohasset Road (In Fountain Plaza, across from Chico Sports Club). Info: Rebecca at 530-384-1341.

•••Also Thursday (8/23), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured Poets: Kelly Richardson and April Jenkins. Another Poetic Luna’s double feature of intensive interactions! Hosted by B.L. Kennedy.

____________________

FORBIDDEN
—Taylor Graham

It's apples, always apples
with a tang of theft.
We stretched nets over the trees
to let the sweet sun through
and wave the birds back singing
into their sky. But see,
now the trees are ripening
with a robin caught by the feet
in a net, hanging breasted
red as apple; a jaybird webbed
by the beak and wing, blue
as if the tree bore plums.
No bird song, but the branches
bend. How could we bear
the taste of apples?

(First appeared in Art Word)

____________________

SOMETHING ABOUT A FOX
—Taylor Graham

Returning home tonight, my headlights
catch a streak of fox
through stockwire fence, slick
as an axe-slit into wood—

the fence of a man who speaks
in gauges: shotgun shells left scattered
like acorns under oaks, plugs
dug into bark. A towering madrone

is full of holes from Sunday target practice.
At dusk I hear Pop-pop-POP.
He keeps no chickens. But would he
take aim at a fox, just because?

At night the fox comes out from whorls
of moonlight shadow under leaves.
Does she find his dreams? Do her eyes
slip into his, to snap a connection?

Fox among trees, stillness
between wood
and metal, the quiet
underneath.

____________________

Thanks again, TG. Two of today's poems, "By the Root" and "Something About a Fox", are from Taylor Graham's upcoming rattlechap from Rattlesnake Press about our wild neighbors. Watch for it in November!

Fox tracks in the snow
Photo by Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines

—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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in August, then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. (See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/.)

Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadsides from dawn dibartolo (Blush), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review is November 15.

Bats in the Belfry & Deer on the Lawn

Urban Deer
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

URBAN DEER
—Katy Brown

They measure territory by borders around
petunia beds and drip-lines for hillside roses.
They teach their fawns to look both ways
before crossing and never to trust
an unleashed dog. Urban deer love fresh peaches
and apricots. They prefer grapes to eggplant
and roses over any other flower.
They pause on the rim of garden parties
to eavesdrop on local gossip.
They will settle under a terraced tree
to rest in the shade — then shadow-like
vanish into clipped hedges.
Like antlered sonnets, these creatures
capture perfection in the placement of a foot.

______________________

Thanks, Katy! Katy Brown's column in Rattlesnake Review has taken some ekphrastic turns in the last few months, so we've decided to go with that and re-name it "Snake Eyes". Her focus will be using the visual world to trigger and shape your poems. Watch for it in Rattlesnake Review 15, due out in mid-Sept.

Katy sent us her wonderful photo and poem for our "Wild Things in Suburbia" give-away; send me poems/photos/etc. about man's tendency to plop his houses down in the middle of the wilds and then complain that there are critters around. Every contribution will receive a rattlechap; let me know which ones you don't have. Get it all to me by midnight this Friday, August 24: email kathykieth@hotmail.com, or snail to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.


Calendar addition:

•••Thursday (8/23), 7-8:30 PM: “Telling Our Stories” First Anniversary Celebration at Enloe Cancer Center, Chico. Good food, good company, good stories, good time! We invite patients and their families, staff, volunteers and anyone interested in using writing to heal to join us for an evening of celebrating and sharing our stories. Cancer Center Conference Room, 251 Cohasset Road (In Fountain Plaza, across from Chico Sports Club). Info: Rebecca at 530-384-1341.


Tonight in Placerville:

•••Weds. (8/22), 6-7 PM: Hidden Passage poetry reading, 352 Main St. in Placerville. It's an open-mic read-around, so bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share, or just come to listen.
______________________

Another critter poem:

A PLAGUE AT DUSK
—Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Tehama

Bats swoop and squeak in search of dinner.
The north wind stirs my friend’s hair.
She leaps, long strands invaded,
she’s sure, by winged mice
and the growing dangers of darkness. I show her
the moon rising over oaks, first star
in the indigo sky. She squirms
under my laughter at her city ways.
Not wanting my guest to twitch
herself into complete nervous breakdown,
I suggest brandy and music by the fire.
She hurries through the door, one last look
thrown over her shoulder, flutters fingers
against her chest in relief.
As she sinks into soft cushions
a bat, sonar-impaired, hurls toward
the window in a small smash of bone.
My friend shrieks, eyes wide, staring black.
Her shaking finger points at the perfect
circle left on the pane, the dust
from her personal abyss, presented by bat.

____________________

Thanks, PWJ! Patricia Wellingham-Jones was one of the founding hands last year in the Telling Our Stories workshop listed above, and she will be a facilitator for future sessions, too. Congrats to her, by the way, for being one of the Grand Prize winners at the annual Dancing Poetry Contest to be held in San Francisco at the Palace of the Legion of Honor on Sept. 29 from 12-4 PM. (Type in "Dancing Poetry Contest" for more info.) Other NorCal winners included Carol Frith and Indigo Moor.

Finally, a ditty from Dorothy Parker, who would've been 114 years old today:

____________________

SOCIAL NOTE
—Dorothy Parker

Lady, lady, should you meet
One whose ways are all discreet,
One who murmurs that his wife
Is the lodestar of his life,
One who keeps assuring you
That he never was untrue,
Never loved another one...
Lady, lady, better run!

_____________________

Dorothy Parker
1893-1967

—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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in August, then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. (See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/.)

Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadsides from dawn dibartolo ("Blush"), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review is November 15.

Wild Thing!

Musca domestica

ODE TO FLIES
—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

Emily Dickinson once wrote of a fly
"I heard a fly buzz when I died."
Mom shuts one into a room to swat it;
for a cosmopolitan pest up to nothing good
but to spread germs onto food,
it possesses such an incredible will to live.
As Mom flaps her rubber wand-paddle through the air
like playing an aimless game of ping-pong,
it is as if the fly lives to party
every day of its estimated month-long life-span.
When mom sees the fly has landed on a window pane
she tries to sneak up
but then the fly suddenly takes off again
as the most excellent pilot in the world,
literally with eyes in the back of its head.
Mom feels foolish and exasperated
being as she’s whacked gophers and Norwegian rats
only to be eluded by the "Musca domestic Linnaeus"
or the "Drosophila melanogaster"
which moves faster than any bird
through the air without wind
unlike the moths
confused and blinded by household lights.
And her cats won't help by pouncing on it,
for they don't want to look foolish either.
Flies throughout time have represented sin
and it was said the devil takes on that form.
Not omnipresent but a steady nuisance,
only in Africa can its biting relative
bring on a deadly "sleeping sickness",
but still we act as if infected by lunacy by its buzz,
rushing to get it out of our domicile as if it could sting.
So perhaps we should be like its nemesis, the spider,
who just hangs back nice and cool
as it waits to catch one buzzing into its sticky "parlor".

_____________________

Thanks, Michelle! Thus commences our "Wild Things in Suburbia" give-away; send me poems/photos/etc. about man's tendency to plop his houses down in the middle of the wilds and then complain that there are critters around. Every contribution will receive a rattlechap; let me know which ones you don't have. Get it all to me by midnight this Friday, August 24: email kathykieth@hotmail.com, or snail to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.


Coupla workshops:

•••Sept. 28-30 at Stewart Mineral Springs, Weed, CA: poemcrazy: foolsgold workshop with Susan G. Wooldridge. Susan invites us into a realm where poetry is accessible, where poems are moments of discovery that often arrive unexpectedly. Susan has found that in a safe, free setting, surrounded with words, we can each write poems that express our soul and spirit—a playful, often profound and healing experience. Together we bring forth a word pool, gathering words from books of poems and from within and around ourselves. We borrow, jot, steal and conjure words that invite our soul’s expression. Next, we create images, practice close observation, begin to develop metaphor and gradually move into “dreamsense” where we explore who we are, where we come from and where we’re going.

Facilitator: Susan is the author of Poemcrazy: freeing your life with words (now in a 20th printing from Three Rivers, Random House) and a new book, Foolsgold: Making Something from Nothing (and freeing your creative process) (Harmony Books, Random House, 2007). Poemcrazy was a long-running Quality Paperback Book Club Selection, and Foolsgold is now featured in One Spirit's catalog. Susan also has a chapbook of poems, Bathing with Ants (Bear Star Press). She has a B.A. in anthropology from Barnard College and an interdisciplinary Masters in art and writing from CSU, Chico—where she developed a love for performance art as well as collage, printmaking and ceramics. She’s held workshops on creative language with thousands of adults, children, youth-at-risk and teachers throughout the U.S. She has two grown children and lives in a co-housing village in Chico, California and sometimes on a houseboat in Sausalito. Check www.susanwooldridge.com/ for comments on Susan’s workshops.

This workshop will meet from Fri. 4PM-Sun 12noon; bring paper and a pen you love. Small boxes if it’s easy. Bring color pens and/or color pencils (optional). Info or to sign up: contact Rowena Pantaleon 530-938-2222 or email: rowena@rowenapantaleon.com/. Cost: $250 by September 1 and $275 after September 1. Cost covers 2 nights shared lodging, 5 organic meals, 1 mineral bath and Workshop fee. Credit card or PayPal payment available.

•••Dorianne Laux and Joe Millar will be teaching a small poetry workshop at Ellen Bass’s house on the west side of Santa Cruz on September 1 from 9 am to 4 pm. Dorianne and Joe will each teach half the workshop (Joe in the morning, Dorianne in the afternoon). Each will give a brief talk about some aspect of the craft of poetry that they're currently excited by. The rest of the time will be devoted to individual critique of each participant’s work. Joe and Dorianne will each critique one poem by each participant, so you will have a chance to have two of your poems addressed. Please bring 13 copies of two poems to the workshop.

The cost for the day is $150, and the workshop will be limited to twelve participants. Shalom Victor will be handling all registration for the workshop. If you'd like to participate, please email her at victors75@rattlebrain.com or call her at 831-423-3064. Checks can be made out to Ellen Bass and mailed to Shalom Victor, 338 Walnut Ave., Santa Cruz, CA 95060. Payment is non-refundable unless they can fill your space, in which case they'll refund all but a $50 administrative fee. If you have any questions or concerns, call Shalom (831-423-3064).

A few logistical things: Ellen does have a dog and a cat, so if you have allergies to such, this won't be a good venue for you. Please bring a bag lunch as there won't be enough time to go out to eat. And please don't wear perfumes or scented body products because some folks have chemical sensitivities to those.

____________________

SWALLOWS OVER SAFEWAY

have built their nests again this year:
spent their spring molding mud around
the S and the A and the Y: spent

careful hours shaping fat cones
for chicks to live in, bring up a busy
brood or two… In March, the manager

put up some chicken wire, covered
some crevises, tried to halt
this noisy trespass. But still

the pushy swallow s have made
the front of Safeway their sub-
division again: taken it

back for themselves and their
future: made it their home…

—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines

_____________________

TOUCHING THE WILD THINGS
—Kathy Kieth

Turkeys purr as I spread their scratch: a guilty
pleasure. They are wild: should spend their days

prowling the knotty fields: strut and stretch
in a sun that is different from the one

that warms my house each morning, spreads
its comforter over my easy-chair. They are wild

things that flirt behind big brown fans, mate
in the secrets of the oaks, coax tawny fluffs

out into the open once the sun is right. I shouldn't
be touching them with my fat-producing

scratch from the feed store, with domestic
complications. Still, they purr as the corn

clatters and scatters over the patio, purr about
our guilty secret, purr each morning while,

for a few bright moments, our suns touch. . .

______________________

—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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in August, then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. (See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/.)

Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadsides from dawn dibartolo ("Blush"), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review is November 15.