Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
NOVEMBER
—Margaret Ellis Hill, Wilton
The end of the year approaches
with dismal days that suggest
rain, something like tears held back
at funerals. Hours slip into winter.
Autumn’s fiery displays turn brown.
The chill in the air adds a somber tone.
Everything moves at slower speeds
as the world prepares for rest.
Yet, a similar thing happens in June.
Gray skies preclude bright days that try
to dampen marriages and graduations
that lean toward future, hope and summer.
However, even as Novembers ease
into quiet time, nothing continues to sag
the spirit more than the silence
of breath stilled one June night.
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Bistro 33 reading tomorrow night
•••Weds. (11/19), 9 PM: Poetry Night at Bistro 33 (226 F St., Davis) proudly presents “A Poetry of Lucid Insanity,” a performance piece featuring poets Arturo Mantecón and Gilberto Rodriguez with musical accompaniment by Dylan Morgan and Sheri Rodriguez. The event combines mime, dramatic interpretations and reading in order to personify and present the poetry of Antonin Artaud and Leopoldo Maria Panero.
“On Wednesday night, Antonin Artaud will emerge from the bardo state to add to the current situation of poetic language,” Gilberto Rodriguez says. “Only the insane poetry of Leopoldo Maria Penero has the trajectory to dispel their magic spells and inseminate a new myth.” Gilberto Rodriguez is a poet, playwright, musician, storyteller, and singer/songwriter. He is the founder of musical group, Diluvio, as well as the theatre group, Unheimlich. His plays have been performed in Sacramento and at the Cayuga Vault in Santa Cruz. His current projects include an on-going production of Antonin Artaud and his doubles, set to premiere in Santa Cruz in the spring of 2009.
Davis resident and poet Arturo Mantecón claims that translating the poetry of Spanish madman Leopoldo Maria Panero has been an exercise that has consumed him for several years. He has been featured at various poetry venues in Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Jose and around the Bay Area. He has also been published in several anthologies and journals.
Sheri Rodriguez currently serves as the costume designer, make-up artist and creator of music and soundscapes for Gilberto Rodriguez’s Unheimlich Theatre. She has performed solo and has also backed many of local poets with her skills in Tibetian bowls, bells, gongs, chimes and the Djembe drum. Currently, Rodriguez is crafting the new sounds of Unheimlich with fellow musician, Dylan Morgan.
Morgan has studied in New York with Milford Graves and recorded in San Francisco with saxophonist Sonny Simmons as a jazz drummer, and has participated in two U.S. tours with Chicago-based performance poet Daniel X. O’Neil as a cellist and musical director. In addition to being a musician, Morgan is also a painter, and has had exhibitions in Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere.
Poetry Night at Bistro 33, co-hosted by UC Davis faculty members Andy Jones and Brad Henderson, occurs on the first and third Wednesdays of every month beginning at 9 PM, with an open microphone at 10 PM. The event is free and open to the public.
Tuesdays in Truckee: Ongoing Creative Writing Workshops
Write. Connect with a writing community, generate new material, play with language and meaning, explore craft and form, and develop a writing practice in a creative environment. Learn to workshop your pieces in a supportive group. Karen Terrey, poetry editor for the literary arts journal, Quay, holds an MFA in creative writing and teaches creative writing at Sierra Nevada College. Publications in which her poetry can be found include Poet’s Espresso, Moonshine Ink, Rhino, Rattlesnake Review, and Sierra Nevada Review. For more info, see www.karenaterrey.blogspot.com/. That's Tuesday nights from 6:30-8 PM at the Teen Center on Donner Pass Rd., next to KidZone. Register at the Community Center, 10046 Church St., Truckee, 530-582-7720. Drop in for $20 per night or sign up for ongoing 4-week sessions for $72.
Soul-Making Literary Competition deadline is Nov. 30
Established in 1994, the Soul-Making Literary Competition (and its subsequent Awards Reading at the Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library, Civic Center) is a community arts outreach program of the National League of American Pen Women, Nob Hill, SF Bay Area Branch. There are 11 categories, including one for poetry, one for prose poetry, and one for young adult poetry (grades 9-12). Cash prizes for each category are $100, $50, and $25. For complete details visit www.soulmakingcontest.us. Deadline is November 30.
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THE YARD ORNAMENT
placed near the front door, remains
steps away from a garden of cosmos,
nicotina, geraniums and weeds.
My daughter dresses it ‘to the nines’
in changes to celebrate the seasons:
a bearded Santa, the diapered New Year Baby,
the Easter Bunny, Uncle Sam with a flag.
Here I am in the garden, laughing
(while admiring primroses and hollyhocks)
at this bilious pink plastic flamingo
standing tall in her current costume
as a green-haired, black-caped witch. Next
attire will honor the Thanksgiving turkey:
beard, wattles and snood complete
with a strap-on felt feathered tail.
—Margaret Ellis Hill
(using a line from the poem, “Here”, by Grace Paley)
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Thanks, Peggy Hill, for the poems today! Her Thanksgiving poem (and the season) inspired the Seed of the Week: Thanksgiving, but let's make it interesting. Send me a Thanksgiving poem and I'll post it; but send me a Thanksgiving etheree, and I'll mail you Katy Brown's new 2009 calendar, Beyond the Hill. What's an etheree? Another Margaret, Margaret Bell, who was featured in yesterday's Kitchen, has sent us four wonderful examples, and I think you can figure out the form from them. (If you can't, I'll explain it to you. Hint: count the syllables in each line.) This Seed of the Week has a deadline, though: to get your free calendar, your etheree(s) must be sent by midnight (e-mailed or postmarked) Monday, November 24. Addresses are below.
A word about forms and other "triggers" for poems: Every poem you write is in a form, even if it's free verse. And every poem you write has a trigger: an image, a thought, a word. If I get an image from inside my head, it's no different than receiving it as an "instruction" from a book or another poet or Medusa's Kitchen; I need to learn how to spin gold from that image. Who cares where it came from? Poets steal shamelessly and endlessly; it's a necessary skill for any artist.
Some people complain that writing to forms or triggers is like stuffing their poem into a girdle, but the truth is, every poem you write should go through some kind of similar "stuffing": some kind of ordering and paring down and organization, rather than just a free-write spilling of words onto the page without any later editing. Similarly with forms: I need to pay attention to the rhythm and order and sounds of every poem I write, whether I'm trying to do a sonnet or an etheree or free verse (which really isn't, after all, all that free; if it is, in my opinion, it becomes too prose-y).
So join in the party and write your responses to triggers, whether they are images or forms or assignments or your grandmother's bustle. Wonderful poems come out of these exercises, which are, in my mind, like playing scales. And you can never get enough exercise, right?
CATS
—Margaret E. Bell, Citrus Heights
In
velvet
slippers they
entered my home
and made me a slave
to their desires and needs.
They commandeered my special
chair, slept in my bed when they pleased
and made me play the role of doorman
in my own home. Sweet creatures these, my cats.
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ETHEREE ON JAZZ
—Margaret E. Bell
Jazz
tiptoes
to our ears
on a tightrope
dripping with sweet sap
from old musical trees
first planted by African
slaves and nurtured by all lovers
of creative sounds that touch our hearts,
surrounding us with rhythmic pulses, sweet.
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TO INSPIRE (AN ETHEREE)
—Margaret E. Bell
To
inspire
another’s
creativeness
is the worthy goal
of all great artists who
understand the importance
of using every talent God
has hidden within each one of us
to be mined like a precious vein of gold.
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REFLECTIONS
—Margaret E. Bell
We
see things
reflected
back to us on
many surfaces,
natural and man-made,
sometimes distorted by the
changing lights and shadows or the
tilting of the frame of mind which holds
our view of life before the lamp of truth.
__________________
Today's LittleNip:
Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment.
—Carl Sandburg
__________________
—Medusa
SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:
Rattlesnake Review: Deadline for the current issue (#20) has passed (it was Nov. 15); the issue is currently rattling around in the SnakePit and will be released at The Book Collector reading on December 10, then mailed to contributors and subscribers in mid-December. Next deadline is February 15: send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to include all contact info, including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of Medusa are always hungry!
New for November: Now available at The Book Collector, or from the authors, or (soon) through rattlesnakepress.com, or—heck—just write to me and I'll send 'em to you: a new rattlechap from Red Fox Underground Poet Wendy Patrice Williams (Some New Forgetting); a littlesnake broadside from South Lake Tahoe Poet Ray Hadley (Children's Games); our 2009 calendar from Katy Brown (Beyond the Hill: A Poet’s Calendar) as well as Conversations, Vol. 4 of B.L. Kennedy’s Rattlesnake Interview Series, featuring conversations with Luke Breit, Gail Rudd Entrekin, Traci Gourdine, Taylor Graham, Noel Kroeplin, Rob Lozano, Crawdad Nelson, Monika Rose, Will Staple, Mary Zeppa and nila northSun. And don't forget to pick up your copies of B.L. Kennedy's new SpiralChap of his poetry and art, Luna's House of Words, as well as the anthology of poets, art and photos, La Luna: Poetry Unplugged from Luna's Cafe, edited by frank andrick.
Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46: Snake Secrets: Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press (and lots of other places, besides!): A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process so as to make editors everywhere more happy, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published. Write to me and I'll send you one.
Coming in December: Join us at The Book Collector on Wednesday, December 10, for the release of a new chapbook from Danyen Powell, a littlesnake broadside from Kevin Jones, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#20)! That's at 7:30, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's.
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 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.
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 and in-between! 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.