Sonoma County Literary Update

Dear Literary Folk,

It feels like we have all been wringing our hands these past few weeks leading up to Tuesday’s election. Some of us feel like the hands we have been figuratively (or literally) wringing. I hope you will all take the time to vote, and if you already have, thank you! So much is at stake.

Back in the fall of 2016, I led a workshop at the Sitting Room called “Singing in Dark Times: Reading and Writing Political Poems.” Certainly you all remember that particular election. Dark times indeed. One of the poems we read together was “Enemies,” by Wendell Berry:

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Enemies

If you are not to become a monster,
you must care what they think.
If you care what they think,

how will you not hate them,
and so become a monster
of the opposite kind? From where then

is love to come—love for your enemy
that is the way of liberty?
From forgiveness. Forgiven, they go

free of you, and you of them;
they are to you as sunlight
on a green branch. You must not

think of them again, except
as monsters like yourself,
pitiable because unforgiving. 

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Today I marked my ballot and dropped it in the ballot collection box outside the Veteran’s Memorial Building. On Monday, the sun poured in through the open doors of the cemetery chapel where my family and I set our sister’s urn in her niche. On Saturday, my daughter sang Bach’s “Ave Maria” and “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace,” the latter an adaptation of the Prayer of Saint Francis, which is framed in stained glass in that cemetery chapel. But how to be a channel of peace? Is there a way to hone ourselves, keep ourselves in tune so when we are called to place a calming hand on this troubled world, we’re ready?

I’ve learned over many years of writing and teaching that the gift, whatever that is, comes not so much to us as through us. And with whatever writing practice we’ve adopted, we are tuning ourselves as instruments. Maybe voting is a kind of exercise, certainly an exercise in hope, like taking the time to breathe through a difficult moment. And in breathing, we take in the ghosts around us, so full of the hope we’re needing.

This time of year, our dead come close to us, like the Super Moon in the perigee of its elliptical orbit. Make room for them. Gather them up like windfall apples. Think of them in the small acts of remembrance you may be inclined to on this Día de los Muetos. Ask them to guide us toward the kind of liberty, child of forgiveness, that Wendell Berry speaks of in his poem. Ask them to help us preserve that other liberty we are in danger of losing. But such prayers are not enough. We each have to do our part. As Mary Harris “Mother” Jones once said, “Pray for the dead. Fight like hell for the living.” And as another wise woman, Grace Paley, put it “Hope is action.” Let’s hone our instruments and get to work!

Poetry from the North Country: Lynne Knight and Katherine Hastings

I’m looking forward to zooming in for Monday’s Rivertown Poets, partly because the two featured readers are dear friends who have moved out of our geographical circle, but who are very much part of the work we all do here in the Bay Area. Katherine Hastings, our former Sonoma County Poet Laureate and director of WordTemple Reading Series, will be joining us via zoom from her new home in upstate New York, not far from the Canadian border. And Lynne Knight, colleague at Sixteen Rivers Press, will be joining us from her new home in British Columbia, Canada.

The reading will be on Monday, November 4, 6:15 p.m., followed by open mic. Open mic slots are three minutes each, including any introduction or backstory. If you’d like to be added to the list or, have any questions send an email to rivertownpoet@gmail.com. The list fills very quickly; it’s better to sign up and then cancel later, if necessary. Join Zoom Meeting: us06web.zoom.us/j/6508887879. Passcode: 2241991

West Side Stories: Less than Perfect

Join the chorus of Sonoma County storytellers on Wednesday, November 13, 7:30-9:00 p.m. when Dave Pokorny presents West Side Stories. Theme: Less than Perfect. The event takes place at Polly Klaas Community Theater, 417 Western Avenue, Petaluma. Details and ticket ($21.50) purchase: davepokornypresents.com/west-side-stories.

Annual Call for Submissions for Book-Length Poetry Manuscripts 

Sixteen Rivers Press, a shared-work poetry collective with a three-year commitment, invites Northern California authors to submit full-length poetry manuscripts between November 1, 2024 and February 1, 2025. All manuscripts will be read blind, and typically one or two manuscripts are selected for publication. The winner(s) will be announced on the press’s website during summer 2024. Selected manuscripts will be scheduled for publication in spring 2027.

Online Submissions: Send an e-mail to submissions@sixteenrivers.org with your name, address, phone number, and the name of your manuscript. Attach a PDF of your manuscript to the e-mail address (name the PDF with the title of your manuscript). In the body of the e-mail, please include a personal statement (350 to 500 words) about why you want to work in a publishing collective, including any special experience or skills you might contribute, and tell us where you heard about the press and our call for submissions. The manuscript must be e-mailed no later than February 1, 2025. Note: We do not accept hard-copy manuscripts sent by US mail. Please do not include your name anywhere in your manuscript, as it is important that your manuscript be a blind submission. The manuscript must be single-spaced and between 60 and 90 pages. Manuscripts must be previously unpublished, although individual poems may have been published online or in print. The manuscript should include a title page without the author’s name and address, a table of contents, and an acknowledgments page listing previous publications of the poems.

Sixteen Rivers values diversity. We encourage poets of color, young poets, and LGBTQ poets to submit.

Two Poems for November

I received two submissions this month, and found I wanted to include them both, as they each speak so eloquently to the season and its embrace (and transformation) of grief.

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Visitation
by Lisa Shulman

Sometimes the dead drop in for a visit
unannounced they slip past me on the step
having no need for doors locked or open
they make themselves at home, kick off their shoes 
rest cold bones on empty creaking rockers
thumb through yesterday’s newspaper, old
New Yorkers, dusty books of poetry
or argue idly over the remote.

Sometimes the dead settle in the back seat
without asking, tag along for the ride
press pale cheeks to cool glass, watch flickering
reflections of light play on wet pavement.
I hear them whisper wordless seashell sounds
behind my back, as if I were the ghost.

Sometimes I think they fiddle with the knobs
on the radio when I’m not looking.
Why else would these hot tears spring to my eyes
at an old song I’ve never heard before?
Why else would I mourn at a certain turn
where crooked arms of valley oaks reach out,
an empty embrace holding a cold sky
reminding me of all that I have lost?

Sometimes I doubt, but if the dead do not
stop by, why then do I push back my plate
the bread in my mouth turned ash and dust?
Why then do I wrap myself in blankets,
warding off the dull chill of silent rooms
that are at once empty and too full to bear?

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Lisa Shulman is a writer, children’s book author, and teacher. Her work has appeared in New Verse News, ONE ART, Poetry Breakfast, Catamaran, Minnow Literary Magazine, California Quarterly, The Best Small Fictions, and a number of other magazines and anthologies. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Lisa’s poetry has also been performed by Off the Page Readers Theater. Her chapbook Fragile Bones, Fierce Heart is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Lisa lives in Northern California where she teaches poetry with California Poets in the Schools. http://www.lisashulman.com

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So Easy to Forget
by Raphael Block 

Grief has its rocks, waves, tides, 
spiraling depths—
and, like the vast ocean, 
it’s full of life, its folds filled 
with cod, squid, salmon, and kelp.

The ones I’ve lost swim inside—
some closer than in life—
their fins brushing against my skin.

They knock on my ribs, sometimes 
to wake me from reverie, 
and, in the night, their blessings 
murmur in my blood.

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Raphael Block is the author of five poetry books, The Dreams We Share (2023), At This Table, Strings of Shining Silence, Spangling Darkness, and Songs from a Small Universe. Raphael produces the monthly Earth-Love Newsletter which can be viewed at raphaelblock.com along with a National Geographic selected 5-minute documentary.

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Send Us Your Poetry/Short Prose Selections for 2024

Starting last January, I began featuring a different Sonoma County writer each month at the end of the Literary Update Post. Here’s how to participate.

The theme can be anything you feel is appropriate to the season. 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 “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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Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update Co-Editor