TYPOS
—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines
(with apologies to Annie Menebroker and Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees”)
I hope that I shall never see
Another typo plaguing me!
A typo that fouls up the air
And causes me to tear my hair.
Typos are made by fools like me,
But only God can make us typo-free…
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Those of you who were at the Snake’s birthday party last Wednesday were shocked to realize that Ann Menebroker’s new book had been attacked by the typo-monster! I spent the next two days mourning (yet again) the loss of my perfection (!), only to find out that there were even MORE typos in the book than we thought! Anyway, I’ve set Master Proofers Jane Blue and Taylor Graham upon it, plus Annie and myself; it’s one of the most-proofed chapbooks ever! Those of you who got flawed copies (RattleChap Chapbook Series #39) are entitled to get the vastly-improved version #39.1. Just ask me and you shall receive it, free of charge.
The good news is, you now are in possession of collector’s items! Hang onto 'em! They will be valuable someday. Plus, they are precious souvenirs: reminders of Annie’s graciousness and sense of humor when she discovered the boo-boos at the podium.
The controversy does remain, however, about “fry the fish in the pain” vs. “fry the fish in the pan”. Some have begged Annie to leave it “pain”, a glorious Freudian poet-slip. But she demurs; "pan" it shall be in version #39.1.
___________________
This week in NorCal poetry:
•••Monday (4/14), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents the winners of their High School Poetry Contest. HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento. Open mic after. [Next Monday (4/21), SPC will present Sac City Ethnic Theatre.]
•••Wedsnesday (4/16), 9 PM: Bistro 33 Poetry Night in Davis presents John Boe. Storyteller John Boe has been featured at festivals (including the California Storytelling Festival and Picnic Day), on radio and TV (including ABC’s "20/20"), at clubs (often The Freight and Salvage in Berkeley), conferences, conventions, schools, and other venues. He is author of Life Itself: Messiness is Next to Goddessness and Other Essays, and co-author of Your Joke is in the Email: Cyberlaffs from Mousepotatoes. He is also a poet, painter, piano player, editor (of the journal, Writing on the Edge), award-winning essayist, and lecturer for the University Writing Program at UC Davis (where he was the first winner of the Excellence in Teaching Award). This event is free and open to the public, though many stories will not be suitable for children. The show starts at 9, but fans of Boe are encouraged to come early, for the Bistro 33 banquet room will fill to capacity for this performance. Poetry Night occurs on the first and third Wednesday of the month at Bistro 33, 226 F Street in Davis. An open mic follows the featured performer. Info: 530.756.4556 or event organizer Andy Jones at aojones@ucdavis.edu.
To review the recent California Aggie article on local poetry events and examples, see http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/312/.
•••Thursday (4/17), all day: Poem in Your Pocket Day: The Academy of American Poets launches the first annual national "Poem in Your Pocket Day". The idea is simple: select a poem and carry it with you (poem in your pocket) and unfold it with family friends and co-workers throughout the day. More details are available at their website: poets.org/pocket/. Also throughout the day, the largest selection of Poems-For-All booklets ever made available for distribution will be at The Book Collector (1008 24th St., Sacramento) for people to take and use as part of Poem in Your Pocket Day. Other activities during the day at the bookstore are in the works to help celebrate and promote this new national tradition.
•••Thursday (4/17), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento, presents B.L. Kennedy. Host frank andrick writes: Please join us this next Thursday to celebrate National Poetry Month at Luna's Cafe with Sacramento Poet, Legend, Instigator, Creator, and Poetry event host B.L. Kennedy. He is the man responsible for getting Sacramento Poetry out to over 4.5 million people via the third episode of the 3-decade-spanning Poetry Marathon. He has created, hosted, booked and closed down more poetry venues and series in just one of those decades than anyone else in Sac. BL holds three Poetry and Literature university degrees, studied under Allen Ginsberg and others at the Naropa Institute, and has been known to mentor younger poets by offering his services as an editor. He has been published in just about every local poetry venue possible (and probably many we've never heard of) in the span of his long publishing career. (Far too many books, chapbooks, and broadsides to mention, including two from Rattlesnake Press.) Along with Linda Thorell, BL brought to life I Began To Speak, a full-length feature movie documenting the history and poetic personae of some of the many people involved in almost 40 years of Sacramento’s literary history. Continuing in his mission to archive Sacramento poetry, BL and Rattlesnake Press are currently releasing five volumes of Conversations, an interview series featuring many of Sac's most important poets. BL is also the main book reviewer at Rattlesnake Review (including Medusa's weekly "B.L.'s Drive-Bys") and he is currently working on a manuscript featuring poems about Luna's Café, to be published by Rattlesnake Press in late October. Thursday’s event will be hosted by Special Guest Host Terryl Wheat. Open mic before and after the feature. No cover. Info: 916-441-3931.
•••Thursday (4/17), 7:30 PM: The Nevada County Poetry Series will be celebrating National Poetry Month by presenting "A Bite Out of the Sun", a reading with two of poetry's most notorious outsiders: frank andrick & R.D. Armstrong. Center for the Arts, the Black Box Theater (enter from Richardson Street). 314 W. Main St., Grass Valley. $5 general, seniors and students, and $1 for those under 18. Refreshments and open mic included. (530) 432-8196 or (530) 274-8384. R.D. Armstrong, aka Raindog, has published 14 chapbooks and three full-length collections of poetry; his most recent, Fire and Rain: Selected Poems 1993-2007, was released in April of this year. His poems are widely published and he is a sought-after performer on the Southern California poetry scene. With a laugh, Armstrong says of his poems, "No kids, no wife, no house, no new car—I am not exactly living the American dream. That is kind of what I write about." He is also the editor and publisher of Lummox Press, which produces the online Lummox Journal, the Little Red Book Series (currently at 55 titles) and several stand-alone titles, including: LAST CALL: The Legacy of Charles Bukowski. Beyond his poetry, Armstrong remains a sought-after Bluesman and a guitar afficionado. Check him out at www.lummoxpress.com/.
A Sac-Franciscan experimental mythologist whose work spans poetry, prose, story writing and telling; a Poet who loves mixing it up w/music and movies while still holding the solo voice high, frank andrick is the producer and host of “The Pomo Literati”, a two-hour spoken word program broadcast on KUSF San Francisco which features live reading performances, contemporary recordings, and archival rarities from pre-beat to post-modern. He also co-hosts Poetry Unplugged at Luna's, an open mic, featured-reader series and Sacramento News & Reviews’ People’s Choice for Best Open Mic Venue. frank creates word-driven, multi-media events and poetry/performance tours. He is the author of Soluna, a collection of his poems and prose, and two littlesnake broadsides from Rattlesnake Press: AOL (Aurelia Occultica Lamantia), and Home Is Where You Hang Your Wings. Check out the extensive interview of him in Conversations Vol. One from Rattlesnake Press.
•••Friday (4/18), 7:30 PM: Writers of the New Sun/Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol presents Two Poets, Bridging the River: Art Mantecón and James Den Boer. La Raza Galeria Posada, 1022 – 22nd St., midtown Sacramento. Cost: $5 or as you can afford. Art Mantecón, one of the founders of Escritores del Nuevo Sol, is known for his fertile imagination and writing elegance. This Davis resident has published articles, fiction, and poetry, and has hosted several reading series. He was also instrumental in fostering publication of Los Escritores’ anthology, Cantos y Cuentos: Voices of the New Sun.
James DenBoer has been published in many poetry books and chapbooks and has received numerous grants and awards, including ones from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Council on the Arts, the Carnegie Fund for Authors, the International Poetry Forum, PEN Center-New York, etc. His recent book, Stonework: Selected Poems, received the 2007 Walter Pavlich Memorial Poetry Award. His poem, "Black Dog", was read on radio by Garrison Keillor in January 2008, and he has another chapbook coming from Rattlesnake Press this June. He lives in Sacramento and will have copies of his publications available for sale.
Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol/Writers of the New Sun is a literary community, established in 1993 to foster and honor the literary arts of the cultures & traditions of Chicano, Native American and Spanish-language communities. The group has published an anthology, Voces del Nuevo Sol/Voices of the new Sun. Members write in English, Spanish, or both. Regular writing meeting is 11 AM on the 1st Saturday of each month. Info: 916- 456-5323. The public is welcome to all activities. Website: www.escritoresdelnuevosol.com/
•••Friday (4/18), 7 PM: Poetry at Wild Mountain (3rd Friday series formerly held at Our House Framing and Gallery in El Dorado Hills). Featured readers are Jeff Knorr and rattlechapper Tom Miner. An open mike follows. Wild Mountain Books and More (formerly Hidden Passage Books) is located at 352 Main St., Placerville. There is no charge for this reading.
•••Friday (4/18), 7:30 PM: Poems-For-All is pleased to welcome Charles Curtis Blackwell back to Sacramento. Presently a poet and performer in the Bay Area, Charles once graced the Sacramento scene with his exceptional readings. He comes with a new book of poems, or rather, two vignettes of poetry in one book: Is, The Color of Mississippi Mud and Lou Next Door. The book's publisher/editor, Vincent Kobelt, has also been invited to read.
•••Saturday (4/19), 11 AM-3 PM: Cache Creek Nature Preserve's Day for the Arts. Mark your calendars for this annual day retreat for artists and all creative practitioners in honor of Earth Day. This is a great chance to reconnect to the earth and find your way into some new work. Bring your yoga mat, your guitar, your paints, your notebook, or just yourself.
•••Saturday (4/19), 7-9 PM: Underground Books presents rattlechapper Brigit Truex plus Lori Jean Robinson, Sidney Singleton and Sean King. 2814 35th St., Sacramento (off 35th and Broadway). $3.00.
•••Saturday (4/19), 7:30 PM: Special Saturday reading at Sacramento Poetry Center, HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento: (Tim) John Amen and Brad Henderson.
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POETICS
—A.R. Ammons
I look for the way
things will turn
out spiralling from a center,
the shape
things will take to come forth in
so that the birch tree white
touched black at branches
will stand out
wind-glittering
totally its apparent self:
I look for the forms
things want to come as
from what black wells of possibility,
how a thing will
unfold:
not the shape on paper—through
that, too—but the
uninterfering means on paper:
not so much looking for the shape
as being available
to any shape that may be
summoning itself
through me
from the self not mine but ours.
__________________
THE PIECES OF MY VOICE
—A.R. Ammons
The pieces of my voice have been thrown
away I said turning to the hedgerows
and hidden ditches
Where do the pieces of
my voice lie scattered
The cedarcone said you have been ground
down into and whirled
Tomorrow I must go look under the clumps of
marshgrass in wet deserts
and in dry deserts
when the wind falls from the mountain
inquire of the chuckwalla what he saw go by
and what the sidewinder found
risen in the changing sand
I must run down all the pieces
and build the whole silence back
As I look across the fields the sun
big in my eyes I see the hills
the great black unwasting silence and
know I must go out beyond the hills and seek
for I am broken over the earth—
so little remains
for the silent offering of my death
__________________
GIVING UP WORDS WITH WORDS
—A.R. Ammons
Isn't it time to let things be:
I don't pick up the drafts-book,
I ease out of the typewriter room:
bumblebees' wings swirl
free of the fine-spun of words:
the brook blinks
a leaf down-bed, shadow mingling,
tumbling with the leaf, with no
help from me: do things let alone
go to pieces: is rescue written
already into the motions of coherence:
have words all along
imitated work better done undone:
one thinks not ruthlessly to bestir again:
one eases off harsh attentions
to watch the dew dry, the squirrel stand
(white belly prairie-dog erect)
the mayfly cling daylong to the doorscreen.
___________________
Today's LittleNip:
MORAL (Op. 2)
—Kenneth Fearing
Read, as the dreamer reads,
Only between the lines.
Everything else is indubitably
A misprint, a devilish misprint.
___________________
—Medusa
Here's Medusa's new weekly menu of features. Contributors are welcome to submit to any and all of these!
Monday: Weekly NorCal poetry calendar
Tuesday: Seed of the Week: Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—whatever might tickle somebody's muse. Pick up the gauntlet and send in your poetic results; and don't be shy about sending in your own triggers, too! 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.
Wednesday: HandyStuff Quickies: Resources for the poet, including whatever helps ease the pain of writing and/or publishing. Favorite journals to read and/or submit to; books, etc., about writing; organizational tools—you know—HandyStuff! Tell us about your favorites.
Thursday: B.L.'s Drive-Bys: Micro-reviews by our irreverent Reviewer-in-Residence, B.L. Kennedy
Friday: NorCal poetry calendar for the weekend
Daily (except Sunday): LittleNips: SnakeFood for the Poetic Soul: Daily food for poetic thought, including short paragraphs, quotes, wonky words, silliness, little-known poetry/poet facts, and other inspiration—yet another way to feed our ever-hungry poetic souls.
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SnakeWatch: News from Rattlesnake Press
New in April: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn's SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown's blank (well, not really) journal of photos and prompts, MUSINGS (For Capturing Creative Thought). All of these are now available at The Book Collector and will soon be available through rattlesnakepress.com.
Coming in May: Join us on May 12 for the release of Among Summer Pines by Quinton Duval; a littlesnake broadside, Before Morning, by Stephani Schaefer; and Volume Three of Conversations, our third book of interviews by B.L. Kennedy. That's at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM.
Also in May: Deadline for Issue #18 of Rattlesnake Review is May 15. Free copies of Issue #17 are available at The Book Collector, or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
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). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.