Cave of the Storm Nymphs
Painting by Sir Edward John Poynter
THE FARMER AND THE SEA
—Wendell Berry
The sea always arriving,
hissing in pebbles, is breaking
its edge where the landsman
squats on his rock. The dark
of the earth is familiar to him,
close mystery of his source
and end, always flowering
in the light and always
fading. But the dark of the sea
is perfect and strange,
the absence of any place,
immensity on the loose.
Still, he sees it as another
keeper of the land, caretaker,
shaking the earth, breaking it,
clicking the pieces, but somewhere
holding deep fields yet to rise,
shedding its richness on them
silently as snow, keeper and maker
of places wholly dark. And in him
something dark applauds.
—Wendell Berry
The sea always arriving,
hissing in pebbles, is breaking
its edge where the landsman
squats on his rock. The dark
of the earth is familiar to him,
close mystery of his source
and end, always flowering
in the light and always
fading. But the dark of the sea
is perfect and strange,
the absence of any place,
immensity on the loose.
Still, he sees it as another
keeper of the land, caretaker,
shaking the earth, breaking it,
clicking the pieces, but somewhere
holding deep fields yet to rise,
shedding its richness on them
silently as snow, keeper and maker
of places wholly dark. And in him
something dark applauds.
__________________
EARTH AND FIRE
—Wendell Berry
In this woman the earth speaks.
Her words open in me, cells of light
flashing in my body, and make a song
that I follow toward her out of my need.
The pain I have given her I wear
like another skin, tender, the air
around me flashing with thorns.
And yet such joy as I have given her
sings in me and is part of her song.
The winds of her knees shake me
like a flame. I have risen up from her,
time and again, a new man.
__________________
This week in NorCal poetry:
•••Tonight (Monday, 2/25), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Gilberto Rodriguez and Rob Lozano at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento [note change of location]. Lozano and Rodriguez will present their own work and will also stage the poetry of madman Spanish poet Leopoldo María Panero. Gilberto Rodriguez is a Surrealist storyteller and an excellent poetry performer. He interprets works by Baudelaire, Andre Michaux, Aloysius Bertrand, and Antonin Artaud. Gilberto is the co-founder with Robert Lozano of "Un Heimlich ... The Uncanny", a creative poetry and theatre group that blends theatrics, staging, music and poetry performance of experimental and original works via the theories of Artaud. Rob Lozano, one of the founders of the noteworthy poetry collective know as "Z'rail", has been an outstanding contributor to the Sacramento poetry scene for many years now and can always be depended upon for a dynamic, energetic reading. Next week's reading will feature Julia Levine and Rick Campbell.
•••Wednesday (2/27), 6-7 PM: Upstairs Poetry Reading at The Upstairs Art Gallery, 420 Main St (2nd floor), Placerville. It's an open-mike read-around, so bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share, or just come to listen. No charge.
•••Thursday (2/28), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento presents Joe Donohue, Ed Bowers, and Matt Amott. Open mic before and after. Info: 916-441-3931.
•••Sunday (3/2), 3 PM: SpiralChappers Susan and Joe Finkleman be out in full force with musicians Francesca Reitano and Mark Halverson at Congregation Bet Haverim, 1715 Anderson Rd, Davis, to bring you a two-hour show filled with a double feature: poetry reading wrapping around an art show/discussion of Joe's watercolor and photography. $5 donation requested, but no one turned away for lack of funds (this money goes to the synagogue to cover expenses).
•••Also Sunday (3/2), 2-4 PM: Livermore’s Poet Laureate Connie Post presents the continuing poetry series at the beautiful Ravenswood historic site, located at 2647 Arroyo Rd., Livermore. Sunday's reading will feature Rattlechapper and Rattlesnake Review columnist Taylor Graham, plus Camille Norton. Taylor Graham lives at the end of a little dirt road in El Dorado County with her husband, Hatch; three German Shepherds trained for search-and-rescue; and two untrainable cats. She and Hatch have been SAR volunteers for over 30 years, in Alaska, Virginia, and California. Taylor’s poems have appeared in America, The Iowa Review, The New York Quarterly, Poetry International, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere, and she’s included in the anthology, California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Santa Clara University, 2004). Her book, The Downstairs Dance Floor, (Texas Review Press, 2006) was awarded the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. Her latest project is Walking with Elihu, poems about the American peace activist Elihu Burritt, the Learned Blacksmith (1810-1879). [See below for a poem by TG.]
Camille Norton’s book, Corruption, won the National Poetry Series Open Competition for 2004 and was published by HarperCollins in 2005. It was nominated as the most outstanding book of poems published in 2005 by The Northern California Book Reviewers Association. Her awards include The Grolier Prize in Poetry, an NEA Fellowship in Poetry at the MacDowell Art Colony, and residencies at The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Ragdale Colony, and The Hedgebrook Colony, among others. In 1985, when she lived in Western Massachusetts, she won a Stegner Fellowship in Poetry at Stanford but was too afraid of California to accept it. These many years later, she lives bemusedly in Stockton, where she is Professor of English Literature at The University of the Pacific.
Directions: from 580, take North Livermore Exit. Head South. Right on Portola, left on North L. Continue until it turns into Arroyo (this occurs at the College Ave. intersection). Keep going straight until you see Ravenswood on your right. Look for the balloons. For more information, contact Connie Post: connie@poetrypost.com or go to http://www.poetrypost.com/Upcoming_Events.html
___________________
A LITTLE LEEWAY
—Taylor Graham
We should allow a little more space
this morning, a gap of sky
between fence and gate, just enough
for an idea to slip through
like a traveler who lacks the code to enter.
Enough space for breeze to filter
between iron bars, to dance around rules
like a fool at Mardi Gras;
a few seconds devoted to words
that have nothing to do
with today’s objectives: “purple
oatmeal,” “rapscallion”—words
sly as that gopher snake
lying in cool diminishing S-curves
beside the gate.
In-dwellers with their programmed remotes
won’t see him as they click
their way through.
But I tell you, he’s not just playing
dead, he’s playing tongue-harp &
blue-shadow scales
against the rights of passage,
the metallic grid-work of
schedule and rational thought.
_________________
Be sure to tune in tomorrow for another new feature: Seeds of the Week! And be sure to click on today's (and every day's) artwork for a grander view...
—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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. 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: News from Rattlesnake Press
New in February: The Snake had a massive celebration on February 13 with the release of To Berlin With Love from Elsie Whitlow Feliz and Don Feliz, a new broadside from Carlena Wike (Going The Distance), and a new SnakeRings SpiralChap from Sam and Kathy Kieth (Sex—For Animals...). All of these publications are now at The Book Collector and on rattlesnakepress.com.
Coming in March: Rattlesnake Press will be releasing a chapbook from Ann Privateer (Attracted to Light), a littlesnake broadside from Jeanine Stevens (Eclipse), Conversations Vol. 2 of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#17). Join us to celebrate all of this at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on March 12 at 7:30 PM.