Philip Larkin
Photo by Jane Brown
Photo by Jane Brown
FICTION AND THE READING PUBLIC
—Philip Larkin
Give me a thrill, says the reader,
Give me a kick;
I don't care how you succeed, or
What subject you pick.
Choose something you know all about
That'll sound like real life:
Your childhood, your Dad pegging out,
How you sleep with your wife.
But that's not sufficient, unless
You make me feel good—
Whatever you're 'trying to express'
Let it be understood
That 'somehow' God plaits up the threads,
Makes 'all for the best',
That we may lie quiet in our beds
and not be 'depressed'.
For I call the tune in this racket:
I pay your screw,
Write reviews and the bull on the jacket—
So stop looking blue
And start serving up your sensations
Before it's too late;
Just please me for two generations—
You'll be 'truly great'.
____________________
Today Philip Larkin would've been 85 years old.
Today in poetry:
••Thursday (8/9), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Open mic before and after featured readers. Info: Art Luna at www.lunascafe.com (916-441-3931).
Some deadlines:
•••August 15 is the next deadline for Rattlesnake Review; send us 3-5 poems, plus art, photography, whatever. No bio/cover letter, prev-pubs or simul-subs; send them to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.
•••Postmark deadline is also August 15 for the 88th Annual Ina Coolbrith Circle Poetry Contest. All ICC members (including out of state) and non-member California residents may enter. For contest rules and more info on the ICC, visit the website: www.coolpoetry.org/.
•••Deadline is Sept. 1 for the Sonnet Contest from Stockton's 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!
•••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. 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 Cleo Griffiths at cleor36@yahoo.com/. (NOTE CHANGE OF E-MAIL). For samples of poetry from previous issues: www.ChaparralPoets.org/SSJarchives.html/. Payment is one copy of the issue in which your work appears. A single issue is $5, 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!
____________________
PORTRAIT
—Philip Larkin
Her hands intend no harm:
Her hands devote themselves
To sheltering a flame;
Winds are her enemies,
And everything that strives
To bring her cold and darkness.
But wax and wick grow short:
These she so dearly guards
Despite her care die out;
Her hands are not strong enough
Her hands will fall to her sides
And no wind will trouble to break her grief.
______________________
DISINTEGRATION
—Philip Larkin
Time running beneath the pillow wakes
Lovers entrained who in the name of love
Were promised the steeples and fanlights of a dream;
Joins the renters of each single room
Across the tables to observe a life
Dissolving in the acid of their sex;
Time that scatters hair upon a head
Spreads the ice sheet on the shaven lawn;
Signing an annual permit for the frost
Ploughs the stubble in the land at last
To introduce the unknown to the known
And only by politeness make them breed;
Time over the roofs of what has nearly been
Circling, a migratory, static bird,
Predicts no change in future's lancing shape,
And daylight shows the streets still tangled up;
Time points the simian camera in the head
Upon confusion to be seen and seen.
_____________________
A WRITER
—Philip Larkin
'Interesting, but futile,' said his diary,
Where day by day his movements were recorded
And nothing but his loves received inquiry;
He knew, of course, no actions were rewarded,
There were no prizes: though the eye could see
Wide beauty in a motion or a pause,
It need expect no lasting salary
Beyond the bowels' momentary applause.
He lived for years and never was surprised:
A member of his foolish, lying race
Explained away their vices: realised
It was a gift that he possessed alone:
To look the world directly in the face;
The face he did not see to be his own.
_____________________
—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 Review14 is now available at The Book Collector; contributors and subscribers should have received theirs by now. If you're none of those, and can't get down to The Book Collector, send two bux (for postage) to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 and I'll mail you a copy. If you want more than one, please send $2 for the first one and $1 for copies after that. Next deadline, for RR15, is August 15. VYPER6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets10 (for kids 0-12) is also at The Book Collector; next deadline is Oct. 1.
Books/free broadsides: June's releases include Tom Miner's chapbook, North of Everything; David Humphreys' littlesnake broadside, Cominciare Adagio; and #3 in B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, this one featuring Jane Blue.
ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is sleeping! There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or 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 the Fall: new issues of the Review, Snakelets and VYPER [see the above deadlines], plus more littlesnake broadsides from NorCal poets near and far, and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October).
—Philip Larkin
Give me a thrill, says the reader,
Give me a kick;
I don't care how you succeed, or
What subject you pick.
Choose something you know all about
That'll sound like real life:
Your childhood, your Dad pegging out,
How you sleep with your wife.
But that's not sufficient, unless
You make me feel good—
Whatever you're 'trying to express'
Let it be understood
That 'somehow' God plaits up the threads,
Makes 'all for the best',
That we may lie quiet in our beds
and not be 'depressed'.
For I call the tune in this racket:
I pay your screw,
Write reviews and the bull on the jacket—
So stop looking blue
And start serving up your sensations
Before it's too late;
Just please me for two generations—
You'll be 'truly great'.
____________________
Today Philip Larkin would've been 85 years old.
Today in poetry:
••Thursday (8/9), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Open mic before and after featured readers. Info: Art Luna at www.lunascafe.com (916-441-3931).
Some deadlines:
•••August 15 is the next deadline for Rattlesnake Review; send us 3-5 poems, plus art, photography, whatever. No bio/cover letter, prev-pubs or simul-subs; send them to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.
•••Postmark deadline is also August 15 for the 88th Annual Ina Coolbrith Circle Poetry Contest. All ICC members (including out of state) and non-member California residents may enter. For contest rules and more info on the ICC, visit the website: www.coolpoetry.org/.
•••Deadline is Sept. 1 for the Sonnet Contest from Stockton's 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!
•••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. 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 Cleo Griffiths at cleor36@yahoo.com/. (NOTE CHANGE OF E-MAIL). For samples of poetry from previous issues: www.ChaparralPoets.org/SSJarchives.html/. Payment is one copy of the issue in which your work appears. A single issue is $5, 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!
____________________
PORTRAIT
—Philip Larkin
Her hands intend no harm:
Her hands devote themselves
To sheltering a flame;
Winds are her enemies,
And everything that strives
To bring her cold and darkness.
But wax and wick grow short:
These she so dearly guards
Despite her care die out;
Her hands are not strong enough
Her hands will fall to her sides
And no wind will trouble to break her grief.
______________________
DISINTEGRATION
—Philip Larkin
Time running beneath the pillow wakes
Lovers entrained who in the name of love
Were promised the steeples and fanlights of a dream;
Joins the renters of each single room
Across the tables to observe a life
Dissolving in the acid of their sex;
Time that scatters hair upon a head
Spreads the ice sheet on the shaven lawn;
Signing an annual permit for the frost
Ploughs the stubble in the land at last
To introduce the unknown to the known
And only by politeness make them breed;
Time over the roofs of what has nearly been
Circling, a migratory, static bird,
Predicts no change in future's lancing shape,
And daylight shows the streets still tangled up;
Time points the simian camera in the head
Upon confusion to be seen and seen.
_____________________
A WRITER
—Philip Larkin
'Interesting, but futile,' said his diary,
Where day by day his movements were recorded
And nothing but his loves received inquiry;
He knew, of course, no actions were rewarded,
There were no prizes: though the eye could see
Wide beauty in a motion or a pause,
It need expect no lasting salary
Beyond the bowels' momentary applause.
He lived for years and never was surprised:
A member of his foolish, lying race
Explained away their vices: realised
It was a gift that he possessed alone:
To look the world directly in the face;
The face he did not see to be his own.
_____________________
—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 Review14 is now available at The Book Collector; contributors and subscribers should have received theirs by now. If you're none of those, and can't get down to The Book Collector, send two bux (for postage) to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 and I'll mail you a copy. If you want more than one, please send $2 for the first one and $1 for copies after that. Next deadline, for RR15, is August 15. VYPER6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets10 (for kids 0-12) is also at The Book Collector; next deadline is Oct. 1.
Books/free broadsides: June's releases include Tom Miner's chapbook, North of Everything; David Humphreys' littlesnake broadside, Cominciare Adagio; and #3 in B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, this one featuring Jane Blue.
ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is sleeping! There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or 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 the Fall: new issues of the Review, Snakelets and VYPER [see the above deadlines], plus more littlesnake broadsides from NorCal poets near and far, and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October).