How Can I Reach the Sea?

POET'S OBLIGATION
—Pablo Neruda

To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or harsh prison cell:
to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the rumble of the planet and the foam,
the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,
the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,
and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.

So, drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea's lamenting in my awareness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation,
I may be there with an errant wave,
I may move, passing through windows,
and hearing me, eyes will glance upward
saying "How can I reach the sea?"
And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and of quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing,
the grey cry of sea-birds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea
will make their answer to the shuttered heart.

(Translated from the Spanish by Alastair Reid)

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com 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.)

Last of the Moonshine

THIS FALL MOON, OCTOBER 2004
—Margaret Ellis Hill, Wilton

Watch her blink
to reveal the sienna eye shadow—
an actress giving me
a slow-motion lesson in seduction.

She slices the sky on a set path,
returns to a stark stare that merely
brightens the night. I wrap
my sweater tighter and head home.

_______________________

THE PERIGREE MOON
Arcata, California; December 1999
—Ann Wehrman, Sacramento

Midnight blue sky swells rich and dark;
stars glow.
My hands, wiser than my fears,
open the door.

I step out tonight in my robe,
drawn by the last full moon of the century.
From my porch,
I taste the sea, just a few miles away.
The rare balm of the air caresses my skin.
I gaze up into a star-filled night
even more beautiful than Van Gogh's.

The moon, full at perigee,
shines in silver clarity,
anointing my exhausted nerves.

I breathe deeply,
surrounded by the twinkle of planets and stars,
and thank God for the beauty of this moment,
this universe,
this night sky with a full moon.

_______________________

Thanks, Peggy and Ann!

•••Today (Saturday 5/6) there will be a Think Postcard workshop at the Center for Contemporary Art on 1519 19th St., Sac., 3 pm. Info: www.sacculture.com or 916-566-3986.

•••Tomorrow (Sunday 5/7): Families, couples, individuals—all are welcome this coming Sunday at 6 pm to create artistic postcards at the last PoemSpirits gathering until October. The current Sacramento Poet Laureate Julia Connor is the feature, followed by this fun creative activity—one of two dozen workshops being held in April, May and June as part of the mail-art project, Think Postcards. (More info on this project can be found at http://www.sacculture.com/grants_poet.htm, website of the Sacramento Arts Commission.) PoemSpirits will provide postcards, stamps and other materials and tools; you are invited to bring personal mementos, lists, scraps, found items, etc., as you wish, to add to your creation. They will meet in the Lounge/Foyer of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, 2425 Sierra Blvd., Sac. (2 blocks north of Fair Oaks Blvd, between Howe and Fulton Avenues). No fee. Snacks available. All welcome. Info: Tom Goff or Nora Staklis, 916-481-3312; or JoAnn Anglin, 916-451-1372.

•••And tomorrow is the last day of the SPCA Book Sale to honor its 40th Anniversary: more than 10,000 new and used books at Marketplace at Birdcage, next to Longs Drugs in Citrus Heights. 10 am-8 pm today, 11-6 Sunday.

One last moon poem:

TIDAL LOCK
—Amy Whitcomb, Sacramento

The full moon
calls out,
arrested in suspension,
obeys its masters,
the tides—
the pull is distant
and persistent.

Tonight, I tuck in
to the forces
of the universe,
taking comfort in
tidal lock.

Always the same side
facing us;
On the night sun
rests one cloud
and two pairs of eyes.

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com 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.)

Moonkiss

MOONKISS
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

Press your butt against

rolled up car windows, singing:

kiss my shiny moon.

_______________________

lol, as the young'uns say! Rhony certainly does put things into perspective about all this mooning around. Still, the give-away continues: send Medusa (kathykieth@hotmail.com) one (or more) of your moon poems by midnight tonight and receive a free copy of Todd Cirillo's new rattlechap, Everybody Knows the Dice Are Loaded, to be released at The Book Collector on Weds., May 10 at 7:30 pm.

Coincidentally, Rattlesnake Press will be releasing a littlesnake broadside, Tulip Stem, from Rhony Bhopla that same night. Here is another of her poems, only slightly more refined.... :-)

ANEW
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

A break in a nerve
is like hot starving flesh

Mimics the beckoning sex addict
who walks in circle around hot repulsive women

Arms dive, sensually and misshapen
lacking continuity, floating in a hiss

Still managing a new start
out of blissful inconogruence.

________________________

Thanks, Rhony! Rhony is a Sacramento Poetry Center Board Member and Editor of Bliss, Journal of Erotica.

If you go to poetrymagazine.org online, you log onto the website for Poetry. However, if you log onto poetrymagazine.com—that's dot-COM—and scroll down, down, down, watching the left side of the screen, you'll come upon a hidden treasure—five poems by our Taylor Graham in Poetry Magazine! Check it out!

Finally, two Mexican poets to help us celebrate Cinco de Mayo:

THE WASHERWOMAN
—Veronica Volkow, Mexico

She feels her hands, scabrous as fish,
blind fish striking against the rock,
incessantly against the rock for years and years;
she watches the night pierced with eyes,
humid, slippery glances,
the mute faces shifting, disappearing,
brilliant glances of girls,
the dazed look of exhausted mothers.
The day ends and people return to their houses
and water runs from the faucet monotonously as a song,
the water has lost the shape of pipes,
lost the memory of its mountain source
and has pounded out its course,
besieged by obstacles
like the feet, like the eyes, like the hands.
She looks at shadows people drag along,
shadows on the walls, corners, the streets,
fugitive ink that marks the beaten roads,
desperate roads, laborious,
looking for only, perhaps, a fidelity.

(Translated from the Spanish by Forrest Gander)

________________________

THE KEY OF WATER
—Octovio Paz, Mexico

After Rishikesh
the Ganges is still green.
The glass horizon
breaks among the peaks.
We walk upon crystals.
Above and below
great gulfs of calm.
In the blue spaces
white rocks, black clouds.
You said:
Le pays est plein de sources.
That night I dipped my hands in your breasts.

(Translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bishop)

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com 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.)

Many Moons

MOSQUITO MOON
—Dawn DiBartolo, Sacramento

predator to prey
the moon is haunting.

the dark side,
perfect half

at its apogee,
holds my heart

like a hand,
squeezing

and squeezing
to revive.

willing to be haunted,
i lean into the night,

suckle at the darkness
because it feeds

while my eyes seek light,
perfect half

at its perigee
calls to me

by my perfect name ~

i never learned
to recognize it.

_______________________

Thanks, Dawn! Dawn DiBartolo will receive a free copy of Todd Cirillo's new rattlechap, Everybody Knows the Dice Are Loaded, to be released next Weds., May 10. Send me one of your moon poems (kathykieth@hotmail.com) by midnight this Friday (5/5) and receive your own copy of Todd's book.

Sacramento poet Kathleen Lynch currently has a poem ("Canned Food Drive") posted on the Poetry Magazine website (www.poetrymagazine.org). Congrats, Kathleen!

Poets Bei Dao, Danyen Powell, Ilya Kaminsky, and Susan Kelly-DeWitt read and discuss their work tonight (Thurs., May 4) at Poets for Peace at the San Francicso Main Library Latino/Hispanic A, Main Library Latino/Hispanic B, 100 Larkin St. (at Grove) in San Francisco, 6-7:30 pm.

Also tonight (5/4): Poetry Unplugged at Luna's, 1414 16th St., Sac., 8 pm.

Also tonight (5/4): Prize-winning poet, translator, and essayist Jane Hirshfield will read from 7-8:30 p.m. as part of Sutter’s Literature, Art, and Medicine Program (LAMP) Author Series. She will answer questions and sign books as part of the reading on the first floor of the Sutter Cancer Center, 2800 L St., Sac. The program is free and open to all.

Today!! is the deadline to RSVP for the Poets & Writers Literary Roundtable on Thursday, May 11 from 10:30am to Noon at HQ: Headquarters for the Arts (25th & R Sts., Sac.). The meeting will provide a forum for dialogue and exchange of ideas between a diverse group of presenters, presses, and writers. Previous P&W Roundtable gatherings have been an excellent opportunity to network, brainstorm and collaborate with others from around the region. Anyone with an interest in the literary arts is encouraged to attend. Those interested in doing so need to contact P&W program assistant Jamie Fitzgerald (jfitzgerald@pw.org) by May 4 (today!).

Spiralchapper (The Quality of Light) and Rattlesnake Review Marketeer-in-Residence Katy Brown sends us a gaggle of moon poems:

MOONSHADOWS
—Katy Brown, Davis

Faint Pleiades and bold
Polaris hang overhead
watching the less constant
moon roll from horizon
to horizon.

I fill my lungs with
moonlight.

In honeyed air,
the cricket chirps
the temperature under
silver lilies:
time marked by
shifting moonshadows
cast on dark grass.

_______________________

PETROGLYPH
—Katy Brown

My mother’s face is on the shadowed moon tonight.
Thirteen years after laying her to rest, she comes—
rising on the golden sphere—
drifting above a dark skyline on the near-full surface.

Distant now as she was in life, she watches:
a petroglyph drawn with indirect light on the airless moon,
her enigmatic gaze neither warm nor harsh.
What calls her to this autumn sky tonight?

________________________

THE LANGUAGE OF THE NIGHT
—Katy Brown

The night pours moonlight
on the murmuring sea,
slips soft shadows under
charcoal rocks and silver driftwood.

The concrete moon
flat as a spotlight
illuminates clouds
and sparkles on the sand.

On nights like this the land calls
to creatures from the deep;
calls to them with the
mournful solo of the foghorn;
calls up creatures with silver eyes
glowing with phosphorus
whose phantoms have always been
swimming in our dreams.

_______________________

Thanks, Katy!

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com 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.)

Still Mooning

THE MOON FROM HERE
—Colette Jonopulos, Eugene

sweet globe of sugar
edges eaten away

spun by some unlikely
god, female, dressed

in blue like Mary
crystals on her apron

the creation larger
than even she estimated

and dark on one side
like anything worth

tasting, like what you’d
take in your mouth

expectantly, the whole
of it slowly dissolved

_______________________

Thanks, Colette! Click on the Tiger's Eye link (to the right) to see what's up with The Tiger (A Journal of Poetry). Colette will receive a free copy of Todd Cirillo's new rattlechap, Everybody Knows the Dice Are Loaded, to be released next Weds., May 10. Send me one of your moon poems (kathykieth@hotmail.com) by midnight on Friday and receive your own copy of Todd's book—before it comes out, even! Such a deal!

Two items to add to this week's calendar:

•••Tomorrow night (Thurs., 5/4), Rattlechappers Susan Kelly-DeWitt and Danyen Powell will read in San Francisco at the Main Library (Larkin St.) with Bei Dao and Ilya Kaminsky, 6 pm.

•••Sunday (5/7): Families, couples, individuals—all are welcome this coming Sunday at 6 pm to create artistic postcards at the last PoemSpirits gathering until October. The current Sacramento Poet Laureate Julia Connor is the feature, followed by this fun creative activity—one of two dozen workshops being held in April, May and June as part of the mail-art project, Think Postcards. (More info on this project can be found at http://www.sacculture.com/grants_poet.htm,website of the Sacramento Arts Commission.) PoemSpirits will provide postcards, stamps and other materials and tools; you are invited to bring personal mementos, lists, scraps, found items, etc., as you wish, to add to your creation. They will meet in the Lounge/Foyer of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, 2425 Sierra Blvd., Sac. (2 blocks north of Fair Oaks Blvd, between Howe and Fulton Avenues). No fee. Snacks available. All welcome. Info: Tom Goff or Nora Staklis, 916-481-3312; or JoAnn Anglin, 916-451-1372.

In other news: Go online at www.AlamedaCountyFair.com to get information about poetry entries for the Alameda County Fair, which are beautifully displayed. (First, locate the "Exhibit Calalogue" and then check the "Fine Arts" section.) Applications to enter your poetry must be submitted to the fair by May 13th. Blanche Abrams is coordinating the poetry for the Fair this year; questions may be directed to her at blancheabrams@sbcglobal.net after 5/11. You must be a California resident to enter, and at least 18 years of age.

Deadline for Snake 10 is the 15th. Taylor Graham tells me that she received several "Time" poems yesterday, and she reminds folks to keep responding to her Snake 9 challenge for poems about "time"—ones that play with time, or manipulate it. Less than 26 lines, please, and send them to piper@innercite.com or to Graham, Box 39, Somerset, CA 95684. Please put "Fun Poetry" on the subject line or envelope.

Meanwhile, I have two VYPERS on my desk which I shall shoo out the door in time for the May 10 reading at The Book Collector. Come hear Todd Cirillo and Song Kowbell release their books that night, plus receive free VYPERS and Rhony Bhopla's new littlesnake broadside, Tulip Stem. More about all these, soon.

More moonshine, this time from Tim Kahl. Fasten your seatbelts..........

THE ASSEMBLAGE OF THE MOON
—Tim Kahl, Sacramento

The assemblage of the moon begins with the ascent
from a high cloud, the toppled marble of Athena’s temple
in tow. Tool talk among the laborers quickly gets serious;
the engineers grow restless calculating positive energy flow.
They endlessly debate its capture. First of all, they stress,
the dragon hide must be stretched over the bamboo cage.
From the sacred peaks of the Andes comes rockfall and
stacks of sacrifice bundles left for Illimani. Dead coral can be
substituted for bone, serving as fence and flagpole.
Pipes dribble the milky white brood of the ant queen into
the lunar seas. Wires are run for the networks to broadcast
the greatest hits of apes in entertainment. An old miner
whose son had left to follow his moonlight muse
charged the heat of the surface would prove
the rumbling of a wicked attitude below. Those dead lakes
shining in the backwash of the sun, like the dead birds
he had seen in Spokane. The moon had become more parts woman,
fewer parts man. The jungle tribes called it Mother of Grasses.
They cared less if it were made of fat or cheese.
The sky disk could reveal the way home for cranes,
gone so long since the smoke of wood fires blackening winter skies
over medieval cities led them astray. But where is all
the missing carbon released into the atmosphere since then?
A class of specialists might descend into the tunnels of the moon
to retrieve it all. A single man could go down there to repair what
he’s seen, the mysterious beat of the moon’s heart, almost bursting.
Man has built it, fallen in love with it to the extreme,
enough to let himself be deceived by what he’s done, this,
his embarrassment after orgasm.

Thanks, Tim!

________________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com 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.)

Twice—A Blue Moon

WHAT I ATE ON THE MOON
—Jane Blue, Sacramento

Dust. I ate dust for lunch.
White dust with a taste of ash.
I ate moss from the dark side.
I lived on the moon as a child.
It is a stone I hold in my hand.
Girls pray to the moon. I
prayed to the moon and the stars.
When I ate I thought of a day
I was not born. Sun and moon
stand in the sky and don’t meet.
Like me and Dad. Men and
wo-men. Woe to men. Moon
pulls tides. I am tide. I was
a girl, strange one who bleeds.
Now I am old. Bruise
takes the place of the flow,
floods my skin, pink and green.
A lump in my leg prods me
each day. Says I am here.
Pain. A seed, hard and gem-like
that tells me: Here I will stay.
I will be your son.

(From The Persistence of Vision by Jane Blue, Poet’s Corner Press, 2003)

________________________

Sorry about the pun in the title of today's post; Jane Blue was kind enough to send two moon poems in response to yesterday's call for them, and I just couldn't ignore the Blue Moon thing. Send Medusa your moon poem by midnight on Friday and receive a free copy of Todd Cirillo's new rattlechap, Everybody Knows the Dice are Loaded, which will be released Weds., May 10 at The Book Collector.

Books! (1) I've been mentioning the SPCA book sale: more than 10,000 new and used books at Marketplace at Birdcage, next to Longs Drugs in Citrus Heights. Runs every day this week through Sunday, May 7: 10 am-8 pm weekdays and Saturday, 11-6 Sunday. (2) Today The Sacramento Bee lists PaperBackSwap.com as a resource for trading paperback books online, including poetry. I haven't tried it, so I can't personally vouch for it, but we can check it out. Books are free; the shipper pays the postage and gets credit for another book.

And (3) Saturday is Free Comic Book Day, in which millions of comic books will be given out at retailers across the US. Info: www.freecomicbookday.com for a seller near you. Lest you wrinkle your nose, keep in mind that it is the comic book industry that keeps Medusa and the rest of the Snake empire in business. :-)

Deadline for Snake 10 is two weeks from yesterday, the 15th. Taylor Graham reminds folks to keep responding to her challenge for poems about "time"—ones that play with time, or manipulate it. Less than 26 lines, please, and send them to piper@innercite.com or to Graham, Box 39, Somerset, CA 95684. Please put "Fun Poetry" on the subject line or envelope.

TG sent Medusa a moon poem, too. She says that both she and Medusa seemed overly-preoccupied with snakes. I say it's The Edge—poetry (and other things) with fangs. Poets are clearly intrigued with danger and with the edge of the envelope—why else would they engage in such a risky business as poetry?

MOON SNAKES
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

At night she hears the ticking
like a kitchen timer for a soft-
boiled egg the way her husband likes it

as he grunts behind the news-
paper open to yesterday’s statistics,
ticker-tapes and series standings.

The Moon, full round in her black nest
of stars, stares through the window-
screen; hums mosquito-whine or

is that the fridge that sings
in the dark to its grade-A jumbos
in their flat-gray carton?

Or the wall-clock ticking repetitious
cycles, like it’s keeping count
of breakfasts, kisses, years.

Maybe that’s what a Moon-
snake sounds like, as it swims
inside its egg, testing the slick

curved inside of its silver shell.
And then, the sliver-crack
in that perfect full.

_______________________

Thanks, TG!

Here's Jane Blue's other moon poem. Jane is working on a rattlechap to be released in November:

THE VISITOR
—Jane Blue, Sacramento

Up on Ione Road the moon hung a lacquered disk
above a hill opposite where the comet would appear
patches of water toward sunset reflecting in the fields
like something alien, a pool of mercury or a similar
element unknown on earth. We heard crickets
and the occasional moo of an invisible cow, a growl
close that startled us; and there was the sweet-
pungent smell of native grasses at nightfall
as over our shoulders the moon began to be eaten.
Sky darkened in the west, the comet winked sideways
and in binoculars its bright head and long tail
began to come clear, a visitor from another time—
not even in time as we know it, light years away
so silent, so unforthcoming, I wanted to put salt
on its tail to keep it in my grasp but we had to go back
the diminished moon chasing us, the comet beside us
there—in front of us—on my side, on your side
then lost in the neon of McDonald’s, Burger King
then found again in our own neighborhood. We
showed it to Gene gaping in the middle of the street
at the eclipse. I went in, to bed, never saw the moon
come back from its destruction; it’s morning now, birds,
azure sky, I’m writing this to continue to believe.

________________________

Thanks, Jane!

One final note: I'm sure most of you have heard about the passing of Victor Selinsky. I've been holding off on mentioning it because Pearl has been very much in need of privacy, but today the obituary is in The Bee. Victor's death was very sudden; those of us who were at Berkeley Poets' Dinner in early April saw him there, full of his usual vitality and good humor and looking forward to a showing of his art that evening. Thank you, Victor, for all your contributions to the artistic community. And our hearts go out to Pearl in this difficult, difficult time.

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com 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.)

Moonstruck (& Po-Events 5/1-7)

XXXV. "The moonlight behind the tall branches"
—Fernando Pessoa

The moonlight behind the tall branches
The poets all say is more
Than the moonlight behind the tall branches.

But for me, who do not know what I think—
What the moonlight behind the tall branches
Is, beyond its being
The moonlight behind the tall branches,
Is its not being more
Than the moonlight behind the tall branches.

_______________________

But as Pessoa says, poets all say the moon behind the tall branches is so, so much more. Send Medusa one of your poems about the moon before midnight on Friday, May 5, and receive a copy of Todd Cirillo's new rattlechap, Everybody Knows the Dice are Loaded. This is a sneak peek, because the book hasn't even been released yet! Todd Cirillo and Song Kowbell (Lick Your Wounds and Want Again) will be officially releasing their chapbooks on Wednesday, May 10 at The Book Collector, 7:30 pm.

A wee note about submissions to Medusa: this blogsite is the only Snake publication that accepts previously-published work, but it is very important that we credit the previous publisher. So please let us know where your lovely poems first appeared! To ignore the poem's previous success(es) is a huge disservice to the perspicacious editor/publisher who first discovered it.

Rattlechapper (and Interviewer-in-Residence) JoAnn Anglin writes: I am taking the class at Cache Creek Nature Preserve. At [the last] meeting, we were warned to be careful to stay on the paths, as the staff was seeing instances of rattlers out sunning and procreating. Of course, we all went out hoping to see some of this, but no luck! Maybe next week. Yes, JoAnn, tis the season of Rattler procreation, as May will bring two issues of VYPER, one each of Snakelets and Rattlesnake Review, a broadside by Rhony Bhopla, and chapbooks from Todd Cirillo and Song Kowbell. By May 31, I'm gonna need a cigarette...

B.L. Kennedy and Bill Pieper have put together a Sacramento Literary History Tour, complete with printed map (and, yes, an actual tour that ends with a reading) for the Sacramento State College of Continuing Education. See yesterday's Sacramento Bee Metro section for an article and picture of the first of these tours; further ones are planned for May 10 and Sept. 23. Info: 916-278-4433. B.L. Kennedy will also be releasing his latest rattlechap, Setich Manor Poems, on June 14.

Robbie Grossklaus, Poetry Now editor, is looking for help with the Sacramento Poetry Center's monthly publication that means so much to NorCal poets. If you think you can pitch in, contact him at dphunkt@mac.com. "Help" means anything from typing to set-up, to the calendar, to assembly and mailing.

Here follows this week's events: let me know about additions/corrections/embellishments (I suspect there are more events; I just haven't heard about 'em yet):

•••MAYDAY! Poems needed by TODAY for Snakelets, the journal of poetry from kids 0-12, and for VYPER, for ages 13-19. Send 'em to kathykieth@hotmail.com.

•••Also today (5/1): Gail Entrekin will be reading at the Sacramento Poetry Center, HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.), 7:30 pm.

•••Thursday (5/4): Poetry Unplugged at Luna's, 1414 16th St., Sac., 8 pm.

•••Also Thurs. (5/4), Rattlechappers Susan Kelly-DeWitt and Danyen Powell will read in San Francisco at the Main Library (Larkin St.) with Bei Dao and Ilya Kominsky, 6 pm.

•••Also Thursday (5/4): Prize-winning poet, translator, and essayist Jane Hirshfield will read from 7-8:30 p.m. as part of Sutter’s Literature, Art, and Medicine Program (LAMP) Author Series. She will answer questions and sign books as part of the reading on the first floor of the Sutter Cancer Center, 2800 L St., Sacramento. The program is free and open to all. LAMP participants are familiar with her work: Hirshfield’s poems, “Optimism” and “The Poet” are included in LAMP’s first anthology, Poet Healer, published in October 2004 and used as writing prompts in the weekly Sutterwriters program. What might be most relevant to women and members of the Sacramento nursing community is Hirshfield's work as a translator of lost or forgotten writings by women. Hirshfield’s collection, Women in Praise of the Sacred: Forty-Three Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, spans the centuries from 2300 B.C. to the early 1900s and includes the work of 70 female poets from many cultures, spiritual traditions, and social classes. Info: Chip Spann, Director, LAMP, 916-454-6802, or spannc@sutterhealth.org

•••Saturday (5/6) there will be a Think Postcard workshop at the Center for Contemporary Art on 1519 19th St., Sac., 3 pm. Surely you know by now what this project is, but for info, check www.sacculture.com or 916-566-3986.

•••Sunday (5/7): Families, couples, individuals—all are welcome this coming Sunday at 6 pm to create artistic postcards at the last PoemSpirits gathering until October. The current Sacramento Poet Laureate Julia Connor is the feature, followed by this fun creative activity—one of two dozen workshops being held in April, May and June as part of the mail-art project, Think Postcards. (More info on this project can be found at http://www.sacculture.com/grants_poet.htm,website of the Sacramento Arts Commission.) PoemSpirits will provide postcards, stamps and other materials and tools; you are invited to bring personal mementos, lists, scraps, found items, etc., as you wish, to add to your creation. They will meet in the Lounge/Foyer of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, 2425 Sierra Blvd., Sac. (2 blocks north of Fair Oaks Blvd, between Howe and Fulton Avenues). No fee. Snacks available. All welcome. Info: Tom Goff or Nora Staklis, 916-481-3312; or JoAnn Anglin, 916-451-1372.

•••And every day this week, there's the SPCA Book Sale to honor its 40th Anniversary: more than 10,000 new and used books at Marketplace at Birdcage, next to Longs Drugs in Citrus Heights. Runs through Sunday, May 7: 10 am-8 pm weekdays and Saturday, 11-6 Sunday.

_______________________

#31 (from Astrophel and Stella)
—Sir Philip Sidney

With how sad steps, O Moon! thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What may it be, that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;
I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace,
To me that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit?
Are beautires there as porud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

________________________

MOON, FLOWERS, MAN
—Su Tung P'o

I raise my cup and invite
The moon to come down from the
Sky. I hope she will accept
Me. I raise my cup and ask
The branches, heavy with flowers,
To drink with me. I wish them
Long life and promise never
To pick them. In company
With the moon and the flowers,
I get drunk, and none of us
Every worries about good
Or bad. How many people
Can comprehend our joy? I
Have wine and moon and flowers.
Who else do I want for drinking companions?

(Translated by Kenneth Rexroth. Su Tung P'o lived between 1037-1101, but check out those enjambments!)

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com 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.)