PRAISE
—Wendy Patrice Williams, Citrus Heights
Within one hour:
a buck, a coyote, a doe,
horses, cats,
praying mantises, ticks, spiders;
a yellow-beaked magpie,
feathers of white,
black, and Prussian blue;
children’s laughter—
four girls straddling a log;
a brown tree frog, black line
tracing its lip, sitting waist deep
in fountain water;
and pigeons silent and still—
dark shapes against the golden field
like women in chador
praying at noon.
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Thanks, Wendy! This Saturday (2/16), the Foxes will be out in full force for One Human Family: Poems for a Changing World, a reading by Red Fox Underground Poets Taylor Graham, Irene Lipshin, Moira Magneson, Brigit Truex, Kate Wells, and Wendy Patrice Williams (all of whom are current or about-to-be rattlechappers!) at The Cozmic Cafe, 594 Main St., Placerville. Info: 530-642-8481. Sponsored by El Dorado Peace & Justice in the Season for Nonviolence.
Also at The Cozmic Cafe: Vietnam Today: Carrying On, an exhibition of photographs by Irene Lipshin and Janis Arnell. The reception will be held beginning at 5:30 PM on Feb. 16, then the Red Fox reading begins at 8. The photographs will be on display from Feb. 3 to March 31.
About the Foxes:
Irene Lipshin spends summers traveling and reconfirming her belief that we share the human story of loss and gain, personal, political and global, throughout the world. Her work has appeared in Rattlesnake Review (as well as a chapbook, Shadowlines from Rattlesnake Press, 2006, and a littlesnake broadside); in Poetica, Chaparral Updrafts, the anthologies, We Beg to Differ and Outcry: American Voices of Conscience, Post 9/11 and on the Poets Against the War and Voices in Wartime websites, as well as other publications. This is her second exhibition of photographs at The Cozmic Cafe.
Moira Magneson lives in Placerville and teaches English composition at Sacramento City College. Most recently her work has appeared in Runes, Hanging Loose, Flint Hills Review, and Rattlesnake Review (including a littlesnake broadside), and she has a chapbook coming from Rattlesnake Press next fall.
Taylor Graham trains her dogs for search and rescue. Her poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere. She’s included in the anthology California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present. Her latest chapbook is Among Neighbors (Rattlesnake Press, 2007). Current project is Walking with Elihu, poems on the American peace activist Elihu Burritt, the Learned Blacksmith.
Brigit Truex is of Native American (Cree/Abenaki), French Canadian and Irish heritage. Born and raised in Washington DC, she has found communities of writers (or started them herself) while living in Massachusetts, Maryland, and California. Publications include Rattlesnake Review, Manzanita, Folio, PDQ, Poetry Now as well as anthologies: Sacramento: 100 Poems, Nantucket, and Small Town USA. She has four chapbooks: Satuit Seasons, Of A Feather, Leaf by Leaf, and A Counterpane Without (Rattlesnake Press, 2007). When not writing, she can mostly be found dancing Northern Traditional at various powwows.
Wendy Patrice Williams teaches English at the College of Alameda. Her poems appear in The Acorn, Little Town, USA, Rattlesnake Review (including a littlesnake broadside), Song of the San Joaquin, PDQ, and the El Dorado Peace and Justice Community Newsletter. Her short stories are published in 13th Moon, Shore Stories: An Anthology of the Jersey Shore, and Whatever It Takes: Women on Women’s Sport. She has a chapbook coming next fall from Rattlesnake Press and is also currently working on a book of creative nonfiction, The Autobiography of a Sea Creature.
After receiving a degree in Anthropology, Kate Wells moved to California to become a raft guide. Seven professions later, she now teaches high school English and lives along the South Fork of the American River where she writes and shares a house with two cats, one dog, two bearded dragons, two children, one husband and four fish. She has a littlesnake broadside and a chapbook, Spiral, published in 2007 by Rattlesnake Press.
Submit!
The Poetry Society of America and The Times Square Alliance are sponsoring a contest: "Bright Lights Big Verse: Poems of Times Square". The submission deadline is March 1. Here's the web address: http://www.poetrysociety.org/bright.php/. If you haven't already been to it, the Poetry Society of America has a great website: www.poetrysociety.org/.
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RSVP
—Moira Magneson, Placerville
Forgive me for not responding until now,
but I would like to pause for a moment to acknowledge
your act of kindness: your aerial distribution of leaflets
warning the villagers to flee—the elders so deft with their canes,
the wounded in their swift wheelchairs, and the families
with little children and pets—who knows what they’re up to—
their belongings crushed into suitcases and wagons.
It’s so good of you to consider them before you drop the bombs.
I’m sure they’re grateful as they exodus en masse
along the rubbled highways. And thankful too
for the border closures on all sides so they can be rounded up,
herded to exactly where you want them. After all,
this is their lament, centuries old—this is their home,
and home, as you know so well, is where the heart is.
So forgive me for not responding sooner, but given
these circumstances, I am speechless.
(First appeared in Margie)
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STRAWBERRIES
—Brigit Truex, Placerville
Whose brown hand chose this fruit,
sized to fit between
thumb and finger, gently,
secreted close to the mounded earth,
beneath layers of serrated green,
the swollen bud-end of a plain
white flower turned
blood-red in the heat, the accumulated
color of bending over
and over below a ripe sun?
And what is the reward, the dizzy
rush of standing upright at the end
of the row, at the end of the day,
a respite, a lull, of letting muscle
and tendon go slack,
while I reach willingly, freely,
into a clean white bowl, to choose
one plump polished berry with its
finely dimpled skin, heady with
the essence of leisure, a sweet surfeit
on the tongue, juice on the chin,
time to savor it?
(First appeared in Atlanta Review)
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Thanks, gals! Today's poetry is from the new Red Fox Underground broadside, One Human Family.
—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
•••Tonight (Wednesday, 2/13), 7:30 PM: Rattlesnake Press will roar to life again after winter hibernation, with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap from Don and Elsie Feliz entitled To Berlin With Love, about their adventures in Germany during the building of the Berlin Wall. Also released that evening will be a new littlesnake broadside from Carlena Wike (Going the Distance). In addition, Ann Wehrman, who gave us December’s littlesnake broadside, Notes From The Ivory Tower, but who was unable to read from it at December’s rattle-read, will be there.
Unfortunately, Volume 2 of Conversations, B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, won't be ready in time. Nevertheless, you REALLY don’t want to miss this grand Valentine’s return of the Snake! Join us at The Book Collector, 100 24th St. (between J and K) in Sacramento on Weds., February 13 at 7:30 PM. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. February is Love Month!
•••Deadline for Issue #17 of Rattlesnake Review (due out in mid-March) is this coming Friday, February 15 (postmarked). Send 3-5 poems, plus photos, art, and other poet-phernalia to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No cover or bio needed, but no simultaneous submissions or previously-published work, please. Issue #16 is still available for free at The Book Collector, or send me two bux and I'll mail you one. Or pick one up when you're at the reading on Wednesday.