Archives of
County Lines:
The Poetry of Sacramento
by
Bob Stanley,
Sacramento Poet Laureate, 2009-11
WEEK 20: January 25, 2010
KATHY KIETH
A musician, music teacher, music therapist, psychologist and poet, her work has been published in many journals, including Atlanta Review, California Quarterly, Main Street Rag, Möbius, Potpourri, Ekphrasis, PDQ, Poetry Now, Slant, and Tiger’s Eye. Kathy has also published four chapbooks: Night Full of Owls from White Heron Press, Keeping Time in the Clock Shop from PWJ Publishing, Why We Have Sternums from Rattlesnake Press, and Sex—For Animals from Rattlesnake Press.She was also nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize.
In the last six years, Ms. Kieth has published hundreds of Sacramento-area poets in her quarterly literary journal, Rattlesnake Review. She’s also selected and published about 50 chapbooks, organized readings, and supported venues by publishing special editions such as La Luna: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe (edited by Frank Andrick), and Keepers of the Flame – The First Thirty Years of the Sacramento Poetry Center (edited by Mary Zeppa, Kate Asche and Emmanuel Sigauke). Kathy has built a remarkable legacy of publications assisting poets and writers from all around the capital region. The scope of her work as an “enabler” for other poets is perhaps best displayed on her popular poetry website Medusa’s Kitchen. medusaskitchen.blogspot.com
With an endless supply of poems, photos, upcoming events, forty links to other poetry blogs and sites, and drawings by Sam the snake man, Medusa’s Kitchen is a site to explore, and most importantly, a great place for poets to submit poems. She encourages first-time writers: “Get your poetry, art, photos and announcements out to all the corners of the earth on a very frequent basis; the snakes of Medusa are always hungry, especially for NorCal poetry.” So don’t be shy; since poetry is for sharing, send yours to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.
These poems are from her upcoming chapbook from Tiger's Eye Press, Emily and the High Cost of Living, which will be released on February 10th, 7:30pm, at The Book Collector on 24th Street. Tiger’s Eye editors Collette Jonopulos and JoAn Osborne will also read at that event. A week later, Kathy will be releasing another of her free publications – the fifth issue of WTF – at Luna’s Poetry Unplugged, 8pm on February 18 at Luna’s Café, 1414 16th Street. Please enjoy the work of Kathy Kieth – poet, publisher, tireless and talented friend of Sacramento’s literary scene!
KATHY'S POETRY
When Things Get Too Tough,
Emily checks out of the café: dreams
of that pool in the forest where
weeping willows graze the water, where
the night birds sings at dusk and
crickets open their voices at
just about the same time: dreams
with dark eyes of cool shadows and
the scent of the blue hibiscus, of
long shafts of light like waterfalls that
reach down through the trees to
stroke her back: of moonlight and
nightingales and the bright eyes
of owls: cottony clouds: quilts made
of fallen leaves—all soft, sweet dreams
for poor, distressed Emily when
things get too tough at the café…
Like a Bubble
she perches
on the tip of
your finger: silver-
coated meniscus
embracing air like
fairy wings as she
perches
purses her lips
then tries to lift off
sighing and pouting
staring away at
some secret
space, some
deep, deep darkness
where you’re
simply not allowed…
She Leans on Her Coffin
—checks it for comfort: sizes up
its length (too short) and width (too
narrow): squints at the cheap wood
and faux lining, the tarnished brass
fittings: handle with a loose screw,
filigree chipped and crooked, scroll-
work amateurish and dull… She leans
on her coffin to assess its durability:
notes the stray creak and groan of
its ill-fitting joints: cites for future
reference the phone number of
the manufacturer. Finally, she
sums up her opinion of her future
in one single word: shoddy…
WEEK 19: January 11, 2010
JAMES LEE JOBE
Pulverized Diamonds is the title of James Lee Jobe’s online poetry journal. I wandered through the site for quite a while, and it’s a mineshaft of treasure. The writer posts a new insight, a new poem, every day – the kind of accomplishment that writers talk about, but don’t often do. A modest fellow, James would no doubt downplay what’s there. But take a look. In Diamonds there’s a sense here that poetry matters, that if we just pay attention to the sounds and sights around us, then we can live lives of fulfillment, and make a difference in the world. Not only does Jobe present his own poems there, and post them daily, but he provides links to the online efforts of dozens of other poets. You can start here, and follow a trail of poetry through the Central Valley, the foothills and beyond, that will have you reading and pondering for hours! Check it out at jamesleejobe.livejournal.com
James Lee Jobe has been published in Manzanita, Tule Review, Pearl, and many other periodicals. His poems are also included in The Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems; and How To Be This Man: The Walter Pavlich Memorial Anthology. From 1994 to 1999, Jobe was the editor and publisher of One Dog Press, a poetry monthly. He also edited the quarterly journal Clan of the Dog. Jobe has published four chapbooks, the most recent is What God Said When She Finally Answered, (Rattlesnake Press). He produce radio commercials in Sacramento.
James often has a serious message in his work, but he uses poetic techniques – repetition, rhythm, even rhyme, to lighten the blow. Sometimes his poems make us laugh or wonder at things, and sometimes they lure us into places we might not have planned on entering. Please enjoy the poems of poet James Lee Jobe.
JAMES' POETRY
Prayer for Poets
-for Lori Williams-
She will guide your hand and your heart, ink
to blood and back again, a soul of words
and music of language, a gift of muse
to bring you hope in the saying of all things.
She will protect you from the frights of shadow
and frigid midnights lonely and searching
for anything with meaning or hope;
Her hope shall be joyous and orgasmic.
She will sing your comfort in starlight
and summer breeze, warmth itself,
and in yourself a language will spin
like a dancer drunk with happiness,
and the words will come.
The words will come.
---
The War Museum Tour
Everyone keep moving, please. In this room
we keep all the legs blown off by landmines
in the war - no touching! These legs
are not preserved, that's why the smell
is so bad. We just keep the fans on
to blow the flies away. Questions? Yes,
there is a different room for arms,
but not for heads. We lovingly
present the heads for burial
by the families left behind. Besides,
what kind of museum would keep
a room full of heads? That would be sick.
Ok, let's move along.
---
James, What's That On Your Fingers?
Your body tastes of figs and olive oil,
and I am here to devour you, bite
after delicious bite. Your heart tastes
of the kindness of strangers
and of the faith that only a child knows.
I love that, so I'll eat your heart last,
holding it in my red-stained fingers.
---
WEEK 18: December 21, 2009
B. L. KENNEDY
It would be impossible to create a collection of Sacramento-area poets without including the poetry of BL Kennedy. Both prolific and intense, Kennedy has published poems, organized readings, and hosted events here since he moved here from New York in 1976. He put together the first Sacramento Poetry Marathon, and then created a second marathon after ten years, and a third one after twenty years. In 2006, BL co-produced (with Linda Thorell) a full length film about the Sacramento poetry scene entitled I Began to Speak, and for twenty-five years he produced the annual October in the Railroad Earth tribute to Jack Kerouac.
Kennedy continues to host readings at Luna’s café, and his new collection of poems, Neurosonnets, has just been published by Polymer Grove press, and is available at The Book Collector on 24th Street in Sacramento. I’ve included three poems from this new collection for this 2009 end of the year edition of County Lines.
Poet, artist and entrepreneur, BL Kennedy has worked tirelessly to “celebrate the beginning and evolution of one single community of poets.” In many ways, he has made sure that this region has its own legacy of poetry and poetic activity. Please enjoy this small sample of the work of BL Kennedy.
B. L.'S POETRY
From Neurosonnets
6
His eyes watch mine & move the past
Pass the pulsing blue light of the TV screen
Breathing scatological histories across the world
& talks extermination talks ideologies talks books
Talks telephone talks ocean talks earth talks Bronx
Talks Brooklyn talks end of America talks jive talks
Nonsense bop sonnets talks doom
Jew talks Black talks Catholic talks Johnny Carson
Talks Kabbalah talks Jazz talks
Horn Dog talks Hip Hop talks Monk talks Bird talks
Coltrane talks Ginsberg talks Waldman talks Blues talks
Native Bushman talks blank words talks monsters talks
Eichmann talks no mind talks to mine talks
74
From Mosque to the surface of the heart
It belongs to those who live
It is almost prehistoric
It saves the world with its silence
It is the steady drumbeat of truth
It talks melodies without doubt
It is the wise guy…strong for 1500 years
It is a satellite in search of a world
Around which to orbit…like Silver Surfer
It belongs to Dionysian rangers
It listens to you weep
It is psychedelic & passionate
it is the voice of Africa
It lives in your heart
75
And like in the movie
The evening star appears in the sky
It’s the first and brightest of the night
And I wish like all those who have wished
Throughout time
And I know that I will not live to watch it blossom
With temperance…fortitude and love
The evening star lives
Its wonders are kept in your heart and mine
Its lineage shines ‘cross the heavens
And does not stay hidden in clouds
Its brightness covers the world
And as we live our dreams
It appears majestic in midsummer sky
LINKS
For a SN&R retrospective article about the 25 years of October in the Railroad Earth, click here.
To see a Poetry Now interview with Kennedy and Thorell on the release of I Began to Speak, click here.
WEEK 17: December 7, 2009
JOHN ALLEN CANN
John Allen Cann plays with images and language to create new worlds where we can see ourselves in a new light. In “Spectral Thoughts,” the poet recasts an 18th century Japanese haiku master as an American trucker, so that
we might create something new,
surprise the sun?
Basho steadies the steering wheel of his semi
rolling across the blank wilds
of middle America.
Perhaps Cann sees himself as this traveler/poet, or perhaps like Wallace Stevens, he’s insisting that creativity is indispensible. Later in the same poem, talking about Humpty Dumpty, the poet reminds us, “only imagination/can make our eggman/whole again.”
These poetic flights are intellectual pursuit in Cann’s world; watching the sea is an “evening’s scholarship,” and he often uses landscape to reveal his thoughts, or at least the narrator’s thoughts. And while there are often references to scholars, philosophers, or poets of the past, the references are generally clear to the reader, and at times laced with humor, as in “If you’re a fraud/it’s hard not to be/afraid of Freud.” You’ll also notice that he likes to break lines and drop down or across the page, like William Carlos Williams.
BIOGRAPHY
One of Sacramento’s finest poetry scholars, (he studied at Cornell with A.R. Ammons), John wrote and published a number of books in the 1970s, and he has recently become more involved in the Sacramento poetry scene. He currently teaches English Composition at Cosumnes River College, and is also offering a class on American poets born in the 1930s, at the Room to Write School of Poetry on 25th Street. If you want to contact him about his work or want to know more about his poetry classes, you can find Professor Cann at email.
JOHN'S POETRY
IF THE MYTH FITS, WEAR IT
If the myth fits, wear it.
Why not clothe yourself in the fictive
to make yourself real?
The story will welcome you
as if it couldn't happen without you.
The path unfolds
just like someone telling you
their most crucial adventure.
You will dance to the music
of your own wandering,
you won't be thoughtless to the dwarf
who knows exactly what you need.
Courage will befriend you
in the thorny woods of uncertainty.
Now you'll anticipate the dragon
with great reverence,
only then can you do with it
what you must.
And if you should taste
a morsel of the dragon's heart
afterwards you'll understand
whatever the birds & beasts speak.
Without thinking of yourself
the kingdom shall be yours.
SOLITARY ON THE SHORE
Wisps still pale cherry
in the darkening azure,
the keen moon
just a bit above the trees
that edge the bluffs,
round as a perfect O---
opal whose beam
touches slick sand
ebb-moistened:
now its lavish dance begins
on the shift and slosh
of the tide’s
coming and going,
the air at the horizon
turns ash-pink.
Venus flicks on.
As the lunar disc arcs
across the dusk
its wavelight widens
torching the wavebreaks.
Ancient calligraphy
on the sea’s
ceaseless pages---
to divine the musings,
my evening’s scholarship.
SPECTRAL THOUGHTS
Is there a chance
we might create something new,
surprise the sun?
Basho steadies the steering wheel of his semi
rolling across the blank wilds
of middle America.
Humpty-Dumpty fell from the wall of logic
and only imagination
can make our eggman
whole again;
in dreams all the yardsticks
coil and jump.
It’s hard to circumnavigate
the sphere of things
if you’re too circumspect.
If you’re a fraud
it’s hard not to be
afraid of Freud.
How pliable do you like your truth?
Or, is it like white light
broken into different colors,
the prism of consciousness
disclosing various hues
all from the same beam?
I DREAM OF COLD MOUNTAIN IN DESOLATION
He stood on the other shore
across the jeweled waters
His long beard
white as the full moon
just above Ralston Peak
Finger to his lips
eyes crazy joyful
We listened a long while to the wind
tell its old story
over & over again in the ancient pines
Until a solitary cloud
drifted into the sky
& melted away in the dawn
WEEK 16: November 30, 2009
JIM MOOSE
You could chat with Jim Moose for a while and not find out that he’s a World War II veteran or a retired attorney, but you might be able to figure it out through his poetry. Jim uses regular rhythms and rhyme in his poetry – you can hear that classic lilt of iambic pentameter in much of his work. It’s bouncy and generally easy to follow. But Jim’s wide range of topics – old friends, war scenes, historical poems, mountain hikes and courtroom scenes – set him apart from most poets I know. Check out this selection of pieces from his new book Hotchpot – you’ll find humor and wisdom, sorrow and joy, and a unique look at the world in the poetry of James M. Moose.
BIOGRAPHY
Jim Moose, pere (James M. Moose) is a retired civil servant and Navy veteran of WWII, a graduate of UC Berkeley and its law school. He produced nothing in the way of literature, other than legal opinions and decisions, until he wrote his first poem after retiring in 1995. His poetry has been published in Susurrus, the Sacramento City College literary magazine, and he has recently self-published a collection of his poems he has entitled Hotchpot.
JIM'S POETRY
Reminiscence
I met a charming girl, and shortly moved away.
It was as though she’d evanesced; I neither saw
nor heard of her again. A thought of her, astray,
alit a time or two, then moved into the maw
of time’s recycle bin. All memory of her
was gone – for sixty years, at least – and then, by hap,
an anamnestic trick: a mental chorister
pronounced, “And now, your ken of Emalyn unwrap!”
She was a preacher’s kid, precocious, prim and plain
but not a Grundyist – a hayride proved her so.
She’d written in my yearbook in a friendly vein,
and it occurred to me that I could be her beau.
This shard reminds me, in my latter, happy lot,
that if I’d stayed, not moved, I’d be someone I’m not.
Oral Argument
A lengthy wait, in a snaking queue
of youngish lawyer-spectators,
with their several needs to watch,
to pass an elaborate security bar
(God Save This Honorable Court)
before entering the courtroom
to hear a functionary, finely-tuned
lay down for counsel, with apt
and market-tested humor and advice,
the rules for argument, before
the Court arrives (All Rise)
to hear their morning calendar;
a handsome courtroom,
wood-paneled and –pilastered,
a bench, raised and rampart-like,
fit for seven demigods,
and a ceiling almost out of sight,
designed to evoke awe and wonder
from all who enter here
to argue, or just to watch
the unrehearsed but stylized
ballet of question and response;
questions from the Court,
always interrupting counsel’s
argument and train of thought –
sometimes betraying a majestic
misunderstanding of the facts.
The Alpinist
I rose that day and climbed the lofty peak
with cloudy robes that filed the western sky,
and was exalted as I mounted there.
What was the potion there supplied to me?
What vasty notion filled my mind?
What strange vision was vouchsafed to me?
The granite rock beneath my feet rose up
and lifted me as if an ocean wave and I a
sleeping petrel resting on its bosom there.
The vastness of the sky enfolded me and
I was one with nature and eternity, and
knew I was a creature of the universe.
WEEK 15: November 23, 2009
CYNTHIA LINVILLE
Cynthia Linville’s poems blend images and personal story to create pieces that stay in the reader’s mind.
When the narrator of one of the poems encounters a lover from long ago, the conversation’s real, the setting is real:
"Yeah, I heard." And now
over greasy bacon and sticky
orange juice, no more
guilt.
The poet weaves detail and commentary together deftly in Nevermore, again as the narrator reflects on an acquaintance from the past:
Pasts like ours (filled with wooden crosses
and beatings in schoolhouses)
require a greater escape velocity
than other pasts do.
BIOGRAPHY
Cynthia Linville teaches English at California State University, Sacramento and serves as poetry editor of Poetry Now and managing editor of Convergence: an online journal and poetry and art (www.convergence-journal.com). She hosts the Second Friday Poetry Reading and her poetry has recently appeared in The Sacramento News and Review, The Sacramento Bee, Medusa’s Kitchen, and The Rattlesnake Review, Song of the San Joaquin, and WTF.
CYNTHIA'S POETRY
Omens
walking under a ladder
stepping on a crack
an owl looking in your window
your lover's ex coming back
stabbing yarn with two needles
spilling pepper or salt
letting milk boil over
not admitting fault
cutting your nails on a Friday
opening an umbrella in the house
seeing a crow in a dream
telling a friend your doubts
getting out of bed with your left foot
a rooster crowing at noon
13 sitting down at table
a total eclipse of the moon
leaving a rocking chair rocking
giving a lover a knife
saying goodbye on a bridge
dreaming of those gone from life
a mirror or condom breaking
a dog howling after dark
a broken clock that starts chiming
nursing a broken heart
Nevermore
(after Nevermore, O Tahiti by Paul Gauguin)
Staring off into the joy-suffused light
wearing your hair in long dark braids
you could have stepped out of a Gauguin painting
instead of my past –
26 years since the end of high school.
I disagree when you say,
“We are all refugees from the past.”
Pasts like ours (filled with wooden crosses
and beatings in schoolhouses)
require a greater escape velocity
than other pasts do. You nod
the sorrow in your eyes so deep
I lean in for a closer look
and see myself mirrored there
in this crazy light.
Your pupils open wider and wider
spilling into the deep brown of your irises
pulling me in.
Here you are on a Sunday morning
(after all these years)
eating pancakes at Carrows;
you whom I almost married
(the evidence must still exist somewhere:
bridesmaids dresses hanging in closets, cake
order, ring style, sanctuary reservations)
forcing remembrance
of the way-back-then-high-school me
when I wore my hair straight and brown, and
wore nylons, heels and lots of mascara;
when you and I held hands in church every Sunday and
rode around in your '68 (or was it a '67) blue
Mustang (1BADMTG), my name painted on the door.
forcing remembrance
of two Senior Ball portraits
each identical except for the embracing couples:
one of you and me,
one of him and her. He and I were in white
and would have looked so nice together,
whereas you and I almost clashed.
I remember wanting way-back-then to paste
he and I together into one photo
and throw you away. Funny how, even before the Ball,
he always wore white
in my mind, and eventually did rescue me
in his dirty yellow Pinto with the dented door
(I had to climb in through the window).
And here I am now, almost seven years later, eating my eggs.
You and I sidelong glance each other,
just sit, letting the tension build.
My hair is short and red now,
and I'm wearing comfortable black
(on my way to a backstage theatre job).
And he (whom I left you for all those years ago)
is here with me. You
(furniture store manager) still look the same,
and you sit with your blond Barbi doll wife and in-laws--
all wearing pastels, fresh from church.
After I've finished mopping up my egg yolks with english muffin,
I walk towards you; he leaves to pay the bill.
Forced smiles and hello-how-are-you-how've-you-been's:
then, "I married him last December."
And you, "Yeah, I heard." And now
over greasy bacon and sticky
orange juice, no more
guilt. And I leave you,
again.
WEEK 14: November 2, 2009
MARY ZEPPA
BIOGRAPHY
Mary Zeppa, a singer and lyricist as well as a poet and literary journalist, has been active in the Sacramento Poetry Center since 1981. A Member of SPC’s Board of Directors since 1982, she served as Executive Director 12/85-9/87 and was Co-Editor of Poet News 1984-1995. Zeppa, a founding Editor (1993) of The Tule Review, is also a literary journalist. Her interview "The Vision of a Single Person: Clarence Major and His Art" (Perihelion, 2001) appears in the 2002 University Press of Mississippi collection Conversations with Clarence Major; her interview ”Charles Wright on Eugenio Montale and Dino Campana” (Poet News, 1985) appears in the 2008 McFarland collection Charles Wright in Conversation.
Zeppa’s poems have appeared in a variety of print and on-line journals, including Perihelion, Switched-on Gutenberg, Zone 3, The New York Quarterly and Permafrost, and in several anthologies, most recently Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease (Kent State University Press, 2009). Zeppa is the author of two chapbooks, Little Ship of Blessing (Poets Corner Press, 2002) and The Battered Bride Overture (Rattlesnake Press, 2005).
Zeppa has also co-facilitated Poetry Workshops at Shriners Hospital (2002-2005) and volunteered in a 4th grade classroom at Jedediah Smith Elementary School (2001-2007). And she has been one-fifth of Cherry Fizz, a quintet specializing in loose and unlabeled a cappella music, for almost 20 years.
A 1996 recipient of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission Literary Fellowship in Community Arts and a 2008 recipient of a Fellowship at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Zeppa currently serves as SPC’s Principal Archivist. She is Executive Editor (Co-Editors Kate Asche and Emmanuel Sigauke) of Keepers of the Flame: The First 30 Years of The Sacramento Poetry Center (Rattlesnake Press) which is available at the Book Collector, or from the Sacramento Poetry Center at its Monday night readings.
MARY'S POETRY
Rodeo Shabbat
The rabbi tilts back his Stetson,
sweeps his silver-grey tallit
over one shoulder,
plants the heels
of his black cowboy boots
and it's soaring: his tenor, aloft
like a banner. They'd follow him
anywhere, tribe of this Friday night,
in their fringed leather jackets,
turquoise stars of David,
in the 10-gallon hats
they've eased over
their yarmulkes.
In Tucson, Arizona,
this temple remembers:
Rifka and Abraham shake out
their backbones for the bubbes
who went up in smoke. Some
who sway, who sing joy
in this radiant room, some
who clap hands to Shabbat Shalom!
could have been shadows at Dachau,
ghosts at Theresienstadt. Now,
their voices irradiate
darkness. Two
are waving their 10-gallon hats
for the pure joy of keeping G-d's rhythm,
on the pulse, on the pulse, on the pulse.
(Previously published in Poetry Now, June 2005)
Blessing what’s yet to be lost
Blessed be the cerebral cortex:
its bustle, its chatter, its crowd.
Blessed be the amygdala rocking
the curly-haired, dimpled, dead child.
Blessed be the spine that will hold us
to the task, to the thing that gets done.
Blessed be the life she’s forgetting,
my mother the obdurate one.
Blessed be the strength she remembers.
Blessed be the hay bales she tossed.
Blessed be the rib-cage rasp of the thin.
Blessed be our rattling embrace.
(Previously published in Switched-on Gutenberg,
Issue 15, October 2009)
In the garden of such Brussels sprouts:
Valiant and Jade Cross, Prince Marvel.
Tight, sweet buds, easy-to-pick
off their stalks where they grow
in their spiral arrays. Wild cabbage
tamed to a fare-thee-well, sliced down
by long knives, by scimitars, broad swords,
by Eloise with her Swiss Army knife
slicing them into my basket: a harvest
her husband won’t eat. But she and I!
How we’ll savor our braised sprouts with
mustard butter (Dijon, of course, salt and
freshly ground pepper. She whisks in
the mustard till smooth.) And he
can’t watch. It turns back time:
Ma’s smelly kitchen: all those
army-green, bitter, mushy globs
sitting dead on his plate
until breakfast. Eloise
taps his hunched shoulder.
“Close your eyes,” she says.
“Open your mouth.” He obeys.
Without thinking, he bites
into succulent, delicate, tender
with that dash of tang:
just like his wife.
Peepster, my sister's one-winged goose,
lifts up his raggedy voice. He is adolescent but joyous:
he balances, one-legged, right. His curly feathers
were never of use to vault him toward Heaven's blue
dome. When, slimey with egg-to-breath struggle,
he pecked his way free of his shell, the first
thing he saw was a long, blue-eyed face:
my sister, his mother-in-lieu. It was
Peepster's two-winged bravado
that riled up their feisty old mutt. In the melee,
a paw snapped the left wing. They left it
behind at the vet’s. But he's learning now not
to miss it. Find the balance point in his firm spine, to spin
out from it turning quite slowly, to settle, like any good
dancer: making the body's best choice.
WEEK 13: October 19, 2009
FRANK ANDRICK
frank andrick has lived in San Francisco, Paris, Lockeford and Sacramento, where he has been an integral part of the poetry scene for many years. Deeply influenced by French poets such as Verlaine and Baudelaire, andrick’s poetry flirts with surrealism at times, but I think of him as a romantic as well – one who believes that art, and the sharing of it, can redeem humanity to some extent. As a regular host at Luna’s Café on Thursday nights, frank often mixes poetry with music, and he recently produced a mixed-media event which included films from the 1930s as background for his poetic work. frank also edits WTF, Rattlesnake Press’s quarterly journal of the literary and visual arts, which is now going into its fourth edition. (Note: You can order WTF, or find submission guidelines, by visiting Rattlesnake Press at http://rattlesnakepress.com/wtf.html)
Here are a number of frank’s pieces, plus one of his selections that was written about six thousand years ago. “Oh lady of the largest heart,” is, to his knowledge, “the first poem we have a record of.” It was originally “printed” on cuniform tablets! Enjoy the work of frank andrick.
FRANK'S POETRY
Sativa
Sativa - A Rose By No Other Name
Mystikal, Mysterious, and Mortal.
Miss Rose I presume??
A Rose by no other name.
aaah Sativa,
A thousand stories, bedside tales, she-her-azade
One and a million secret places
Zero the void, come into being
The void I sink into - When I sync into U
U the unknown - night bloom
What will and can be - up to you and me
The shapeless breathes form
The wet whorl of an ear echoes and inspires
the fire down below.
We are none - we are one
aaah Sativa,
All the animals are here
All the angels too - Tutti
Possibilities are endless
In the infinite universe of verses
Sum surrounded in flaming blue
49 petals has the ancient mystic rose
Mouth flowers- - La Rose du Monde
Seeking the Rose of the world - Whose touch stirs the snake
Awakens the Rose of imagination.
Searing sex into vision - Seering visions into sex
The High Priestess lowers the veil
RoseCross and flame - Sight and smell intoxicate
Phases of the flowering, phases of the moon
Beauty has a new name
You
The Rose By No Other Name.
THE POET IS A THIEF OF FIRE
To be a poet
entails more than
the writing of poems.
It demands a commitment
to live and die with great style
and an even greater sadness.
to wake up each morning
with the fever raging,
and to know that it can never
be extinguished except by
death,
and yet to be convinced that this suffering,
this sensitivity carries it’s own unique
reward...
I want to be
the Hierophant
of an unapprehended
inspiration.
EVENING PRAYER
Discontented with everything and discontented with myself
I should be glad enough to redeem myself and restore my pride
a little in the silence and the solitude of the night.
souls of those i have loved,
souls of those i have sung,
fortify me, sustain me, drive me far
from the corrupting vapors of the world.
And you, my God, grant me
the grace to produce a few beautiful lines
which will prove to me that I am not lower
than those whom i despise.
oh lady of the largest heart
by enheduanna (A Sumerian moon priestess/poet circa 4000 bc )
oh lady of the largest heart
keen for battle queen
eldest daughter of the moon
she is changeable, and hidden
SHE completes the great of me
makes flawless the ordained powers
she shrieks and the gods start shaking she raves
she speaks she shakes with rage
demons throw ropes snares bodies burn in blistering flare
she is the one who disobeys
lioness Inanna, leaps to slash the fearless
mountain wildcat, prowling the roads
shows her wet fangs, gnashes her teeth
where she spits venom fighting erupts
tumult spreads the poison
she is Inanna bearer of happiness
she holds the life of heaven with her single hand
she the lady lioness
out of nothing shapes what has never been
her sharp wit splits the door where cleverness resides
and there reveals what lies inside
these two she changed and renamed
reed marsh woman into reed marsh man
& back again ecstasy and trance are yours
to gather the scattered, and restore the living place
are yours
she is the one who disobeys,
oh lady of the largest heart.
WEEK 12: October 12, 2009
JENNIFER O'NEILL-PICKERING
As both a visual artist and poet, Jennifer O’Neill-Pickering brings a painterly eye to her words on the page. She shows us “the dark blur of crows,” and comments on “silver threads of light/illuminating something you can’t hold/and therefore can never lose.” From turquoise unions to apricot light, it’s clear that a visual sensibility is at work in the poetry. For this reason I’ve included some of her visual art below as well as her poems.
O'Neill-Pickering, Clementis, water color on paper, 13x7 inches (From the Language of Flowers Series)
O'Neill-Pickering, Judith, mixed media digital work, 15x8 inches
BIOGRAPHY
If you had asked Jennifer what she wanted to be when she grew-up, she would have answered an artist and a poet without hesitation. Her early years were spent in the rural community of Tierra Buena, fifty miles north of Sacramento with a view of the Sutter Buttes. Jennifer wears many hats as artists often do, mother, wife, writer, artist, teacher, graphic artist and former Technology Specialist for the Legislative Data Center.
Jennifer’s poetry has appeared in anthologies including: Munyori Journal, The Sacramento Anthology:100 Poems, Earth Daughters, People Matters, Poet News and Consumnes River Journal. She has taught art at Consumnes River College, as well as art and poetry at St. John’s Woman’s Shelter and the Sacramento City Schools thanks to grants from the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission. Jennifer has won numerous awards for her artwork including an Award of Excellence at California Works. She has published one book of poetry entitled Poems with the Element of Water. You may view Jennifer’s art and words by clicking on these links: cafepress.com/3952, Fe Gallery or contact her at Jennifer's email.
JENNIFER'S POETRY
Three Memories of Tierra Buena
I.
Barefoot
night gown a jellyfish of north wind
drifting over frozen alfalfa fields
alone with the dark blur of crows
and a cock pheasant stirred to flight
colliding with a bruised dawn.
II.
4 a.m. chasing down the road
the moon flinging silver threads of light
illuminating something you can’t hold
and therefore can never lose like promises
between best friends.
sworn to secrecy on the Methodist bible’s
worn out cover
binding pages of proverbs tired and overused.
Out of breath at the aperture in the privet hedge
where in the spring
white crowned sparrows
nest
as this night we did.
III.
The barn smelled of hay
stood standing when everything else
fell down from neglect
including
childhood one afternoon
drenched in Carmel light
zippers catching
weight that can’t be lifted
the horse shoe hung
over the crooked door jam
promise of good luck.
Paper Prisoner
Yesterday they delivered the new chairs,
blue to match my mood.
I would rather have a window, or clean building air,
but they tell me, “Be satisfied with your
executive blue chair.” “With a six inch padded seat
how deep you will sink and never want
to leave this trendy room .”
Mauve decor can’t hide the fact it’s still a cell
and I’m a paper prisoner with paper clip chains
terminally down, tame as the African Violet on my desk
blooming under unnatural light,
where managers pace the halls
sporting polyester smiles.
Noontime, I flee to the K Street Mall,
prisoner to the yard.
I do not plan escape-hop lite-rail,
tunnel the paperwork;
I only want to exercise.
I am not hungry like this man on the steps
of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament,
wearing three dirty shirts, a twisted bad tooth grin,
smelling of last nights Thunderbird.
I wear silk, expensive perfume, and weak regret.
I am overweight, live for the next state holiday,
and have never seriously considered parole.
I turn my head down wind
drop a dollar in his palm
as he God blesses me.
I Am the Creek
Slow and easy
In this fall of Han Lu
Mother of minnow
Swimming in nursery schools
Sleeping in cradles
of algae and sedge
dance floor
to Damselflies
gyrating turquoise unions
to tambourines of leaves
tomb to families of oak
anointed in my waters
last rites repeated
in the currents passage
riparian spring
to hare and fox
drunk in the tent of dusk
and apricot light
of a Samhain moon
place of wading
into muddy beginnings
pools of clarity
changing my course often
lithe as the water snake’s glide.
WEEK 11: October 5, 2009
ANN WEHRMAN
In Ann Wehrman’s poetry, she savors the richness of nature in simple activities – the sun glimmers through redwood trees, feet splash into puddles and break up the reflection of the moon. She paints a city life, paying bills, getting mail, walking the concrete path, but finds details in the treasures the city holds:
The trees rise, olives and hundreds more
release their bounty of oxygen, shade, texture.
Some are fuchsia or white with summer…
In more than one way, Ms. Wehrman’s work reminds me of that of Mary Oliver, whose early poems startle the reader with their attentiveness to nature, and their message – that we must be attentive to nature!
Ann Wehrman is an Adjunct English Professor at American River College, and a graduate student completing her Second BA in Music at CSU, Sacramento. She has published poetry and short fiction locally in rattlesnake review, Medusa's Kitchen, Poetry Now, and various college literary journals. Afree small poetry broadside of her work can be had from Rattlesnake Press, or at the Book Collector in downtown Sacramento.
ANN'S POETRY
Neptune’s Lake of Love
all afternoon, I dream as I paddle
float on my back
marvel at a sky’s sweet, soft blue
hawk soars far
beyond the redwood sentinel
outside my window
sun peeks and
glimmers through flat, green needles
russet branches rough
scratchy as a lover’s chin
I swim, meander,
dive, stretch
where gravity can’t find me
plie underwater painlessly
accomplish what’s
impossible on land
with stiffening joints
middle age is sweet, though lonely—
brush of your cheek
soft lips across mine
only in mind, spirit, imagination
Sacred Spaces—Reclamation Project #4
coming home
late after work
I trudge along
the concrete path
pass my door
must still check the mail
step through white ripples
the moon’s reflection
puddles still seeping
into grass from afternoon’s rain
neighbors’ windows yellow warm
through their keyholes
the familial continuum
agony to joy
outside, I
walk past them
separate, solitary
retrieve my bills,
turn back
towards my single room
down the concrete walk
sparkling in the moonlight
embraced by city-dimmed night
still magnificent in black satin—
comets jet,
planets secure, each in its own space,
constellations sway and reel,
directed by the hand of God
Sacramento, City of Trees
Sun glistens on olive leaves,
ripe, baked;
trees stand on both sides of the street
as I ride the bus through town.
The trees rise, olives and hundreds more
release their bounty of oxygen, shade, texture.
Some are fuchsia or white with summer,
others, fall’s orange and tomato red,
though cool nights have not yet arrived.
Rich leaves crowd and clap,
stand free, press;
bushes like African royalty in an arboreal kingdom
share city dust, days thick with summer heat.
Tall trees lean together
over the Sacramento valley summer,
as afternoon waxes, flocked, glossy,
as Delta breezes blow along the American River
from the west, from the sea.
You can find more of Ann Wehrman’s work at the excellent local poetry website Medusa’s Kitchen.
WEEK 10: September 21, 2009
JOE ATKINS
In his poetry, Joe Atkins works to represent the syntax of spoken American conversations. Some of his poems also give a nod to the “flarf” school of poetry (which employs google searches, and found internet poems). As a contemporary poet, Joe gets bored with many of poetry’s traditional themes: the self, individuality, that eternal striving for uniqueness. “Poetically,” Joe says, “I'm just attempting to actively engage with our moment and so that we might know what it was.” Check out how he creates a kind of surrealistic world out of word-pixels in his work.
Yr name dotted together with clouds,
Scripted into the blu iris of an atmosphere,
Consumed in blinking night.
A taste of the future of poetry? Check out the surprising work of Joe Atkins.
BIOGRAPHY & MORE INFO
Joe Atkins received a BA from CSU Sacramento and an MA from UC Davis. He lives in Sacramento and helps edit convergence-journal.com.
Follow this link to Convergence Journal - a Sacramento-based online journal of poetry and art:
And for more information on flarf poetry or Conceptual writing – two new trends in modern verse, see Kenneth Goldsmith’s revealing article in the July/August issue of Poetry.
JOE'S POETRY
Good Morning America.
The history of death & pools go together
With H1N1 & depressions; everything so similar
In the way of metaphoric potential.
I build tangerines that scrape the sky
& people pay a mortgage for fractions
Of a tangerine floor. The top is lighted
With flat screen televisions emitting only light.
They’re visible from miles away like
Satellite television or airplane correspondence.
The low & high harmonies are done subtly
& right here there’s a picture of a man swimming
Through Chinese waters which look like bruisings.
The Peoples Republic of China is all about the people,
It’s in the name, but when you go there it’s kinda dirty.
It’s like I believe in the power of the people
But the people never accomplish anything on their own
& they continually let me down with their music.
Every other day I feel empty headed; my mind riots & disperses.
& constantly I wonder what that means or reveals
About me, myself, or about my intentions.
I mapped my intentions once—created a city
Style cartography—they amounted to sex,
Food, & company, with various intersections.
One just kept crashing into the next, it was magic!
& after that everything was carcinogens.
The Rapture.
She ruined his life. On red carpet he tore
A gun above the Catskills. Payed the toll
In Boston jaded orng with burnt brick walls.
Despite the blu skies, heaven could be hoarded.
Or so she thought. Location means everything.
The nation of Milwaukee a shut out
With a concussion. Bring the meaning out.
Look at the characters! They’re expecting
Florida hurricanes to pause. In the air
Above Aksarben lighting flashes, sun
Like. The cloud bank below Nicole Kidman,
Is sarcasm she typed into the apple.
Read the paper: Leaves Changing in Saigon,
Vietnam. Please pay the toll booth once again.
Summer Solstice.
If we fear the gap of time btwn
One moment—taut thread—moment,
Then we lament the physical separation
Of iron railings, inverted hotels eschewing the horizon.
The technological sidewalk city enabled.
Yr name dotted together with clouds,
Scripted into the blu iris of an atmosphere,
Consumed in blinking night.
Then a line compromised of multiple points—
inevitable ink blots—must needle responsibility.
Look! More sky below yr feet,
Ingesting the mooring light with yarn.
We swallow, this thimble full of apostasy.
- Joe Atkins
WEEK 9: September 14, 2009
2009 CONFLUENCE OF POETS
September 14 –17, 2009
Program
All readings free to the public
Monday September14
12:00 noon Reading at Folsom Lake College FL1-008
Maya Khosla and Susan Kelly-DeWitt
7:30 pm Reading at Sacramento Poetry Center
1719 25th Street, Sacramento
James BlueWolf, Maya Khosla, Dennis Hock, Susan Kelly-DeWitt and Indigo Moor
Tuesday September 15
12:15 pm Reading at American River College
Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Maya Khosla, Indigo Moor
12 noon Reading at Sacramento City College in Room A6
James BlueWolf and Dennis Hock
Wednesday September 16
12 noon Reading at Sac State - Library Gallery
Maya Khosla, Indigo Moor
12 noon Reading at Solano College, Fairfield
James BlueWolf, Dennis Hock
Thursday September 17
12 noon Reading at Cosumnes River College Cafeteria
Maya Khosla, Indigo Moor
The Poets
James BlueWolf has been a songwriter/recording artist, poet, author, lecturer and storyteller since the early 1970s. internationally published poet, his stories, essays and radio productions have been featured across the U.S. and Canada. . BlueWolf was awarded the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers & Storytellers’ Children’s Writer of the Year Award (2006-2007) for his book Speaking for Fire.
Susan Kelly-DeWitt is the author of The Fortunate Islands (Marick Press) and five previous chapbooks, including A Camellia for Judy (Frith Press, 1998), Feather’s Hand (Swan Scythe Press, 2000), To a Small Moth (Poet’s Corner Press, 2001), The Land (Rattlesnake Press, 2005) and a letterpress collection, THE BOOK OF INSECTS (Spruce Street Press, 2003).
Dennis Hock teaches creative writing at Cosumnes River College. Instrumental in developing the Sutterwriters program in 2003, he continues to work in hospitals and retreat centers with groups that use expressive writing as a healing process. An accomplished poet, Dennis is the author of The Secret Cup: Poems of Grief and Healing.
Maya Khosla is an Indian poet living in California. Her latest book Keel Bone is the winner of the 2003 Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize. Maya is also the author of Web of Water , a creative non-fiction manuscript, and Heart of the Tearing, a chapbook collection of poetry. Her poetry has also featured in America's Review, Permafrost, Poetry Flash, and Seneca Review. Ms. Khosla performs at the annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival in Berkeley, CA.
Indigo Moor’s Tap-Root was published in 2006 as part of Main Street Rag’s Editor’s Select Poetry Series. His second book Through the Stonecutter’s Window is scheduled for April 2009 release by Northwestern University Press as winner of their 2nd Book Prize. He is a 2003 recipient of Cave Canem’s Writing fellowship in poetry, former vice president of the Sacramento Poetry Center, and editor for the Tule Review. He is the winner of the 2005 Vesle Fenstermaker Poetry Prize for Emerging Writers, a 2009 Pushcart Prize nominee, and 2009 Jack Kerouac Poetry contest winner.
Special Thanks To…
The Borchard Foundation
Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission
Wells Fargo Foundation
Poets and Writers, Inc.
Members of the Sacramento Poetry Center
Cosumnes River College
Folsom Lake College
American River College
Solano College
CSU Sacramento
Sacramento City College
This series of readings, workshops, and class visits grew out of a meeting of Sacramento-area poets and poetry teachers in the fall of 2008. Thanks to a grant that SPC received late that year, this event has become a reality. We are honored to be able to bring this talented and diverse quintet of writers to six area colleges.
The Sacramento Poetry Center was established in 1979 to promote the art of poetry in the Sacramento region. With over 200 members, weekly readings and workshops, and a dedicated volunteer board, SPC is thriving as it enters its fourth decade of service to the literary community. If you want to attend a reading, lend a hand, donate, or just browse, check the Poetry Center website at www.sacramentopoetrycenter.org This event is supported by Poets and Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from the James Irvine Foundation.
WEEK 8: September 7, 2009
DENNIS HOCK
Dennis Hock teaches creative writing at Cosumnes River College. Instrumental in developing the Sutterwriters program in 2003, he continues to work in hospitals and retreat centers with groups that use expressive writing as a healing process. An accomplished poet, Dennis is the author of The Secret Cup: Poems of Grief and Healing.
Dennis’s work often offers the reader a choice – find meaning in the image – or not. He shows us that not every moment is transcendent. At times, nature or a human connection can bring a kind of salvation, but in Mockingbird, he questions the easy path to such revelation of meaning:
See how complex
and varied
and multitudinous
I am, I warble.
Yet I don't feel audacious at all.
Mr. Hock will be reading as part of the Confluence of Poets – a four-day poetry event that begins September 14 at Folsom Lake College, and continues through September 17 at Solano College in Fairfield. For details visit sacramentopoetrycenter.org. I hope you enjoy the poems of Dennis Hock.
DENNIS' POEMS
Perspective
At dusk
a snowy egret
in a bruised field
of water and stubble
is what it is
not some white question
about to wrinkle into flight.
Mere bird
and grows less sentimental
the nearer you approach.
On the other hand
if you keep the distance
the emblem glows
in the dying light.
And your body might tremble
as you make the bird
more than feathers
something closer to belief
that ephemeral becomes eternal
in a world beyond stubble and water
a world inferred by
the egret's incandescence,
an incandescence created by
the dimness of distance
a distance by which
the bird shimmers into
an avatar of the latent soul
about to lift
from the muck.
Mockingbird
Each morning I waken to
a mockingbird's plagiarized notes
breaking over my window sill.
Why do I like his audacity?
All day I move through a range
of my own imitations
pretending each is an actual me.
See how complex
and varied
and multitudinous
I am, I warble.
Yet I don't feel audacious at all.
Where's he get his self-assurance
that little thief?
By what dispensation his right
to be a singular and bold fraud?
Another question nags me:
at what point do we become what we steal?
To stopper his shameless impersonating
I try closing my window at night
but then he awakens in my head,
at precisely 5 a.m., to remind me
another day awaits more petty forgery.
How easily
I submit.
I open my mouth,
then my throat.
Abrazos
I lie here shrinking
yet growing
huge in the bickering
of my sons’ deathwatch.
As they sulk in arguments
over my dignity, I resist
a tired urge to disown all three.
Instead, I kiss their hands
and use the old familiar---mijo,
each from a different father.
(Oh, what the world does not understand!)
For the doves came again last night,
two the color of moon,
the third of a darker star.
They perched on my headboard,
mute emissaries from the future.
So now I am finished speaking, for good.
My boys do not notice;
they have not been listening.
But in a moment death’s prank will jolt them---
how it suddenly flips the telescope around---
and they’ll be looking through the wide end,
down the long cylinder,
at their mother’s tiny image, snared
in the perfect entrapment of the smaller lens,
the size of a dime and so distant.
It might take months, perhaps years,
for them to know I’m not really there.
I have gone across, my bags packed
with love and compassion,
and have entered their corazones.
Here, I will unpack my bags,
rearrange the furniture,
then settle in to wait a mother’s
final delivery---
eventually, with death their common father,
my sons will be born anew…
brothers at last.
WEEK 7: August 31, 2009
JESSE COLLINS
For me, one of the joys of editing is finding new writers, coming across a poet that I get to discover for the first time. I hadn’t heard of Jesse Collins until a few weeks ago, but I’ve enjoyed his work, and want to share it with the readers of County Lines. In his poetry Jesse reflects on life’s moments – in “The Yawning Month,” he wants to know “what we will / miss most.” But each time his description of the moment reveals his optimism, he finds a kind of salvation in others:
when we are gone, the friends
and family we have will have our
family and friends, of whom, in the end,
are all instructed in feeling free
to suggest we longed for the love of
our fellow man…”
Regarding his own work, Jesse says “what intrigues me most about writing poetry is the development of the individual line.” In his opening villanelle, “The Wager,” and in these last four-beat lines of the lovely “Panthera - First Born,” the reader certainly hears the individual line ring true.
Safe and sound, our slumber of kings.
My cheek upon yours, I give you my word.
-Bob Stanley
BIOGRAPHY
Jesse Collins, born in 1973, grew up in Antioch, California. After a four-year commitment in the Marine Corps, through which he traveled the United States, as well as Panama and Okinawa, Jesse attended and graduated from CSU Sacramento, where he received a BA in Communications/Journalism. He now writes out of Elk Grove, where he lives with his wife and two young sons. His poems have appeared in Rattlesnake Review, Poetry Now, and online at Medusa’s Kitchen. All of the poems featured are from his first manuscript entitled The Swing Kit.
JESSE'S POETRY
The Wager
We waged a bet on the blossoms appearing,
She guessed early spring, I, the end of winter,
And found there more to growth than caring.
Our cut in the earth body clay, a clearing,
Due for the sun, and the stardust, silver,
We waged a bet on the blossoms appearing.
Then, in the ring, set our bed for a sharing,
With strength, our way of sway, in the center,
And found there more to growth than caring.
Foundations conditioned imperfect, searing,
Where certainty plays, our risk was to enter;
We waged a bet on the blossoms appearing,
When came up then, that secret to maturing,
The nuisance and revel in nuance, in her,
And found there more to growth than caring.
Imposing, how time may plunder a pairing,
How cold may wither the likely to weather.
We waged a bet on the blossoms appearing,
And found there more to growth than caring.
Panthera - First Born
Words are altogether secondary, but
to fathom this bond that began the first night
we slept side-by-side like lions, consumed
by the glow of a fire truck nightlight, and
his brand new fingers wrapped around my thumb,
he woke with a furrow in his brow that falls
natural, native, of one like my own, of one
we’ve mirrored in concern for him. Panthera,
you create a sensational hurry, haste,
on a path of nothing rules, and I submit:
I am breathless but joyful. The eternal
conversation among men links our souls,
and our interwoven fingers create this summit.
Safe and sound, our slumber of kings.
My cheek upon yours, I give you my word.
The Yawning Month
An evening’s dusk is mostly dark
when it rains, like today, but we
still watch the sun go down, and
think to ourselves of what we will
miss most; the interaction with others
and the natural world, natural light,
and though our fortunes cannot be
tied to a fix of numbers, at last,
we are not at a loss, we can focus
attention back to the body, drink
our finest fermented fruits and grains,
that taste like blood, and remind us
that, when we are gone, the friends
and family we have will have our
family and friends, of whom, in the end,
are all instructed in feeling free
to suggest we longed for the love of
our fellow man: it will always be true,
at this point, and through this storm,
‘til the last walk we take to the back
of the house to watch the sun go down.
A Star Atop The Spangled Rod
Immersive deep,
anticipate these things,
that which the mind
holds most treasured, like,
an adverb, developed and cured
when young, when
“dawns early light”
was only two words,
and what that led me to believe
about light. It won’t let go.
To imagine
there is such a thing.
WEEK 6: August 24, 2009
JOANN ANGLIN
JoAnn Anglin grew up in South Sacramento, attended local schools, then worked for the State of California, writing copy for exhibits, newsletters and brochures. JoAnn has written poetry her whole life, and she has also written numerous articles on the arts and poetry. JoAnn coaches students in the national Poetry Out Loud program, and when she works with students, she encourages poetry writing as an accessible art and a tool for personal expression.
Active with Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol (Writers of the New Sun) Ms. Anglin has been published on-line and in a number of anthologies including The Sacramento Anthology, The Pagan Muse, and in Voces del Nuevo Sol. Rattlesnake Press published her chapbook, Words Like Knives, Like Feathers. She has been a featured poet in many venues. For 6 years, along with Tom Goff and Nora Staklis, she co-hosted the PoemSpirits series at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento.
JOANN'S POETRY
JoAnn Anglin’s poetry deals in what might be – she seems to find a wealth of possibilities as she writes. It’s as if she finds stories in everything, as her imagination takes charge, transforming simple objects and experiences. In her poem “The Problem with Waiting,” we sense an intellect that refuses to be still: “The mind leaps out, crazed as / a jackal-chased springbok.” Jose Montoya, writing about Anglin’s book Words Like Knives, Like Feathers, said “It is a blessing to have in our midst a poet who can discern and imbue grandeur to the mundane. JoAnn does this with grace and finesse.” JoAnn writes of her own work “In my poetry, I hope to find the telling detail that will make images and experiences vibrant, to evoke feelings in the reader that they recognize and have yearned to express.”
I hope you enjoy these poems from the work of JoAnn Anglin.
I-5, Blue Elephant
Later, at the flaked motel, the child’s hand
will open and close futilely for the soft
comfort, sobs will dampen the mother’s shoulder.
Near the guardrail, the toy still looks clean,
head and trunk leaning at traffic’s edge. Its
stitched eyes peer at the flowing river.
As the mother puts the child to bed, she says,
Don’t be a baby. Says he must learn to live
with loss. Wave after wave rolls on.
Dreaming Water
The dream would be about going into the river
whether to be drowned or swept away was unclear.
Everything in the dream was vibrant – terra cotta
banks on either side, river of ceramic blue, trees
like Christmas green velvet, overhanging.
The dream was the red car leaving the dun levee road.
The dream was the leaping, then gliding off the road.
The welcoming water.
In soft lapping waves, it washed over the bank, the
tree roots, washed over itself like a beauty bathing,
ready to welcome a lover.
Unnoticed
They move through us, daily,
the swarms of saints, and we are
ignorant of their sizes and shapes.
They may be clad as birds, as
dump trucks, or beggars, may not be
kind; it’s part of the disguise.
They are not noted for long suffering,
mildness, miracles, patience, or
even for being generous.
Define them more by tiny traces
they leave: the growing, the change
required to take place in us.
The Problem With Waiting
Hope for something clean and imperative to knife
through the mottled grayness. Meanwhile, check
the watch, the rear view mirror, the breath – is it
stopped or ragged? For the mind, of course, doesn’t wait.
Into it pour the sighs and anxious looks that rat-a-tat-tat
into the waiting space. The mind leaps out, crazed as
a jackal-chased springbok, and eyes dart toward fellow
waiters, listening for the called number, the door knob’s
turning, the reassurance of nothing serious. Asymmetry
unbalances the worried now with the later day, unknown but
feared, like the inoculation, or the bill, or even death’s certainty,
feared less than the tickings that make up the waiting.
WEEK 5: August 17, 2009
JOSH FERNANDEZ
When Josh Fernandez reads his work, audiences are transfixed. His poetry lives on the edge, it tells us that “a life full of discarded things is what we were given.” There’s a grim doubt that poetry or language will help, he tells us that “words will falsify/everything.” But Josh’s verse keeps a knowing sense of humor lurking in the background – a kind of self-deprecating grin that keeps the listener on the inside of the poet’s head. And his images render his poem/stories clearly; the reader is brought to the place: real, disturbing, and human, that the poet had in mind.
BIOGRAPHY
Josh Fernandez has lived in Sacramento on-and-off for almost 20 years. He currently writes for Spin.com and has written arts and culture stories for the Sacramento News & Review and numerous other publications. Fernandez's first poetry broadside, In the End, it's a Worthless Machine, was published by Rattlesnake Press in early 2009, and his first full-length collection of poems from R.L. Crow (tentatively titled Kim Jong Il and Other Mythical Beasts) will hit bookstores near the end of 2009. His poems have also been published in Pax Americana, Poetry Now, the Rattlesnake Review and Hardpan.Once locked in a mental institution in Reno after a serious drug dependency, Fernandez is now a competitive marathoner, and he's working on his first novel, Stickup Kid, which he plans to finish in 2010.
MORE
Mr. Fernandez will be reading from his forthcoming book along with musical accompaniment from Ross Hammond (guitar) and Ruben Reveles (samples), on Thursday, August 20 at Luna's Café, 1414 16th Street at 8 p.m. Admission is free with two drink minimum.
JOSH'S POETRY
The Last Thing He Said
“Be proud because we’re Mexicans.
And if they don’t like it, just turn
your head and walk away.
If you haven’t noticed, mijo,
this world goes on
in every goddamn direction,
whether you want it to
or not.”
And just like that, he was gone
—a trail of weed smoke
and wisdom, wagging
into the horizon.
And to this day, a scruffy cholo with muddy skin
and a bad leg limps past and my eyes sliver, like closed doors
and I have to sit down for a second—thoughts
rushing past, like speeding trains in the night.
It’s almost too much to think of the gristly days:
that bus ride from Sacramento to Boston
where I sat, tweaked out, for a week on a Greyhound, too wired
and poor to eat. He waited at the station for seven days
with two black eyes, a set of brass knuckles and a warrant for his arrest.
It’s too much to think about when grandma
asked him to recite a prayer and for the first time in 20 years
he put down his glass of tequila and cried
the way Mexicans do when they find out there is no God:
“Creo en el Espíritu Santo,
en la Santa Iglesia Católica,
la comumión de los Santos,
en el perdon de los pecados,
la resurrección de los muertos
y la vida eterna.”
And after that we wiped away our tears, forgot how to speak
Spanish and got drunker than we’d ever been,
spilling out of that East Los apartment
into the world like masses of hot lava
burning up our livers till the frustrated sun
tucked itself into the cool bed of morning.
A life full of discarded things is what we were given. Humans,
like old bibles, lie—tattered, dirty and useless.
I wonder what he is doing now. My father, the broken schitzo
who wore his sickness like a neon coat.
Walking through this shithole of a city,
Nina Simone, ripping my heart out through an old pair of headphones,
I watch a dirty black mutt sitting in a junk yard
so stupid in his world of chain link, bone scraps, rags and old iron.
If you were here I’d tell you I miss you
and that there’s not much news, save for a funny headline
telling us about some frumpy rube in Arkansas who found
the Mother Theresa’s tit poking out of her pancake.
And, in this way, unwise and reckless, without you unholy father,
if you haven’t noticed, this world goes on in every goddamn direction,
whether you want it to or not.
A Failure
How ironic
to be writing
with a construction company’s pen
while I sit here,
night after night,
deconstructing
every useless thing,
particles
into poems,
sturdy?
Yeah, right.
sturdy as a dandelion
bullied by the breeze.
I should quote a line
from Lamantia,
knowing
how you love him—
something clever like:
a poppy the size of the sun
is growing in my skull
But that’s not it.
It’s just a third-class writer
changing
the words of a real writer
so they sound better to the ear.
Little tulip I am,
soaking up
all the rain
My eyes:
nearly scabbed
tonight
from crying:
two open wounds
on my head
I would never speak
of such a thing,
other than in a poem
to you,
but sometimes
you live doubly
as to not look foolish.
It’s like this:
many times
I have dreamed
that we are falling
from a building,
me and you,
ready
to hit the pavement
without even
the slightest
hint of terror.
there’s no use
trying
to deconstruct you
in a poem.
Words will falsify
everything.
In this light
even language
is the language
of our enemy
and we don’t need
any more of those.
WEEK 4: August 10, 2009
TOM GOFF
Tom Goff’s poetry plays with sound and form to create a mesmerizing fabric of music and reason. Two of the three poems that I’ve selected here employ rhyme, but Tom’s line breaks and rich images keep the language fresh and move the reader through the poem. Robert Hass has said that poetry is the art of balancing the sentence against the line. Sometimes poets emphasize the line at the expense of the sentence, which can create end-stops and a kind of sing-song rhythm, especially when they use rhyme. Other poets wield the sentence well, but their work leans toward prose, as they miss the opportunities that the line and the line-break can create. I think Tom’s work plays both parts of this fugue. Don’t miss the villanelle form he uses in “What Scent.”
Tom Goff is the author of a number of poetry chapbooks, including Field of the Cloth of Gold and truenature. He also has published reviews and articles for many years in Rattlesnake Review, Poetry Now, and Jacket Magazine. Mr. Goff is an instructional assistant in the Reading and Writing Center at Folsom Lake Collegeas well as a professional trumpet player who has performed with the Golden State Brass and the Auburn Symphony. He is married to poet and artist Nora Laila Staklis.
TOM'S POETRY
Lovetime
for N.
First you were brilliant as the silken dawn
shot with colors peculiar to the silk’s
infolds rinsed in iridescent milk.
Sheer first soft light—then bright as clear green lawn,
raincloud-freshened with curtain-softly-drawn-
back-from-the-proscenium clear flicks
and sweeps of noon-hand color, Northern Flickers
darting across with underwings of fawn.
And now you are the shifting clouds themselves,
laden with blue-gray rain yet capable
of radiance as their sails drink sun and fill.
Soon, sunset amplifications of you delve
the twilit violet-and-dove. Are you a day?
A lifespan? A season? Lovetime, who can say?
What Scent
The mind dies with the body down below
the god-cloud spindrift. What do we intend?
We practice all our lives to rise, to know,
then hunker in bogs and tundraholds of bone,
so fiercely do we feel we must not end.
The mind dies with the body down below,
just one more organ come apart. What sows
this ardent muck with urges to transcend?
We practiced all our lives to rise, to know,
to ride great updrafts to an afterglow,
our swirls our selves, but beaten into blend.
The mind dies with the body. Down below,
beneath the binding crust, both undergo
grueling dissolve. Who speaks of brain pretends
(we practiced all our lives to rise!) to know
what gods extract from nerveweave—call it soul.
Torn from the raw flower, what blossom scent it sends.
The mind dies with the body down below.
We practiced all our lives to rise, to know.
You’d Think Skunk
You’d think skunk, branded
mephitic, was a creature of sulfur,
drank pints of hot syrup or cream
at the volcano’s rim, innards mixing
the repellent cocktail, and for that vice
was repulsed, exiled by gods, altered in color,
fur once black
stained half white with the fumes, or the white
singed a rich black.
You’d think skunk, eater of bees,
upender of hives, might borrow or rent
a pinch of scent, like soft-fleshed fruit, from
the buzz-maker, sifter of sweet powders.
You’d think skunk, able to squirt
liquid a distance, might
have fended off in a skid,
blind wipers fumbling,
the car that tumbled it roadside.
Empty of anima. Claws
shoot useless from footpads, nipples no
good to its kits, bereft of life-milk:
limp sprawl, soft bag, asphalt-flat.
Last insignia of rank,
licorice, vanilla.
Fur swirl.
MORE
Want to hear and see Tom Goff read a poem?
Click here.
Or see more of his work at the online poetry website Medusa’s Kitchen (entry for August 5 ).
WEEK 3: August 3, 2009
SUSAN KELLY-DEWITT
One of Sacramento’s most acclaimed poets, Susan Kelly-DeWitt has an eye for detail that sometimes startles the reader. Her work has been published in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Cutbank, Iris, Comstock Review, Oxymoron, Poet Lore, Cimarron Review, Spoon River Quarterly, and many other journals and magazines. She has also published numerous chapbooks, including Cassiopeia Under the Banyan Tree (Rattlesnake Press, 2007). Susan’s most recent book, The Fortunate Islands (Marick Press) appeared in 2008.
Walter Pavlich wrote, “Kelly-DeWitt’s poems remind us, as we must be reminded, that no matter what, a beautiful and timeless world surrounds us; we must take the time to peer into it, but if we have Kelly-DeWitt’s wisdom and willingness, her hard-earned grace and vision, we may be privileged enough to participate in ancient and sacred ways.”
SUSAN'S POETRY
Salmon
They came up the river like a band of slick
thieves. The water was thick with their leaping.
They climbed together the ladder of rapids,
hurled themselves and scraped their bellies.
The dead ones floated like pickerel weed.
Many fell out of the river of time, littering
the rocky banks, drawing the rats, raccoons
and badgers. They filled like windsocks
with death. We came there. We carried
our eyes and our baggage of witnessing.
We carried our awe like a causal fin.
The willows crept down to the river’s edge
and hung their heads like sad old men,
trailing all their living silver green leaves,
their dusky olive leaves, the color of salmon
skin. The beached ones dried in the sun;
they poked like stiff flags from the weeds
and the light passing over them seemed dis-
embodied, disavowed. Somewhere
in the worlds between this one and the dead
river of salmon ghosts, we heard a howling:
O Coho, O Kokanee, O Chinook.
From To A Small Moth (Poets Corner Press)
I-80 Catechism
The hills with their bright gold
scapulars. The sun’s dry chalice
over Vacaville. Cattle plush
as Bathsheba’s rugs.
Teach me that.
Flesh, stone
and star.
Fur, bone
and grass.
Let me memorize
that: Vetch, Brome
Poppy, Hawk.
From To A Small Moth, (Poets Corner Press)
Francis in Ecstasy
Francis lifts his arms and the swallows
return to Capistrano, their brown heads
nodding haloes of feathery song.
He is standing outside himself
in an Italian version of ekstasis,
the bloody eyes of the stigmata
winking from his feet and callused palms.
Seeing him there, like a canticle of the sun,
who can tell the Inquisition is preparing
its medieval fresco, smoothing its wet lime
plaster walls; grinding up its artists’
bones into the pigments from which Bosch’s
Garden of Earthly Delights will be born.
after Bellini
Flood Plain
A mile from here the levee holds back
the Sacramento’s rushing tons;
no oil slick of sun floats
where it coils in its depths.
(This valley was all water once,
a rich inland soup of sea,
a tidal broth. The river wants
to reclaim it—the shiny tract
houses, those debtors in arrears,
that line the lanes and cul-de-sacs
like coins lining an ancient purse.
It wants to snap the purse shut;
it wants to return to the old flesh-
eating rituals.) Don’t let the heart-
shaped leaves of the cottonwoods
planted so fluidly in rows fool
you as they sift the morning light;
as they blossom with swallows and lift
your weary spirit with their jitter
of birdsong and green shimmer—
they have nothing to do with that
other cold heart, the river. Time
to grow gills or gull wings, walker—
learn the jackknife, half-twist, pike.
from Mockingbird
MORE
You may find more of Susan’s work, and information on how to purchase her collections, at
www.susankelly-dewitt.com
WEEK 2: July 27, 2009
JAMES DENBOER
James DenBoer is the first poet I’ve selected for County Lines. James’s work is rich in image, and leaves us, as good poetry does, with both joys and concerns, a kind of balance sheet of life. Sandra McPherson says that DenBoer’s poetry “has ties to the comic and the suffering.” I love hearing Jim read – there’s a warmth that always comes through, and his poems reflect who he is – caring and thoughtful, deep and discerning. The poem “The Concert” is included in The Sacramento Anthology (2001), which is available from the Arts Commission. Jim DenBoer’s recent book of selected poems, Stonework, is available from Swan Scythe Press.
JAMES' POETRY
The Concert
Twelve Harleys roar,
circle the Crocker Museum of Art
during the Sunday afternoon concert;
leading the pack, in sleeveless t-shirts, two
two-breasted Amazons with their ten men
in vests, bare-chested, pony tails
and beards, mirrored sunglasses, following.
The pianist playing Mozart tinkles
that silly music, while the motorcycles’ percussion
shakes the tall windows, setting
the Chinese urns and old ladies vibrating –
and there’s your answer from the new world,
from the millennium, from cubism and free verse
and atonality, from the pervasive blues,
from maps of the moon,
from amphetamines and crushed knuckles,
hard disks and modems, internal combustion;
unmufflered Harleys shattering melody,
making the music that is about itself, that is about
the tensed muscle, the leather vest patched with badges
of noise, praising the roaring air of April.
Were You There
Sometimes you have nothing left to try
to explain love to yourself:
love is lying flat on an ice floe, arms & legs spread against (a child,
tipping into cold Lake Michigan
sliding the little bay mare
on her haunches down a grassy stream bank or
driving full speed without lights through an alley off Broadway
Love is all that is left to risk; as, say,
were you there when it starts then stops
what ’s left to go on?
There is more to love than adventures of feeling, than storms
of seeing (this paradise, all around,
there exists simply also just going on,
whipping green leaves along
the trail up Cold Stream Canyon
slide naked down the smooth water-polished sandstone into the first pool
with its mossy edges, its water-walkers & tadpoles
make love in the last pool in the rain
Sometimes there is only love to ask
for love ’s answers
under the cold blue of the halogen streetlights
under the great sycamore
branches crashing on the walks
BIOGRAPHY
James DenBoer lives in Sacramento, eight floors above, with his dog Sunny, ten year-old beagle; both have graying muzzles. His first book was published in 1968, his latest in 2008, with two books of translations to be published in 2009. Mr. DenBoer has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Arts Council, the Authors League, PEN, and others; in 2007 he received the Walter Pavlich Memorial Poetry Award. He occasionally sells a few rare books, spends hours reading, other hours exploring the banks of the Sacramento River,walks around trying to get along like everybody else, and believes there is nothing that is unforgivable, though much to be deplored.
WEEK 1: July 20, 2009
BOB STANLEY
Sacramento Poet Laureate, 2009-11
You may not know this, but Sacramento is full of poets. From Elk Grove to South Natomas, from Folsom to downtown, there are hundreds of people who write, read, and share their poems. Teenagers in Oak Park, retirees in Citrus Heights, college students, state workers, people young and old share this ancient art form. If you know where to look, you can find them, working on their craft, because Sacramento is full of poets.
As the new Poet Laureate of the city and county of Sacramento, my goal is to help people find a little poetry in their lives. I will help organize readings and workshops around the county. I will also showcase some of the area’s most accomplished writers in a weekly posting called County Lines: the poetry of Sacramento. Each week will feature a new writer who makes his or her home here. I’ll do my best to represent a wide range of styles, but I’ll probably play favorites – most writers have styles they prefer. I’ll also write about poetry in general – what’s going on, upcoming readings to consider attending, comments on articles or books. County Lines will also be a kind of laureate’s journal – what I see in our literary community.
I’m confident that with volunteer help, we can create a legacy of increased poetic activity around the region. Please let me know if you are interested in working with me to bring more poetry to more people. I welcome your suggestions. If you want your poetry to be considered for this weekly posting, please email me at Bob Stanley , and indicate County Lines in the subject area.
BOB'S POETRY
Ode for the city and county
by Bob Stanley
If you stroll this tree-filled town,
as you move through shade, you might dream of
a coolness that makes heat worthwhile,
you might dream children splashing their brief splash:
children of a great central valley,
old land of oak and open water,
then a land of planting: deep orchard and cotton,
(and still ribboned today with irrigated green)
but now planted full with humanity: we came, we saw,
we conquer and are conquered.
A hundred villages turned into towns, Perkins and Florin and Arden and Arcade,
McKinley Park Oak Park Tahoe Park Curtis Park Land Park Fair Oaks River Park
River Oaks Glen Oaks Arden Oaks Sierra Oaks. Oaks and Parks: there used to be
more, so now we have words for placeholders. Mumbo Gumbo River Cats Rio
Linda Rubicon Isleton Java City Tower Bridge Tower Records Loaves and Fishes K
Street Elk Grove Folsom Prison Folsom Lake Downtown Midtown Uptown East Sac
North Sac get back - all these names, people, places here today because Marshall saw gold flash in the millrace.
Fourteen hundred thousand people call this
levee-bound rice-paddy hundred-year flood plain home.
Once Maidu land, now freeway-crossed, recession-tossed, farmland lost,
across the causeway we roll down fifty, eighty, ninety-nine, five. We drive,
we roll into Capital City River City Camellia City a City of Trees: it’s Sacramento,
call it what you will: Sactown, Suttertown, New Helvetia, Sacratomato, Sacto,
just plain Sac.
Land of heat and water, art and music,
county of developers and mortgages succeeding and failing,
city of legislators that come and go,
this country of Kings so close to capturing a crown
for this place that seeks itself the way places do
(people are inhabited by places)
we still grieve as if sport were life.
This place we live, this flat-bottom
skiff that sails through nights and days, clings to its winding
rivers like a levee road. Cottonwoods and oaks
wait for rain, jays cavort, turkeys strut, an occasional quail skitters into
roadside brush. Skunks slip into pipes,
and you and I take a night-walk because it’s cool,
you and I who loved and met and came to this place
just twenty years past. Those twenty years became a life, so that when one asks
on some day we hope remains far off, “Where did you live?”
We’ll say Sacramento – a city, a county, a country threaded
with rivers – American, Cosumnes, and wide Sacramento.
We lived in a land named for a river that was named for a land, a holy
connection of water and earth. And sky. And all things in between.
Poetry? Hear the call, you go to Luna’s or Poems-for-All, Nueva Sol, Butch and
Nellie’s, Java Lounge, Underground, The Show, the po-etry center, these places
you can enter the sound of words, spoken word; you can listen, you can speak:
word. So many writers from no not New York, not San Francisco: Schmitz and
Montoya Viola Connor Kennedy Garcia McKinney Indigo TMo did Shelley say
poets should be our secret legislators? Is Gary Snyder still in league with Jerry
Brown? Sactown poetry flows like Corti’s wine, Vercelli’s jazz, smiles of Mimi and
Burnett, flows like passes from Webber to Vlade to Peja to Bibby, unreal city,
county of bounty, flowering pear, spare the air, almond, cherry, Edie Lambert,
DenBoer, Knorr, Susan Kelly, Go, Mario, Jo Anglin, poets grow like oleanders,
crape myrtles, river turtles, rare as magpies, bold as crows, they make you laugh
and cry with the poetry of a place that has a thousand stories, two rivers, a land
to write about, a place where we can listen.
After twenty years, memory comes up for breath like a cold river on a hot day,
and so I sing for the city and the county hot in summer, fortunes swinging high
and low with the state of the state, I sing for a million-plus of us. We dream of a
delta breeze on a day when it’s one-oh-four, but then again, late in spring, tired of
the rain, we await that first bake of valley summer, not quite as hot as hell.
Not too far from mountains, not too far to the sea, in between is where we stand.
As we walk, and shadows lengthen from the oaks, the cooling breeze and
memories remind us: not so far from heaven lies this land called Sacramento.
