LISTENING
—William Stafford
My father could hear a little animal step,
or a moth in the dark against the screen,
and every far sound called the listening out
into places where the rest of us had never been.
More spoke to him from the soft wild night
than came to our porch for us on the wind;
we would watch him look up and his face go keen
till the walls of the world flared, widened.
My father heard so much that we still stand
inviting the quiet by turning the face,
waiting for a time when something in the night
will touch us too from that other place.
___________________
Headed for L.A.?
•••Saturday (6/14), 10 AM-6 PM: If you’re going to be in Los Angeles this weekend, the fourth annual Los Angeles Black Book Expo (LABBX) will be held Saturday from 10 AM until 6 PM, with a two-hour after-party featuring networking and live entertainment at the Ahmanson Senior Center, Exposition Park. Touted as best Black book expo west of the Mississippi, the Los Angeles Black Book Expo originated in 2004 to celebrate the written word, promote literacy and to showcase new and established authors, storytellers, spoken word artists, children's book authors, emerging writers, publishers, booksellers, editors and book reviewers local and nationwide.
The Black Book Expo will hold book signings and lively panel discussions, with topics about publishing, and topical issues based on genre and how to effectively market your work through media. There is a spoken word venue, "Merilene Murphy's Spoken Worlds" including poetry readings with featured artists, plus the first annual LABBX Youth Poetry Fest with participants competing for a free computer as a grand prize. The Children's Literary Zone will present children's book authors, storytellers and the first annual LABBX Young Authors Forum with guests Brandon White and young filmmaker Ben Foster, who appeared on the Montel Williams Show. Interactive contests will be held throughout the day for the public to win prizes, such as a scavenger hunt and raffle prizes throughout the day. Confirmed authors appearing at LABBX: Alretha Thomas; Dr. William D. Wright, author of Crisis of the Black Intellectual; Frederick Williams and Patryce "Choc'Let” Banks; Maxine Thompson and Bruce George, Co-Founder of The Def Poetry Jam and founder of The Bandana Republic; Erica Martin and Pamela Samuels-Young. Featured performers for the Spoken Worlds program include bestselling author Terry O'Neal and Sacramento’s own twelve-time slam champion, Terry Moore; Philadelphia's Master Griot duo Quiet Rage; Sardonyx Jade; and the hosts of the venue, the Poets Jazz House. Performing in the after-party is singer Wendy Alane Wright.
General event information including author and exhibitor applications are available on www.labbx.com or by calling 323-385-7103. Detailed information on all festival activities posted in the LABBX website. The physical address for the LABBX is PO Box 44600, Los Angeles, CA 90044. Volunteers are welcome to assist the LABBX committee. Sponsors for LABBX 2008 are as follows: KPFK 90.7, L.A. Watts Times, 626 Art Gallery, Copy City. General admission to the Los Angeles Black Book Expo is free.
Also this weekend:
—William Stafford
My father could hear a little animal step,
or a moth in the dark against the screen,
and every far sound called the listening out
into places where the rest of us had never been.
More spoke to him from the soft wild night
than came to our porch for us on the wind;
we would watch him look up and his face go keen
till the walls of the world flared, widened.
My father heard so much that we still stand
inviting the quiet by turning the face,
waiting for a time when something in the night
will touch us too from that other place.
___________________
Headed for L.A.?
•••Saturday (6/14), 10 AM-6 PM: If you’re going to be in Los Angeles this weekend, the fourth annual Los Angeles Black Book Expo (LABBX) will be held Saturday from 10 AM until 6 PM, with a two-hour after-party featuring networking and live entertainment at the Ahmanson Senior Center, Exposition Park. Touted as best Black book expo west of the Mississippi, the Los Angeles Black Book Expo originated in 2004 to celebrate the written word, promote literacy and to showcase new and established authors, storytellers, spoken word artists, children's book authors, emerging writers, publishers, booksellers, editors and book reviewers local and nationwide.
The Black Book Expo will hold book signings and lively panel discussions, with topics about publishing, and topical issues based on genre and how to effectively market your work through media. There is a spoken word venue, "Merilene Murphy's Spoken Worlds" including poetry readings with featured artists, plus the first annual LABBX Youth Poetry Fest with participants competing for a free computer as a grand prize. The Children's Literary Zone will present children's book authors, storytellers and the first annual LABBX Young Authors Forum with guests Brandon White and young filmmaker Ben Foster, who appeared on the Montel Williams Show. Interactive contests will be held throughout the day for the public to win prizes, such as a scavenger hunt and raffle prizes throughout the day. Confirmed authors appearing at LABBX: Alretha Thomas; Dr. William D. Wright, author of Crisis of the Black Intellectual; Frederick Williams and Patryce "Choc'Let” Banks; Maxine Thompson and Bruce George, Co-Founder of The Def Poetry Jam and founder of The Bandana Republic; Erica Martin and Pamela Samuels-Young. Featured performers for the Spoken Worlds program include bestselling author Terry O'Neal and Sacramento’s own twelve-time slam champion, Terry Moore; Philadelphia's Master Griot duo Quiet Rage; Sardonyx Jade; and the hosts of the venue, the Poets Jazz House. Performing in the after-party is singer Wendy Alane Wright.
General event information including author and exhibitor applications are available on www.labbx.com or by calling 323-385-7103. Detailed information on all festival activities posted in the LABBX website. The physical address for the LABBX is PO Box 44600, Los Angeles, CA 90044. Volunteers are welcome to assist the LABBX committee. Sponsors for LABBX 2008 are as follows: KPFK 90.7, L.A. Watts Times, 626 Art Gallery, Copy City. General admission to the Los Angeles Black Book Expo is free.
Also this weekend:
While you're in The Book Collector:
While you're down there picking up your free copy of the latest Rattlesnake Review, be sure to get a free Cosumnes River Journal, too, from Cosumnes River College. In it you'll find SnakePals James Lee Jobe, Taylor Graham, and Jeanine Stevens, as well as plenty of other wonderful poetry and prose.
__________________
TROUBLESHOOTING
—William Stafford
On still days when country telephone
wires go south, go home, go quietly away into
the woods, a certain little brown bird appears,
hopping and flying by starts, following the line,
trying out each pole.
My father and I, troubleshooting for the telephone
company back then, used to see that same bird
along old roads, and it led us to farms
we always thought about owning some day.
When I see that bird now I see my father
tilt his hat and flip the pliers confidently
into the toolbox; the noise of my life, and all
the buffeting from those who judge and pass by,
dwindle off and sink into silence,
and the little brown bird steadfastly wanders on
pulling what counts wherever it goes.
__________________
EUROPE AND AMERICA
—David Ignatow
My father brought the emigrant bundle
of desperation and worn threads,
that in anxiety as he stumbles
tumble out distractedly;
while I am bedded upon soft green money
that grows like grass. Thus,
between my father who lives on a bed of anguish
for his daily bread, and I who tear money
at leisure by the roots,
where I lie in sun or shade,
a vast continent of breezes, storms to him,
shadows, darkness to him, small lakes,
difficult channels to him, and hills,
mountains to him, lie between us.
My father comes of a hell
where bread and man have been kneaded
and baked together. You have heard the scream
as the knife fell; while I have slept
as guns pounded on the shore.
____________________
FROM FATHER TO SON
—Emyr Humphreys
There is no limit to the number of times
Your father can come to life, and he is as tender as ever he was
And as poor, his overcoat buttoned to the throat,
His face blue from the wind that always blows in the outer darkness
He comes towards you, hesitant,
Unwilling to intrude and yet driven at the point of love
To this encounter.
You may think
That love is all that is left of him, but when he comes
He comes with all his winters and all his wounds.
He stands shivering in the empty street,
Cold and worn like a tramp at the end of a journey
And yet a shape of unquestioning love that you
Uneasy and hesitant of the cold touch of death
Must embrace.
Then, before you can touch him
He is gone, leaving on your fingers
A little more of his weariness
A little more of his love.
__________________
Be careful out there today! It's Friday the 13th! And please try to keep our friends to the north, the Skyway poets, in your thoughts as fire rages through their part of the state.
Shawn Aveningo writes: Thursday's LlittleNip reminded me of a little something I wrote for a friend going through a tough time.
HEARTS
—Shawn Aveningo, Rescue
By giving his heart to others, he hoped to keep it whole.
—Stephen Dobyns
The fragile heart
is fortunate,
for each time it
cracks, a ray of
light shines through.
The freshly fractured heart
pulsates with
new-found empathy
for its fellow broken man.
The mended heart
beats strongly
while its vessels
fill up from life's river
But it is the heart
that continues to give freely,
whose strength cannot
be surpassed.
__________________
Thanks, Shawn!
Today's LittleNip:
How do I work? I grope.
—Albert Einstein
___________________
—Medusa
SnakeWatch: What's Up With Rattlesnake Press
New in June: Day Moon, a new chapbook by James DenBoer, and Mindfully Moon, a littlesnake broadside by Carol Louise Moon, as well as Volume Three of Conversations, our third book of interviews by B.L. Kennedy, featuring Art Beck, Olivia Costellano, Quinton Duval, William S. Gainer, Mario Ellis Hill, Kathryn Hohlwein, James Jee Jobe, Andy Jones, Rebecca Morrison, Viola Weinberg and Phillip T. Nails. All this PLUS a brand-new edition (#18) of Rattlesnake Review! Now available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or (soon) from rattlesnakepress.com/. (Snake contributors and subscribers will be receiving their copies in the mail next week. If you're not among either of these, and can't get down to The Book Collector to get your free copy, send me two bux and I'll mail you one: P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.)
The Snake will be snoozing through July and August, leaving Medusa to carry on alone. Then on September 10, we shall burst back onto the scene with Ten Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell, plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review. (Deadline is August 15.) Meanwhile, look in on Medusa every day, and, for heaven's sake, keep sending stuff! The snakes of Medusa are always hungry...
Medusa's Weekly Menu:
(Contributors are welcome to cook up something for 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 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 favorite tools.
Thursday: B.L.'s Drive-Bys: Micro-reviews by our irreverent Reviewer-in-Residence, B.L. Kennedy. Send books, CDs, DVDs, etc. to him for possible review (either as a Drive-By or in future issues of Rattlesnake Review) at P.O. Box 160664, Sacramento, CA 95816.
Friday: NorCal weekend poetry calendar
Daily (except Sunday): LittleNips: SnakeFood for the Poetic Soul: Daily munchables for poetic thought, including short paragraphs, quotes, wonky words, silliness, little-known poetry/poet facts, and other inspiration—yet another way to feed our ravenous poetic souls.
And poetry! Every day, poetry from writers near and far! The Snakes of Medusa are always hungry.......!
_________________
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.