Mis y Mas

Most Sac, but not all
And note the Petaluma Poetry walk 19 Sep

Sept 6
Sacramento Poetry Center presents a reading by J.P. Dancing Bear and C.J. Sage, Crossroads for the Arts, 1719 25th Street, at R Street, Sacramento, 7:30 (sacramentopoetrycenter.blogspot.com)

Sep 8, Wed
Sixteen Rivers press poetry reading features Stella Beratis, Molly Fisk, Jeff Knorr, Julia B. Levine, and Jane Mead, all contributors to the new anthology The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed, Sacramento Room, Sacramento Public Library, 828 I Street, Sacramento, free, 7:00 (415/273-1303, www.sixteenrivers.org)

Sept 11, Sat
Live Poets’ Gathering, drop-in workshop to nurture your own poetry, children ten and older welcome with an adult, with published poet Sally Love Saunders, refreshments, Cultural Integration Fellowship, 2650 Fulton Avenue, at 3rd, SF, free, 11:00 a.m.-12:30 (www.snowcrest.net/spindler/sallylovesaunders)

*************
Sept 19,Petaluma
Fifteenth Petaluma Poetry Walk: 11:00 a.m.: Terry Ehret hosts a Sixteen Rivers Press poetry reading by Gwynn O’Gara, Toni Wilkes, Margaret Kaufman at Petaluma Art Center, 230 Lakeville Street, at D Street; Noon: Susan Bono hosts Eileen Malone, Mimi Albert, Kit Kennedy, Smooth Toad with G.P. Skratz, Bob Ernst and Hal Hughes at Jungle Vibes, 136 Petaluma Boulevard North; 1:00: Martin Hickel hosts Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Sharon Doubiago at Apple Box, 224 B Street; 2:00: Susan Bono hosts Amber Tamblyn, Ed Mycue, and Luke Warm Water at Apple Box; 3:00: Gerald Fleming hosts Wanda Coleman and Austin Straus at Copperfield’s Books, 140 Kentucky Street; 4:00: Delia Moon hosts a reading for Eugene Ruggles’s posthumous The Road of Bread: Collected Works, Michelle Baynes, Benjamin Ruggles, Geri Digiorno, Sharon Doubiago, Will Holst, and Carl Macki at Phoenix Theater, 201 Washington Street; 5:00: Bill Vartnaw hosts Doren Robbins, Pablo Rosales, Joan R. Brady at Pelican Art Gallery, 143 Petaluma Boulevard North; 6:00: Carl Macki hosts Daniel Michael McKenzie, Geoffrey Todd Lake, Vincent Carrella at Aqus, 189 H Street, at 2nd Street; 7:00: Gerald Nicosia hosts ruth weiss, Joanna McClure, Latif Harris, F.A. Nettelbeck, H.D. Moe, and La Tigresa, entire event 11:00 a.m.-8:00 (707/763-4271, www.petalumapoetrywalk.org)

Sep 20, Monday
Sacramento Poetry Center presents a contributors reading for the 2010 Calaveras Station Literary Journal, Crossroads for the Arts, 1719 25th Street, at R Street, Sacramento, 7:30 (sacramentopoetrycenter.blogspot.com)

Sept 27
Sacramento Poetry Center presents a reading by Mark Statman and Kurt Brown, Crossroads for the Arts, 1719 25th Street, at R Street, Sacramento, 7:30 (sacramentopoetrycenter.blogspot.com)

Sept 29 Wed, mid week
Daniel Ellsberg discuses the work of the late historian Howard Zinn to celebrate Zinn’s posthumous book, The Bomb, City Lights Books, 261 Columbus Avenue, SF, 7:00 (www.citylights.com)

It's late, but I know I'll not post this.

On Tues night, I went through archives of old shows, to see how he handled amateur poets. I frankly wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. Presumed brief intro, read the poem, done.
When I got there, Prof said there would be my reading, poetry, and 15 minutes of conversation.

Well, actually, it was my reading, some musical interludes, and 15 minutes of conversation. Eep.
Bless the man, as I entered the studio, he was playing Roethke reading his own piece, "I Knew a Woman", a huge favorite of mine. Oddly, I felt Roethke read it too seriously--I read it as a whimsical, humorous, sexy characterization. Boy...that screws up my essay's theory!

But, back to mulling: I now wish I could have read more poetry. I have only one other piece of my own in the backpack...I leave that for another bistro night. But I would have read the poems of others:

Roethke's poem would have been the obvious choice (its first line is the epigraph to my poem);
"Wilfred Owen's Photographs" by Ted Hughes (almost impossible to find on the internet);
"Blue Monday", by Diane Wakowski, which I've linked in a prior LJ post. Beautiful fugue.

Or, choosing from the April issue of Poetry: Adam Kirsch, Emily Warn, or Randall Mann (although I'm sure that last would have sounded odd).

off to bed.

New Yorker, 16 Feb 2010

And the NPR article I posted at FB a few days ago. Contains some Clifton poems audio files and text, read by Lucille or Rita Dove. Included is the poem referenced in the New Yorker article, "study the masters".

Let's jump to the last century, at least, 20 30 40 years. Not sure when she wrote this, but I was introduced to this poem as an example of how a fugue might be applied to poetry.

Deep imagist, which not everyone cares for. I don't always buy it---but this one knocked me out.

Blue Monday, by Diane Wakoski

See, here's the workbox, little wife,
That I made of polished oak.'
He was a joiner, of village life;
She came of borough folk.


He holds the present up to her
As with a smile she nears
And answers to the profferer,
''Twill last all my sewing years!'


'I warrant it will. And longer too.
'Tis a scantling that I got
Off poor John Wayward's coffin, who
Died of they knew not what.


'The shingled pattern that seems to cease
Against your box's rim
Continues right on in the piece
That's underground with him.


'And while I worked it made me think
Of timber's varied doom;
One inch where people eat and drink,
The next inch in a tomb.


'But why do you look so white, my dear,
And turn aside your face?
You knew not that good lad, I fear,
Though he came from your native place?'


'How could I know that good young man,
Though he came from my native town,
When he must have left there earlier than
I was a woman grown?'


'Ah, no. I should have understood!
It shocked you that I gave
To you one end of a piece of wood
Whose other is in a grave?'


'Don't, dear, despise my intellect,
Mere accidental things
Of that sort never have effect
On my imaginings.'


Yet still her lips were limp and wan,
Her face still held aside,
As if she had known not only John,
But known of what he died.

***********************
So, how much does the joiner know, suspect, or thinks he knows?
Does he know she knows?
Does he think she knows he knows?

And how the hell did John die?


http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/46442-Thomas-Hardy-The-Workbox
(Not a great source--but the best one I could find that offered this piece, and wasn't selling a essay. Although some interesting--and varied--opinions on this mystery meat.)

2 days left to listen to this program. Requires Real Player or Real Alternative
15 minutes from 2002 of the work of the Poets Laureate of Britain. Sounds drab, I know--but try. The joy of people you think of as drab dead Englishman, read aloud.

Dryden--yum. The emotion rumbling in "Why Should a Foolish Marriage Vow". Very modern piece, considering the gap of 300 years.

Could have used less violin on one of the Wordsworth pieces. (I think I'm the only person who like and forgives Wordsworth for being a PL. I'm not swoony over W--but I appreciate his observations and and envy his language.)

And John Maysefield. "Sea Fever". Oh DAMN, that rolls you. This goes on the list. Quiz: where is this referenced in Star Trek?

Themes are love, pastorals, London--both W's "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" and "London 1802" ("Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour")

Was introduced to the slightly sardonic humor of John Betjeman, "poet and hack". Another on the list to explore.

They had a section on "Public or State Verse"--and noted this was often the theme where most PL's did some poor work.
But damn--they did Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade". Damn diddy damn, yeah.

So Fair is She


So fair is she!
So fair her face
So fair her pulsing figure

Not so fair
The maniacal stare
Of a husband who's much bigger.

Bump

Things that go 'bump' in the night
Should not really give one a fright.
It's the hole in each ear
That lets in the fear,
That, and the absence of light!

Mark Doty, at the Dodge Poetry Festival.
About the choir

And a Villanelle, with slant rhyme (the best). I think I might look for every modern villanelle I can find on the net.

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
^