Sonoma County Literary Update

Dear Literary Folk,

After two years as Sonoma County’s literary ambassador, Bill Vartnaw will hand the poet’s laurels to a new Poet Laureate. Who Will Be Sonoma County’s 2014-2015 Poet Laureate?

The answer to that depends on you. The poet laureate is selected by a committee of representatives from each of the supervisorial districts of Sonoma County, as well as the poets who have served as laureates over the past decade. If you are interested in being considered for this honor, or if you know of a poet who you think will serve the community well in this role, nominations are now open.

The Poet Laureate is a Sonoma County resident, whose poetry manifests a high degree of excellence, who has produced a critically acclaimed body of work, and who has demonstrated a commitment to the literary arts in the County. The Poet Laureate often participates in official ceremonies and readings. Our laureate roll call includes Don Emblen, David Bromige, Terry Ehret, Geri Digiorno, Mike Tuggle, Gwynn O’Gara, and, of course, our current laureate Bill Vartnaw.

The Poet Laureate will not have a formal job description but will be encouraged to develop an agenda promoting poetry and the literary arts in Sonoma County. Organizers of various community events may invite the Poet Laureate to participate in their events. There is no stipend or compensation for this position.

Deadline for nominations is October 31, 2013 and the new Poet Laureate will be announced in December.

Download the submission requirements and application form from the Center for the Arts’ website at http://sebarts.org/images/uploads/2014-15_Poet_Laureate_Nomination_Form.pdf or email lindag@sebarts.org.  For questions please contact Linda Galletta at lindag@sebarts.org or call the Center for the Arts at 829-4797.

El Día de los Muertos and the annual Poetry of Remembrance Community Reading

This year’s theme for the month-long celebration of El Día de los Muertos is “Tree of Lives/Arbol de Vidas.” Among the many events is the annual Poetry of Remembrance/ Poesia del Recuerdo bilingual community reading. This will be held on Friday, October 25 from 5:30 to 9 PM. If you’d like to volunteer to help, read a poem in honor of a loved one, or attend the evening’s program and pot luck supper, contact any of the following:

• Abraham Solar, co-chair, 707-293-6811 or email abrelia@aol.com
• Margie Helm, co-chair, 707-321-3192 or email helmatkin@earthlink.net
• Gloria McCallister, co-chair, 707-481-1755 or email gloria.esp4u@yahoo.com

Besides these annual and biannual events, the October Calendar is quite busy. Here is just a taste of what’s happening this month. For a complete listing of events, check out the calendar page.

Saturday, October 5, at 2:00 pm, Phyllis Meshulam and Raphael Block will be poetry and music on the theme Healing the Earth, at Petaluma Library, 100 Fairgrounds Drive.

On Thursday, October 3, 10, 17,and 24 at various locations, there will be readings and events on the theme of “Changing Hurt to Hope: Writers Speak Out Against Domestic Violence.” Check the calendar for details or Contact: Michelle Wing, (707) 478-1460 or wingpoet@gmail.com.

Thursday, October 17 (and October 18, 19, 24, 25, 26), 7:30 p.m. Petaluma Readers Theatre and Tiny Lights Publications present “Haunted: Chilling and Thrilling Stories,” directed by Lorin Bell. Clear Heart Stage, 90 Jessie Lane, Petaluma. Tickets ($10) for “Haunted” are available at The Mail Depot, 4th & C St, Petaluma; Soft Shell, 10 Kentucky St, Petaluma; online at www.petalumareaderstheatre.com; or at the door.

Saturday, October 26, 7:00 p.m. WordTemple Arts & Lectures presents Transforming Terror — Remembering the Soul of the World. In Conversation: Susan Griffin and Judy Grahn, reading from their books and in conversation with the audience. Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 282 S. High Street, Sebastopol. For more information go to www.wordtemple.com.

And finally, here is an October poem to welcome the autumn rains, harvest, and mellowing light.

Terry Ehret, co-editor

To print and read a pdf of almost all the pages on this blogsite, click here.

Poem in October

by Dylan Thomas

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.

My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill’s shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
There could I marvel
My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.

It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child’s
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels

And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds.

And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart’s truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year’s turning.

Dylan Thomas, “Poem in October” from The Poems of Dylan Thomas.
Used by permission of David Higham Associates, London as agents for the Trustees of the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas.

Source: Poetry (February 1945).

Dear Literary Folk,

The seasons turn and we’re once more on the threshold of autumn, with its Indian summer days, long afternoons of amber light, the air full of seed puffs, spinning like tiny gods on their many white arms. Scorpio descending, Orion ascending, and that moment yet to come when the light and dark are held in balance.

The end of August arrives, bringing some of us back from travels; some have already started a new semester of classes; some are just now launching themselves on journeys, wisely heading out as the summer tourists return; some are keeping an eye on the vast plumes of smoke and acres of fire burning in the sacred ground of Yosemite; some are celebrating the end of summer at Burning Man in Nevada.

In Sonoma County, autumn has its own traditions. For its eighteenth year, the Petaluma Poetry Walk returns, Sunday the 15th, followed closely on September 21st with Sonoma County Book Festival in a new location—Santa Rosa Junior College’s Bertolini Student Center and Quad, beside Doyle Library. On Sunday, September 22, 1:00-5:00 p.m. Haiku Poets of Northern California gather for their annual Two Autumns Reading. Katherine Hastings opens yet another amazing program at WordTemple, both live readings and on-air interviews.

Finally, as the month draws to an end, the legacy of the Occupy Movement gives us once again a series of  100 Thousand Poets for Change global movement taking place around the world in over 100 countries. Events will be held locally September 27-29 in Healdsburg and Santa Rosa: a march for peace, a night of music, a dance party, a barbecue. You can check out the details and schedules for all of these events on the Calendar page of this website, or by clicking on these links:

• Petaluma Poetry Walk: www.petalumapoetrywalk.org/2013poetrywalkschedule.html
• Sonoma County Book Festival: www.socobookfest.org
• Two Autumns Reading: www.hpnc.org
• 100 Thousand Poets for Change: www.100tpcmedia.org/100TPC2012/2013/08/headquarters-event-100-thousand-poets-and-musicians-for-change-santa-rosa-california-2013/
• WordTemple: www.wordtemple.com/blog/?page_id=14

Today, I also want to pay tribute to two poets whose work has touched me and many people very deeply. The first is Irish poet and Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney (1939-2013), who passed away on Friday, August 30; the second is Susan Herron Sibbet (1941-2013), poet, novelist, and guiding force behind California Poets in the Schools, who left us Saturday, August 31. They will be making beautiful poetry together as they step over the threshold between body and spirit, and we, who miss them so, can in our own creation of beauty and love “sing them awake.”

In their memories, I offer a poem by each. The first is “Postscript,” written by Seamus Heaney. I first read it standing on the Flaggy Shore in West Ireland where the poem is set. It’s from his 1996 collection The Spirit Level. The second is “Voice,” by Susan Herron Sibbet, the opening poem from her 2004 collection No Easy Light.

Postscript
Seamus Heaney

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightening of flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park or capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open

______________

Voice
Susan Herron Sibbet

my voice
darker
struggling with light
too light     two lights
nights
these nights
sleeping without
voice

tonight
we make our own light
two lights
two voices

this light night
giving voice
voice giving shadow

the voice a shadow
two what the brain
desires
being everywhere
all over the body

voice    light
shadow     voice
still this voice

______________

Terry Ehret
Co-editor

For a pdf version of most of the pages on the Sonoma County Literary Update site (for September 2013), click here.

Dear Literary Folk,

Bore da! Good day from Wales! I’m writing this post from the Brown’s Hotel in Laugharne, a coastal village west of Swansea best known as the home of Dylan Thomas. The Brown’s Hotel was one of his favorite pubs. It also happens to have Internet access, which hasn’t been easy to find here. I don’t have much news of Sonoma County to share, so I’ll rely on Jo-Anne and Bill Vartnaw to keep you up to date on the August readings, workshops, and literary events. But I can give you a glimpse of the writer’s life in Wales where I’m leading a small group of poets and writers on a literary tour and writing retreat.

Today the 7 writers traveling with me went to Thomas’s house on Cymdonkin Drive in Swansea, as well as the Dylan Thomas Centre. Then we drove to the old farm of Fern Hill where we took turns reading the verses of that wonderful poem.

Back in Laugharne, we went to the Boathouse where Thomas lived with his wife and children, and spent some time writing there, having the place largely to ourselves. The sun came out after a day of on-again, off-again rain, lighting up the estuary below the Boathouse all the way round the curve of the by to the castle the stands under Sir John’s Hill. Tomorrow we will walk the path up Sir John’s  Hill which Dylan Thomas described in “Poem in October,” and we’ll conclude our stay here with a visit to the grave and a farewell reading of “And Death Shall Have No Dominion,” “Do Not Go Gentle,” and “Poem on His Birthday.”

Besides our stay in Laugharne, we’ve been to Hay-on-Wye, an entire village of bookstores. One was set in a passageway between two buildings, and it calls itself Book Passage. It reminded us of home. We’ve visited Castles in Conwy  and Caernarfon, ridden the small-gauge railways in North Wales, including one that  runs beside our 300-year-old farmhouse on the shores of Bala Lake, and the two-car steam engine that  chugs impossibly up the slopes of Mount Snowdon. Then we climbed down, with spectacular views opening up as we came through the clouds  or the wind lifted them aside. After we descended, we went to Pen-Y-Gwyrd, a pub where Sir Edmund Hillary and his team gathered during their time training to climb Mount Everest. There we read Wordsworth’s description of climbing Mount Snowdon by moonlight.

Next week, we’ll be visiting Gerard Manley Hopkins’s territory in the Elwy and Clwyd valleys, including a visit to San Bueno’s, the Jesuit monastery where he studied and began writing his ecstatic poetry.

The Welsh love their poets. We feel very welcome here. We’ll conclude our stay with a visit to the Welsh Arts Festival called the Eisteddfod, with competitions in music, dance, and poetry. We’ll be there for the  gathering of the Gorsedd of the Bards as they chose the writer of the best free-verse poem.

Terry Ehret
Co-editor

For a pdf version of most of the pages on the Sonoma County Literary Update site (for August 2013), click here.

Dear Literary Folk,

Terry Ehret is on a temporary hiatus from this blog post, so we are offering Bill Vartnaw’s newest and newsy column here instead. After reading this, check out the calendar, county news, and workshop and conferences pages for more of summer’s literary offerings, including Redwood Writer’s Authors Launch Celebration on July 14, Off the Page (a readers theater performance of work by local authors) on July 25-27 in three locations, a panel discussion of the “wild new world of publishing” at the Occidental Center for the Arts on July 12, and one county to the east, the 33rd Napa Valley Writers Conference with readings open to the public from July 28-August 2. And more…

And now, here’s Bill!

* * *

It’s hot! Hope every one had a great Solstice!

Sorry, my blog didn’t appear last month. I had a few things to say too, (I’ll say them below) but I was dealing with mortality, mine & others, & wasn’t going online, didn’t get Jo-Anne’s message & lost track of what day it was. I got bit by a tick. The medical lab says it was not a Lyme tick, but I had to wait two weeks, ingesting anti-biotics twice a day, before I found out. I am relieved now, am thinking about writing a poem about it, possibly in the tradition of John Donne’s “The Flea,” a bit darker, though I haven’t done it yet. I’m still learning the lesson.

Last month, Petaluma started a new poetry open mic at Aqus Cafe, co-ordinated by Sandra Anfang, on the first Monday of the month. That would be tonight, if you are reading this on Monday, July 1st. The featured readers are Carol Dorf and Dawn McGuire. Carol Dorf is fascinated with the boundaries between disciplines — mathematics and poetry—- prose poetry and lineated poetry. She is poetry editor of Talking Writing where she writes about issues in contemporary poetry; and she teaches mathematics. Dawn McGuire is a neurologist and author of two poetry collections, Sleeping in Africa and Hands On. McGuire has won several poetry awards, including the Troubadour Prize (UK), the National League of American Pen Women, and the 2011 Sarah Lawrence/Campbell Corner Academy of Language Exchange Poetry Prize for “poems that treat larger themes with lyric intensity.”

Last month, Sandra featured herself with Gail Newman, a San Francisco poet I had hadn’t heard in many years. I enjoyed their work. It was a short reading, due to a new art exhibit being hung at the cafe that night & probably a memo not being seen by the right persons, but showed plenty of promise, as they say. I’ll definitely be there tonight.

* * *

A Sonoma poet who refuses to be identified, & quotes Kierkegaard a lot, tells me that there is a new open mic in Sonoma at Readers’ Books, starting on July 13th from 5 to 7 pm. Those of you who are not familiar with Sonoma, Readers’ Books is a half block east of the plaza, at 130 East Napa Street. They are asking for a $5.00 donation to help pay for their new reading patio where the new open mic will be held. That’s worth a look. Kiitos.

* * *

While I’m on July readings, & this is not an open mic, on Sunday, July 7th at the Redwood Cafe in Cotati, from 5 to 7 pm, there will be a Judy Stedman Writing Tribute with Lynn Camhi, Godelieve Uyttenhove, Gail Calvello, Caroline Brumley, Donna Emerson and Geri Digiorno reading poems by & about the late SRJC poet & teacher. These are women who were in a writing group with Judy. Sarah Baker will provide the music for the evening.

* * *

One of my biggest gaffes, don’t let me count the ways, was not responding to an email to help save the Sonoma County Book Festival until after the due date had been reached. According to their Kickstarter url, they reached their goal on the last day. Thank you everyone! I would have felt awful if that would have happened on my watch. I used to love to go the San Francisco Book Festival when I lived in the city, it was a huge event & one day it ceased to exist. I understand that it’s happening again, but it was gone for over a decade. I don’t want that to happen here. I found an address on the Sonoma County Book Festival Facebook site: P.O. Box 159, Santa Rosa, CA 95402. I will send a small donation, as well as ask for a table for Taurean Horn Press, & invite you to do something similar if you didn’t know & are so inclined. This is what I’ve found out from their online sources:

•  The 2013 Book Festival on Saturday, September 21, is moving to the outdoor courtyard at the Santa Rosa Junior College in Santa Rosa so all of the Festival offerings are in one spot (and it’s a beautiful spot!).
•  We are partnering with our local independent bookseller, Copperfield’s Books, to bring an amazing line-up of nationally acclaimed authors while still showcasing our wonderful local authors.
•  We’ll continue to provide presentations, workshops, and a slew of children’s activities in an all-day event that you won’t want to miss and that will remain absolutely FREE.

* * *

Since I’ve mention one September event, I may as well as mention another near & dear to my heart, the Petaluma Poetry Walk is on Sunday, September 15th this year. It looks to be a very good one, here’s the line up as of today:

• Au Cocolat
  Barbara Swift Brauer/Gerald Fleming/Jodi Hottel
• Riverfront Gallery
  Jamie Asaye FitzGerald/Glenn Ingersoll/Kathleen Winter
• Apple Box 1
  Michelle Baynes/Yvonne Baynes/Geri Digiorno/Nancy Keane/surprise poet
• Apple Box 2
  Raphael Block/Diane Frank/Steward Florsheim
• Copperfields
  Avotcja/Judy Grahn
• Phoenix Theater
  Kim Shuck/Bill Vartnaw/Nancy Wakeman
• Petaluma Museum
  Jennifer Barone/Martin Hickel/Lynn Watson
• Aqus Cafe
  Neeli Cherkovski/David Meltzer/Julie Rogers

I hope you will find/make time to come. I haven’t mentioned 100 Thousand Poets for Change,
http://100tpc.org. Check it out too.

Stay cool.

Bill Vartnaw
Sonoma County Poet Laureate 2012-2013

For a pdf version of most of the pages on the Sonoma County Literary update site (for June 2013), click here.

Dear Literary Folk,

Summer weather is already upon us, and the summer literary season, too. I know many of us have travel plans, but there’s still a lot going on close to home: workshops, readings, conferences, and retreats. The calendar is brimming with literary to-do’s; here are some I’m highlighting this month.

Happy Birthday to the Sitting Room!
First, let’s celebrate one of the premier literary communities in Sonoma County, the Sitting Room, which is celebrating its birthday on Sunday, June 9, 2-5 PM. Karen Petersen and JJ. Wilson are the visionary women who started the Sitting Room as a nonprofit, privately funded community library back in 1981. Quietly, diligently, they’ve fostered a fantastic reading library and archives; promoted the work of local, national, and international authors; especially women, provided a home for workshops, reading groups, and events; and celebrated the community of writers with annual thematic publications. So come on out! Refreshments will be provided. For details, check the Calendar Page https://socolitupdate.com/current-calendar-of-literary-events/.

Summer Conferences
9^th Annual Pt. Reyes Writing Retreat with Susan Bono and Patti Trimble (June 7-9),
Mendocino Coast Writers Conference (July 25-27)
Napa Valley Writer’s Conference (July 28-August 2).

The conference registrations may be closed, but check to see about readings or craft lectures that may be open to the public. For more information, check the Conference Page: https://socolitupdate.com/conferencesretreats

Summer Workshops
Local writers will be offering one-day or weekly workshops this summer. Among these are Dan Coshnear, Marlene Cullen, Susan Bono, Tom Mariani, Nancy Long, Clara Rosemarda, and may more. Check out the Workshop Page for all the offerings: https://socolitupdate.com/current-and-upcoming-writing-workshops/.

The Sonoma County Book Festival Needs Your Support
The annual Sonoma County Book Festival will be moving to a new location, Santa Rosa Junior College, and collaborating on programming with Copperfield’s Books. The festival will have a different format, but promises to provide a stellar list of authors and panelists. Please support the Book Festival in this very important interim year. The Festival has launched a Love Your Fest campaign on Kickstarter to raise money for an executive director to make this year’s Festival in September at the courtyard at Santa Rosa Junior College happen. Here’s the link you can use to make your donation. Any amount will be appreciated.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/1516845627/sonoma-county-book-festival

Thank you, Jo-Anne!
I also want to send a special thanks to my co-editor, Jo-Anne Rosen, who does such a terrific job keeping the website up to date, and makes sure the monthly update gets out to you all in a timely way, even when I’m behind schedule. Jo-Anne’s WordRunner Press is an important part of our local publishing world, and we’re grateful for her work there, too.

For those who regularly announce their workshops, readings, or services here, a donation of $10 to $20/year is requested to keep the update and its website going. Donations from regular readers are welcome, too. For details contact the editor Jo-Anne Rosen at sonomacountyliteraryupdate@gmail.com.

Wales Writer’s Workshop and Literary Travel

I will be taking a group of writers on a literary travel-tour of Wales, July 25-August 9. We’ll be focusing on Dylan Thomas and Gerard Manley Hopkins, but with plenty of time to take in the natural and historical beauty of the Welsh world. We’ll also be there for the annual music, poetry, and arts festival, known as the Eisteddfod. If you’re interested in being a part of future travel-writing adventures, check the website at http://wales2013.wordpress.com/.

Note: This means I’ll be away when it’s time to put together the August Literary Update, but Jo-Anne may be able to step in, as she so often does.

I’ve been thinking a lot about a line from Galway Kinnell’s poem “St. Francis and the Sow’: “For everything flowers,  from within, of self-blessing.” Here’s the whole poem to go along with that sweet note for June. Here’s a link to hear Kinnell reading this poem: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ey0VnB9yAo

Terry Ehret
Literary Update Co-editor

Saint Francis And The Sow

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath
them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

© 1980 by Galway Kinnell
Online Source: http://faculty.washington.edu/jnh/vol1no1/sow.htm

P.S. To download a pdf version of most of the pages in this website, click here.

Dear Literary Folk,

Two seasonal Sonoma County events not to be missed this month are Healdsburg Literary Guild’s Graveside Readings on May 26 (see the Poet Laureate’s column and the Calendar for details) and the quarterly Speakeasy Saloon at Aqus cafe in Petaluma on May 29. SpeakeasySaloon will feature Sonoma’s novelist duo, Harry (H.B.) Reid and Linda Loveland Reid, reading from their recently published books, respectively, H.B.’s The Concert and Linda’s Something in Stone. Also reading from their new novels are Jordan Rosenfeld (Forged in Grace) and Jon Wells (He Died All Day Long). More info at: https://amandamctigue.com/am/Aqus_Literary_Speakeasy_Saloon.html

Plan ahead: Conferences and retreats upcoming include the 9^th Annual Pt. Reyes Writing Retreat with Susan Bono and Patti Trimble (June 7-9), the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference (July 25-27) and Napa Valley Writer’s Conference (July 28-August 2). See: https://socolitupdate.com/conferencesretreats

Calls: Redwood Writers has posted new calls for submission; there will be separate contests this year and next for memoir, poetry, fiction and play writing, beginning with memoir. Check out the Calls for Submissions page (https://socolitupdate.com/calls-for-submission). There are six deadlines between now and June 1, 2013, including locally produced, Wordrunner eChapbook’s (www.echapbook.com) summer poetry issue.

“Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,” especially in Petaluma, where I’m hiding from the storm of pollen and looking longingly out the window at a green canopy. I hope to emerge in time to see some of you at these exciting literary venues

Jo-Anne Rosen
co-editor
Sonoma County Literary Update

To download a pdf of most of the pages in this website, click here.

Dear Literary Folk,

Our post for March is coming to you a couple of days behind schedule. February’s shortened days tend to catch us all by surprise.

This year’s Associated Writers and Writing Programs Conference takes place next week in Boston, and there will be many local poets and writers in attendance, myself included. The big draw for me is the keynote presentation: a conversation between Nobel Laureates Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott, and the closing reading with Ann Carson. In between is a dizzying array of workshops, readings, and panels. Sonoma County poet Iris Dunkle and WordTemple goddess Katherine Hastings and I will be part of a panel presentation on Amy Lowell and her poem about  women writers called “The Sisters.”

Meanwhile, right here in Sonoma County, we have another amazing month of readings, workshops, and events every bit as engaging as what AWP has to offer, without the trouble of flying across the country and back. The March calendar is brimming with celebrations of Women’s History Month; local, national and international writers; as well as Emily Dickinson, the author for this year’s National “Big Read.” Here are a few highlights, followed by one of Dickinson’s haunting and enigmatic lyrics called “One Sister.”

Saturday, March 9, 1:00-3:00 p.m. “Big Read.” David Templeton on stage interviewing Tom J. Mariani, Margo Van Veen—our two UUCSR Writers Poet Laureates—and guests on the subject of Emily Dickinson and poetry.

Saturday, March 9, 6:30 to 11:00 p.m. KWTF Celebrates International Women’s Day. Art, Music, Poetry, and Food. Arlene Francis Center, 99 6th St., Santa Rosa.

Wednesday, March 13, 2:00-4:00 p.m. The Sitting Room Book Group will be reading Lyndall Gordon’s recent biography of Dickinson, Lives Like Loaded Guns. 2025 Curtis Drive, Penngrove.

Thursday, March 14, 1:30 p.m. The Enigma of Amherst: Nineteenth Century woman Twentieth Century poet. A Symposium moderated by Sonoma County poet Pat Nolan, at the Guerneville Regional Library, 14107 Armstrong Woods Rd.

Saturday, March 23, 2:00-4:00 p.m. Tea With the Poetry of Emily Dickinson: An Afternoon of Reading and Writing with Iris Dunkle. 2025 Curtis Drive, Penngrove.

One Sister have I in our house (14)

by Emily Dickinson

One Sister have I in our house –
And one a hedge away.
There’s only one recorded,
But both belong to me.
One came the way that I came –
And wore my past year’s gown –
The other as a bird her nest,
Builded our hearts among.
She did not sing as we did –
It was a different tune –
Herself to her a Music
As Bumble-bee of June.
Today is far from Childhood –
But up and down the hills
I held her hand the tighter –
Which shortened all the miles –
And still her hum
The years among,
Deceives the Butterfly;
Still in her Eye
The Violets lie
Mouldered this many May.
I spilt the dew –
But took the morn, –
I chose this single star
From out the wide night’s numbers –
Sue – forevermore!

See more of Emily Dickinson’s poems at http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/

Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update Co-editor

To download a pdf of most of the pages on this site, click here.

Dear Literary Folk,

Today, February 1, marks the first day of spring in the Celtic calendar. I’ve always considered February the start of spring here in Sonoma County, and I note the transition with the first croaking frogs in Thompson Creek behind my house. The Celtic calendar seems to fit our California seasons, but with the gradually rising temperatures on planet earth, and our winter season shrinking to just a few weeks, I wonder how we will fare without the regenerative retreat of winter’s fallow time.

But clearly spring is upon us. The first blossoms on the flowering plums are drawing the bees from their hives. February 1st is also the feast of St. Brigid, formerly Bridhe, goddess of Imbolc. Pictured here is the traditional Brigid’s cross, and a beautiful sculpture from Brigid’s Garden, outside Galway, Ireland. Bridhe represents the light half of the year, and the power that will bring people from the dark season of winter into spring. She represents the Irish aspect of divine femininity in her role as goddess of smiths, fire, and poetry.

Appropriately, then, St. Brigid’s Day will be celebrated on Friday, February 1 with a poetry reading at Gaia’s Garden Restaurant, 1899 Mendocino Ave. in Santa Rosa. The program begins at 7:30 with music by Marilyn O’Malley. Poets Joan Brady, Donna Emerson, Tom Mariani, Bill Vartnaw, Colleen Werner, Jim Fitch, Dusty Wroten, Phyllis Meshulam, and Pierrette Mimi Poinsett  will read till10:00 PM. This event is part of the ongoing One Hundred Thousand Poets for Change readings, organized and hosted by Susan Lamont.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, on Saturday, February 9th, Clara Rosemarda is offering a one-day creative writing workshop at Santa Rosa Junior College called “Writing with a Passionate Presence.” Details about cost and registration are on the calendar page.

For those of you with poetry manuscripts in the drawer, Sixteen Rivers Press announces that the deadline for submissions for the 2013 manuscript competition has been extended! Manuscripts will now be accepted up to March 1, 2013 both online and through regular mail. All other submission guidelines still apply. Please see complete guidelines at www.sixteenrivers.org/wordpress/submit-work.

February also brings the annual Poetry Out Loud competition. This year’s event will be on Sunday, February 10 at 7 PM at the Jane Glazer Center in Santa Rosa. If you’ve never attended, treat yourself to an evening of great poetry recited from memory by some of the most talented youth in the county. You can find details about this year’s program on the calendar page of the Literary Update.

On that same day, February 10, at 1:30 in the afternoon, the Healdsburg Literary Guild presents the winning poets of the open call for love poems reading their poems at the annual Poetry Valentine, at the Bean Affair, 1270 Healdsburg Avenue. You could start your day with love poetry and chocolate, and finish it with the wonderful recitals at Poetry Out Loud.

And speaking of poetry recitations, on Sunday, February 17, the Third Sunday Salon features Larry Robinson. The well-known Sonoma County poetry disseminator tell us of his abiding obsession to restore the oral tradition of poetry, host occasional poetry salons where the only rule is “no reading,” and who offers a daily poem via e-mail to anyone who is interested. This event is also at the Bean Affair, 1270 Healdsburg Avenue.

There is much to enjoy, much to inspire in the month ahead. I close with a poem for the season, by Carolyn Miller, one which goes out to those joined and those alone in this season of new life and eros, sacred to Brigid and to Venus.

Terry Ehret, co-editor

Celibacy

The early-flowering plum trees have lost
most of their blossoms; a few ragged ones hang on,
overwhelmed by new leaves.
I’m always surprised by this stage of spring, when
the young, bright leaves overtake the blossoms with
a kind of violence, with nature’s obsession to endure,
loving, as it does, the idea of the individual,
but not the individual.
After a long dry spell
it rains for days, and the streams cannot contain
themselves. It must be like being touched and entered
after a long time of not being touched and entered,
like feeling semen leaking from your body;
it must be like love spilling over, love and need.
The smell of potted hyacinths fills my flat:
that mix of rot and sexuality and longing.
Their meaty little trumpets announce
the change of seasons. My body changes
and grows old. Sex seems like another country,
one I have lost the way to, although sometimes
when I see the faces of certain men, I have the quick
sense of a door that could be opened
into new rooms. What does it mean to have a self,
the sense of self? These collections
of accommodations to the world, our baggage of wants
and compromises and unforgiving dreams? I try
to let my borders go, to let go of my self and feel
the endless, rocking ocean in which we swim,
but I am caught in a small pool of afternoon
and rotting hyacinths.
On television I see the surface of Venus,
brought into my room across millions of black miles.
It is flexible and burning, glowing red-orange waves
striated with light, undulating, pulsing
like the walls of the birth canal,
an ocean all of fire. In that molten place there are no selves
to look back at us, divided here: blue and green,
land and water, drought and flood, joined
and alone.

From Light, Moving, by Carolyn Miller, Sixteen Rivers Press, 2009.

Dear Literary Folk,

As I write these words, with midnight fast approaching, I can hear the early celebrations of the launch of 2013: fireworks, pots and pans clanging, car horns. 2012 has been a challenging year for so many, but now we turn toward the returning light. May it give us all the chance to realize our hopes, promises, and dreams.

January is welcomed in many ways in our literary community. Some of us will be gathering to celebrate with poetry, food, and conversation. Some will be honoring the day with  family. Some will be biking or hiking over the Sonoma County hills, and some will be serving breakfast to the homeless.

However you welcome 2013, here are some upcoming events you may want to catch. Details for each can be found in the January Calendar.

Friday, January 4, 7:15 p.m. 100 Thousand Poets for Change and Book Release by Project Censored. Music by Moss Henry at 7:15. Book Release and Poetry at 8:00. Gaia’s Garden Restaurant, 1899 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa

Saturday, January 12, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Random Acts—“Open Microphone,” at Readers’ Books, 130 E. Napa St., Sonoma. (707) 939-1779.

Saturday, January 12, 7:00 p.m. The Word Temple Poetry Series presents Arisa White and Jacqueline Kudler. Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Vets Bldg., 282 S. High Street, Sebastopol.

Sunday, January 27, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. Writing Workshop & Art Collage with Marlene Cullen. No special writing experience needed. Bring a notebook and pen. Material for art collage will be provided. At The Sunflower Center, 1435 No. McDowell Blvd, Petaluma.

Sunday, January 27, 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Sonoma County Writing Practice writers will read from their new anthology, FOOT NOTES at the Occidental Center for the Arts.

Here’s a poem to welcome the new year, by Ranier Maria Rilke.

All will come again into its strength:
the fields undivided, the waters undammed,
the trees towering and the walls built low.
And in the valleys, people as strong and varied as the land.

And no churches where God
is imprisoned and lamented
like a trapped and wounded animal.
The houses welcoming all who knock
and a sense of boundless offering
in all relations, and in you and me.

No yearning for an afterlife, no looking beyond,
no belittling of death,
but only longing for what belongs to us
and serving earth, lest we remain unused.

— Rainier Maria Rilke

To download a pdf with pages from the Update site, click here.

Terry Ehret, Co-Editor