Sonoma County Literary Update

Dear Literary Folk,

Fin del Mundo
Jo-Anne Rosen, who handles all things technical when it comes to the Literary Update, has been off on an Antarctic adventure, so the Update is coming to you a few days late. I’ve asked Jo-Anne to share with us some of her experiences and photos.

I sailed beyond the “end of the world” with my two sisters on a ship housing about 2500 passengers and at least 300 crew and staff, a small floating city, 16 decks tall and as long as the Eifel tower is high. My youngest sister Louise, who lives in Santa Rosa, and I were traveling with a group of retired Florida teachers that included our middle sister Ava. This was the only time since childhood we three sisters have traveled together.

After 14 exhausting hours on airplanes, we rested in Buenos Aries two days, enjoying a tour of the colorful Boca neighborhood that was settled by Italian immigrants and the largest and most splendid bookstore I’ve ever seen (El Ateneo Grand Splendid), housed in a beautiful old opera house, five stories high.

We boarded the ship on 20 January and were at sea three days, our first port of call being the southernmost city in Argentina, Ushuaia, where we had booked an excursion to see a penguin colony in Tiera del Fuego. It never happened because that day workers were on strike protesting the new government’s policies. Instead, we came across an exciting protest march, consisting of many left-leaning factions, we learned, that normally do not get along, everything from Peronistas to Socialists. As it turned out, there were more penguins to be seen elsewhere.

We reached Cape Horn on day 5 where luckily visibility was excellent, so we could sail close to the coast and see the Chilean lighthouse at the southernmost point on the continent. The Drake Passage, dreaded by many a navigator of yore, was unusually calm. On day 6 we were elated to spot our first floating iceberg from our stateroom (we had a balcony). Although we’d been warned a dense fog might prohibit entering the Schollart Channel, the sun broke through and we sailed into Paradise Bay. We sisters ran all over the boat taking photos and videos.  

That’s when I started sneezing. The next morning, I had a fever and tested positive for Covid. Ava and Louise remained negative, though we shared one stateroom.

I was actually relieved to be quarantined for five days; there were too many people and too much activity on the ship for my taste. Also, the cruise line provided me with free room service and phone calls and, best of all, a notification that I will be refunded for those five days. On day 1 of Covid-jail, I could see all of Elephant Island from our cabin, since the ship rotated slowly, as if to give me a view of everything. The sun literally sparkled on the water.  

My only regret was not being able to visit Port Stanley and take the excursion via tour bus and jeep to see the Gentoo penguins. But my sisters took great photos and videos. And they had fish n’ chips for lunch (the comfort food of our Canadian childhood). I also missed out on Puerto Madryn, which had been founded in 1865 by Welsh settlers. However, I didn’t miss much, as that is now a small, rundown city with a beachfront that looks like Miami Beach did in the ‘50s. Our final port of call was Montevideo, Uruguay, whose old town near the port reminded us of Paris or New Orleans. We celebrated my 80th birthday that night on the ship.

The only time I experienced motion sickness was on the flight back from Houston to San Francisco, attempting to finish this report on my tablet and descending in 60 mph winds into the atmospheric river. I have never been happier to land at SFO. Everyone on the plane applauded the captain when we touched down at last.  

Nominations for Sonoma County Poet Laureate Open on February 10, 2024
Hard to believe, but it’s been almost two years since Elizabeth Herron was selected as our Sonoma County Poet Laureate. In that time, her Being Brave workshops have tapped the power of poetry to open the heart. And she continues to offer these unique workshops—one is coming up at Sebastopol Center for the Arts in April.

Now it’s time to think about who might be our next Poet Laureate. Nominations will be opening soon for Sonoma County’s 13th Poet Laureate. The Poet Laureate is a Sonoma County resident who has demonstrated a commitment to the literary arts in the County. The Poet Laureate often participates in official ceremonies and readings and receives a $2,000 stipend payable in yearly $1,000 increments.

Nominations for Poet Laureate require that the poet be a resident of Sonoma County whose poetry manifests a high degree of excellence and who has produced a critically acclaimed body of work. The nominee must also have demonstrated an active commitment to the literary arts in Sonoma County, must propose and perform a project of their own creation, and must agree to participate in official ceremonies and poetry events.

The public is invited to nominate qualified poets. Information about requirements and application instructions may be found HERE. The deadline for nominations is April 29, 2024.

Sonoma County Poetry Out Loud
Sandra Anfang, host of Rivertown Poets, sends this news from the realm of youth poetry, so important to our literary community:
 
On Sunday, January 28th, eight students representing different high school competed in the Sonoma County Poetry Out Loud competition at Sonoma State University. Poetry Out Loud is a national recitation competition that involves high school students from all U.S. states and territories. Students compete at the class, school, county, and state levels and each state’s winner moves on to the national event. The program provides an opportunity for students to sample, enjoy, and interpret many different poetic voices from a wide range of poets.
 
The eight students who participated this year were, in no particular order, Ashely Morales, Ella Wen, Estefany Cal Mojica, Eva Smith, Lily Morgan, Riley O’Hara, Sabine Wolpert, and Sophia Cortez Torres. Riley O’Hara won the contest, with Lily Morgan in second place. Sophia Cortez Torres took third place. Riley will attend the state contest in Sacramento.
 
Congratulations to all participants and to runners-up Lily and Sohpia. Best of luck at the next level of competition, Riley!

A Few Upcoming February Events (many more in the calendar!)

A Benefit for SebArts: Rumi’s Caravan on Saturday, February 10, at 7 pm. An Evening of Poetry + Music in the Ecstatic Tradition, featuring Doug von Koss, Kay Crista, Barry Spector, Maya Spector, Rebecca Evert and Larry Robinson with musical accompaniment by Jason Parmar and Don Fontowitz.

Redwood Writers Club will be presenting Life in the Flames: A Five-Year Journey Bringing Inflamed to Publication on Saturday, February 17, 11 a.m.–2 p.m. Just after midnight on October 9, 2017, as one of the nation’s deadliest and most destructive firestorms swept over California’s Wine Country, hundreds of elderly residents from two posh senior living facilities in Santa Rosa were caught in its path. The frailest were blind, in wheelchairs, or diagnosed with dementia, and their community quickly transformed from a palatial complex that pledged to care for them to one that threatened to entomb them. Investigative reporters Paul Gullixson and Anne Belden will share their five-year journey bringing this story to publication, at Finley Community Center, Cypress Room, 2060 W College Ave., Santa Rosa. For more information: redwoodwriters.org
 
Longtime Sonoma County teacher, artist, and poet Marylu Downing returns to celebrate the launch of her new book, Pink Paisley Scarf. The launch will be held on Saturday, February 17, 4:00-5:30 p.m at the Occidental Center for the Arts. After selected readings, the author will be in conversation with Patrick Fanning, author, publisher and President of the OCA Board. Q&A with the audience. Free admission, all donations gratefully accepted. Book sales and signing. 3850 Doris Murphy Way, Occidental.  

Saturday, February 17, 5:00-7:30 p.m. Napa Writers Salon, Author Readings & Talks, Meet & Greet, Book Signings, with Lenore Hirsch, Mary Holman Tuteur (reading by John Tuteur), Iris Jamahl Dunkel and Paul Wagner.. Jessel Gallery, 1019 Atlas Peak Road, Napa. $10 at the door (kids free). Limited seating, RSVP required: 707-257-2350. jesselgallery.com/writerssalon.html

Remembering N. Scott Momaday
Some of you may be familiar with N. Scott Momaday from his work with Ken Burns in documentaries over the years, often providing the historical perspective of the Native Plains people, most recently in The American Buffalo. More important, however, Scott Momaday was the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize for his 1968 debut novel House Made of Dawn. His narratives, poetry, and teaching inspired other Native American authors, such as James Welch, Sherman Alexie, Leslie Marmon Silko, Joy Harjo, and Louise Erdrich. According to Joy Harjo, “Momaday was the one we all looked up to. His works were transcendent. There was always a point where despite the challenges and losses … there was some moment that imparted beauty.”

One such moment of beauty can be found in his book The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969), which weaves Kiowa oral myths and legends with his own autobiography. Back in 1974, when I was just 18, Momaday’s narratives gave me my first taste for the lyrical prose poem. Later, when I taught writing, especially with students who struggled to find their way in the academic world, I liked to give them this piece, in which Momaday describes his grandmother Aho at prayer, and ask them who in their own lives has made a strong emotional impression on them. (For you grammar wonks out there, this passage also provides the best example I know of the use of the colon and semicolon.)
 
Now that I can have her only in memory, I see my grandmother in the several postures that were peculiar to her: standing at the wood stove on a winter morning and turning meat in a great iron skillet, sitting at the south window, bent above her beadwork, and afterwards, when her vision failed, looking down for a long time into the fold of her hands; going out upon a cane, very slowly as she did when the weight of age came upon her; praying. I remember her most often at prayer. She made long, rambling prayers out of suffering and hope, having seen many things. I was never sure that I had the right to hear, so exclusive were they of all mere custom and company. The last time I saw her she prayed standing by the side of her bed at night, naked to the waist, the light of a kerosene lamp moving upon her dark skin. Her long, black hair, always drawn and braided in the day, lay upon her shoulders and against her breasts like a shawl. I do not speak Kiowa, and I never understood her prayers, but there was something inherently sad in the sound, some merest hesitation upon the syllables of sorrow. She began in a high and descending pitch, exhausting her breath to silence; then again and again—and always the same intensity of effort, of something that is, and is not, like urgency in the human voice. Transported so in the dancing light among the shadows of her room, she seemed beyond the reach of time. But that was illusion; I think I knew then that I should not see her again.

I was extraordinarily lucky when I was an undergraduate at Stanford in the mid-70’s to have Momaday as a teacher. I took three courses from him: American Indian Mythology, Legend, and Lore; The Phenomenological “I”; and Reading and Writing Poetry, my first writing workshop. Momaday taught me something I have never forgotten. After reading a fledgling poem I had turned in, he said “Something about this reminds me of Theodore Roethke. You should read some of his poetry.” Well, I hurried off to the library, took out Roethke’s collected poems, read them all, and proceeded to commit “The Waking” to memory. In high school, I had not been exposed to much contemporary poetry; Roethke became for me, through Momaday’s offhand (or maybe not so offhand) remark, a teacher of profound psychological depth, as well as grace and lyric form. Sometimes the best advice a teacher can give a student is to simply point them in the direction of a writer worth reading.  

On January 24, N. Scott Momaday died at his home in Santa Fe, N.M. He was 89. If you’re interested in reading more about Momaday’s life and work, check out this link to the Academy of American Poets: https://poets.org/poet/n-scott-momaday.

Send Us Your Poetry/Short Prose Selections for 2024
In last December’s Literary Update, I announced that I’d like to feature more Sonoma County writers in my choice of Poem for the Month. The theme can be anything you feel is appropriate to the season. I’ll repeat the guidelines here for those who missed the December post. I’ve adjusted the subject line so you won’t feel limited to sending lineated verse. In fact, prose poems, flash fiction, creative nonfiction are all welcome, as long as the piece you send is no more than a page in length.

Send your submission to me at tehret99@comcast.net, with the words “SCLU Poem/Prose of the Month” in the subject heading.

Send me just one submission, no more than a page (or less).

These can be previously published, provided you identify the publishing source. If the piece is not your own, provide the author’s name and source. The author should be a Sonoma County voice, and if contemporary, please ask the author’s permission to submit.

Deadline: You can send the submission any time during the month, but I’ll need to receive your submission a few days before the month’s end to give me time to read, make my choice, and contact the author of the piece selected.

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Prose Poem for February

GRATON
by Mark Tate

Up the steep hill, I turned right at Sullivan Road & continued past the orchard & entered the cemetery that looked over the Santa Rosa plain. Clouds sailed across the sky & I could see up the Dry Creek Valley or down to Valley Ford. Standing near the grave that read Saphomia Stout, Beloved Wife and Mother, 1830-1871, I bowed my head & murmured to her, placing a piece of soft sandstone at the foot of her grave near one of the head-sized stones that encircled her plot. Within the oval ring of stones were the smooth stones, small shells, & bits of driftwood I had left on previous visits as had become my ritual. When my wife was buried, my sisters & I planted some gladiolas in two hand-made baskets partially submerged in the earth, a little garden fashioned on the hill. Near her grave, in a small plot enclosed by an iron fence, was the grave of our two-year old daughter—gone fifteen years. The thin wood marker was split & her name had faded into the weathered wood. A valley oak not more than two feet high had sprouted in the corner of the iron fencing. Unable to bring myself to pull the oak from the grave, I walked toward the dirt road that turned around the orchard & headed home. Fog edged through the trees & down the road before me, making the signs on the town buildings unreadable.

About Mark
Sonoma County poet Mark Tate’s collection Walking Scarecrow was selected for the 2023 Blue Light Book Award. Mark is the author of three previous books of poetry Pommes de Terre (2001), Sur lie* (2002), and Rooms and Doorways (2003), and three novels, Beside the River, and its sequel River’s End (McCaa Books, 2021), and Butterfly on the Wheel (McCaa Books, 2022). He served for ten years on the Sonoma County Poet Selection Committee for the poets laureate of our county. He is a long-time resident of Northern California where he lives with his wife, Lori.  

Walking Scarecrow, The Poems of Pineshadow from Blue Light Press is available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 
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Terry Ehret
Co-editor, Sonoma County Literary Update