Archives of County Lines: The Poetry of Sacramento

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by Bob Stanley, Sacramento Poet Laureate, 2009-11

County Lines: The Poetry of Sacramento, by Bob Stanley, Sacramento Poet Laureate, 2009-11

County Lines will feature a local poet each week. As poet laureate of Sacramento city and county, I want to publicize the work of many fine writers that call Sacramento home. If you have comments or suggestions, or want to be considered for the County Lines series, please contact me at Bob Stanley. 

You will find the following poets in the below archived County Lines. Click on the links below to go directly to the listed poet.

Week 30: Scott Weiss
Week 29: Kel Munger
Week 28: David Vaszko
Week 27: Danny Romero
Week 26: Edythe Haendel Schwartz
Week 25: Bill Ludington
Week 24: Connie Gutowsky
Week 23: 2010 Poetry Out Loud, by Bob Stanley
Week 22: Anna Marie Sandidge
Week 21: Terry Moore
Week 20: Kathy Kieth
Week 19: James Lee Jobe
Week 18: B.L. Kennedy
Week 17: John Allen Cann
Week 16: James Moose
Week 15: Cynthia Linville
Week 14: Mary Zeppa
Week 13: frank andrick
Week 12: Jennifer O'Neill-Pickering
Week 11: Ann Wehrman
Week 10: Joe Atkins
Week 9: 2009 Confluence of Poets, by Bob Stanley
Week 8: Dennis Hock
Week 7: Jesse Collins
Week 6: JoAnn Anglin
Week 5: Josh Fernandez
Week 4: Tom Goff
Week 3: Susan Kelly-DeWitt
Week 2: James DenBoer
Week 1: Bob Stanley, Sacramento Poet Laureate, 2009-11

WEEK 30: August 9, 2010
(no picture)
SCOTT WEISS
Scott Weiss knows the art of developing an extended metaphor – keeping the poem both with a foot in the story and a foot in the corresponding comparison.  In Folding Laundry, we see a couple quietly working together folding clothes and somehow folding themselves at the same time, yet we can follow the dual thread, the images work together as well:
            faces and fabric have/ wrinkles in common

The extended metaphor and quick turns of phrase keep the reader involved, and the images tell the story:

            the weave we have become/ through the years like threads /frayed and discolored.

These three poems of Scott’s balance solemnity with beauty as well, as the narrator often stops short of celebration – finding only temporary solace in moments of lucidity as in Elegy for a Sunday Afternoon.

                                    streaks
of new grass fight through
the dull dead of the past in tender
filaments of green as the breeze
bends the slender ends of citrus
limbs…

And take some time reading Weiss’s long narrative poem Pandemonium Found, where the rich detail casts a glow on an industrial life story. To this reader, this piece is something of a magnum opus – it shows a poet who has something to say. Enjoy the work of Scott Weiss.

Scott Weiss’s poetry has appeared in the journal, Poetalk, on the Web at amphibi.us, and is forthcoming in Chopper Poetry Journal and The Battered Suitcase.  His fiction has appeared in the online publication, Crash, at http://cra.sh/.  He lives with his wife Brenda in Sacramento, California, where he earned a degree in English from Sacramento State University, and where he now writes fiction and poetry and works as a technical writer.  He also serves as an associate editor of Convergence: an Online Journal of Poetry and Art, which can be found on the Web at http://www.convergence-journal.com.

SCOTT'S POETRY

FOLDING LAUNDRY

Saturday night and
faces and fabric have
wrinkles in common
the weave we have become

through the years like threads
frayed and discolored
relaxed with warmth and
pliant to nimble fingers

in these intricate hours
the two of us turning
each other’s clothes like secrets
between us into an order

we have assembled
creases pressed smooth
enough to endure
the closeted ages ahead.

ELEGY FOR A SUNDAY AFTERNOON

Waiting for spring on a disappearing
Sunday afternoon as the shadows
steal away my heat while she
knits in gray, and the music peaks
and lulls and peaks; and cool streaks
of new grass fight through
the dull dead of the past in tender
filaments of green as the breeze
bends the slender ends of citrus
limbs; and smoke flows in neat                                  
beams from her parted lips and ascends,
forgotten, from the cigarette’s tip,
while birds defend with wing-wrought
rage their right to the seed she
has left them; I write
through the day’s remaining light and we
share a glance of concern—assured 
that Monday sits on time’s horizon
like the return of a somber solstice,
prepared to turn this fleeting freedom
into another lifeless season.

PANDEMONIUM FOUND
The mind is its own place, and in itself 
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
John Milton—Paradise Lost

I was nine when I first found
the foreman
at the Pentecostal church
he’d long attended where he spent his nights
and his weeks began and ended with the sounds
of hand-clapped song and the rapid fire
of God-lit tongues.

Now seventeen and freshly fired
a wife at home with first-born child
a son just two months old I find
a job that older men won’t hold for long
in a town where sun-bright gold runs
snake-veined through the mines below
the pine-fringed skirt of horizon hills
and here I find him in his mill
this foreman melting rust-cold
scrap-iron into finished steel.

The foundry sits unnoticed
fallen from the pretty streets above
to sloping smoke-stained silver-black
back-alley corrugation and the lesser-demon
denizens of a workday and its chains
adamantine-made of obligation.

If I’m here by fate
or by Hephaestus’ will
I’ll never know
living in an alloyed state
of man-boy mind fluid
as star-hot steel
and the sweat seeps lean
over muscle new-made in all this boil 
and milling by machine I’m
here to grind the steel and gnash
away at hours and days
while bright-hot gnats
of shredded metal swarm
my arms and eat away
long sleeves
and the sometime smell of my own flesh
              micro-cooked
rises hot around the bend
of plastic shield that covers
the fragile glass of my eyes.

But vision only gives a firsthand look
at hell
so fearing for my soul
I pass the time by memorizing scripture
while all around sparks dance the floor—
light-footed imps across the concrete’s cracks.

Just how many fingers
are nearly lost these five years here
I’ll never know—a sleeve or gloved hand
catches quick in the grindstone’s
heavy-wheel pedestaled spin
            reflex
arm-jerk-heart-race-breath-rushed
                        relief
the hand preserved for the fleet-fingered sins
of fretboards in the off hours
            of another day.

The ex-sailor close-by wears
sea-leathered skin and smokes
and welds and weld-smokes again
the cigarette dangling spastic in his lips
            as he swears and jokes
in stories with neat quips like
            young dumb and full of cum
and I can only laugh along
no stories of my own to tell.

Across the way
Van Halen on the radio
             plays Runnin ’ With The Devil
as muscled men make molds of sand
to hold the heat of steel
             in degrees
poured hot by the thousands.

             O, Milton—your Satan never had a life
                        so sweet.

On breaks men talk politics
and goodness of Reagan evil
of Democrats like the little
woman who raised me hating
Nixon.

A furnace fires
and chews scrap-iron
in great electric groans
raises a trio of goat-like
giant horns—
alternating probes that rise
and fall through its roof
and touch metal to a roaring arc—
spurts its white-bright bile
in molten spittle through the man-wide
hatch where the foreman adds to
prods
and goads his steel
to a glowing stew.

A second furnace
bellows gas-flamed
heat and kisses
the castings within to a devil’s
glowing red-orange-yellow
till I pull them whole
with quick-quenched hisses
into the cool swallow
of water below
           steel shocked hard to temper
then the liquid boils
and billows.

Days always end
my nostrils thick with soot and sand
no matter which mask is worn
young hardened hands
like a heat-baked desert’s
dry-cracked land
but five o’clock redemption forges
a smile upon the foreman’s lips
and he lifts his filthy hardhat and
with a wrist wipes sweat
that glistens like thirty years’
tears of contrition
upon his blackened face
          and he blinks
smooth eyes
polished and blue
his mind in its own place
and making hell
his heaven.

WEEK 29: July 26, 2010

KEL MUNGER
Kel Munger’s poetry has an eye for detail that directs the reader with a kind of Buddhist mantra:
pay attention, the poems tell us; time is flowing swiftly, and what is in front of us, painful or lovely, is what we must witness, what we must attend to with care. These three poems, sections from her long sequence entitled “The Death Translations,” enrich the reader’s senses at the same time they seem to say farewell to a main character. It’s a story, really, in a series of sketches that draw the reader in.

                                                                Brother, sift
the blossoms from the lilac bush before you cut it
and dig up the roots. This is his tariff,
a perfume to mix with the salt-drenched wind of home.

These poems cast angled light on motes of dust, show neighbors peering from behind curtains, and portray paired witnesses on a doorstep in “shabby suits and cheap shoes,” and it’s all in service of the farewell, the remembering. Robert Hass, in Twentieth Century Pleasures, his collection of essays on poetry, talks about “poems of leave-taking,” a great tradition of poems in Japan and China. Hass quotes an instance from Buson:

     You go
I stay
     two autumns

Hass says that Basho creates a “wide, windy world whose center is no particular person.” I think this sense of universality comes through in Munger’s work as well, so that we all relate to the details, and want to linger in the layers of the story.

Munger, who writes for the Sacramento News and Review, also has published a collection of poems entitled The Fragile Peace You Keep, which displays the full range of her poetry. Maureen Seaton wrote that "Kel Munger ambushes the muse in a panoply of dramatic disguises--Cop, Coroner, Thief, Mermaid. She blasts gender and parades her protean poetics throughout history, the American work place, right into your local precinct. There is absolutely nothing fragile about these hard-hitting poems nor the peacekeeper's heart within." And Neal Bowers says “clearly, Kel Munger is a poet we need to hear."

Please read these poems by Kel Munger. I trust you’ll agree!

KEL'S POETRY

Three poems from “The Death Translations”

                                                ***

There is a familiar slope of light,
well-remembered from the day
in a tardy spring when it fell
across your father’s face, before
the heat deepened and moistened
and began to suppress a rising pain.
Did you see it also, that slanting light,
in the death-room, glancing,
full of dust, across that body, so wise
from the world? Did you hear
its distant whisper, its call
to the emperor grief?

                                               ***

Old objects shift. They no longer collect dust,
these things he gathered to ward off poverty,
as if to pay some final tax he knew life would demand.
While neighbors watch, peeping from behind curtains,
casually glancing across the street; Brother, sift
the blossoms from the lilac bush before you cut it
and dig up the roots. This is his tariff,
a perfume to mix with the salt-drenched wind of home.

                                                ***

Let us speak of these witnesses: The witness of history
and the witness of time, who are not the same,
although they come paired, wearing shabby suits and cheap shoes,
holding their magazines out before them on the doorstep,
hoping this time, please, this time, we’ll listen.
Everything but death comes to us and makes us struggle:
Age, aches, grief, change, and the very work of gathering
Up those things we have earned, and then forgetting them.

WEEK 28: June 21, 2010
No picture available.
DAVID VASZKO
David Vaszko’s poetry looks closely to reveal the underbelly of our local scene, but it also yearns to bring harmony to the people in that world. In “A Great City” his long, Whitmanesque lines dream of understanding between people:

We are supposed to be paradise to each other.

But the realities of the world he paints are more pessimistic than Whitman’s American optimism:

We had the vision to plant a beautiful city, but not how to raise beautiful and free people.

In the end, Vasko’s poet-narrator, not satisfied but determined, longs for the essential, and exhorts his fellow citizens to do the same.

We need to turn our death to life, rise above years of deadness, sing our truth and our love.

Sacramento poet David Vaszko sees connections everywhere.  He uses as few words as possible to express himself, even when a poem is long. Mr. Vaszko has lived in Sacramento since 1980, and his work has been published in Sacramento News & Review's “Poets' Corner,” Rattlesnake Review,  The Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems, and the Old City Guardian.

Please enjoy the work of David Vaszko.

DAVID'S POETRY

The Chosen   

In Old Town,
Aztecs laugh dance gasp,
Watch white blood gush from pyramid building-
Peaceful clouds motionless over Aztlan.

Southside Park

In this park on the edge, competing with the freeway, there's a filthy lake.

Against its fence,
Fisher women cast into the water, teeming with hope,
Looking at the island they can't get to-
A place without junkies, perverts, the homeless-
A dream.
An oasis for kids, lovers, old people.

On the freeway there's a hay truck moving slow.
Nobody sees it, this stuff from the country,
Bound for the mountains,

Where fishin's good, and fences come down.

A Great City

When palms blow, I think of southern California, how we blew paradise, how we in Sacramento blow paradise.
As we blow paradise we release our longwindedness planting palms everywhere, then produce photographs showing our wonderful city where hardly anyone feels wonderful.

We are supposed to be paradise to each other.  We didn't know that when we planted them.
It haunts us.
We had the vision to plant a beautiful city, but not how to raise beautiful and free people.

In paradise people speak and live their truth.  We destroy speech and truth.
Like pigeons we bombard the world with our shit.  We have no coo to make others dream.

When we speak our truth we'll be beautiful and free.  We'll feel free.  People will flock to Sacramento for our truth.
They'll ask if palms made us free or we planted palms to keep ourselves cooing.  Now they lament, “It's so lifeless yet so pretty.  So strange.”
When they fly away they look down on our city of trees.  They dump their postcard, glad they aren't stuck here with us in silence.

Let's get unstuck.
Do you want to coo?
Lovers coo.
With our weather, trees, mountains, rivers, the Ban Roll-on building- its flag blowing gloriously above our great phallic symbol, we could be lovers.

We gotta ache to be ourselves.
You're yourself or you ache to be.  Otherwise you won't be a lover.  You won't speak your truth and lust for someones'.
You'll focus on pigeons' shit not their song, so you'll never sing your own.

When our voice is our own our silence will be comfortable.
We will hear more birds.  We'll linger into night waiting for night birds, know that nobody sings their truth like night birds in date palms.

Night birds help us destroy false speech.  The more we wait for birds to come out, the more serious our             commitment to speech that's truthful.  Their voice will free ours.  Ours will free each other.

Why are you afraid?  If crime stopped tomorrow, could you sing your own song so much you'd fall from trying to make up for everything you kept inside tighter than a palm's trunk? 
If crime stopped tomorrow and you started to feel good, there would still be the media speaking falsely, telling you it's a crime to be simple, be yourself, be trusting.  Would you still watch, even though the streets are safe, accepting the temptation to be afraid, to be false and dangerous to yourself and others?  You'd be a menace to society, not its victim.

Be true!
Don't make me a victim of your falsehood.  Then I rage or cower.
I need your truth, even if you don't.  I need to speak mine, even if you don't want to hear it.
We are needy, but not for what's essential.

Take off your headset.  Dump your love songs.
Listen to pigeons and night birds, then listen to yourself and me.
Talk about love
Can you be loyal to night birds, wait for them though they make you long for what can never be satisfied?
Even in Heaven people long.  They can't wait to greet us because they love themselves so much.
Truth makes you long.

Because we don't long we smolder.  We want dead fronds removed so we don't deal with pigeons, rats, night birds- all that life dependent on a trunkful of death.
We need to turn our death to life, rise above years of deadness, sing our truth and our love, more passionate the more we've been dead, more inspiring too.

We've gone south.  Our spirits are faded photographs.
Let's blow back in confidence and fear, haunted by pigeons' love, night birds' lust, and eerie silence in our City of Trees.

WEEK 27: May 24, 2010
No picture available.
DANNY ROMERO
Danny Romero’s poems don’t waste words. There’s a desert-like sparseness to his poems, and when he reads them out loud, that sparseness is balanced by the warmth that he gives to his characters. Danny is able to tell stories very succinctly in his verse; maybe it’s because he writes fiction as well. His poems are like fables – they show us what we need to see, then move on.

lines on your face
tell a 10,000 year old tale

As in his novel Calle 10, many of Danny’s poems reflect on the experience of growing up and living in the barrios of California – he weaves a tapestry that shows it like it is – from LA to Sacramento. 

Visalia Hanford Tulare
fields stretching to the horizon

The soil speaks a truth
like nowhere else

BIOGRAPHY
Danny Romero was born and raised in Los Angeles. He teaches English and Creative Writing at Sacramento City College. Romero’s poetry and short fiction have been published in literary journals and anthologies, including West of the West: Imagining California (1989), Under the Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from California (2003), Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature (2008) and Pow Wow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience - Short Fiction from Then to Now (2009). He is the author of the novel Calle 10 (1996) and two chapbooks of poetry. A poetry collection is forthcoming from Bilingual Review Press. He lives in Sacramento with his son. 

Please enjoy the work of Danny Romero.

DANNY'S POETRY

Perdoname, Madre

She leaves work at mid-morning
hoping to make up later
the hours she cannot afford to miss
Perdoname madre for all those years

She rides the bus across town
borrows money to lend
for eastside bailbondsman
forgoing gas and electricity

Perdoname madre for taking too much
She claims her son from drug custody
She knows the fools that men can be
the resemblance growing more everyday

Perdoname madre for all those years
for taking too much after my father

from the San Joaquín Valley, CA

The postcard wishes me well
promises another missive
from a still unknown destination
as soon as possible

It speaks of older sisters
lone valley highways at dusk
Visalia Hanford Tulare
fields stretching to the horizon

The soil speaks a truth
like nowhere else

el gigante
            for Frank Sapien Sr.

olmec heads outside my door
watch the night

lines on your face
tell a 10,000 year old tale

you have grown so
over these years

you carry us along
shuffling barrio streets

to Mass each day
before the sun comes up

whatever you may
call yourselves

the first people
throughout this vast civilization

Salvation

The Sisters of Mercy saved my life
once, at least for a while.
In the 1970s we sang about peace
and love and "Lucy in the Sky
With Diamonds" in a city of angels.

untitled

Old cholos stop me on
the streets of Sacramento,
mistaking me for someone else
from a 1970s barrio.

They ask me:
which way to the
Greyhound Station,
Loaves and Fishes
and do I have a dollar
for the liquor store?

We talk about shooting
dope in Maravilla,
police brutality in San Jose.
California is a state of Mexico,
an anti-Mexican state.
Sacramento is the capital.

I tell old cholos
where to stand
so the light rail train
can finally take them home.

WEEK 26: May 3, 2010

EDYTHE HAENDEL SCHWARTZ
I don’t know of a local poet who works harder on poetry than Edythe Haendel Schwartz. Her tightly drawn ekphrastic poems – poems about artwork – work hard, too – they often reveal something about the painting, the painter, and the poet as well. In her poem “Alice Neel paints Futility of Effort,” the painter’s voice reflects the writer’s.

            I’ve drawn the small figure in meager space,

                                  in lost light, colorless

Notice how tightly wound the poetry is, and how the turns of phrase surprise you. Edythe and I both studied with CSUS professor Joshua McKinney, and I think Edythe does a better job of crafting what Dr. McKinney would call “muscular poetry.” Not a trace of fat – every word moves the piece forward.  

Edythe Haendel Schwartz began making poems after retiring from a long teaching career in the department of Child Development, California State University, Sacramento.  Her poems and reviews have appeared widely in literary journals including Calyx, Cider Press Review, Kaleidoscope, Poet Lore, Pearl, Potomac Review, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, Spillway, JAMA, Runes, Natural Bridge, as well as in several anthologies. Her 2007 chapbook, Exposure, Finishing Line Press, was a finalist in FLP’s New Women’s Voices Series, and was nominated for the California Book Award.

 Also a visual artist - oils and mixed media works - Edythe has shown her work locally in the City of Davis Small Works Show, Second Friday Art About, Pence Gallery Studio Tour, and the Art Auction show. Please enjoy the work of Edythe Schwartz.         

EDYTHE'S POETRY

Edward Weston’s Pepper
“Pepper No. 30” 1930 Gelatin Silver Print

Waiting for decay, he spoke
quietly of ripening, of piquancy,
of longing for the right
exposure– 

He set her upright
her cap lit
in viridian and saffron, his eye
pressed to her skin like a palm
against each cell, his eye

brushing the slope of her
flesh

I will wait for
shadows to fall shallow on her
folds, he mused. The failing light

will follow her
stem    her neck        her
smooth geography   before
I close in close

to sight her drooping
shoulder   her withering
haunch     before I tilt my lens
before I take her.

       Resilience 

In the expanse of birch and maple
behind my house, leaves are letting go
opening the distance, though
the trail’s still cunning, the deep hollows
hidden by October’s brimming fall.

Walking in the woods with Simon trying
to pull free from his leash, I lose my
footing, trip over exposed roots and find
myself sprawled in leaf litter, foliage
thick with what lives buried where my body

now lies lucky, net of gold and salmon
mulch, a cradle for the old woman
I am growing into. I sink gratefully, reach
a branch to help me up let Simon lick my smile–
No margin for misstep now.

I remember last winter tackling the icy trail uphill
to get the mail, woods crossed with broken arms
of storm-thrown oaks and hemlocks. Perhaps
that cracked ankle and the crawl for help
were warnings to tread carefully, but why–

my body still wanting to come
out in the sun, to smell the loam of my own
soil, full with mushrooms this fall, oysters
and parasols driving upward
through decaying ferns.

Alice Neel Paints Futility of Effort
                                   Oil on canvas, 1930

I’ve drawn the small figure in meager space,
in lost light, colorless, her face
twisted, her head caught
between the bed posts.

I read about it in the paper– 
her mother was in the kitchen
ironing. I’ve drawn a hanging
line, a fragile vertical
to slice the canvas, the girl
strangled by chance

the way my daughter was.
Diptheria took her,
the white threads webbing her
throat, choking off air. No care
could cut the fever, care no weapon  
against the viscous membrane. A brush

of fate so fast and dark, lamp black, ochre
and in a corner hovering, one eye
a paralyzing stare, no eye
to see, and where her
mouth would be, no breath
to draw.

WEEK 25: April 19, 2010
No picture available.
BILL LUDINGTON
Local poet Bill Ludington passed away last week, after a swift and difficult illness. I was putting together a collection of his work for County Lines when I got the sad news on Saturday April 10th. In Bill’s 2005 chapbook, All of Elsewhere, I came across this four-part poem called “Epitaphs.”

Epitaphs

1
Dark butterflies falling like leaves,
Forgetting the one
Who dreams them
And all the restless dreamers
Who struggle to awaken.

2
Here lies a man
Who found his way
Through the darkness,
Knowing he was asleep,
And endured to the end.

3
Half moon in the morning –
It is night everywhere –
On Mars, on Venus
In the depths of the milky way,
So drink to the night.
It is always with us.

4
You who pass by on the
empty street:
know that Plato said this night,
so filled with omens,
is only a shadow.

“You look at the white tailed falcon and wonder what is actually there and write a poem to find some sort of answer because the world is vast and what our senses know is not all of it.”  Bill’s collection All of Elsewhere begins with this philosophical preface to the poems. His poems often play with this sense of uncertainty – asking “are we where we think we are?” and his images, dark and light, challenge the reader with a solemn Buddhist sensibility. His poems seem to convey both a sense of wonder and a sense of foreboding. 

Bill Ludington earned a PhD in English at UC Davis, and for many years he was a librarian at UCD. His wife Gloria, who passed away a few years ago, worked for the California legislature, was a visual artist as well. He will be missed by many friends in the Sacramento region. Here are a few more of Bill’s poems.

BILL'S POETRY

Falconry

Look at the kite
The white falcon
That kills so beautifully
Hovering above his prey
Like a toy propeller made of snow.

And the yellow leaves falling,
Dragonflies, only a few left,
Cicadas singing lieder
Of enlightenment,
Butterflies drifting,
The sluggish river
Dotted with coots and ducks.

At midafternoon
The moon dangles faintly
Like an image of last night’s
Pumpkin colored disk.

The sense of I slips away again
Where is this place?

Hyacinths

The year hardly started
But here were hyacinths
Scented like Spring
Blooming along the river.

We wondered at them
Swaying in the chill breeze,
Petals whiter than sky
Centers like fire,
And gulls, unknowing,
Shrieking.

I think the flowers
Were like the piled stones,
The carefully stacked stupas
At another bend in the river:

A gesture
Like constellations
Of stars.

October

A day in October,
Hills covered with brown grasses,
Railway tracks shining in the hazy sun,
highways spotted with tomatoes.

Her house is changing,
She feels the year turning,
Tiny bottles, hundreds of photographs,
Postcards from museums with paintings
Of dying gods.
She must leave this place.

She drives, smashing her sandaled foot on the gas,
As the leaves fall into streams red with blood,
Through the pumpkin ripening valleys,
Past the vineyards where grapes hang, pendulous.

She arrives in the deep forest,
The small house with one lamp burning
Opens the door and enters,
Like Persephone, leaving this sad season.

Through the window
She can see the craters
On the full moon,
Imprints of the vast energy
That glows invisibly in the night.

She turns off the lamp
To share darkness with the moon.

WEEK 24: March 29, 2010

CONNIE GUTOWSKY
Beautiful things: we enjoy them, we see them pass, we sadden and reflect. Shelley wrote that “Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow/Nought may endure but Mutability,” and this theme echoes through the poetry of local writer Connie Gutowsky. But in Connie’s poems, there’s a hunger for more, an “insatiable lust” that balances the melancholy with a determined optimism.

Born in The Dalles, Oregon, Ms. Gutowsky graduated from the University of Oregon and then from McGeorge School of Law. She joined the Sacramento County Public Defender’s Office and later went into private practice. Now, in retirement, Connie gets up early to read and write what she calls her “homemade bread” of poetry. Her poems have appeared in Calaveras Station and she has a chapbook entitled Autumn’s Flush. Her poem “Will You Assist” appeared in the January 2010 issue of Kaliedoscope. In addition to poetry, Connie has published travel essays and a children’s story, Ronald and Peter go Camping. Connie and her husband Al live in Sacramento, and they are parents of three sons. She loves her family, books, bridge, naps, friends and mornings.

Here are three of Connie’s poems that engage the senses with imagery, and draw the reader into the subject. Each one leads us to a different place, a different emotion. The first one’s a spring poem for the beginning of spring.  Please enjoy the poems of Connie Gutowsky!

CONNIE'S POETRY

I FEAST ON SPRING

First kiss of sunshine on naked skin—
            beside the Honey Tangerine, peeled,
                        with a whisper of tender tearing.

Daphne in full bloom
            perfumes with brevity ’s intensity
                        beneath the Canary Island Pine.     

The flowering plum this dawn
            flutters pink petals
                        off charcoal branches.

The indulgent sky
            companions a hungry moon
                        above our succulent garden.

Things planted and patient
            sate my  insatiable lust
                        for the feast of spring.

A JANUARY DAY AT TAHOE

Friday. The lake is lost
beneath a veil of silver mist.
Evergreens bare of snow.

From behind wooden blinds
I watch Al pull on his red parka,
snap into cross country skis,
pole toward the hill outside our cabin,
hood up.

I begin to braise chicken with garlic
in Blanc de Blanc, cut cauliflower,
bake sugar cookies and spread
our  mountain tablecloth

as though we’ve invited
the snow goddess to a white supper
to  persuade her to storm.

Bach toccatas play as the cranky skier
returns early, “lumpy mashed potatoes”. We drink
green tea, lament the low snow pack,
light candles. Desire.

QUESTIONS

Tell me, angelwing Begonia leaf,
are you afraid to grow?

Why do your tiny white roots, sprouted in water,
decline to support a spritely top?

Do you like to listen to Ludwig as I write?

I visited my friend today. He’s grown fifty pounds thinner
since surgery, wishes he had a button to touch

to make life over.

Angelwing leaf, will you please grow me a new leaf?

WEEK 23: March 22, 2010

POETRY OUT LOUD
They are sixteen, seventeen or eighteen years old, poised and confident. They step up to the microphone and say their name, then begin to recite poetry. From all over California, from Los Angeles to Mendocino, Siskiyou to San Diego, the county champions of Poetry Out Loud had their day in the hallowed Senate chamber of the State Capitol on Monday, March 15th.

I watched for over an hour and heard poems by William Blake, Maya Angelou, and Elizabeth Browning. We heard Shakespeare’s sonnet “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,” and an intense and breathy rendition of Frost’s “Fire and Ice.” Each poem poured out without hesitation. These kids understand poetic license; they know how to pause for dramatic effect. The girl who intoned Poe’s line “All I have loved/I have loved alone” left the audience with a taste of despair, and the closing line to Ted Kooser’s “Abandoned Farm House” did the same. The chamber echoed with John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud,” Langston Hughes ‘ “Theme for English B,” and Robert Burns’ “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose” replete with a light Scottish brogue. It was a feast for the ears of poets.

Sacramento county champion Maya Haines was a standout among these standout performers, and the McClatchy junior was one of the six who made the final round. She flawlessly recited Browning’s “How do I love thee, let me count the ways” in that tension-filled session. In the end, Monterey County’s Morgan Brown was named the state champion – her final piece was Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy,” first published in 1899. Morgan made Dunbar’s famous lines – “I know what the caged bird feels” – come alive in 2010, and she will go on to recite at the national competition in Washington, DC. Congratulations to all the wonderful reciters, and to the California Arts Council for their work in putting on this huge event!

In these challenging times, it’s a good thing to hear Whitman’s “I hear America singing” ringing in the voices of the next generation, as they recite, “singing, with open mouths, their strong, melodious songs.”

-- Bob Stanley

WEEK 22: March 1, 2010

ANNA MARIE SANDIDGE
I’m always excited when I discover a talented poet for the first time. Last year at Terry Moore’s “The Show” event in Oak Park, I first heard Anna Marie speak her poetry, and she really deserves recognition for her work. A long time Sacramento-area resident, Anna Marie Sandidge has been writing and performing poetry for years. Because she memorizes her work, Anna adds the intensity of spoken-word-style presentation to her detailed and imagistic poems. Her work also ranges from the political to the domestic – her pieces provide both warmth and fire for the reader.   

Anna Marie’s poetry flows with a smooth style and grace; shefills both pages and stages with her life experiences. Never shy to self expression, she seeks to see understanding in the eyes of her audiences. Anna Marie has performed at The Show and Underground Books, as well as at SPC, and the WORD festival last fall at the Guild Theater. You can view some of her workon the Access Sacramento show, Moore Time for Poetry, and she’ll be featuring at The Majestic Lounge at 2355 Arden Wayon Wednesday, March 24th from 7-9pm. Enjoy the work of Anna Marie!
-Bob Stanley

ANNA MARIE'S POETRY

A Poet’s Handbag

I’ve seen them clutched and carried under weary arms
I’ve seen them slung over strong shoulders
But never sold in stores, for one cannot purchase
A poet’s handbag

Stitched with seams of sorrow and broken promises
With clichés and I told you so’s
Some of us have no choice but to sew
These quilted colors of existence

These purses of verses written in napkins receipts
Whatever’s within these fingers reach
Written in crayon, ink and even eyeliner
Because I would rather write these words than paint my face

Picking up pieces of humanity and stashing them into
Inner pockets for future use
I’m not asking you to see my point of view
I’m asking you to listen

I’m asking for your undivided attention
So I can empty out the contents of my poetic pocketbook
At your kitchen table
Where some of your best of times have taken place

I wanna bring back memories of homemade apple pies
Pinky swears, mood rings and your first kiss
Thirty one years, stitch by stitch and I hope my bag grows
To be three times as big as this

And I hope that God knows, I am thankful for his gift
That will not go unspoken…
Simply unzip and open up
My whole world

A small suitcase of circumstance often shades of brown or black
Cause I like to keep things neutral
Changing my purse to match my personality or
Whatever’s in my mind at that specific place and time
Merging into material memories and being sewn into sunsets
No, you cannot put a price on this kind of passion

For fingers have grown nimble from knitting knots of nothing into
Something tangible something unmanageable by currency
Not worried with a lock and key
These precious thought are trash for thieves but another poet’s treasure

Made from genuine clever
Never to be mistaken for a knock off, not half off
No price tag, not available in stores
For even the wealthiest of women could never afford to purchase

This poet’s handbag

A Recipe for Love        

I can't really say my Momma told me that but I know for a fact
That the way to a man's heart is through his stomach
See, when I met my husband he
was used to a good home cooked meal
It was South Carolina boy meets Cali girl
and I couldn't cook for nothin'

But he told me that Kraft… don't live here anymore
and I better not be no Betty Crocker
Cause he say she can't cook that good
So I learned to cook some soul food
Collard greens, ham and beans, sweet potato pie
Black eyed peas, mac and cheese, jambalaya and dirty rice

He is my hungry man, eats like a lumberjack
So I fill him up with love...
I have now become his mamacita, enchiladas from la cocina
Home cooked beans, not rosarita...crystal hot sauce
I now get crock pots for Christmas

See, Marie doesn't make my calendar any day of the week
And Mrs. Smith has nothing on me with her pastries
Cause he only wants MY goodies and he loves my apple pie
My, arms bear the scars of wars with hot grease
Oven mitts on front lines not doing their jobs right
Fingers sliced with sharp knives

These countless hours over stoves
wearing aprons over clothes
are just some of the ways a woman shows
a man how much she loves him

Things I Cannot Change

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
Hurricanes that have names like Ike, Andrew and Katrina
That wreak havoc on shores of states and cities like Mississippi and New Orleans
Leaving behind sodden dreams and a death toll that's phenomenal
I have no patience for lack of governmental funding when supposedly
"We are the people!"

But what they lacked in finance, we offered in prayers
Yet our voices are muffled by promises of politicians
pushing and pulling for people’s opinions to be
punched into papers in their favor at polling stations
I'm sorry to say but we, as a nation, are still divided
Between white collar, blue collar, wife beaters and bra straps
By black, white, money green and everything else in between
We all can't see the light when our stature is being shadowed
by Washington's tall buildings

And it's challenging to maintain sanity when our world’s priorities are in reverse
With no respect for Mother Earth, whom in a way, birthed us all
If you look up in the sky you'll see, it's not as blue as it used to be
Too much wasted energy and not enough recycling
We have built foundations for future generations
based on convenience, not practicality
Leaving them standing on landfills and our downfalls

And can someone please tell me...What are we fighting for?
Dying for? Explain to me this war!
Because I am tired of seeing young women widowed before reaching drinking age
And fifty stars on a folded flag are inadequate condolences
for telling a child..."Daddy's not coming home."
Seventeen year old boys forced to become men
by dressing up in camouflage and wearing a poker face
while CNN scrolls the loss of our soldiers in numbers
instead of their names

And I cannot change this... with a poem

WEEK 21: February 8, 2010

TERRY MOORE (TMO)
In Sacramento, we are very fortunate to have award-winning spoken word poet, Terry Moore, as part of our poetry scene. While he has performed his poetry all around the country, he organizes and hosts plenty of local events to showcase other artists from the Capital region and beyond. Terry hosts The Show, the popular Saturday night series in Oak Park. You’ll see him there on the last Saturday of every month, taking videos, making sure everyone is comfortable, getting young people to participate, and introducing acts with warmth and style. But when T-Mo takes the stage to speak his own pieces, the intensity goes up. Working smoothly, often with a two- or three- piece band behind him, he’s so comfortable with his long, narrative works that he often rewrites them during a piece – adding details that fit that night’s appreciative crowd!

By day, Terry provides important services for the community at the non-profit Center for Fathers and Families. In the evenings, he’s putting on events for poets, vocalists, dancers, and more. He founded the Black Men Expressing Tour, as well as the Friday night Blackout Poetry Series, The Underground Poetry Series, and The Show. He also produces a TV Show – Moore Time for Poetry. Check his website to get updates on the appearances he’ll be making, as well as the events he’s coordinating. On Friday, February 19th, Terry will be celebrating the release of his new book Born To Love You, and performing at the Upper Level Lounge, 26 Massie Court, Sacramento. This event begins at 7 pm, and costs $5 at the door.

Terry’s poetry often talks about relationships – the kind of work that we have to do to make relationships work, but he works in plenty of tenderness, humor, devotion, and of course rhythm and rhyme along the way.  Enjoy the words of Terry Moore, and check out a few links I’ve listed below that give you an idea of what’s coming up next from this remarkable writer and performer. You can contact Terry at fromtheheart1@hotmail.com, or 916-208-POET, But best of all, go hear him perform his poetry in person! To find out more, go to www.mybmsf.com/terrymoore or www.terrymoore.info

TERRY'S POETRY

Patiently Waiting

I ran my fingers through her hair, grabbed the back of her neck and began pulling her close to me, but she vanished before our bodies touched.Five minutes later she text messagedme from heaven saying it wasn't time to fall in love yet, so here I am waiting patiently on fate. I 'm hoping that what they say is true, I'm hoping that good things do indeed come to those who wait!

Easily Broken

Here we go again
Another day has gone by
We’re still asking ourselves
Why?

I walk and every step is away from you
Inside it’s not what I want to do
But you said you’d be best without me
So, I have no choice but you let you go free

But deep inside, I know we never took the time to pray
You were so focused on taking your love away
There’s no doubt, we could have made it through
If, I would have gone to the altarand kneeledwith you

Now we’re in a recession
And you don’t have any protection
I’m over here and you’re over there
Thinking about each other but acting like we don’t care

Just think of the wonderful times we laughed together
The times we fought hand in hand through stormy weather
We defeated the enemy time and time again
But somehow now we’ve given up and givenin

You keep subscribing to those crazy thoughts
When you know you still love me a lot
You know it won’t be the same
Waking up, and not hearing me, whispering your name

Meanwhile, I’m looking right through your fake smile
The one you’ve been displaying for a long while
How could you be happy alone?
Knowing the love we had for each other can never be cloned

You say you want me to forever walk away
Even though the best is for me to stay
Too bad the angels in heaven can’t brag on us anymore
I keep hearing God telling us not to close the door

Another good Christian love that drowned in tears
Another perfect match that’s conceding to fears
I’ll be praying for us
And open to your touch, because I love you that much

There’s no doubt if we put God back in the middle we won’t be apart
There’s no doubt if we don’t, we’ll live forever with damaged wings andhearts
Ugly is forgetting what we had, beauty is reinstating our swag
This love was meant to be so I'm still hopin'
That we don't let ourselves become...SO EASILY BROKEN!

My Little Angel

I knew you were an angel from the moment I laid eyes on you
I was right there where a real father is supposed to be
Watching you enter into this world
Waiting for the nurse to hand you over to me

That was my proudest moment
A moment that will always be in the center of my heart
It was then that I decided
That I would never allow anyone but God to tear us apart

Now you’ve gotten older
I’ve watched you grow tall
I’ve watched you blossom into a beautiful rose of a little girl
A rose that I will never allow not even one of your petals to fall

I was the very first to hold you
I was the one who gave you your name
I will always love you my little angel
I hope you feel the same

You will never understand what it took to be with you
It was important to me to be in your life along the way
Now that I’m here let me make it clear
Only my life’s expiration can take me away

I’m so proud of you my angel
You are such a beautiful and wonderful little girl
Thank you for being the greatest gift I could ever ask for
Thank you for being the center of my world.

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 johnallencann@comcast.net.

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
(No picture.)
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. 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.

JOANN'S POETRY

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 College 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
(No picture.)
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

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.

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