Sonoma County Literary Update

Dear Literary Folk,

You’d think that things would be quiet in the literary community midsummer, but the calendar is surprisingly busy, and with many interesting events. Here are some highlights. You’ll find more information about each on the calendar page.

AQUS CAFÉ AND COMMUNITY
Those of you who live in Petaluma are probably familiar with the Aqus Café. More than a coffee establishment, Aqus is a cultural hub, a community center, with art on display, live jazz, folk music, Irish/Celtic music, trivia games, poetry readings, movie nights, and more.

In 2006, John Crowley, originally from Dublin, opened Aqus Cafe to provide a shared space for gatherings in this spirit of people sharing, connecting, and just getting to know each other. Since then, hundreds of people gather each day at the Café, creating a culture of community that has spread beyond the Café walls. Check out Aqus’s website www.aquscafe.com, where you’ll find all kinds of information, including a calendar of Aqus events, how to become an Aqus member, and a newsletter with announcements and community happenings.

In the past year, a wonderful poetry series, called Rivertown Poets A-Museing, has launched. And on Monday, July 7, at 6:40, my dear old friend Alison Luterman will be reading with Sandra Anfang. The featured readers will be followed by an open mic. If you’d like to be part of the open mic reading, come at 6:30 to sign up. For more information: wrdpntr51@gmail.com; https://www.facebook.com/RivertownPoets

Aqus is located at the Foundry Wharf, 189 H Street.

THOUGHTS ON THE DROUGHT
I’d like to keep posting your responses to our shifting climate and current drought. Has the weather drawn from you an essay? a poem? a rant? A lament? If so, please send me what you’ve written. You can send me your thoughts to tehret99@comcast.net. Please write Thoughts on the Drought in the subject line. Try to keep contributions under 250 words.

HOT SUMMER NIGHTS AT COPPERFIELD’S
This month, Redwood Writers and Copperfield’s Books in Montgomery Village, Santa Rosa, have teamed up for three evenings called Hot Summer Nights. The first of these is Tuesday, July 8, 7:00-8:00 p.m. when the theme is “Love and Poetry” with featured readers Michelle Wing, Patricia Nelson, Juanita Martin, Pamela Taeuffer and Kay Mehl Miller. Then on Tuesday, July 15, 7:00-8:00 p.m., the theme will be “Short Stories,” with featured readers Jean Wong, Jo Lauer, Kate Farrell and Sunny Lockwood. The July series finishes up on Tuesday, July 29, 7:00-8:00 p.m. when the topic is “Fiction” and the featured readers are Jeane Slone, Julie Winrich, Thonie Hevron and Lenore Hirsch.

OTHER JULY HIGHLIGHTS
The Sebastopol Senior Center launches its first Open Mic on Thursday, July 10, 1-3 PM. Call 829-2440 to sign up. Location: 167 High Street, Sebastopol.
Later that same day, 7:00-9:00 p.m., Cloverdale Performing Arts Center presents Books on Stage with Sonoma County Poet Laureate Katherine Hastings and novelist Gil Mansergh. Location: 209 North Cloverdale Boulevard, Cloverdale.

On Friday, July 11, 7:00-9:00 p.m., you can enjoy a double book launch featuring Donna Emerson & Phyllis Meshulam at Occidental Center for the Arts, 3850 Doris Murphy Ct.,Occidental.
Bibliophoria Artwalk gets under way on Saturday, July 12, 9:00 a.m. This is a book and print lover’s 2.5 mile round-trip walk exploring the many book resources of Sebastopol.

And here’s something new: “Critters and Creators,” a free reading, RiskPress Gallery, 7345 Healdsburg Ave., Sebastopol on Friday, July 18, 6:30-8:00 p.m. Featured readers are Iris Dunkle, Jodi Hottel, John Johnson, Carol Wade Lundberg and Phyllis Meshulam. They will read in the midst of the critters created by Jann Aanestad and Nancy Winn.

A WRITER’S GETAWAY: RIVER’S BEND
For many years, Wellspring Renewal Center in Anderson Valley hosted a writing retreat on the banks of the Navarro River. When I was teaching there, I used to lead the writers in building a seven-circuit labyrinth. The stones would stay in place until the river rose in the winter, carrying them downstream towards the sea. Thus, the building of the labyrinth became an annual event.

Wellspring closed a few years ago, but the retreat facility is still there, now reopened as River’s Bend Retreat Center. If you can’t get away to the Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference or the Napa Writers’ Conference, but would like some creative writing time, consider booking a personal retreat. Here’s the website for more information: www.riversbendretreat.org.

July’s Poem: For this month, I’m featuring two poems that express a love of home-country in different ways.

Emma Lazarus 1849–1887

Emma Lazarus was born in New York City to a wealthy family and educated by private tutors. She began writing poetry as a teenager and took up the cause — through both poetry and prose — against the persecution of Jews in Russia during the 1880s. Lines from her sonnet “The New Colossus” were engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903.

The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Source: Emma Lazarus: Selected Poems and Other Writings (2002)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a poet, playwright, editor, and painter, perhaps best known as the founder of City Lights Pocket Bookshop (now City Lights Books), San Francisco, and editor of City Lights Books, 1955—present.

I Am Waiting
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “I Am Waiting” from A Coney Island of the Mind. Copyright © 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation, www.wwnorton.com/nd/welcome.htm.

Congratulations to this month’s newly published authors in Sonoma County. See who’s in print at https://socolitupdate.com/sonoma-county-in-print.

Terry Ehret, co-Editor
Sonoma County Literary Update