It came into her mind, seeing how the snow
Was gone, and the brown grass exposed again,
And clothes-pins, and an apron—long ago,
In some white storm that sifted through the pane
And sent her forth reluctantly at last
To gather in, before the line gave way,
Garments, board-stiff, that galloped on the blast
Clashing like angel armies in a fray,
An apron long ago in such a night
Blown down and buried in the deepening drift,
To lie till April thawed it back to sight,
Forgotten, quaint and novel as a gift—
It struck her, as she pulled and pried and tore,
That here was spring, and the whole year to be lived
through once more.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
__________________
FIRST LOVE
—Stanley Kunitz
At his incipient sun
The ice of twenty winters broke,
Crackling, in her eyes.
Her mirroring, still mind,
That held the world (made double) calm,
Went fluid, and it ran.
There was a stir of music,
Mixed with flowers, in her blood;
A swift impulsive balm
From obscure roots;
Gold bees of clinging light
Swarmed in her brow.
Her throat is full of songs,
She hums, she is sensible of wings
Growing on her heart.
She is a tree in spring
Trembling with the hope of leaves,
Of which the leaves are tongues.
___________________
Welcome, Spring—a whole 'nother year, yes? Thanks to today's poets, and to Claire J. Baker for Today's LittleNip.
This weekend in NorCal poetry:
•••Fri. (3/20), 2-3- PM: CSUS Festival of the Arts presents Kathryn Cowles in the Library Gallery, California State University, Sacramento, 6000 J Street.
•••Friday (3/20), 7-8 PM: Poetry at Raven's Tale features Celtic Poets Rebecca Morrison, Jeanine Stevens, Brigit Truex, and Charlene Ungstad. A short poetry open-mic follows (signup before the featured readers). Raven's Tale bookstore is located at 352 Main Street, Placerville. Free.
•••Friday (3/20), 7:30 PM: The Other Voice, sponsored by the UU Church in Davis, is honored to present two prize winning poets: Julia Levine and Gillian Wegener, who will read in the library of the church located at 27074 Patwin Road. Julia Levine has won numerous prizes for her poetry, including the Tampa Review Poetry Prize for her full-length poetry collection, Ask; the Anhinga Poetry Prize and bronze medal for her first collection, Practicing for Heaven; a Discovery/The Nation award; the Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize from Nimrod and six nominations for a Pushcart Prize. She is published in numerous journals and anthologies and lives and works in Davis. Gillian Wegener is the author of The Opposite of Clairvoyance, published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2008. A chapbook, Lifting One Foot, Lifting the Other, was published by In the Grove Press in 2001 and she was awarded top prizes by the Dorothy Sargfenta Rosenberg Foundation in 2006 and 2007. She has been published in numerous journals, including Runes, English Journal, americus review and In the Grove. Wegener works as a junior high English teacher in California's Central Valley and lives in Modesto. Refreshments and Open Mike follow, so bring a poem or two to share.
•••Friday (3/20 and 3/27), 8-10:30 PM: Poetry Jam at Sacramento’s new and hot Spoken Word venue, THE UPPER LEVEL LOUNGE (Located inside of Fitness Systems Heathclub, by Cal State Skating Rink). Two back-to-back Friday Nights in a venue that also has a VIP lounge and a beverage area. Open mic, too. $5; 26 Massie Ct., Sacramento (exit Mack Rd. East to Stockton Blvd, left on Massie). Info: 916-208-POET (T-Mo).
•••Sat. (3/21), 2-3 PM: CSUS Festival of the Arts presents Elizabeth Cross in the Library Gallery, CSUS.
•••Saturday (3/21), 8:30 AM-4:30 PM: Spend a day learning how to enrich K-12 education through the arts for free! Educators, administrators, artists, and parents are invited to the ninth annual CSUS/Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Council Arts Resource Faire at CSU Sacramento in the University Union. Free parking is available in Parking Structure II. The Arts Resource Faire is a free one-day event for K-12 teachers and student teachers in the Capital region. You can choose from 72 workshops on integrating arts into the classroom. Selections include hands-on workshops on storytelling and children’s literature, African American Dance, sessions in printmaking, puppetry, collage, theatre, music and more.You can see details of the offerings and preregister for the event at http://www.sacmetroarts.org/other-programs-and-resources.html/. Info: Xochitl @ 916-566-3991.
•••Sat. (3/21), 6-8 PM: You are invited to stop by the Cozmic Café on Main Street in Placerville during the month of March to see the photography exhibit, Friends & Neighbors: Mexico, by Janis Arnell and Irene Lipshin. The show includes images from the state of Michoacán, where many of their students lived before coming to the United States. In addition, please join them on Saturday, March 21 for a Third Saturday Artwalk reception at the Cozmic Café from 6-8 PM.
•••Sat. (3/21), 7-9 PM: Underground Books Poetry Series (every third Saturday) presents Lolita Moore and Jane Guireman. Underground Books, 2814 35th St. (at Broadway), Sacramento. Open mic.
•••Sat. (3/21), 4-6 PM: Women's Writing Salon (Men welcome!). Spring Celebration reading of poetry and prose penned by six foothill women writers: Charity Bryson, Judy Crowe, Heather Donohue, Kathryn Finn, Ann Keeling, Eleanore McDonald. Coffee Town, 134 S. Auburn St., Grass Valley. Free.
•••Sunday (3/22), 11 AM-1 PM: El Camino Poets invites you to join them for a mini-workshop at the Ethel Hart Senior Center, 27th and J Sts., Sacramento. Please bring 10 copies of your poem to share and have critiqued. Come join us for tea and an audio presentation of a famous 20th-century poet.
•••Monday (3/23), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Troy Jollimore and Brandon Cesmat at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Troy Jollimore is Associate Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Chico, and author of the poetry collections The Solipsist, published by Bear Star Press in November 2008; Tom Thomson in Purgatory, which was selected by former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins for the 2005 Robert E. Lee & Ruth I. Wilson Poetry Book Award and won the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry. He has poems in current or forthcoming issues of The Walrus, Hayden’s Ferry Review, MARGIE, and McSweeney’s. He has written essays and book reviews for publications including the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, Truthdig.org, The Believer, and the Poetry Foundation website, and is one of four thinkers featured in the Richard Dawkins DVD, Voices of Reason.
Brandon Cesmat is the author of Driven into the Shade (Poetic Matrix Press). Cesmat began his writing career as journalist and won several San Diego Press Club awards. After earning his MFA from San Diego State University, he switched to creative writing and won San Diego Book Awards in both poetry and fiction while also working as an educator for California Poets in the Schools (CPITS) and Cal State University San Marcos. He is also the poet-vocalist in the performance ensemble, Drought Buoy. As a member of California Poets In The Schools, Cesmat edited Classrooms of Poets, an anthology on the efficacy of bringing living writers into K-12 classrooms. He also designed CPITS' state-wide program, Laureates in Training (CPITS-LIT).
_________________
THE TENTATIVE NOD
—Donald R. Anderson, Stockton
Wild and crazy ride
across country roads, early morning,
the fish a-jumping upstream,
the birds vibrant in foliage.
The rocks glistening clean.
And you,
in halter-top and French braids,
chastening the fish for being too eager.
It's the break time,
and we have to get back to work.
The circus calls us, in serious suits
and juggling ballpoints,
electric show across wide-screen TVs,
and the ready-made career
to make as much as we always wanted.
But I want now
just to make love under the trees,
and see the waves up our thighs,
splashing.
You're splashing.
Simply splashing.
___________________
Last year I went to The Circus and Other Atrocities
held in downtown Sac to protest Barnum and Bailey,
known for coining "A 'sucker' is born every minute"—
for foolish people paid them to see animal torture
not even that far from arenas of pre-Christian Rome
Circuses now just beat the animals "behind the scenes"
so audiences think that elephants or chimps like to "dance"
or horses just somehow magically learned how to prance
just as the tiger happily jumps through a flaming hoop
without being whipped, poked with hooks or revoked food
and stuff outlawed to do to household cats and dogs
Yet people who penalized dog-fighters like NFL player Michael Vick
and enacted ordinances against Mexicans immigrants fighting chickens
ironically go to animal circuses which they find humorous
But the "Atrocities" show featured volunteer human performers
who showed they were far more interesting than animals
including rock musicians with fire-eating belly dancers,
a lady in a cage wearing nothing but "tiger" body paint
and comic strip writer Dan Pirarro of "Bizarro"
—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento
___________________
THE SOUND OF RAIN
—David Allan Evans
Of all the secret places
to take a woman,
give me the condemned
ice house just off the
kill-floor of Armour's,
eight floors high,
and give me the sound of rain
on its tin roof.
It's dark inside,
nobody is around, and
there's a wooden bench.
And then give me Lurleen.
She is the hotter secret.
I'm half crazy about her
shiny rubber apron,
red bandana,
and how here wide sheath
of knives on her sagging belt
glitters like the Missouri,
I always imagine the rain's
skeleton fingers tapping
on that tin roof,
and us holding on to each other
in the condemned dark of Armour's.
Lurleen can't fool me.
The apron, bandana and knives
never did hide beauty from me.
___________________
Today's LittleNip:
I sense that we may be newborn
spirits at any moments in time,
if we have the courage.
—May Sarton
_________________
—Medusa
SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:
Rattlesnake Review: The new Snake (RR21) is out! The issue is now available at The Book Collector, and contributor and subscription copies will go into the mail this week and next—or send me four bux and I'll mail you one. Next deadline is May 15 for RR22: 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; let us know if your submission is for the Review or for Medusa, or for either one.
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. Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or write to me and I'll send you one. Free!
NEW FOR MARCH: Rattlesnake Press is proud to present a new chapbook from Norma Kohout (All Aboard!!!); a littlesnake broadside from Patricia Hickerson (At Grail Castle Hotel); and a new issue of Rattlesnake Review (the Snake turns 21)!
COMING IN APRIL: Wednesday, April 8 will be our FIFTH ANNUAL BIRTHDAY PARTY/BUFFET at The Book Collector, featuring a SpiralChap of poetry and photos from Laverne Frith (Celebrations: Images and Text), a littlesnake broadside from Taylor Graham (Edge of Wildwood), and Musings3: An English Affair, a new blank journal of photos and writing prompts from Katy Brown. That’s at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM.
And April 15 is the deadline for the second issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick. Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing, to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be over 18 years of age to submit. Copies of the first issue are at The Book Collector, or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
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, or any other day!): 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.......!
_________________
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.