The Cruellest Month

IT'S APRIL

and life so unattractive; the dead earth suddenly turns vampire
and breathes, breathes, breathes, with it begin to breathe
the souls of the dead, in harmony,
following orders from the cruellest month;
they yearn to lie down quietly among sweet flowers.

The mirrors in the room get fidgetty
looking into the terror-filled eyes of old men
and in the dumb fear of old men they arouse the desire
to breathe, breathe, breathe......

The whole sky could fit
into a dirty puddle of rain.

—Ferida Durakovic

___________________

Shazam! National Poetry Month is starting with a bang around here, with lots of goings-on this week and for the entire month! See below for this week's offerings, including the Sacramento Poetry Center Conference and the Gathering of California Poets Laureate, all right here in Saca-tomato!

Medusa has a few new snakes flying out of her head, too, including two more new features: LittleNips, our new daily SnakeFood for Poetic Brains, and the weekly (Wednesday) HandyStuff Quickies: Tools for the Poetic Trade. As usual, poets from around the globe will be encouraged to contribute; more about that later.

Meanwhile, it's Tuesday. Time for Seed of the Week. Taylor Graham sent us this response to last week's SOW:

FROM SEED
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

...to make two spires of grass grow where one did not before.
—Elihu Burritt (1874)

Some sickly daisies, and those jaundiced weeds
that find their way between the native stones,
were all the field would bear. Their stubborn seeds
could grow in ground that’s rocks and bones
leached, dried, and worthless. But a man brings trust
and hard hand-labor to the land he weds.
Where once rose nothing from the soil but dust,
now see how wheat and rye-grass nod their heads
and find their way between the native stones
of field-wall and a farther, greener swale.
His broad brown ox is all the help he asks
for plowing, mowing, harvesting. The veil
of twilight covers never-ending tasks.
Don’t speak of fear his rustic rites might fail.
A farmer’s faith, that this new crop succeeds
the sickly daisies and the jaundiced weeds.

___________________

Thanks, TG! All SOW poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review. Send your work to me at kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline for SOWs; respond today, tomorrow, or whenever the muse arrives. Print 'em out, maybe, save 'em for a dry spell? When you send us work, though, just let us know which "seed" it was that inspired you.

This coming week's SOW suggestion comes from Sal Buttaci, who challenges us to write some tyburns, defined as a six-line poem with a set syllable count. The first four lines rhyme and are all descriptive words. The last two lines rhyme and incorporate the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lines as the 5th to 8th syllables. The structure is:

line 1 - 2 syllables
line 2 - 2 syllables
line 3 - 2 syllables
line 4 - 2 syllables
line 5 - 9 syllables
line 6 - 9 syllables

Sal sends us some tyburns of his own:

FLOWERS

One day
Bouquet
Displays
Decay
In the garden, One day bouquet dies.
Early fall yields displays decay-wise.

___________________

POETRY

A crime:
All rhymes
Sublime
In time
Are forgotten. A crime: all rhymes tossed
From creation. Sublime? in time, lost.

___________________

LOVE OR WHAT?

Kisses
Hisses
Misses
Wishes.
It’s up to you. Kisses, hisses? Sick!
Love or dreaming? Misses, wishes? Pick!

__________________

AFTER KNEE SURGERY

A cane?
Insane!
The pain’s
To blame.
I’m not that old. A cane? Insane! Mine.
I have no choice. The pain’s to blame. Fine.

__________________

Try your own hand at tyburns and send me your fruits. Are you (wo)man enough for the mighty tyburn?

Chris Olander of Grass Valley writes: Great news for me: the student I was coaching in the Poetry Out Loud contest won the California State Contest; she and her mother get an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington DC to compete in the National Championship Contest! She has as much chance of winning that as anybody else, and I think she's going to be tough to beat! Congrats, Chris, to you and your charge. Check out B.L. Kennedy's Conversations Volume Two for an interview with Chris, in which he talks about his long-time involvement with California Poets in the Schools.

__________________

This week in NorCal poetry:

•••Tonight (4/1), 6-9 PM: The Bonefolders: Poems-For-All Building Party. Help Richard Hansen’s Poems-For-All crew build the hundreds of poem booklets they want to put on the street for Poetry Month. Each little booklet made as part of the Poems-For-All (PFA) Series goes through the same ritual: Cut. Fold. Staple. Bonefolders are the small tools used to make a neat fold in paper. The Bonefolders are those kind souls willing to come out and help PFA build little booklets to be given away for free. Care to be a bonefolder? Join us anytime between 6 and 9 PM in the relaxed atmosphere of The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Come to fold poems or just hang out and enjoy the light refreshments. There are jobs for any skill level. Building little poem books is theraputic and you're welcome to take some with you! (And the fun will be repeated on Saturday, April 12, too!)

•••April 2-3: Gathering of California Poets Laureate. Schedule as follows:

Wednesday, April 2 — Evening Reception for Laureates
5-9 PM at the Fragrance Garden next to California State Library 10th and N Streets
6-7 PM: informal barbecue dinner
7-9 PM: laureates informal reading (5 minutes per reader)

The public is invited — $15 covers the cost of dinner. Seating is limited, please RSVP to Bob Stanley at bobstanley@sbcglobalnet or 916-240-1897.

Thursday, April 3 — Laureates' Conference
9-9:30 AM: Welcome, presentation by California Poets in the Schools/Poetry Out Loud
9-9:55 AM: Keynote by Al Young, California Poet Laureate
10-12:45 AM: Discussion by Community Poets Laureate

Thursday, April 3 (cont.) — Laureates' Public Poetry Reading
1-3 PM by the Capitol Fountain, Capitol Mall and 10th Street
(5 minutes per poet—bag lunch will be provided for laureates and volunteers)
3-5 PM: Thank yous and farewells

The public is invited. Seating is limited for the morning conference. Please RSVP to Bob Stanley at bobstanley@sbcglobalnet or 916-240-1897

Participating poets laureate: Al Young [California], Sandra Wade [Lake County], Mary McMillan [Lake County], Dorothy Lee Hansen [Napa county], Meredith Laskow [Placentia Library District], Geri DiGiorno [Sonoma County], Mary Rudge [Alameda], Joel Fallon [Benicia], Diane Lando [Brentwood], Ruth Blakeney [Crockett], Connie Post [Livermore], Sam Pierstorff [Modesto], Rod Clark [Pacifica], Garland Thompson [Pacific Grove], Martha Meltzner [Pleasanton], Fionna Perkins [Point Arena], Julia Connor [Sacramento], Dian Sousa [San Luis Obispo], Jack Hirschman [San Francisco], Perie Longo [Santa Barbara], Ursula Gibson [Sunland-Tujunga], David Smith-Ferri [Ukiah] and others.

Brought to you by:

California Arts Council
Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission
Poets and Writers
California Poets in the Schools

•••Wednesday (4/2), 9 PM: Charles Curtis Blackwell and Vincent Kobelt at Bistro 33, 226 F St. in Davis. Playwright, poet, and performance artist Charles Curtis Blackwell has written plays such as Is, The Color of Mississippi Mud, which was produced in Washington D.C. and Sacramento, and I’m a Boxer, a Love Story. His book The Fiery Response To Love’s Calling was published in 1999, and he has produced three spoken word CDs, one featuring jazz drummer Billy Toliver. Currently a resident of the bay area, Blackwell organizes writers’ workshops and community cultural events at the Faithful Fools Agency in the San Francisco Tenderloin.

Founder of the Garage Sale Art Project, poet Vincent Kobelt has been reading and performing his work throughout California since 1990. During the summer Kobelt teaches at the California State Summer School for the Arts (CSSSA/Innerspark), and every third Saturday of the month he hosts “Live at Carol’s,” a reading and performance series featuring California poets at Carol’s Books on Del Paso Blvd. in Sacramento. Kobelt has recently authored a CD called The Jive and a poetry anthology titled The Jive’s in the Jug. His poetry performed at the Bistro 33 open mics has made him a crowd favorite.

Poetry Night, hosted by Brad Henderson and Andy Jones, takes place on the first and third Wednesdays of the month at Bistro 33.

•••Thurs. (4/3), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured poets, with open mic before and after. Info: 916-441-3931.

•••Friday (4/4) and Saturday (4/5): Sacramento Poetry Center Conference, 2008. Schedule as follows:

Friday, April 4:
6 PM: late registration, passes, hors d'ouevres, book sales
6:45 PM: Reception opening, introduction
7 PM: Reading at The Space: Camille Norton, Joshua McKinney, Jane Hirshfield
8-8:30 PM: Closing/Book Sales

Saturday, April 5:
8:45-9:20 AM: Breakfast, Late Registration, Briefing from President
9:30-11:30 AM: Workshop A: Camille Norton
9:30-11:30 AM: Workshop B: Joshua McKinney
11:30 AM: Lunch
1-1:30 PM: Al Young Lecture
2-4 PM: Workshop C: Ellen Bass
2-4 PM: Workshop D: Quinton Duval
4:15-4:30 PM: Closing remarks by President
4:30 PM: Reading at The Space: Quinton Duval, Ellen Bass, Al Young
5:30 PM: Closing Book Signings

Fees: Members: Friday, $10 [Reading only]; Saturday, $10 [Reading/Lecture only] Both Days, $35
Non-members: Friday, $10 [Reading]; Saturday, $15 [Reading/Lecture only]. Both Days $45. Special one-time SPC membership fee at the conference: $25. Mail to: 1719 25th St., Sacramento, CA 95816.

•••Friday (4/4), 7:30 PM: The Other Voice, a poetry reading series sponsored by the U.U. Church of Davis, presents three poets: Lisa Dominguez Abraham, Denise Lichtig, and Catherine French. Lisa Abraham's work has appeared in a number of journals, most recently in The Suisan Valley Review and Hardpan. Her chapbook, Low Notes, was released last fall by Red Wing Press. Denise Lichtig has been published in Hayden's Ferry Review, Antioch Review, The Suisun Review, and Dry Heat. She has received a Pushcart nomination and was a semi-finalist in the Discovery/The Nation contest. Here in Davis she has a private practice in Chinese Medicine and teaches Tai Qi. Catherine French lives in Sacramento and is the author of Sideshow from the University of Nevada Press. Her poems have appeared in The Nation, Gettysburg Review, Zyzzyva, and other journals. She is currently at work on her second collection of poems. We meet in the library of the church located at 27074 Patwin Rd. in Davis. Refreshments and Open Mike follow, so bring along a poem or two to share.

•••Saturday (4/5), 7:30 PM: Cornered: Five Years of SN&R’s Poet’s Corner: A celebration of five years of poetry in the Sacramento News & Review. Poetry Editor Kel Munger is putting together a line-up of poets from among those who've been published in the papers' weekly Poet's Corner.

•••Friday (4/4)-Sunday (4/6): Nevada City Poetry Retreat. Join Nils Peterson and Sally Ashton for a Gold Country get-away in historic Nevada City near Grass Valley. We will divide our time between creating new poems and revisioning old ones. You'll be invited to see if a "golden thread," as William Stafford taught, can lead you to the place where the inner and outer landscapes meet. Saturday evening, we'll have a session working on reading and presentation technique. In your free time, you may wish to explore historic Nevada City’s charming downtown or hiking trails.

Schedule:

Friday: 7-10pm: Reception and Session 1

Saturday: 9:30-Noon: Session 2
Lunch at the cabin
2-5pm: Session 3
Out to no-host Dinner
Evening Session 4: Reading/performance technique

Sunday: 9:30-Noon: Session 5

To Register: Sally Ashton at sallyashtn@aol.com; 408-892-3115 OR Nils Peterson nissepete@aol.com
Fee: $135; $50 deposit due at registration. Saturday lunch & light snacks provided. Meals & lodging not included; please make your own arrangements. (General Lodging Listings: http://www.ncgold.com/lodging/index.html)

___________________

LittleNip of the Day: SnakeFood for Poetic Brains:

Welcome to our new daily corner for odd things to stimulate the brain: quotes, jokes, words, little-known facts about famous/not-so-famous/infamous poets—quick little nips to catapult you into a meditation, a poem, or a delete-in-disgust. Today's LittleNip is a word, and a dandy one it is: agrexophrenia (fear of being overheard or otherwise detected during sex).

We're not going to have a give-away every day, but to inaugurate LittleNips, send me a poem (either your own or somebody else's) with the word, agrexophrenia, in it, and I'll mail you a copy of Ann Privateer's new rattlechap, Attracted to Light. Yes, there's a deadline on this one: Friday, April 4. (Get it done early; you've got a lot to do this weekend!)

And hey, don't be shy. Got a LittleNip of your own to send me?

___________________

APRIL
—Thomas Merton

April, like a leopard in the windy woods,
Sports with the javelins of the weather;

And the hunters,
Eye-level with the world's clean brim,
Sight their strings, in masking rocks not moving,
And shower with arrows
The innocent, immortal season.

Hear how like lights these following releases
Of sharpened shaft-flights sing across the air,
And play right through, unwounding, clearest windworks—

To disappear, unpublished, in the reeds.

Where their words are quenched, the world is quickened:
The lean air suddenly flowers,
The little voices of the rivers change;

So that the hunters put away their silver quivers,
Die to the level of river and rockbrim,
And are translated, homeward,
To the other, solemn, world.

___________________

—Medusa (back with a bang! Didja miss me?)

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

The latest Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. If you'd like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. Next deadline is May 15 for #18, due out in mid-June.

Coming April 9: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing his Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!

The Ascent Still Before Us

THE SUN ON YOUR SHOULDER
—John Haines

We lie together in the grass,
sleep awhile and wake,
look up at the cloverheads
and arrowy blades,
the pale, furred undersides
of leaves and clouds.

Strange to be a seed, and the whole
ascent still before us,
as in childhood
when everything is near
or very far,
and the crawling insect
a lesson in silence.

And maybe not again
that look clear as water,
the sun on your shoulder
when we rise,
shaken free of the grass,
tall in the first green morning.

__________________

Normally, Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers that you have come up with, such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—but starting today, Medusa will be off tending her snakes and turning people into stone, etc., for a few days. So today is this week's Seed of the Week Day, and the prompt is, well, seeds. (Thanks to Taylor Graham for the idea). Medusa readers are encouraged to rise to the occasion. All poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review. Send your work to me at kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline for SOW; respond today, tomorrow, or whenever the muse arrives. Print 'em out, maybe, save 'em for a dry spell? When you send us work, though, just let us know which "seed" it was that inspired you.


This week in NorCal poetry:

•••Monday (3/24), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Zaid Shlah and Brad Buchanan (A Night to Touch Your Inner Canadian) at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. A native Calgarian, Zaid Shlah now resides in Walnut Creek, CA. He obtained his BA in English from the University of Calgary and his MA in English from San Francisco State University, where he received the Distinguished Graduate award from San Francisco State University's Creative Writing department. His poetry has appeared in literary journals and anthologies both in Canada and the U.S. In particular, selections from the long poem, "Taqsim", have appeared on CBC Radio's Alberta Anthology. "Asking Iraq to Comply" appeared in the anthology, Canadian Writers Against the War: The Common Sky, 2003. And "Songs of Departure" and "Asking Iraq to Comply" are forthcoming in the anthology, Arab American and Diaspora Literature (Interlink Publishing, 2005). His first full-length book of poetry is Taqsim (Frontenac 2005). Brad Buchanan is originally from Canada and has had his poems published in many of the most widely-read Canadian literary journals, including Grain, Canadian Literature, The Antigonish Review, Descant, The Fiddlehead and Event. He has a Ph.D. from Stanford University and teaches at California State University, Sacramento. His first book is The Miracle Shirker from Poets Corner Press. He is married and has a young daughter, Nora, who has no idea yet that she is a Maple Leafs fan.

Next week (March 31), SPC will feature the Zen Marxist Launderettes (Laura Ann Walton, Emily Wright, Mira Kores, Sandra Senne, Margaret Burns, Erin Doyle, Ellen Johnson, Carolyn Schneider).

•••Weds. (3/26), 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.

•••Thurs. (3/27), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe features Jackie Schaffer, Marty the Pirate, Robert Grossklaus and Litany. 1414 16th St., Sacramento.

•••Sat. (3/29), 7-9 PM. The Show Poetry Series for Spoken Word & Music that relaxes the soul and eases the mind. Featured artists Lady Kitty Griffin, Kevin Sandbloom and DeDe Hunt, with special Guest EmCee Comedian Corey Crenshaw. All artists (poets, singers, comedians, musicians, etc., all ages) are welcome to sign-up at the door to perform on the open mic. Any youth 18 years of age and under will be admitted free of charge; $5.00 admission for folks over the age of 18. Wo'se Community Center (Off 35th & Broadway), 2863 35th St., Sacramento. Contact: T-Mo (916)208-POET.

___________________

PICKERS
—John Haines

All day we were bent over,
lifting handfuls of wind and dust.

Scraps of some human conversation
blew by; a coffin on wheels
rolled slowly backward across
the field, and the skinned
bodies of the harvest were loaded.

A red cloud boiling up out
of the darkness became the evening.
Sentinels of a shattered army,
we drank bitter coffee, and spoke
of the field, the light, and the cold.

___________________

IF THE OWL CALLS AGAIN

at dusk
from the island in the river
and it's not too cold,

I'll wait for the moon
to rise,
then take wing and glide
to meet him.

We will not speak,
but hooded against the frost
soar above
the alder flats, searching
with tawny eyes.

And then we'll sit
in the shadowy spruce
and pick the bones
of careless mice,

while the long moon drifts
toward Asia
and the river mutters
in its icy bed.

And when the morning climbs
the limbs
we'll part without a sound,

fulfilled, floating
homeward as
the cold world awakens.


—John Haines

________________

—Medusa (who will be off flying with the owls until the end of March)

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

The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series.

Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!

This Yo-Yo World

Photo courtesy of David Humphreys

SPRUNG SPRING
—David Humphreys, Stockton

Hot cold, hot cold. All last week
was balmy warm, short sleeves
instead of flannel plaid and jackets.
You could see the trees and bushes
shuddering back to life in buds turning
flushed with blossoms popping out
in a few weeks. The warm air rose up
and the winds came in yesterday.
Blew the sky clear as a bell and the
temperature dropped like a rock. Hot
cold, hot cold all the way from now until
the end of March, cursed month I was born
into this stupid yo-yo world. Well, it was
nice last week anyway and if I was still a
an idiot skier I could go up and rattle
my edges on the icy wind blown
snow above the tree line.

___________________

MY FATHER'S ECONOMICS
—David Humphreys

He said that the reason we were in Vietnam
was primarily due to the cost of tin, so essential
for electrical connections, in circuitry or anything
really. This he said as I watched shot-down Huey
helicopters drop out of the Southern Hemisphere
sky of Time magazine’s casualty calculations. Do
not assume that anything is ever final or decided.
I will suggest however, that we are currently experiencing
a collusion of exploitations. Who, properly invested
of course, in their comfortably cushioned suites enveloped,
would not benefit immensely from tremors of shuddering
terror in a volatile dynamic marketplace?

__________________

BONNIE BORDNER
—David Humphreys

This girl was absolute top of the line,
everything about her straight out of
something that might easily have been
Social Register, but she was from Blue
Book country, Southern California, and
never made anything of it. We might
consider the differences of one coast or
the other, but Bonnie was the ultimate
of “class” itself. My best friend Peter
wasted a lot of time adoring her. I had
an odd feeling she was a bit too close to
my roots of Brooks Brothers and the
Register and what was proper in that truly
bizarre context. Bottom line for me now
though, looking back forty years: she wore
the hottest pair of Levis I ever laid eyes on.

____________________

—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

The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you a copy, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series.

Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!

Look Out Where Yr Going!

AMERICAN CLASSIC
—Louis Simpson

It's a classic American scene—
a car stopped off the road
and a man trying to repair it.

The woman who stays in the car
in the classic American scene
stares back at the freeway traffic.

They look surprised, and ashamed
to be so helpless...
let down in the middle of the road!

To think that their car would do this!
They look like mountain people
whose son has gone against the law.

But every night they set out food
and the robber goes skulking back to the trees.
That's how it is with the car...

it's theirs, they're stuck with it.
Now they know what it's like to sit
and see the world go whizzing by.

In the fume of carbon monoxide and dust
they are not such Americans
as they thought they were.

The feeling of being left out
through no fault of your own, is common.
That's why I say, an American classic.

____________________

This weekend in NorCal poetry:

•••Tonight (Friday, 3/21), 7-8 PM: Poetry in the Hills at the Event Center at Raley's in Placerville, 166 Placerville Dr. (take the Forni exit off Hwy 50 and go north; Raley’s is about a mile down the road). Call 530-902-4591 for info. Featured readers are James Lee Jobe and Taylor Graham. An open mike follows. There is no charge. Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada, and also helps her husband (a retired wildlife biologist) with his field projects. Her poems have appeared in International Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, The New York Quarterly, Poetry International, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere, including the anthology, California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Heyday Books, 2004). Her latest book, The Downstairs Dance Floor (Texas Review Press, 2006), was awarded the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. She has two chapbooks from Rattlesnake Press and currently serves as a columnist for Rattlesnake Review. James Lee Jobe has been published in Manzanita, Tule Review, Pearl, and many other periodicals. His poems are also included in The Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems; Jewel of the Valley: A California Anthology; and How to be This Man: The Walter Pavlich Memorial Anthology. From 1994-1999, Jobe was the editor and publisher of One Dog Press, a poetry monthly. He also edited the quarterly, Clan of the Dog. Jobe has four chapbooks published; the most recent is What God Said When She Finally Answered (Rattlesnake Press).

•••Also tonight (3/21), 7:30 PM: Los Escritores Del Nuevo Sol presents An Evening of Poetry: Bilinguish & Y Preguntas, a reading by Jim Michael and Zheyla Henriksen. La Raza Galeria Posada, 1024 22nd St., Sacramento. $5 or as you can afford. Info: 916-446-5133 or www.larazagaleriaposada.org.

•••Monday (3/24), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Zaid Shlah and Brad Buchanan (A Night to Touch Your Inner Canadian) at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. A native Calgarian, Zaid Shlah now resides in Walnut Creek, CA. He obtained his BA in English from the University of Calgary and his MA in English from San Francisco State University, where he received the Distinguished Graduate award from San Francisco State University's Creative Writing department. His poetry has appeared in literary journals and anthologies both in Canada and the U.S. In particular, selections from the long poem, "Taqsim", have appeared on CBC Radio's Alberta Anthology. "Asking Iraq to Comply" appeared in the anthology, Canadian Writers Against the War: The Common Sky, 2003. And "Songs of Departure" and "Asking Iraq to Comply" are forthcoming in the anthology, Arab American and Diaspora Literature (Interlink Publishing, 2005). His first full-length book of poetry is Taqsim (Frontenac 2005). Brad Buchanan is originally from Canada and has had his poems published in many of the most widely-read Canadian literary journals, including Grain, Canadian Literature, The Antigonish Review, Descant, The Fiddlehead and Event. He has a Ph.D. from Stanford University and teaches at California State University, Sacramento. His first book is The Miracle Shirker from Poets Corner Press. He is married and has a young daughter, Nora, who has no idea yet that she is a Maple Leafs fan.

__________________

FILLING STATION
—Elizabeth Bishop

Oh, but it is dirty!
—this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a distrubing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.

Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Some comic books provide
the only note of color—
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
Esso—so—so—so
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.

___________________

I KNOW A MAN
—Robert Creeley

As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking,—John, I

sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going.

___________________

—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

The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series.

Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!

Creaking Helm of Summer

Photo by Stephani Schaefer, Los Molinos

CRANES
—John Haines

That vast wheel turning
in the sky,
turning and turning
on the axle of the sun...

The wild cries,
the passionate wingbeat,
as the creaking helm of the summer
comes round,

and the laboring ship
plunges on...

__________________

IN NATURE
—John Haines

Here too are life's victims,
captives of an old umbrella,
lives wrecked
by the lifting of a stone.

Sailors marooned
on the island of a leaf
when their ship
of mud and straw went down.

Explorers lost
among roots and raindrops,
drunkards sleeping it off
in the fields of pollen.

Cities of sand that fall,
dust towers that blow away.,
Penal colonies
from which no one returns.

Here too, neighborhoods
in revolt, revengeful columns;
evenings at the broken wall,
black armies in flight...

__________________

DIVIDED, THE MAN IS DREAMING
—John Haines

One half
lives in sunlight; he is
the hunter and calls
the beasts of the field
about him.
Bathed in sweat and tumult
he slakes and kills,
eats meat
and knows blood.

His other half
lies in shadow
and longs for stillness,
a corner of the evening
where birds
rest from flight:
cool grass grows at his feet,
dark mice feed
from his hands.

__________________

TREES ARE PEOPLE AND
THE PEOPLE ARE TREES
—John Haines

And there in the crowded commons
three hundred striding people,
gesturing, eating the air,
halted around us, suddenly quiet.

They sprouted leaves and cones,
they wore strange bark for clothing,
and gently lifted their arms.

__________________

THE PITCHER OF MILK
—John Haines

Today is the peace of this mist
and its animals, as if all
the cows and goats in the land
gave milk to the dawn.

The same mist that rises
from battlefields, out of the mouths
and eye-sockets of horse
and man, it mingles with smoke
from moss fires
in the homesteader's clearing.

I and the others come to the doors
of cold houses, called
by the thin ringing of a spoon;

we stand with our brimming bowls,
called to where Peace awakens
in a cloud of white blood.

____________________

No B.L. Drive-by today; Bari Kennedy has the flu.

And celebrate Spring! She sneaked up on us in the middle of the night!

—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

The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, all available at The Book Collector or from rattlesnakepress.com/.

Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!

Seeds & Shoes & Other Prodigals

Abandoned Snowman
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

HOW CAN YOU BELIEVE

in a spiral galaxy?
Under the soft electric glow that zaps
anything with wings at midnight,

wings that keep getting closer
house by isolated house—
remember how we drive this same

stretch of woods
like so many travelers
trying to get home before dark,

through hills where a lost dog
runs with the fear of doe in his feet.
Again tonight we arrive back

at our own front door, under no stars
but sky’s coupled pressure
building, released in heat

lightning. If there’s no freedom
for a shoe that’s lost its
mate, why can’t we just be joyful?


—Taylor Graham, Somerset

___________________

Thanks, TG! Taylor Graham is responding to yesterday's Seed of the Week, "Leftovers". She writes: OK, this is leftovers for sure. [Workshoppers in] Red Fox Underground have a nasty way of crossing out Foxes' favorite lines: "save it for another poem." So I gathered some of mine and here's what I got.

And David Humphreys sends us this response to last week's SOW about dogs. Thanks, David!

SHILOH
—David Humphreys, Stockton

I lost the first poem I wrote about the dog maybe
four years ago. Don’t know how it happened except
that it was so clearly out of his cocky prime I guess
I was just a little put out by the strutting sexual leer
of it, dog ears all perked up with his tongue lolling out
in a wide laughing grin mincing up to sniff out every
passing feminine bustle of attention, eyes rimmed in
handsome mascara theater, plume tail curling up behind
him like a feather in a Musketeer’s velvet hat. I must
have deleted it in some distracted irritation. Anyway,
here it is again, resurrected with all the odd details intact
as we both head out on our morning walk one more
time both of us a little heavier than we used to be, even
after 1200 miles further down the road.

Now, in just a few short years he has turned gray and slows
to a tired walk before we finish our two miles every morning.
Time is catching up with him as it has with all the others, one
named Tarawa, a jet black beauty that disappeared chasing
cattle in Colorado. Then came two lovely Goldens, Orion a
handsome dark male with a congenital heart defect and his
sister Chelsea a happy bright lighter female. I’ll miss all
of them before much longer and just have to go out and find
another to help me count the passing miles.

___________________

This just in:

•••Tonight, Wednesday (3/19), 9 PM: Rattlechapper James DenBoer will be reading at Bistro 33 as part of the Poetry Night at Bistro 33 Reading Series at 226 F St., Davis. Long-appreciated by local readers of poetry, James DenBoer’s work has appeared in a great variety of publications in multiple media. DenBoer has authored eight books of poetry spanning almost 40 years (including Black Dog for Rattlesnake Press), has appeared in another seven anthologies of poetry and literature, and has won awards and grants from the National Council on the Arts, the Author’s League of America, the Carnegie Fund for Authors and the National Endowment for the Arts. DenBoer’s most recent book, Stonework: Selected Poems, was published by Sandra McPherson’s Swan Scythe Press in the city of Davis. Open Mic follows the Featured Reader. Free and Open to the Public; hosted by Brad Henderson and Andy Jones. For more on James DenBoer, visit http://www.paperwrk.com/ or his rattlechapper page on rattlesnakepress.com/. JDB will be releasing another chapbook from Rattlesnake Press this June.

__________________

THE PRODIGAL
—Elizabeth Bishop

The brown enormous odor he lived by
was too close, with its breathing and thick hair,
for him to judge. The floor was rotten; the sty
was plastered halfway up with glass-smooth dung.
Light-lashed, self-righteous, above moving snouts,
the pigs' eyes followed him, a cheerful stare—
even to the sow that always ate her young—
till, sickening, he leaned to scratch her head.
But sometimes mornings after drinking bouts
(he hid the pints behind a two-by-four),
the sunrise glazed the barnyard mud with red;
the burning puddles seemed to reassure.
And then he thought he almost might endure
his exile yet another year or more.

But evenings the first star came to warn.
The farmer whom he worked for came at dark
to shut the cows and horses in the barn
beneath their overhanging clouds of hay,
with pitchforks, faint forked lightnings, catching light,
safe and companionable as in the Ark.
The pigs struck out their little feet and snored.
The lantern—like the sun, going away—
laid on the mud a pacing aureole.
Carrying a bucket along a slimy board,
he felt the bats' uncertain staggering flight,
his shuddering insights, beyond his control,
touching him. But it took him a long time
finally to make his mind up to go home.



____________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events, to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.) 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

The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, all available at The Book Collector or from rattlesnakepress.com/.

Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!

Poetic Leftovers

THE BILLY RUN
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

The cherry, the almond
make dry light petal-snow.

We’re training young Billy
the Pomeranian-something out

of the mouth-snaps taught
him in that December kennel.

We must pay out griefs, like him,
on a-hint-at-a-time more leash.

Sun whitens by five degrees
each 8:00 a.m., probes with longer fingers

the blue. One block into the Billy-run,
two or three feather-poets,

mockingbirds, break off mid-song
to drive away magpies.

__________________

MOCKINGBIRDS
—Tom Goff

Gray-white birds
rhapsodize

—minature Homers, Charlie Parkers,
Bosnian guslári, but with plumes—

from the predawn shuttlecock
vast epic materials

till they make this oral stock: endless little

flute-throat stops.

Listen! and here comes again

sunrise with her fingers, translucence
beyond old and new.

__________________

Thanks, Tom! Tom Goff says: One poem's leftovers can be the start of another poem. I was thinking of what Ted Hughes wrote about Sylvia Plath and her craft, that if she couldn't make a satisfactory table, the pieces could still become a chair, and so on. (Paraphrasing loosely.) We all feel we overwrite, have too many things to say on a subject. But treat the excess as leftovers, and you can make soup, as it were. I had too much to say, as it happens, about mockingbirds, who have a great deal to say in our neighborhood. So a second little poem came from the gristle and fat of the first.

Tom calls this "Poetic Leftovers", and that's today's Seed of the Week. Got a poem, old or new, that warrants two poems? Something that didn't quite get said the first time? Or a spin-off; an idea that pops out of the chest of the first?

Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers that you have come up with, such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—send us whatever you think might tickle somebody's muse. I'll pick one and post it on a Tuesday, then Medusa readers are encouraged to rise to the occasion with their responses to your triggers. All poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review. (Be sure I have your snail address so I can send you one.) Send your work to me at kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline for SOW; respond today, tomorrow, or whenever the muse arrives. Print 'em out, maybe, save 'em for a dry spell? When you send us work, though, just let us know which "seed" it was that inspired you.

___________________

Still room in Cache Creek workshops:

Rae Gouirand writes: Registration is open for both of my spring workshops, and both are filling quickly, so please read on if you're interested in (and haven't already signed up for)...

•••the second eight-week workshop in my 2008 series at Woodland's Cache Creek Nature Preserve, PROSE POETRY. In this workshop we'll explore a wide variety of contemporary prose poems, discuss the particularities of the form, and use the spring landscape at the Preserve to feed surprising new work. Writers in all genres and with all levels of experience are welcome. Please note a time change: this workshop will meet in the afternoons on Thursdays, April 10-May 29, from 1-3 PM. The Writer-in-Residence program offers workshops offered free of charge to the general public thanks to support from the Teichert Foundation and Cache Creek Nature Preserve. (To register, reply to me by email [rgouirand@gmail.com] with your name, email address, and a phone number where you can be reached.)

or

•••the 14-week spring session of my ongoing CREATIVE NONFICTION workshop, which begins Sunday, April 27. This time around we'll be reading book-length essay collections and memoirs (about one per month) instead of working from a coursepack, so the workshop will be especially fruitful for those who are working on memoir projects, book-length projects, or essay series (though writers working on individual pieces will also find room here). The course fee of $150 does not include the (2-3) books, which I'll be sending information about via email after registration. I'll provide info about where to get them used and/or locally. Those who have not attended a previous session of this workshop will need to pay in advance to hold a spot; returning writers can pay at the first meeting. After this session, we'll break for the month of August and then come back in September. Sunday nights, April 27-July 27, 7-9 PM. (To register, or for more information, email me. Please note that this workshop will not be running on Thursday nights at the Davis Art Center as listed in their catalog.)

__________________

REDOING THE FAÇADE LIKE A CHRISTO SHROUD
—Tom Goff

Dairy clouds, heavy cream
no wind has yet whipped this

spring. The cow god presides
over the mainly black grass-

eaters south of Highway 50.
Shoots are green, life is good, yet

north of 50, the trenches, backhoes
& bulldozers in equal number to those

grazers. Is all this well or unwell,
or a powdery mix of both? Milk-white also

alongside the road, Kaiser Permanente
Folsom, under a plastic shroud,

conceptual piece by Christo. They must be
redoing the façade. What the hell for?

Before, the building looked good enough,
or, let’s say, gray enough, a patient’s

face. Distance leaves it hard to determine
what gives, what goes. Either

this is the bulge that says the bedsheet’s
just been tugged over the late one’s head,

or the fitted sheet showing how now
the bed’s been emptied

—a shape, a vacancy, a silence. Still the cars
all around, though, friends

numb at bedside in chairs, their minds
still issuing tides that swell or slip back on ebb.

___________________

—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

The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series.

Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!

Keep A Small Purse

St. Patrick's Chapel
Photo courtesy of Fotosearch

HER ANXIETY
—William Butler Yeats

Earth in beauty dressed
Awaits returning spring.
All true love must die,
Alter at the best
Into some less thing.
Prove that I lie.

Such body lovers have,
Such exacting breath,
That they touch or sigh.
Every touch they give,
Love is nearer death.
Prove that I lie.

__________________

This week in NorCal poetry:

•••Monday (3/17), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Blake More at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Blake More resides along the tree, ocean, and character-lined vistas of the not-so-lost Mendocino coast. Engaged in many creative expressions, Blake’s work spans the spectrum from poetry, fiction, to non-fiction, to plays and performance pieces, to theatrical costume and mixed media functional art pieces, assemblage sculpture and wildly painted poetry art cars. The author of three full-length books (New Age Anonymous: 12 Steps for the Recovering New Ager, The Photon Energy Diet, and How To Heal Your Headache Naturally) and five books of poetry (Lingua Franca, Late-Eve(all) Woman In Paradise, I Scribble; Therefore I Am, postcards from the sun, and godmeat), Blake’s work has also appeared in magazines and journals worldwide (including Utne Reader, Yoga Journal, Alternative Medicine Digest, Japan International Journal, Nippon View, Tokyo Today, and Tokyo Time Out). Her original solo performance pieces and ensemble plays have appeared on streets and stages in New York, Tokyo, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Los Angeles, Marin, Sonoma, and the Mendocino coast. She has worked with the Oakland East Bay Symphony, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the Bay Area Video Coalition, The Marsh Theater, The Arena Theater, Gualala Arts, California Poets In The schools, Laughing Squid, KZYX Radio, KTDE Radio, SF Liberation Radio, and Radio Amsterdam. She coordinates a monthly poetry series and an annual poetry and jazz event on the south coast of Mendocino County. Blake’s newest book, godmeat (Beatitude Press, January 2008), is a collection of poetry, prose and color artwork and includes a poem movie compilation DVD. To learn more about godmeat, go to www.godmeat.com/. To explore Blake’s many other creative endeavors, please go to her website: www.snakelyone.com/.

•••Thursday (3/20), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured readers and open mic before and after. Info: 916-441-3931.

•••Friday (3/21), 7-8 PM: Poetry in the Hills Poetry Reading at the Event Center at Raley's in Placerville, 166 Placerville Dr. (take the Forni exit off of Hwy 50 and go north; Raley’s is about a mile down the road). Call 530-902-4591 for info. Featured readers are James Lee Jobe and Taylor Graham. An open mike follows. There is no charge. Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada, and also helps her husband (a retired wildlife biologist) with his field projects. Her poems have appeared in International Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, The New York Quarterly, Poetry International, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere, including the anthology, California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Heyday Books, 2004). Her latest book, The Downstairs Dance Floor (Texas Review Press, 2006), was awarded the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. She has two chapbooks from Rattlesnake Press and currently serves as a columnist for Rattlesnake Review. James Lee Jobe has been published in Manzanita, Tule Review, Pearl, and many other periodicals. His poems are also included in The Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems; Jewel of the Valley: A California Anthology; and How to be This Man: The Walter Pavlich Memorial Anthology. From 1994-1999, Jobe was the editor and publisher of One Dog Press, a poetry monthly. He also edited the quarterly, Clan of the Dog. Jobe has four chapbooks published; the most recent is What God Said When She Finally Answered (Rattlesnake Press).

•••Also Friday (3/21), 7:30 PM: Los Escritores Del Nuevo Sol presents An Evening of Poetry: Bilinguish & Y Preguntas, a reading by Jim Michael and Zheyla Henriksen. La Raza Galeria Posada, 1024 22nd St., Sacramento. $5 or as you can afford. Info: 916-446-5133 or www.larazagaleriaposada.org.


Bed of Roses Love Sonnet Contest

JoAnn Anglin sends us this note from Garrison Keillor: It's time for another poetry contest on "A Prairie Home Companion" and we've decided to make it a sonnet contest and to hold it on April 12, read the best entrants on our live broadcast from New York, and invite our audience — at home and at the theater — to vote a winner. We'll accept rhymed or unrhymed fourteen-line sonnets. We think they should be love poems, but love of what, who's to say. Absolutely must be original. Must be submitted by Friday, April 11, at midnight Central Time.

* Submission Form >> http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/features/lyrics/2008/form/

* Rules and Guidelines >> http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/features/lyrics/rules.shtml


Gold Rush Writers Conference May 2-4

The third annual Gold Rush Writers Retreat, featuring some good workshops with Karen Joy Fowler, Antoinette May, and more in the Leger Hotel in Mokelumne Hill will be held from May 2-4. Karen Joy Fowler’s award-winning short stories have been anthologized again and again. Learn the story behind her best seller, The Jane Austen Book Club, which has been made into a movie. Or study novel writing with Antoinette May, author of Pilate’s Wife, a historical saga translated into 17 languages. But this is only the beginning! There will be workshops in memoir, poetry, flash fiction, romance fiction, self publishing, computer research, short stories, novel writing and much, much more—plus a picnic supper in a Victorian garden, dinner at the historic Hotel Leger and a pool-side brunch! All yours for just $135! Info: www.goldrushwriters.com or toni@antoinettemay.com/.

Manzanita's Monika Rose says: This is a valuable conference, priced reasonably, with a friendly atmosphere. If you haven't signed up yet, you might want to do that, as there is a price break for early birds. The price goes up at the end of this month, so sign up now and STRIKE IT RICH.

___________________

GOOD-BYE TO THE FLOWERCLOCK
—John Haines

The hour belonged to hemlock
and nightshade; all around me
the dayflowers perished,
the garden I planted in my flesh
and watered with my blood.

The hour was wound tight
under the bark of the birch tree,
in the ice of the streambed,
and lay like an iron shadow
on the sundial I wore as a heart.

It was time to push away
the four walls of the years,
to go to the end of the path
and go beyond...

The flowerclock whirled
in the darkness, all its petals
flew off, and the stem
swung hollow and broken
like a blade of straw.

___________________

SHEPHERD'S PURSE
—John Haines

Poverty Weed or Beggar Tick,
some days in the field
are leaner than others.

Let the stalk be strong,
the flowerhead high
and the seedbox full—

November like a tax collector
will come to the poor,
the cut and the shaken,

with nothing to save
but their paper mittens
and a straw whistle.

In a time of hard money
keep a small purse,
spend little.

Be sure to have more
than one heart,
and you may survive.

__________________

—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

The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series.

Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!