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!