Joe
—Kasey Rae, Canyon Country, CA
(Technically, this was Friday's post, but due to blogspot.com's technical difficulties, it didn't get posted until near midnight on Friday. So let's call it Saturday's child...)
BLACK NOSE
—Tom Goff, Carmichael
O black nose, glistening, you fertile island
grassed over with short white fur, aswim
in beagle copper. I need only the sweet heat
from your near nostrils, the brush of long
sprouts and shoots of whisker we never
reckon among the lineaments of the dog,
to wake, lapped, as they say, in love, under
tongue. Soon I will rise and gaze
into the wellwater drink of the eyes of you, friend,
see, in slow focus, far, the long-may-we-wave
of your white-tip tail, knowing my Skaidra,
remembering my Cookie (what a shock,
to read in an Anne Stevenson poem,
the words of a character mourning her
Cookie: “I have not slept for weeping:
only a dog!”). But, in the twilight pre-day,
the black nose, the black nose of a dog,
you my dog, sniffing and chuffing, your olfactory:
remarkable, matter-of-factly.
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Thanks, Kasey! Kasey Rae is another voice who used to live in Sacramento that we haven't heard from before. Watch for more from Kasey in the coming days.
And thanks, Tom Goff, for the response to a recent "Nose" Seed of the Week, plus this wonderful tribute to David Humphreys:
FOR DAVID HUMPHREYS
—Tom Goff
We had such visions; we were poets, whos
and whatnots of a smaller than moving van
stuffed with verse furniture, shredded ottomans,
warped footstools to our evil empire, were refuse,
our seldom and few battalions. But this ruse
was cellophane. Our conceptions baby grand
and piano, but of substance to unhand
the ruthless from their weapons, if we chose,
and you were directly in the vanward spearpoint,
issuing books and chapbooks, broadside bolos
of wicked and razor elegance; your word-moves
were Zorro-y feints and thrusts, aimed as behooves
a shadowy-hatted soul, grand caballero,
swordsman who skewered fierce chakras at the fear-point.
This weekend in NorCal poetry:
•••Saturday (8/2), 11 AM: Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol monthly potluck and writing workshop at La Raza Galeria Posada, 1024 – 22nd St., Sacramento. For information about Escritores del Nuevo Sol, established in 1993, contact Graciela B. Ramirez, 916-456-5323, or see the website: http://escritoresdelnuevosol.com/. Los Escritores is for those who want a support group for their writing practice and who appreciate Chicano/Latino/Native American culture and arts.
•••Monday (8/4), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Mary Mackey and Brad Henderson at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Mary Mackey was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, and is related through her father's family to Mark Twain. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan. During the early 1970s she lived in the rain forests of Costa Rica. From 1989 to 1992 she served of Chair of PEN American Center, West. Currently, she is a professor of English and Writer in Residence at California State University, Sacramento. Her published works include 11 novels and 5 books of poetry and have sold over a million and a half copies. They have been translated into eleven foreign languages including Japanese, Hebrew, and Finnish. While her poetry has mainly centered around the traditional lyric themes of love, death, and nature, her novels have ranged from the Midwestern United States to Neolithic Europe, from comedy to tragedy. A screenwriter as well as a novelist, she has sold feature scripts to Warner Brothers as well as to various independent film companies. John Korty directed the filming of her original screenplay, Silence, which starred the late Will Geer and which won several awards. She has lectured at many places including Harvard and the Smithsonian. Additionally, she has contributed to such diverse print and on-line publications as The Chiron Review, Redbook, and Salon. She also writes comedy under the pen name "Kate Clemens". Her latest collection of poems is entitled Breaking the Fever from Marsh Hawk Press. [See also B.L. Kennedy's Conversations, Vol. 1 from Rattlesnake Press for an interview of Mary Mackey.]
Brad Henderson/Beau Hamel is a veteran neo-cowboy poet who teaches in the university writing program at UC Davis. As Beau Hamel he is the great-great-grandson of Henry "Hartman" Hamel, one of California's premier pioneer cattlemen. Beau grew up riding horses, herding cattle, and bucking hay on ranches in the Sacramento and Modoc valleys. His first book, Drums: A Novel achieved brief notoriety among rock music aficionados and also an endorsement from Guns N' Roses drummer Matt Sorum. He is also co-author of a collection of poems, Split Stock (John Natsoulas Press 2006), with Andy Jones, and they also co-host the Bistro 33 reading series in Davis. His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in a variety of journals and magazines including Squaw Valley Review, Dominion Review, the Southern California Anthology, Hayden's Ferry Review, California Quarterly, the Great American Pinup (online), and others.
Coming to SPC on Monday, August 11: Brad Buchanan and Wendy Carlisle.
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B.L.'s Drive-Bys: A Micro-Review by B.L. Kennedy
Lilies Without
By Laura Kasischke
93pp trade-paper, $14
Ausable Press
1026 Hurricane Road,
Keene, NY 12942
I just fell in love with the verse of Laura Kasischke. Her book, Lilies Without, Is one of the finest collections of poetry that I have had the opportunity to drown myself in during the past year. Here is a book where grace, horror, beauty and carnage co-exist. Laura Kasischke is the author of six previous collections of poetry, and if those collections come anywhere near the intense beauty that is displayed in these pages, then we are talking a major voice in the world of American verse. Check out the work of this fine poet and let her words cover your body with their plainspoken and lyrical comfort. It'll be a wise choice.
—B.L. Kennedy, Reviewer-in-Residence
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This week's Sacramento Bee Contest:
Sacramento Bee poet-in-residence Carlos Alcala exhorts us to send our poems about overproduction in home gardens to calcala@sacbee.com by Tuesday (include your name and city), and they'll print a few of them in the upcoming Home & Garden section.
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Finally, it behooves us to warn you that today is August 2, and the next deadline for submissions to Rattlesnake Review is August 15, a mere 14 days away! Send 3-5 poems, plus artwork, photographs, cartoons, cogent quotes—whatever you think might be of interest to poets everywhere—to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No cover letters or bios needed, but no simultaneous submissions or previously published work, please. RR #19 will be out in mid-September.
Taylor Graham is one of our regular columnists and regular contributors; here are three beautiful poems from her. Thanks, TG! (The first, a Ghazal, was a response to Joyce Odam's column in the last Rattlesnake Review.)
MUSIC GHAZAL
—Taylor Graham, Somerset
From the back of a pickup truck
they’re selling a lifetime of old LPs.
Flipping through tattered albums,
a man finds his childhood tune.
Mockingbird in the mulberry,
flutter of leaves, a stuck record.
Beethoven must have kept his music
in the shells of deaf ears.
A daughter outgrows the shoes
she danced in, last July.
The man considers Piaf, her face
on the jacket white against black.
Yesterday we let fly our music.
The air is full of arias and fugues.
What does a melody do
when we’ve forgotten the words?
These long summer evenings, father
and daughter, a parenting of song.
Tonight one star will set its needle
to vinyl above the full moon.
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RANDOM PARTICLE MOTION
—Taylor Graham
Is that my dog outside the window,
rummaging wild after a trace of squirrel?
Or, in the dim-before-light, is it
something left over from last night’s
dream? Or just my old eyes
playing tricks again?
How scent drifts, this early morning,
in mists and steam as the sun
peers through pines, igniting a leaf here,
a pebble there. My young dog
runs, nose-to-ground,
all four legs
as if in different directions
to catch the sift of particles
he pieces, one molecule at a time,
each with its microscopic
story. He races
to gather them all
before they dissipate
like dream, a mist of morning,
waves of light that strike
enigmatically
the retina of an aging
eye.
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A DARKER SHADE
—Taylor Graham
She comes on mosquito whine
disguising her voice.
It’s sunset.
I stand atop ceremonial granite
carved with snakes and suns,
listening for Miwok words
I wouldn’t understand.
Below, on the slope of canyon
coolness drains into bedrock-
mortars as twilight
passes purple into dark.
Where are the ghosts of cougar,
fox and bear?
Suppose some child-spirit
gave throat to a howl,
would I say it was coyote?
I stand so long, I’m lost
in darkness.
Is this her spirit
come to stand beside me,
help me safely
off the stone? She lets
me find my own way
home.
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Today's LittleNip:
What doesn't kill you makes you strong.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal.
—Leo Tolstoy
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—Medusa
SnakeWatch: What's Up With Rattlesnake Press
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 Thirteen Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell; #2 in Katy Brown's series of blank journals (Musings2: Vices, Virtues and Obsessions); 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 (sometimes): 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.......!
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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.