Sonoma County Literary Update

Dear Literary Folk,

Under the light of a blue super moon, we turn the calendar to September and take a look at literary events coming up as we welcome Indian Summer and the approach of fall.

Petaluma Poetry Walk on Sunday, September 17 11:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m.
The Petaluma Poetry Walk is back! Last September, we bravely ventured to outdoor venues after COVID’s interruption of the Walk for two years. And then, of all things, it RAINED! A first for the Poetry Walk. We scuttled to move readings indoors and held umbrellas for each other as we moved from venue to venue. Who know what the weather (and fire season) will bring? But rain or shine, here is the spectacular line-up of venues and readers:

Hotel Petaluma, 11 AM: Kary Hess, Matthew M. Monte, Joseph Zaccardi
Artaluma, noon: Melissa Eleftherion, Jack Crimmins, David Rollison
The Big Easy, 1 PM: Charlie Getter, Gail Mitchell, Kurt Schweigman
Oli Gallery, 2 PM: Anita Erola, Connie Post, Dr. Jeanne Powell
Copperfields, 3 PM: Kim Shuck, Maw Shein Win
Phoenix Theater, 4 PM: MK Chavez, Gail Entrekin, Steve Trenam
Petaluma Historical Museum, 5 PM: Tony Aldarondo, Georgina Gabriela Tello Bugarin, Ernesto M. Garay
Aqus Café, 6-8 PM: Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Terry Ehret, Elizabeth C. Herron, Maya Khosla, Phyllis Meshulam, Gwynn O’Gara.

Thanks to all the local Petaluma businesses that have opened their doors to make the Walk possible. More details may be found on our County news page. Look for updates on Facebook. The complete schedule is posted at: www.petalumapoetrywalk.org. Or download a brochure here.

Long Poems at Café Frida
Celebrate the start of fall and the unique pleasures of live poetry with Ed Coletti’s Festival of the Longer Poem. Ten poets will read one poem for up to ten minutes each (see our Calendar for list of poets). The reading will be held on Sunday, September 24, 1-3 PM at Café Frida, 300 South A Street in Santa Rosa.

Maggie Tuteur’s Book Launch Coming Soon
Many of you know that I’ve been working with a team of writers and artists to bring out a remarkable collection of poems by Maggie Tuteur. Maggie has been struggling for many years with hearing loss, chronic fatigue, and dementia, but seeing her poems make their way into print has been a source of deep pleasure for her. And these are amazing poems!

The book is called How the Earth Holds Us. We hope to bring it out by the end of the month, so we invite you to look forward to October’s Literary Update where the book launches will be announced.

About the book, our Sonoma County Poet Laureate Elizabeth Herron wrote this:

“We hear in ourselves the yes of recognition when we read “A Long Life,” the opening poem of How the Earth Holds Us — our death winds around our lives as bindweed does the flowers in a garden, closer even, for it cannot be rooted out. All along death “hums beneath your breath/too familiar to hear.” In these poems, over and over Mary Holman Tuteur reminds us of our mortality using nouns that become verbs, verbs that attach themselves surprisingly to subject phrases, while her prepositions lead over and over to unusual transitions. But there are narratives too in these poems, stories to remember later, wondering and a little haunted by them. Peopled with family and friends, her poems often begin in the middle of their stories and then unfold around the reader as they unfolded around their writer. Some of her most direct phrases have enormous impact (“How could the earth not throw us to our knees?”); and her passion compels us to the implicit answer. An erotic edge permeates her poems – intimate and revealing. And there is humor, too. In “Women of a Certain Age,” the poem from which the title of the book is taken, Tuteur tells us “we discern the shift/ in how the earth holds us.” Her poems pivot from present to past and past to present as deftly as a dancer. She is “a woman who will never look forward without glancing back.” Finally, these poems invite readers into the emotional life of a sensitive adventurous spirit with a bright intuitive aesthetic ripening through time. This is a book I am glad to have read and will return to.”

Give That Unsolicited Manuscript a Chance!
Jo-Anne Rosen, co-editor of this Literary Update, maintains an excellent page with information about calls for submission in various genres. Please do visit the Calls for Submission page and check it out. Here is a call for poetry manuscripts which I’ve just learned about, and which isn’t yet up on the submissions page, but worth looking into.

2024 Perugia Press Prize is OPEN: Perugia Press is a women’s poetry publishing outfit. Poets must be women, which is inclusive of transgender women and female-identified individuals. Because gender inequity still occurs in publishing, it is part of our explicit feminist mission to support and promote women’s voices in print.

To support writers in early to mid-career, poets must have no more than one previously published full-length book. You are still eligible if you have published a poetry chapbook/s or books in other genres.

Publication of the winning manuscript comes with $2,000, author copies, and other support from the press.

Manuscripts must be submitted between August 1 and November 15. Details and guidelines are available on the Perugia Press website: https://perugiapress.org/contest/

Redwood Writers Presents a Roundtable Discussion on Writing & Publishing
Wherever you are at in your writing journey, this event will offer a rare opportunity to connect with the minds behind stories and poetry, explore the craft, and gain valuable insights into the world of literature and publishing. Saturday, September 16, 1:00-2:30 p.m. Admission: $5 CWC members, $10 non-members. More details and registration: redwoodwriters.org

Round Table Conversations at the Sitting Room Library
The Sitting Room Library is launching a new series this fall called Round Tables. Here’s how they work: These Round Tables are a new way of getting small groups in conversation using the rich resources of the Sitting Room Library. Here is how we are imagining them: no cost, no advance preparation needed. And only one meeting planned. Browse the library, select a book. Each person speaks and also listens and thus we have what we all say we are wanting: conversation. Bring your curiosity! 

Saturday, September 16, 2:00 p.m.
Round Table Introduction with Sharon Bard.
Join in for an introduction to the Round Table Conversations. All are welcome, but space is limited to the first eight who email Sharon, srbard@comcast.net.

Saturday, September 23, 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Qi Gong: Writing Gong Workshop with Karen Fitzgerald
This workshop is designed to appeal to your Creative within – be she/he a writer, painter, sculptor, weaver, designer It is a workshop aimed at all creatives, from beginners to advanced to Masters of an art form, even if that art amounts to doing life. Writing will be the act that serves to integrate the gentle movements of a qi gong practice to one’s creative practices. $30 donation benefits the Sitting Room Library. Please email Karen, thinkinc@aol.com for additional information.

Saturday, September 30, 2:00 p.m.
Round Table 2, Reading Other People’s Mail with J.J. Wilson
What could be more fun than sitting a-round-table where we pluck books from the LETTERS FROM WOMEN WRITERS SHELF and choose some worthy of reading aloud to one another. Not surprisingly, from Jane Austen to Zora Neale Hurston, they are good letter writers (tho we are warned that Virginia Woolf’s letters are “intensely performative and recipient-specific in tone”) and I think we’ll get some good insights along with some good laughs. To sign on the dotted line for this experience (ltd to six people), please telephone J.J. Wilson at 707 795-9028.

And here are the October dates and topics:
Saturday, October 7, 1:00 to 4:00 pm, Round Table 3, Savoring Woolf with JoAnn Borri
Saturday, October 14, 2:00 p.m. “H.D.: Out of the Shadows,” with Barbara Beattie, M.A. student, Sonoma State
Saturday, October 28, 2:00 p.m., Write Your Own Obituary with Marie Thomas McNaughton.Check out the Literary Update’s Calendar page or visit the Sitting Room Library’s new website at this link for details: https://sittingroomlibrary.org/events

Anyone interested in hosting a Round Table that is tailored to the resources of The Sitting Room Library, please telephone J.J. Wilson, 707 795-9028 to talk your ideas over, o.k.?

Poetry of Remembrance Community Reading October 21
On Saturday, October 21, from 6:00 to 8:30 PM, members of the community are invited to attend the annual El Día de los Muertos “Poesía del Recuerdo / Poetry of Remembrance” celebration. We are pleased to announce that this year’s event will take place atPetaluma Historical Library & Museum, 20 4th Street, Petaluma, CA 94952.

Our featured bilingual speakers will include Lalin the Poet (Luis Vasquez) and poet Gina Tello Bugarin; poet and painter Sandra Anfang; artist and community educator Irma Vega Bijou, former Sonoma County Poet Laureate Phyllis Meshulam, and many others. Our host for the evening will be Elizabeth Herron, Sonoma County’s current Poet Laureate.

Those who wish to honor the memory of someone who has departed are encouraged to bring something—a photo or an item that reminds them of their loved one—that can be placed on a community altar for the evening.

Those who would like to participate in the community reading are encouraged to share, in Spanish (or other language) and/or English, a brief poem or remembrance.

Poetry of Remembrance/Poesía del Recuerdo is part of the month-long El Día de los Muertos celebrations held in Petaluma during the month of October, featuring community altars, bilingual storytelling, sugar skull workshops, music, dance, and a procession with giant puppets.

Admission is free. For more information about El Día de Los Muertos events, check out Facebook at El Día de Los Muertos Petaluma.

Sixteen Rivers Press Benefit Will Feature California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick
For three years, Sixteen Rivers has hosted its annual benefit reading as a virtual event. We’re thrilled to return to a live event, complete with delicious food, books by our authors, new anthologies of teen poets, and a reading by California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick.

The benefit will be held on Sunday, October 22 from 2-5 PM at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda, Berkeley.

Please join us for a delightful afternoon of wine, hors d’oeuvres, a silent auction, poetry, good company and conversation. The event is free and open to all. We ask that you use the link below to visit our EventBrite page. Once there, click on “get tickets” to let us know you’re coming. This will help us plan food and beverages for our guests. You can also use the EventBrite page to make a donation, if you’re so inclined. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sixteen-rivers-2023-fall-fundraiser-tickets-680501587567

Poem for September
The Poetry Foundation website has a terrific list of autumn poems by Richard Wilbur, Stanley Kunitz, John Keats, Bruce Weigl, Annie Finch, Rita Dove, and more. What caught my attention was this quirky poem by Grace Paley, one of my favorite short story writers (who also wrote essays and poetry), and one of my favorite human beings. Here’s the link to the Poetry Foundation’s fall poems page: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/101590/fall-poems

In my internet sleuthing, I also came upon this interesting and insightful commentary of Paley’s “Autumn” and thought I’d share it with you. The author is Rosandreea on the website Contagious Gothic. Rosandreea is not a fan of romantic seasonal poetry, and I think she’s onto something in her interpretation of Paley’s poem. You can read the rest of the commentary at this website: https://contagiousgothic.wordpress.com/2017/10/09/autumn-1991-grace-paley/

“Perhaps it is something of an acquired taste, but I really appreciate the humor in “Autumn” (1991). I love the streak of mock seriousness running through the whole text and the contrast between the anti-climax of the poem’s conclusion and its core of vivid natural imagery. Much nature poetry aims to give us some kind of special insight into the processes of the natural world in order to then put that insight to work on larger questions and issues having to do with human (rather than natural). Mary Oliver’s “Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness” (2012) is a useful example of this. There is much more going on in the poem, but one of the natural (!) conclusions from reading the poem is that the changing of seasons shows us that we have to let go of what or who we love so that they can become renewed.”

________

Autumn
by Grace Paley

What is sometimes called a
 tongue of flame
or an arm extended burning
 is only the long
red and orange branch of
 a green maple
in early September reaching
 into the greenest field
out of the green woods at the
 edge of which the birch trees
appear a little tattered tired
 of sustaining delicacy
all through the hot summer re-
 minding everyone (in
our family) of a Russian
 song a story
by Chekhov or my father

2

What is sometimes called a
 tongue of flame
or an arm extended burning
 is only the long
red and orange branch of
 a green maple
in early September reaching
 into the greenest field
out of the green woods at the
 edge of which the birch trees
appear a little tattered tired
 of sustaining delicacy
all through the hot summer re-
 minding everyone (in
our family) of a Russian
 song a story by
Chekhov or my father on
 his own lawn standing
beside his own wood in
 the United States of
America saying (in Russian)
 this birch is a lovely
tree but among the others

 somehow superficial

— Grace Paley, “Autumn” from Long Walks and Intimate Talks by Grace Paley and Vera B. Williams.

Copyright © 1991 by Grace Paley. Reprinted with the permission of The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, http://www.feministpress.org.

Source: Begin Again: The Collected Poems of Grace Paley (The Feminist Press, 1999)
________

Terry Ehret
Co-editor, Sonoma County Literary Update

Dear Literary Folk,

My husband and I have returned from our Rocky Mountain tour and revisit of the adventures we shared 45 years ago. The glaciers of the Canadian Rockies are still spectacular, though they are receding rapidly. As promised, here are a couple of side-by-side comparisons of these great ice-beings. We are lucky to share the planet with them, and I hope they will be with us for a while. Climatologists predict they may be gone by the end of the century. The top two photos are of Crow’s Foot Glacier. The bottom two are the Athabasca Glacier. Both are visible from the Icefield Parkway.





45 years ago, we traveled in a VW bug, camping most of the way. The trip took us from Pacific Grove to Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, then into Alberta as far as Jasper; we returned by way of British Columbia, Washington State, Oregon, and down the California coast back to Monterey Bay. It took us 7 weeks. This recent trip was by bus and focused just on the Rocky Mountains. We flew into Calgary and out of Jackson Hole; we were on the road for 11 days.

One of the oddest things we saw was an historical display in Banff, which featured a VW bug packed with camping gear. There was also a canvas camping tent beside it. It made us laugh to think our VW adventure is now considered an historical artifact.



Bruce Johnson — In Memoriam
Bruce Johnson, renowned local sculptor and long-time resident of Sonoma County passed away during a tragic accident at his studio on February 14, 2023. Looking back over the posts in March–July, I found a lovely “In Memoriam” on the County News page, but I didn’t see a feature in the posts of the Literary Update to honor Bruce’s work and his influence in Sonoma County and beyond—an oversight I hope to amend here.

One of my favorite memories of my years at SRJC is the time Bruce Johnson demonstrated his sculpture technique as part of a three-day residency in 2001.He brought his chainsaw and a huge stump of salvaged old-growth redwood, and set to work in front of Analy Hall, right in the center of campus.

And then in 2005, I was lucky to be present at the installation of Poetry House, his collaboration with Elizabeth Herron, first at Paradise Ridge Winery, then at Sonoma State University. While Poetry House was installed at Paradise Ridge, I held several creative writing classes there. It’s a deeply inspirational space, which Bruce described as “an empty space where attention resides.”

Elizabeth Herron, the current poet laureate of Sonoma County and long-time friend of Bruce, wrote a short “pocket poem” upon learning of his passing: “Losing a dear friend/we must be brave/remembering/laughter through tears.”

For those who wish to learn more about Bruce, his life, and the incredible art he created (including Poetry House, the Sonoma County History Museum has included some links below.

Form and Energy: Bruce’s Website 
Press Democrat Article
Documentary by Kirsten Dirksen

Benefit for Sebastopol Center for the Arts
You are warmly invited to a sparkling evening of poetry & music, a Benefit for Sebastopol Center of the Arts on Sunday, August 6, at 6:00 pm. with eco-poets  Elizabeth Herron, Sonoma County’s current Poet Laureate, Maya Khosla, also a Sonoma County Laureate, and Raphael Block. There’ll be music with improvisational cellist, RutiCelli, accompanied by Paul Lamb on bass, and food and wine to celebrate the event and Raphael’s book launch!



Please buy your tickets here.

A Sampling of Other Upcoming August Literary Events
Napa Valley Writers’ Conference
This year’s conference runs from July 30 through August 4. While applications for the conference workshops are closed, the conference schedule also includes talks by faculty writers, special panels, and readings by the faculty at Napa Valley wineries and these readings, panels and lectures are open to the general public (for a fee). Each daytime event takes place on the Napa Valley College main campus, at 2277 Napa Vallejo Hwy, Napa, CA 94558. Tuesday’s evening event will be held at Silverado Winery.

EVENING READINGS
(McCarthy Library Courtyard, Napa Campus, Napa Valley College)
Tuesday, August 1, 6:30 pm – Victoria Chang & Crystal Wilkinson
Wednesday, August 2, 5:30 pm – Brenda Hillman & Lan Samantha Chang
Thursday, August 3, 6:30 pm – Robert Hass & featured participants

DAILY CRAFT TALKS
(Performing Arts Center, Napa Campus, Napa Valley College)
Tuesday, August 1, 9 am, Ilya Kaminsk; 1:30 pm, Peter Orner
Wednesday August 2, 9 am, Carl Phillips; 1:30 pm, Katie Crouch
Thursday, August 3, 9 am, Victoria Chan; 1:30 pm, Crystal Wilkinson

FREE DROP-IN COMMUNITY CLASSES
(Community room, McCarthy Library, Napa Campus, Napa Valley College)
Monday, July 31 – Friday, August 4: Poetry Encounter with Katie Farris 10:30 am
Monday, July 31 – Thursday, August 3: Guided Reading Class with Caroline Goodwin 4:30 pm

2023 PRICING for public admission
(tickets sold on-site prior to each Reading and Craft Talk)
Individual reading: $20
Individual craft talk: $25
Full week pass (all craft talks and readings): $275
Lectures-only pass (all 9 craft talks): $200
Readings-only pass (all 5 readings): $90
Single-day pass (two lectures and one reading): $65

Julia Park Tracey’s New Novel The Bereaved
Friday, August 18, 7:00 p.m. Copperfields Books welcomes local author Julia Park Tracey, featuring her new historical fiction novel The Bereaved. Based on the author’s research into her grandfather’s past as an adopted child, and the surprising discovery of his family of origin and how he came to be adopted, Julia Park Tracey has created a mesmerizing work of historical fiction illuminating the darkest side of the Orphan Train. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A and book signing. Copperfield’s Books, 140 Kentucky St., Petaluma. More information: www.copperfieldsbooks.com/event/julia-park-tracey-0

Mistakes Authors Make: A Presentation with Brent Ridgeway
I’ll bet we can all think of mistakes we’ve made in our writing lives, whether it’s sending our work to the absolute wrong kind of journal or acting on editing advice that ends up stealing the heart right out of our work. But there are also the lovely serendipitous mistakes that enrich our writing by freeing us from our conscious intentions. These might be typos, misheard words, handwriting so illegible we’re forced to make up the words we might have intended.

I’ve chosen a poem on this theme of mistakes as the poem for August. The poem comes with a surprising twist regarding the mistaken identity of its author. Scroll down for this.

To hear what Brent Ridgeway has to say about the mistakes writer’s make, join Redwood Writers Club on Saturday, August 19, 1:00-2:30 p.m. Ridgeway’s focus will be on Essential Steps for Achieving Success as an Author. The presentation will be at the Finley Center, Cypress Room, 2060 W College Ave, Santa Rosa. CWC members: $5; nonmembers: $10. Details and registration at: redwoodwriters.org.

Whether you are a published author or have always wanted to write, there’s a place for you at Redwood Writers, a branch of California Writers Club. New member enrollment is open from July 1 through September 30. For more information and to join: redwoodwriters.org/membership/join/

Rumi’s Caravan
Sunday, August 20, 7:30 p.m. Rumi’s Caravan Returns to the East Bay. An improvised poetic conversation with music. At Freight & Salvage, 2020 Addison Street, Berkeley. All proceeds from the performance will support the work of the Middle East Children’s Alliance. Advance tickets, $25. Details and tickets: https://secure.thefreight.org/12750/rumis-caravan

Poem for August
On the theme of mistakes writers make, I found this poem, attributed to Jorge Luis Borges. On closer inspection (and in search of the Spanish text and translator), I discovered that this may not be by Borges at all. Possible authors include humorist Don Herold and Nadine Stair.

One online source offered this:

Spanish versions with the shape of a poem were wrongly attributed to Borges by literary magazines like Mexican Plural (May 1989, pages 4–5) and books (such as Elena Poniatowska‘s “Todo México”, page 144).

In December 2005, Irish pop singer Bono read in Spanish some of the lines of the poem on Mexican TV show Teletón México 2005 and attributed them to the “Chilean poet Borges.”

Of course, Borges was Argentinian, not Chilean, but the attribution error was so extended that even the poet and scholar Alastair Reid translated one of the Spanish versions into English under the belief that it was a work from Borges. Reid’s translations starts,

If I were able to live my life again,

next time I would try to make more mistakes.

I would not try to be so perfect.
I would be more relaxed.

I would be much more foolish than I have been. In fact,

I would take very few things seriously.

I would be much less sanitary.

Whoever the author and translator might be, here is a poem celebrating making more mistakes.

Moments: If I Could Live My Life Again
(incorrectly) attributed to Jorge Luis Borges

If I could live my life again
I’d try to make more mistakes,
I wouldn’t try to be so perfect,
I’d be more relaxed,
I’d be more true-to-life than I was.

In fact, I’d take fewer things seriously,
I’d be less hygienic,
I’d take more risks,
I’d take more trips,
I’d watch more sunsets,
I’d climb more mountains,
I’d swim more rivers,
I’d go to more places I’ve never been,
I’d eat more ice cream and less lima beans,
I’d have more real problems and fewer  imaginary ones.

I was one of those people who live prudent
and prolific lives each minute of their existence.
Of course, I did have moments of joy
yet if I could go back I’d try
to have good moments only.

In case you don’t know what life is made of,
only moments; don’t miss the now.

I was one of those who never
go anywhere, without a thermometer,
without a hot-water bottle,
without an umbrella,
without a parachute.

If I could live again
I’d travel light,
I’d try to work barefoot,
from spring to fall.
I’d ride more carts,
I’d watch more sunrises,
play with more kids,
if I could live my life again.

But now I am 85,
and I know I am dying.

Source: : https://fabricegrinda.com/moments-by-jorge-luis-borges/

Poema atribuido a Borges, pero cuyo real autor sería Don Herold o Nadine Stair.

Si pudiera vivir nuevamente mi vida,
en la próxima trataría de cometer más errores.
No intentaría ser tan perfecto, me relajaría más.
Sería más tonto de lo que he sido,
de hecho tomaría muy pocas cosas con seriedad.
Sería menos higiénico.
Correría más riesgos,
haría más viajes,
contemplaría más atardeceres,
subiría más montañas, nadaría más ríos.
Iría a más lugares adonde nunca he ido,
comería más helados y menos habas,
tendría más problemas reales y menos imaginarios.

Yo fui una de esas personas que vivió sensata
y prolíficamente cada minuto de su vida;
claro que tuve momentos de alegría.
Pero si pudiera volver atrás trataría
de tener solamente buenos momentos.

Por si no lo saben, de eso está hecha la vida,
sólo de momentos; no te pierdas el ahora.

Yo era uno de esos que nunca
iban a ninguna parte sin un termómetro,
una bolsa de agua caliente,
un paraguas y un paracaídas;
si pudiera volver a vivir, viajaría más liviano.
Si pudiera volver a vivir
comenzaría a andar descalzo a principios
de la primavera
y seguiría descalzo hasta concluir el otoño.
Daría más vueltas en calesita,
contemplaría más amaneceres,
y jugaría con más niños,
si tuviera otra vez vida por delante.

Pero ya ven, tengo 85 años…
y sé que me estoy muriendo.

Source: https://www.poemas-del-alma.com/instantes.htm

___________

Terry Ehret
Co-editor, Sonoma County Literary Update

Dear Literary Folk,

Last week, my husband and I spend a couple of days in Yosemite Valley. I have been there several times, but always in drought years, so I especially wanted to see the waterfalls after this epic winter snowfall. They were amazing! Such beauty and power are as humbling as the granite splendor of Half Dome and El Capitan.

In a few days, we’ll be off for another high mountain adventure: touring the Canadian Rockies, then south to Glacier, Yellowstone, and the Tetons, recreating a road trip from 45 years ago. Back then, the backpack up into the Tetons and the drive up the Glacial Parkway to Jasper introduced us to glaciers on a grand scale. Now we want to see these majestic ice-beings before they’re gone. Here’s a photo of one of the many glaciers from July 1978. I’ll try to recreate this image on this year’s drive up the Parkway and report back next month.

Sonoma County Voices of Summer
Shout out to Ed Coletti for bringing together a terrific collection of poets, along with Steve (with two e’s) Shane on bass, at Café Frida last Sunday. It was such a lovely way to spend a summer afternoon!

Ed has a poem “Depriving the Vultures,” just out in the Summer 2023 issue of 2RiverReview.

Sonoma County poet laureate emerita Gwynn O’Gara has a new book, called We Who Dream, just released from Finishing Line Press. I’ve selected the title poem from this collection as the Poem for July, which you’ll find at the end of the post.

Other local authors with new books out include current poet laureate Elizabeth Herron (In the Cities of Sleep), Raphael Block (The Dreams We Share), Rachel Zemach (The Butterfly Cage: A Memoir), Karen Pierce Gonzalez (Coyote in the Basket of My Ribs), Nancy Bourne (Somewhere a Phone is Ringing), and Sande Anfang (Finishing School).

Petaluma writer Donna Emerson’s poem “Sarah Mae” has been awarded an Editors’ Choice Award from the Poetry Center in Paterson, NJ. It will be published in the Paterson Literary Review this summer, and Donna has been invited to read her poem, along with other winners at the awards ceremony in February 2024. Closer to home, Donna will be reading her poetry on Saturday July 22, 2:30-4;00 p.m., along with six other poets from the Marin Poetry Center at the Larkspur Library, 400 Main Street, Larkspur.

You can see the full list of authors with new book or journal publications on the Sonoma County in Print page.

Don’t see your work there? If you are a Sonoma County writer with a poem, story, essay, creative nonfiction, or review newly published in a literary journal, print or online, let’s help you celebrate! Likewise, if you have a book or chapbook coming out this year, send your announcement to editor@socolitupdate.com. 

Upcoming July Events
Alas, I won’t be in Sonoma County to enjoy many of the literary events coming up in July, but I have sampled the calendar, and here are a few that are not to be missed if you’re lucky enough to be home in the weeks ahead.

On Saturday, July 15, at 8:00 pm, J.L. Henker will be a guest on Outbeat Collage, a KRCB (104.9) radio show about LGBTQ arts and entertainment in the Bay Area. She will discuss her short story published in Written with Pride: Stories from Queer Authors, as well as the importance of visibility for artists from marginalized communities. Hosted by Gary Carnivele. Listen to the live stream at www.outbeatradio.org.

On that same day, July 15, 11 am-2:00 pm, the Soroptimists International of Oakmont is hosting Local Authors’ Book Faire. You’ll have the opportunity to meet 20 published authors from Glen Ellen, Kenwood, Sonoma, Healdsburg, Sebastopol and Santa Rosa, who will be on site to talk about and sell their books (historical fiction, romance novels, memoir, short stories, poetry, cook books and more). Admission is free. You’ll find this all happening at the Berger Center, 6633 Oakmont Drive, Santa Rosa.

Who are the Soroptimists?
I admit, as I typed the above announcement, I began to puzzle who or what a Soromptimist is. Just for fun, I looked them up online (www.soroptimist.org) and discovered this: They are “a global volunteer organization that provides women and girls with access to the education and training they need to achieve economic empowerment.” How cool is that?! Even better, the international organization was founded right here in the Bay Area, (Oakland) about a hundred years ago. How did I not know this? So I did a little more sleuthing online, and gleaned a few interesting facts. For example, the name “Soroptimist” was coined by combining the Latin words soror “sister” and optima “best.” In the years leading up to World War II, Soroptimists worked to assist refugees fleeing unrest in central Europe. I love the fact that our local Soroptimist chapter (Oakmont Wine Country) is supporting the writers of Sonoma County with this free local authors book fair. They seem like a very worthy organization to support.

Napa Valley Writers’ Conference
This year’s conference runs from July 30 through August 4. While applications for the conference workshops are closed, the conference schedule also includes talks by faculty writers, special panels, and readings by the faculty at Napa Valley wineries and these readings, panels and lectures are open to the general public (for a fee). Each daytime event takes place on the Napa Valley College main campus, at 2277 Napa Vallejo Hwy, Napa, CA 94558. Tuesday’s evening event will be held at Silverado Winery.

EVENING READINGS
(McCarthy Library Courtyard, Napa Campus, Napa Valley College)
Sunday, July 30, 6:30 pm – Ilya Kaminsky, Katie Farris & Peter Orner
Monday, July 31, 6:30 pm – Carl Phillips & Katie Crouch
Tuesday, August 1, 6:30 pm – Victoria Chang & Crystal Wilkinson
Wednesday, August 2, 5:30 pm – Brenda Hillman & Lan Samantha Chang
Thursday, August 3, 6:30 pm – Robert Hass & featured participants

DAILY CRAFT TALKS
(Performing Arts Center, Napa Campus, Napa Valley College)
Monday, July 31: 9 am, Brenda Hillman; 1:30 pm Lan Samantha Chang; 3 pm Robert Hass
Tuesday, August 1, 9 am, Ilya Kaminsk; 1:30 pm, Peter Orner
Wednesday August 2, 9 am, Carl Phillips; 1:30 pm, Katie Crouch
Thursday, August 3, 9 am, Victoria Chan; 1:30 pm, Crystal Wilkinson

FREE DROP-IN COMMUNITY CLASSES
(Community room, McCarthy Library, Napa Campus, Napa Valley College)
Monday, July 31 – Friday, August 4: Poetry Encounter with Katie Farris 10:30 am
Monday, July 31 – Thursday, August 3: Guided Reading Class with Caroline Goodwin 4:30 pm

2023 PRICING for public admission
(tickets sold on-site prior to each Reading and Craft Talk)
Individual reading: $20
Individual craft talk: $25
Full week pass (all craft talks and readings): $275
Lectures-only pass (all 9 craft talks): $200
Readings-only pass (all 5 readings): $90
Single-day pass (two lectures and one reading): $65

Wordrunner Press Call for Prose Mini-Collections
The Literary Update’s co-editor Jo-Anne Rosen has put out a call for Wordrunner eChapbooks open submissions. Wordrunner will select one fiction and one nonfiction (memoir) mini-collection for their 2023 e-chapbook series to be published in August and December online and as ebooks. They are looking for emotional complexity and nuanced characters. The submission deadline has been extended to July 15, 2023. For details, see www.echapbook.com/submissions.html.
________

Poem for July

We Who Dream
by Gwynn O’Gara

            my cells, which are my stars. . .
            —Frida Kahlo

Haloed by redwoods, a vulture sky
and plump, comical geese,
the soul-body of Guadalupe shimmers.

North on our backs, around our necks,
in our skin, snuggled in suitcases,
constant in cages, flowing underground.

September’s feathered heat and
bountiful barbeques. Tunneling cold trickles
our legs through the water’s massage.

Girls and boys play-fight for swan, burger
and unicorn floats. Reborn in dream-water,
lovers cradle one another. Kids scream.

Late afternoons a breeze from the Pacific.
Geese gabble in, splash down with cartoon faces.
Without wings we made it. Lost a few. Lost a lot.

Among thorns children, friends, work,
hoodies unzipped with sweat and song,
we who dream know there are no borders.

From We Who Dream, Finishing Line Press, 2023.
Available from Copperfield’s Montgomery Village and Sebastopol and Finishing Line Press
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/we-who-dream-by-gwynn-ogara
________

Terry Ehret, Co-editor
Sonoma County Literary Update

Dear Literary Folk,

Something about the Blues
Beloved poet and jazz musician Al Young passed away April 17, 2021, in the midst of the Covid pandemic, when gathering in groups was a challenge for most of us. Consequently, Al’s memorial was postponed until we could safely gather. On Saturday, June 3, at 2:00 p.m., Al Young’s life and work will be celebrated in a tribute called “Something about the Blues” at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley. Featured readers: Ishmael Reed and current California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick. RSVP to info@poetryflash.org.
You can read the Literary Update’s tribute to Al Young at this link: https://socolitupdate.com/2021/05/01/may-2021/. Discover more about Al’s life and work at this link: https://www.berkeleyside.org/2021/04/21/al-young-california-poet-laureate-berkeley-ca-dies-81

Time to Eat Cake!
Two important anniversaries are coming up in early June, and you are invited to be part of both celebrations! The first of these is the 10th anniversary of Rivertown Poets in Petaluma on June 5th; the second is the Sitting Room’s Rebirthday Party on June 10th.

Rivertown Poets Features Rebecca Patrascu and Gwynn O’Gara
You are warmly invited to join us for our next reading which takes place on Monday, June 5th, at 6:15 p.m. PDT. This reading marks the completion of ten years of continuous monthly poetry readings. We’ll be live at the Aqus Cafe, located at 189 H Street in Petaluma (corner of 2nd and H). We won’t be Zooming in for this event but our July reading will be on Zoom. Our June 5th features are Sonoma County poets Rebecca Patrascu and Gwynn O’Gara. An open mic of three-minute readings follows the features. Signup will be live on the clipboard–as in the Beforetime. Poets will have books on hand for purchase during the intermission. Plan to arrive early for a good table and an open mic slot. The Aqus Cafe serves delicious food and drinks. The kitchen closes at 7:00, so plan to order before we begin the reading. There will be cake!
—Sande Anfang, founder and host of Rivertown Poets

Sitting Room’s Rebirthday Party

Date: Saturday, June 10
Time: 2 to 5 or so
Place: 2025 Curtis Drive, Penngrove, CA 94951
(No need to rsvp, but if you want more information, call 707 795-9028)
Carpool?— it is more fun, better on the environment, AND easier on the parking
Refreshments and entertainment provided — Anything on paper presents to The Sitting Room welcome but no- present people will also be welcomed and being present is the best present of all…CUthere, IF THE WEATHER IS O.K. FOR OUTDOOR COMFORT; if not in these uncertain climes, stay home and read a book, o.k.?
—JJ Wilson and Karen Petersen

Sacramento Poetry Alliance hosts an Afternoon of Translation
with Terry Ehret, John Johnson, and Susan Cohen
If you’re up for a drive to the Central Valley, or if you know poetry aficionados in the Sacramento area, please pass along this invitation:

Terry Ehret and John Johnson will read from their translations of Plagios/Plagiarsms, by Ulalume Gonzalez de Leon, on Saturday, June 10, 4 pm. Susan Cohen will also present her translations of Yiddish poems. The reading series is hosted by Tim Kahl and the Sacramento Poetry Alliance, and will be held in a lovely garden setting in the Land Park district, 1169 Perkins Way, Sacramento, CA.

Off the Page Readers Theater
One of Sonoma County’s most creative and collaborative ventures is Off the Page Readers Theater. Founded in 2013 by Hilary Moore, Pat Hayes and Mike Hayes, they have grown to a troupe of six Sonoma County actor/directors. For some shows they invite guest actors to perform with them as well. 

Off the Page specializes in performing the works of local authors. By now they have performed the works of more than 50 writers. Twice a year they choose a theme and call for entries. For each show they create a “symphony” of stories, plays and poems. A percentage of their proceeds goes to local charities.

This month, on Friday, June 16 and Saturday, June 17, 7:00-9:00 p.m., Off the Page performs six 10-minute plays by Redwood Writers Club members David Beckman, Andrew Brier, Joan Goodreau, Crissi Langwell, Linda Loveland Reid and Maureen Studerwill. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. At the Finley Center, 2060 W College Ave, Santa Rosa. Admission $20. For details on authors, plays, actors, and ticket purchase: https://redwoodwriters.org/2023-10-minute-play-contest-winners

If you’d like to submit your work for Off the Page, you’ll find all the relevant information at this link on their website: https://www.offthepagetheater.com/submissions.

Café Frida/ Ed Coletti Poetry Festival on June 25
Come enjoy the great food, delightful courtyard setting, music, and poetry on Saturday, June 25, 1:00-3:00 p.m. at Cafe Frida. The Sizzling Summer Reading will feature Terry Ehret, David Beckman, Sandra Anfang, David Madgalene, Phyllis Meshalum, Jodi Hottel, Steve Shane soloing on his magic bass, Richard Long (editor of 2 River Review), and Raphael Block. Come early for lunch and music. Cafe Frida is located in the Santa Rosa Art District at 300 S A St, Santa Rosa. Details: https://edwardcolettispoetryblog.blogspot.com

Dale Dougherty’s Sebastopol City Limits Interview with Raphael Block
Dale Dougherty, editor and publisher of Make: Magazine, a DIY Tech quarterly, and Laura Hagar Rush, the former editor of the Sebastopol newspaper, Sonoma West Times & News have co-created the online journal Sebastopol Times. Dale and Laura invite you to be a part of a community of people who share your home town news. They welcome article submissions, as well as “letters to the editors.”

Dale Dougherty: dale.dougherty@gmail.com
Laura Hagar Rush: hagarlaura@gmail.com
You can also reach them at 707-322-8696 or drop by their office at 524 S. Main Street in Sebastopol.
 
Dale also hosts a podcast called Sebastopol City Limits. Recently he featured Raphael Block, who has a new book, The Dreams We Share, You can listen to the podcast or read the transcript of the interview by clicking on this link: https://www.sebastopoltimes.com/p/old-cat-poet-raphael-block?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email#details

Poem for June
For the past year, I’ve had the privilege to collaborate with a remarkable team to create a collection of local writer Maggie Tuteur’s poetry. Maggie’s book, How the Earth Holds Us, is scheduled for release in September from Wordrunner Press, and we’ll have a grand book launch to celebrate with Maggie, her family, and friends.

About Maggie’s book, Barbara Baer writes: “Readers of How the Earth Holds Us will come to know Maggie Tuteur as few have known her during a daring life of adventure, yearning, tragedy, and wonder. We may sometimes be shocked by Tuteur’s raw pain and her passion, but we are guided by her craft and her search for peace; as she writes, ‘I am living in the echo / of a clear bell’s ring.’ Those venturing into this rich collection of poems will hear Maggie Tuteur’s voice long after they close the book.“

For June’s poem, I’ve selected one of Maggie’s—a prose poem that evokes those long summer evenings in childhood when we might have lain after sunset in the half-light of “firefly time.”
_______

Shades of Childhood
by Maggie Tuteur

Still daylight when they tucked me in. I could feel the flowers beneath my window flexing their petals for the fat yellow bees, sweet-natured bumblers that brushed my palms. June bugs, those
ornery earth movers, lurching and bumbling. Upturned earthworms sensing the air with delicate snouts.

That was my place down there, not this holding pen of floppy dolls. Just before firefly time, the shadows cast by venetian blinds began their twilight crawl across the ceiling, transporting me, breath by breath, into that night garden I could never anticipate, where I was the soil and the seed.
_______
from How the Earth Holds Us, forthcoming from Wordrunner Press, copyright © 2023 by John Tuteur Trustee, Maggie Tuteur Revocable Trust. All rights reserved.
_______

Terry Ehret,
Sonoma County Literary Update co-editor

Dear Literary Folk,

Here’s what’s new in my writing life and in our amazing literary community.

The Slow Down
The Slow Down is a literary podcast, offering a poem and a moment of reflection every weekday—“true break from the cacophony of life.” (Alice Florence Orr). I have heard from many of my literary update friends that this is worth tuning into, and for several years, this program, hosted by our US poet laureate Ada Limón, has been on my to-do list. Ironically, I felt my life was just too busy to add The Slow Down. Before I start my day, I read Poetry Daily, The Writers Almanac, Poem-A-Day from Poets.org, Larry Robinson’s daily poetry e-mail, and all the poems that show up on my FaceBook feed, so I haven’t felt the need to stream more. But just today, I decided to give it a try, tuning in to the podcast’s new host, Major Jackson, whom many of you may know from his workshops, readings, and craft lectures at the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference.

I started with the episode from April 28, “Tea with Ann,” by Mary Brancaccio. It opens with Jackson reflecting on reconnecting with old friends on FaceBook, saying, “It is amazing to have the long view of each other’s journey on earth, to witness how time has physically changed us.” This struck home, as I’m currently collaborating with a small group of elementary school friends to arrange our 50th high school reunion this fall, though, alas, we just learned that one of our dearest friends, Ellen, passed away five years ago. How did we miss this? How could she just be gone? I had just found her on FaceBook, smiling her beautiful smile, and shared her photo with our little group. We each had an Ellen story to tell, and one of us Belmonsters (our hometown was Belmont, CA) reminisced about the day Ellen showed up barefoot and driving a Mustang convertible. Then Jackson read the poem, with its remembrance of a Catholic school acquaintance, and the poet’s remark “I can’t imagine growing old without you.” Needless to say, I’m hooked.

The podcasts run about 5 minutes each. If you want to try for yourself, here’s the link: https://www.slowdownshow.org

Avotcja at Rivertown
One of my favorite local artists is Avotcja Jiltonilro, an East Bay poet who frequents Sonoma County, especially the Petaluma Poetry Walk where you may have had the pleasure of hearing her read and perform her music. She is also a frequent open mic reader at Rivertown Poets.

Avotcja (pronounced Avacha) is New York born music fanatic/sound junkie and popular Bay Area radio DJ. Her parents were Puerto Rican entertainers who launched Avotcja on a lifelong mission to heal herself and the world as a musician/writer/educator/storyteller. “I talk to the Trees & listens to the Wind against the concrete,” she writes, “& when they answer it usually winds up in a Poem or Short Story.”

You can hear Avotcja as one of the three featured readers with Rivertown Poets tonight, May 1, 6:15 p.m. Host Sande Anfang will introduce Avotcja , Ashia Ajani, and Tureeda Mikell via Zoom. The reading starts promptly at 6:15. Open mic follows. Zoom in to listen at https://zoom.us/j/6508887879 or via Aqus.com/rivertownpoets.

Avotcja’s poem “Daughters of the Drum” is our poem for May. Scroll down to read. You can find more about Avotcja at her website: https://avotcja.org/.

Bay Area Book Festival
There are plenty of terrific live and online literary events, workshops, readings listed in the May Calendar. But before it slips right past you, I want to give a shout out to the Bay Area Book Festival, live and in person again! This is a world-class literary extravaganza taking place over two days in downtown Berkeley. The festival runs May 6 and 7 with dozens of renowned speakers, including Joan Baez, Camille Dungy, Dave Eggers, Forrest Gander, and many more. A panel titled “Life in Books” features Sonoma County author Joan Frank along with Dorothy Lazard and Jane Smiley; and a “Flash Fiction America” panel that includes Molly Giles and others. There will be indoor literary programs at multiple locations in downtown Berkeley both days and on Sunday, an outdoor literary marketplace in MLK Jr. Civic Park with over 150 exhibitors. This is one of my favorite literary festivals, with FREE admission to all events. For festival schedule, author-speaker lineup and more: www.baybookfest.org/2023info

Annual Haiku Festival in Ukiah
Celebrate Ukiah’s palindrome on Sunday, May 7, 2:00-4:00 p.m. at the 21st Annual UkiaHaiku Festival at Grace Hudson Museum Wild Gardens, Ukiah. There will be a live performance from the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas’ Developing Virtue Boys School, and readings of past haiku contest winners from various local luminaries. Live music by the UkeTones and shakuhachi (traditional Japanese flute) player Karl Young, as well as haiku-inspired arts and crafts booths, and refreshments. Free and open to the public. More details: http://ukiahaiku.org

Another Chance to Celebrate The Freedom of New Beginnings!
Last month, we had a terrific reading with the rousing dance music of Onye and the Messengers and contributors to the anthology The Freedom of New Beginnings. The combination of music and poetry raises each art to a new level. On May 20 the reading will be at the Community Market in Sebastopol from 2:00-4:00 PM. The musicians will be singer Stella Heath and guitarist Ian Scherer. Readers will include Hillary Moore, Linda Loveland Reid, Lynn Axelrod, Steve Trenam, Kay Renz, Jodi Hottel, Abby Bogomolny, Judy Cheung, Ernesto Garay, Kat Kraus, introduced by the editors Phyllis Meshulam, Gail King, Gwynn O’Gara, and Terry Ehret. Community Market is located at 6762 Sebastopol Ave, Sebastopol, CA 95472.

If you’ve been following Phyllis’s Poet Laureate project from her 2020-2022 tenure, you know that the anthology revolves around three themes: “Gratitude,” “Honoring Our Pain for the World,” and “Seeing with New Eyes.” Its title, The Freedom of New Beginnings, was inspired by a poem by Katherine Hastings, which ends with these inspirational lines: “beyond the catastrophe of ash/ throbbing in the glass/of abandoned dreams/Light follows you, cuts a path//equal to the loss of the abandoned nest/equal to the freedom new beginnings bring.”

_________

POEM FOR MAY

DAUGHTERS OF THE DRUM

We were born to Drum
Somos Hijas ritmicas
We were conceived in Rhythm
Whether we knew it or not or wanted it or not
It was & has always been
About upholding La Clave en el alma
The beauty & sanctity of the Rhythm that created us
The Rhythm that is us
Somos el latído de la naturaleza
The Rhythm
Of our Mother’s labor pains announced our coming
And it’s always the Rhythm of our breathing
That lets the world know we’re alive
¡Miranos!
Bellas fuerzas místicas pero picosas
Feel it!
We walk & sing, pray, dance & cry in it
Every single word that flows out of our mouths
Is a rhythmic declaration of our presence
Somos la esencia de La Bomba
And even our sacred Mother Nature
Dances rhythmically through the Seasons
Every single year
Keeping the Rhythm of our lives in balance
Our universe is an inescapable symphony
Ritmos sagrados
Held together by vibration
By the sound of the sum of us
The always right on time
Magical, rhythmical timelessness of us
Somos la fiebre apasionada de la Rumba
The heart of Bebop & Cubop
Was born in us
Is Creation’s gift to us
Somos el corazón del Tambor
Born in the womb of creativity
An undeniable Rhythm personified
Wake up world!
¡Miranos!
Listen!
We are your Children
And we were born to Drum!!!

Copyright © Avotcja

_________

Terry Ehret, Co-Editor
Sonoma County Literary Update

Dear Literary Folk,

Remembering Sher Christian
John Christian wrote to say “I’m sorry to let you all know that my sweetie, Sher, passed away peacefully [last] Saturday afternoon. She had kidney disease and there were late stage complications that led to her declining health. We had 34+ years together and I’m very grateful for the life we shared.”

We all know Sher as the co-host of the long-running literary open mics and music series. She was a passionate member of our literary community. When John has any news about a celebration of Sher’s life, I’ll pass this along in an upcoming Literary Update.

Thank You to All Our Literary Hosts
Losing Sher got me thinking about all the members of our literary community who have hosted open mics, reading series, podcasts, etc., and who have helped nurture us all by providing a safe and supportive venue to share our writing.

I think of Fran Claggett-Holland and her Why Poetry project, and Katharine Hastings’s WordTermple Series, which is still vibrant as an online blog, now that Katherine has moved to New York. Then there is Ed Coletti, who hosted SoCoCo and Poetry Azul literary readings, and currently runs a new series at Café Frida. Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion gave us the 100 Thousand Poets for Change. Susan Lamont hosted a series and open mic at Gaia’s Garden. Sande Anfang has been hosting the Rivertown Poets at Aqus Café and online during the pandemic. It’s now both live and in hybrid format, and available via streaming on YouTube and at KPCA.FM. Leena Prasad has been hosting “Poets Wanted” on second Sundays. Steve Trennam runs the Poetic License series through Sebastopol Center for the Arts. Dave Pokorny hosts Westside Stories at Sonoma Valley Portworks in Petaluma. Melissa Carr at the Ukiah Library has been curating the LOBA series for many years. Marlene Cullen guides many writers from their first inklings and notes all the way to publication through The Write Spot workshops and readings, as well as the Petaluma Forum events. Our current and past poets laureate all hosted many readings during their tenures, and Elizabeth Herron’s Being Brave workshops and readings are a brilliant example of this. Check out her Poet Laureate News page on the Literary Update for details.

Putting together a reading or hosting a reading series involves a tremendous amount of behind-the-scenes effort, as well as poise and flexibility as the reading is under way. I, too, have hosted many readings, literary events, and a reading/workshop series at SRJC, so I know they don’t just “happen.”

Listing everyone who’s had a hand in reading series would take several pages. Fortunately, Jo-Anne Rosen keeps a special page on our website with ongoing series and open mics listed by day. There’s something happening every day of the week! She also puts together the monthly calendar of readings, workshops, and events. Please visit these two pages to get a fuller picture of the literary arts in Sonoma County.

You are all my heroes for all you do and have done to bring our community together through the written and spoken word.

APRIL HIGHLIGHTS

Sixteen Rivers Book Launch at Book Passage in Corte Madera April 2
Please join us for a very special reading on Sunday, April 2 at 4pm at Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte, Madera, CA. This is the book launch for our newly published authors, Joe Zaccaradi and Matt Monte. They will be joined by Barbara Swift Brauer, twice published by Sixteen Rivers.

In his afterword to Songbirds of the Nine Rivers, Joseph Zaccardi recounts how, during his time as a corpsman in the Vietnam War, he found refuge in a volume of ancient Chinese and Vietnamese poetry. This study, now lifelong, has borne fruit in his present volume of poetry.

Matt Monte’s All Tomorrow’s Train Rides is an odyssey of reading and poetic memory. What begins
as a single day in a worker’s commute morphs into a Möbius loop of literary history and cultural consciousness.

Barbara Swift Brauer’s Rain Like a Thief offers observations of the natural world that serve as a description of the poems themselves. Through lyrically precise and visually evocative language, they allow us see those familiar old containers—pain and loss, love and death—in new ways.

The View from Here: A Celebration of Our Writers April 4
On Tuesday, April 4, 3:30-5:30 PM, The SRJC English Department presents a reading featuring Eric Atkinson, Abby Bogomolny, Claire Drucker, Alfonso Gaitan, and Erica Tom—all members of the faculty at Santa Rosa Junior College. This reading series has been on hiatus during the Covid years, but returns now to Doyle Library 4th Floor Quiet Reading Room, 4520. It is free and open to the public. Parking permits are required.

Newly Translated Poems by González de León at Blue Light at the Gallery on April 7
On Friday, April 7, 6:00 pm, Diane Frank of Blue Light Press and the host of Blue Light at at the Gallery will feature the poetry of Ulalume González de León and her translators: Terry Ehret and Nancy Morales from Sixteen Rivers Press

Nancy and Terry will debut poems from the upcoming third volume of Plagios/Plagiarisms. They’ll discuss their translation process and read some of their own original work.
 
This will be a virtual event—no need to brave the Friday evening traffic! Just zoom in from the comfort of home. (Note: John Johnson and Terry Ehret will also be reading some of González de León’s poems from volume three at the Freedom of New Beginnings reading on Saturday, April 8. See the notice below.)

RSVP to bluelightpress@aol.com to get the Zoom link.

Ulalume González de León (1928-2009) was born in Uruguay and became a Mexican citizen in 1948. In the 1960’s and 70’s, she was an inspirational leader of a generation of women writers experimenting with language. Her poetry earned her many awards, including the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize, the Flower of Laura Poetry Prize in 1979 from the Center for International Studies, and the Alfonso X Prize. Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz called her “the best Mexicana poet since Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,” recognizing the visionary quality of her work. She also translated the work of H.D., Elizabeth Bishop, Ted Hughes, Lewis Carroll, and e.e. cummings.

Come Dance with Onye and the Messengers and Celebrate the Freedom of New Beginnings!
The Sebastopol Community Center hosts an extraordinary evening of poetry and music, featuring current and past Poets Laureate along with contributors to the anthology The Freedom of New Beginnings. Readers include Phyllis Meshulam, Gwynn O’Gara, Bill Vartnaw, Maya Khosla, Terry Ehret, Elizabeth Herron, Gail King, and more!

Saturday, April 8
Doors 4 pm, Event begins at 4:30 pm
General Admission: $15
Students:$5 (students of all ages!) Children 10 & under free!
Click the link for more information and to purchase your tickets today! https://seb.org/poetry-event/

Celebrating Fran Claggett-Holland April 15
Here’s our chance to honor one of Sonoma County’s literary treasures, Fran Claggett-Holland. The event will take place on Saturday, April 15, at 1:00 pm at the Finley Center, 2060 West College Avenue in Santa Rosa.


Napa Valley Writer’s Conference Deadline April 17
There’s still time to apply to the 2023 Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, if you haven’t already!

Applications are open until April 17! http://www.napawritersconference.org. The 2023 conference will take place from Sunday, July 30, to Friday, August 4, on the Napa campus of Napa Valley College.

Apply to the Conference! Applications will close on Monday, April 17. Please read our new admissions policy for returning applicants.

April 27 is National Poem in Your Pocket Day for National Poetry Month
One of the many projects the Academy of American Poets has sponsored over the years is the Poem-In-Your-Pocket Day. Poem in Your Pocket Day takes place every year on a day in National Poetry Month. Poem in Your Pocket Day 2023 will take place on April 27.

Ways to Participate
It’s easy to participate in Poem in Your Pocket Day from a safe distance. Here are some ideas of how you might get involved:
* Select a poem and share it on social media using the hashtag #PocketPoem. 
* Print a poem from the Poem in Your Pocket Day PDF and draw an image from the poem in the white space, or use the instructions on pages 57–58 of the PDF to make an origami swan. 
* Record a video of yourself reading a poem, then share it on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or another social media platform you use. 
* Email a poem to your friends, family, neighbors, or local government leaders.
* Schedule a video chat and read a poem to your loved ones.
* Add a poem to your email footer.
*Read a poem out loud from your porch, window, backyard or outdoor space. 

Discover more ways to celebrate National Poetry Month in the classroom, or at home or online!

Our current Sonoma County Poet Laureate Elizabeth Herron has some recommendations for this year. From the email stream of one of the Being Brave Poetry Workshops:

Let the walls soften & crumble
Let light in, let love in —
An explosion of opera pink!
_____________________

A torch to light the way 
Carrying the empty bowl
To the life spring
________________

These and other short poems gleaned from longer poems written in my Being Brave Poetry Workshops are perfect Pocket Poems to distribute on April 27th, official Poem in Your Pocket Day, part of April’s National Poetry Month.

Wishing you well.
With gratitude,
Elizabeth Herron

Orchard Street Press Call for Submissions Deadline April 30
This March-April, The Orchard Street Press is conducting its sixth annual Poetry Contest: $500 first prize, $300 second, $200 third. Prize-winning and other submitted poems will appear in Quiet Diamonds, our annual poetry journal, and select entrants will be invited to submit chapbooks for possible publication. This year, we are publishing 10 chapbooks from entrants to the 2022 Contest. We expect to publish a similar number from the ‘23 Contest.

Entrants should submit poems and the $15 fee to: The Orchard Street Press; P.O. Box 280, Gates Mills, Ohio 44040. Entries can also be submitted via our website, orchpress.com.

Submission details: Submit up to four original, unpublished poems (no translations and no single poem longer than two pages). Poems should be typed and should not include the poet’s name on the page. The poet should also send a cover letter (listing the poems and the poet’s contact information–including phone and email) and a SASE for results.

Deadline for submissions is April 30 (postmark).
The Orchard Street Press,
Visit www.orchpress.com for details

Poem for April
I recently watched a very fine documentary about the life and work of poet Ruth Stone. It’s called Ruth Stone’s Vast Library of the Female Mind and it aired on PBS last week. You can find out more at this link: https://www.pbs.org/show/ruth–stones-vast-library-female-mind. Here is a poem by Ruth Stone for April.

Always on the Train
Ruth Stone – 1915-2011

Writing poems about writing poems
is like rolling bales of hay in Texas.
Nothing but the horizon to stop you.
But consider the railroad’s edge of metal trash;
bird perches, miles of telephone wires.
What is so innocent as grazing cattle?
If you think about it, it turns into words.
Trash is so cheerful; flying up
like grasshoppers in front of the reaper.
The dust devil whirls it aloft; bronze candy wrappers,
squares of clear plastic—windows on a house of air.
Below the weedy edge in last year’s mat,
red and silver beer cans.
In bits blown equally everywhere,
the gaiety of flying paper
and the black high flung patterns of flocking birds.

From This Art: Poems on Poetry edited by Michael Wiegers. Copyright © 2003 by Ruth Stone.

_____

Terry Ehret, Co-Editor
Sonoma County Literary Update

Dear Literary Folk,

We’ve surely had some wild weather in February with freezing weather, wind, rain, hail, and snow on our higher peaks.

Today, in between storms, I’m headed out to Abbott’s Lagoon in Point Reyes National Seashore for a winter bird walk with writer and naturalist Becca Lawton. My husband and I tagged along in January when Becca led a poetry and birding walk at Ellis Creek in Petaluma. We saw swans, hawks, egrets, many varieties of ducks and songbirds, and Anna’s hummingbirds mating on the fly! And, of course, we saw many blackbirds. With each siting, Becca invited someone in the group to read a passage from Wallace Stevens’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” and we each offered our reflections and interpretations of Stevens’s enigmatic poem. This was such fun that we decided to hire Becca for a private group expedition to Point Reyes. Walking with a naturalist-guide is a very different experience from walking on your own. As I told Becca at Ellis Creek, “You teach us how to see.”

If this kind of outing appeals to you, check out the March events calendar. On March 25, 8:00-10:00 a.m. Becca will be leading a literary bird walk in Jack London State Historic Park, Glen Ellen, California. The cost is $10 to benefit the park. Details and tickets: https://jacklondonpark.com/events/literary-bird-walk

For more about Becca’s books and field work, visit her website: https://beccalawton.com/

Home Turf: A Bestiary of Sonoma State University
On this theme of nature writing, Thursday, March 2, 5:00-7:00 p.m. Sonoma State University’s Art Gallery will host a reading and discussion with local author Lakin Khan and artist/illustrator Shane Weare, as they introduce their newly published book, Home Turf: A Bestiary of Sonoma State University. For details check the calendar page. To RSVP, contact SSU Art Gallery Exhibitions Coordinator, Carla Stone at carla.stone@sonoma.edu or (707) 664-2295.

Book Passage Offers Two Presentations to Help Authors Realize Their Publishing Dreams
Book Passage presents John J. Geoghegan on How to Get Your Book Published, a 3-hour class offered live on Zoom. This class is designed to help writers improve their chance of getting their memoir, novel, or nonfiction book considered for publication by a reputable literary agent or publisher. Saturday, March 4, 12:00-3:00 p.m. Details and registration: www.bookpassage.com/event/online-class-john-j-geoghegan-how-get-your-book-published

Then, right after Geoghegan’s presentation, at 4:00 p.m. Book Passage presents Tzivia Gover in conversation with Brooke Warner, in person at the Corte Madera store. Featured book is Dreaming Big: A Conversation about the Private and Public Sides of Writing. Brooke Warner (She Writes Press) and Tzivia Gover (author of Dreaming on the Page) will explore questions of solitude, audience, and when and if to make our personal narratives public.

Book Passage’s Corte Madera venue is located at 51 Tama Vista Blvd., Corte Madera. Details: www.bookpassage.com/event/tzivia-gover-brooke-warner-dreaming-big-conversation-about-private-and-public-sides-writing

Jodi Hottel and Diane Lee Moomey at Rivertown Poets
Monday, March 6, 6:00 p.m. Rivertown Poets features Jodi Hottel and Diane Lee Moomey. The reading starts promptly at 6:15. Open mic follows the features. Reading time for open mic is 3 minutes per poet. (The reading list for March 6 is full.) Zoom in to listen at https://zoom.us/j/6508887879 or via Aqus.com/rivertownpoets. Also, listen to Rivertown Poets on KPCA.FM in Petaluma and live-streaming on the web every Sunday at 4:00 p.m. Each week, a pair of poets or poetry interviews is featured.

Spring Poetry Festival at Café Frida
Ed Coletti hosts the Spring Poetry Festival on Sunday, March 26, 12:00-2:00 p.m. outdoors at Cafe Frida Gallery, 300 South A Street #4, Santa Rosa. This will be the fifth quarterly festival reading (but who’s counting?) In addition to Ed, featured readers include Pat Nolan, Avotcja, Gail King, Carl Macki, Iris Jahmal Dunkle, Rob DiLillo, Pamela Singer, and Hilary Moore, with Steve Shain accompanying on bass. Details are posted at: www.cafefridagallery.com/events

The Sitting Room’s Annual Publication Open for Contributions
In answer to the questions we’ve been getting, YES, The Sitting Room Annual Publication will be happening this year and here is the wide-open topic, appropriate for our new year’s resolutions: haven’t we all some scene, some topic, some learning moment, some dream, some ________ that we have wanted to write about but never somehow got around to? Too tender or too tough or too elusive…. Most of us have, I suspect, and this is your chance to just DO IT (in two pages or less, in any genre, poetry, prose, or drawing even – wouldn’t it be fun to have a graphic novel in the publication? – ) In short, any form any genre so long as writing it fulfills a long deferred idea or inkling or mini-project. Get it off your chest. JUST DO IT!

And then send it to Karen Petersen on or before April 1, 2023 via email, kpetaluma@gmail.com

Contributions should be no more than two pages, 12 point, Times New Roman. Word, Pages or other plain text files are fine. Image files as .jpeg. If you do not use a computer, please send your work to: The Sitting Room, PO Box 838, Penngrove, CA 94951 
www.SittingRoom.org/publish
_________

Poem for March
March is Women’s History Month, and to honor this theme, here is a poem by the amazing poet and performance artist Patricia Smith, who is featured in the most recent issue of Poets & Writers.

VOODOO V: ENEMY BE GONE
by Patricia Smith

The storm left a wound seeping,
a boulevard yawning, some
memories fractured, a
kiss exploded, she left
no stone resting, a bone
army floating, rats sated,
she left the horizon sliced
and ornery, she left in a hurry,
in a huff, in all her glory,
she took with her a kingdom
of sax and dream books,
a hundred scattered chants,
some earth burned in her
name, and she took flight,
all pissed and raucous, like
a world-hipped woman
makin’ room.

Copyright © 2008 by Patricia Smith. From Blood Dazzler (Coffee House Press, 2008).
_________

Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update Co-editor

Dear Literary Folk,

Remembering Charles Simic
Charles Simic, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and U.S. Poet Laureate 2007-2008, died on January 9 at age 84. He published dozens of books, and is considered one of the most original poets of his generation. Serbian by heritage, Simic didn’t write in English until he was 20. The bleakness of his childhood in wartime Belgrade, back when there was a Yugoslavia, shaped his world view, and led him to observe, “The world is old, it was always old.” It also gave him a kind of “genius at witnessing to horror with wit, humanity, and a cold eye” (Chard de Niord). He emigrated to the U.S. in 1954, was drafted into the army in 1961, became an American citizen in 1971, and began publishing poetry in the mid-1970s.  His poems were usually short and pointed, with surprising shifts in mood and imagery. Simic said “Words make love on the page like flies in the summer heat and the poet is merely the bemused spectator.”

Simic taught literature and creative writing and was also poetry editor of the Paris Review. In 2011, he received the Frost Medal, presented annually for “lifetime achievement in poetry.”

I discovered the poetry of Charles Simic about 20 years ago when I was teaching the long-running prose poem workshop at the Sitting Room. His wonderful collection The World Doesn’t End had won the Pulitzer Prize a decade earlier, and it caught my attention because it was, I think, the first time a collection of prose poems has ever won this prize. The poems relate Simic’s childhood in Belgrade and adolescence in New York and Illinois, but in a surreal lyric narrative that is akin to the darkly whimsical prose poems of Russell Edson.  About the prose poem form, Simic said, “They look like prose and act like poems because, despite the odds, they make themselves into fly-traps for our imagination.” I’ve included a few of Simic’s prose poems from this 1990 collection at the end of this post.

You also might enjoy this interview in the Paris Review, conducted by Chard De Niord shortly before Simic’s death. It’s called “Sometimes a Little Bullshit is Fine: A Conversation with Charles Simic: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2023/01/19/sometimes-a-little-bullshit-is-fine-a-conversation-with-charles-simic/.

The Green Comet?
Comets visible to the average stargazer don’t come along too often, which alone makes it worth looking up this week to see the “green comet” C/2022 E3 (ZTF) glide by planet Earth. Hale-Bopp in 1997 was a marvelous sight. So, too, was Neowise, which came around the first summer of Covid. This evening after nightfall, I drove out Chileno Valley Road, hoping to see the green comet in the northern sky. According to astronomers, the last time this comet visited the neighborhood of Earth was 50,000 years ago, during the Paleolithic Era. The Farmers’ Almanac recommended looking in the constellation of the giraffe (I didn’t know there was a celestial giraffe!) between the pointer stars of the Big Dipper and Polaris. I’m pretty good at locating constellations, but comets can be frustrating because they don’t look like anything in particular—just a smudge of light, usually more visible in peripheral vision than straight-on. Unfortunately, I don’t have a telescope, just high-powered binoculars. But neither of these would be helpful for this kind of “side of your eye” observation.  And, alas, the waxing gibbous moon created a little too much light-interference.

So, dear literary folk, if any of you have spotted the green comet, please let me know, along with any comet-spotting tips you might have. You can e-mail me at tehret99@comcast.net.

________

Our February calendar of events is brimming with readings, open mics, and workshops. Please have a look at all of these. I’ve selected just a few to highlight.

Patricia Engel at Book Passage
On Sunday, February 5, 1:00 p.m. Book Passage presents Patricia Engel, author of Infinite Country, which  was a New York Times bestseller. Her new book is The Faraway World, an exquisite collection of ten haunting, award-winning short stories set across the Americas and linked by themes of migration, sacrifice, and moral compromise. Location: Corte Madera Store, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd.

Writing Between the Vines in Healdsburg
Celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Writing Between the Vines at the Sonoma County Wine Library in Healdsburg  on Tuesday, February 7, 6:00-7:30 p.m.. The reception will feature Adam McHugh (2019 Moshin) reading from his new book Blood From a Stone: A Memoir of How Wine Brought Me Back from the Dead. We will also have select readings from two of our 2023 retreat recipients—Eva Recinos and Nedjelko Spaich. Healdsburg Wine Library, 139 Piper Street, Healdsburg. Details: https://events.sonomalibrary.org/event/writing-between-vines

River Books & Letters
This lovely bookstore in Guerneville is hosting several events this month. One is an open mic reading on Saturday, February 4 at 7 PM. The second is on Friday, February 17, 7:00 p.m. when Bart Schneider and Dan Coshnear will read from their new collections: The Daily Feast, with paintings by Chester Arnold, and Separation Anxiety.  And the third is on Thursday, February 23 at 7:00 p.m. when the featured readers will be Sonoma County Poet Laureate Elizabeth Herron, Jonah Raskin, Gail King, and Pat Nolan River Books & Letters is located at 14045 Armstrong Woods Road, Guerneville (next to the Coffee Bazaar).

Redwood Writers Host a Book Launch to Celebrate Publications by Members
On Saturday, February 18, 1:00-5:00 p.m. Redwood Writers Club hosts its 2023 Author Launch, celebrating club members who published books between January 1, 2022 and February 1, 2023. This event will be a FREE in person event, open to the public as well as members, and will be held at the Cypress Room, Finley Center, Santa Rosa.

Deadline Extended for the Women Artists Datebook!
For the past two months, I’ve been plugging the Syracuse Cultural Workers because it is rare to find a group so committed to the creative folk who move our collective vision forward, and so inclusive in their promotion of artists. Good news for the procrastinators among us! The deadline for submissions of poetry and art for their Women Artists Datebook 2024 has been extended to February 17. You can submit your art or poems at datebook@SyracuseCulturalWorkers.com. Guidelines are at: https://www.syracuseculturalworkers.com/art/call-for-art

Wordrunner eChapbooks’ Annual Themed Anthology
Sonoma County-based Wordrunner seeks submissions of fiction, nonfiction and poetry to its next anthology. The deadline is February 28. Online publication will be mid-April. 2023. The theme: Salvage or Salvaged (interpreted broadly, whatever can be rescued or saved from anything at all, be it relationships or ships at sea). More details and submittal link:  https://echapbook.com/submissions.html

________

Poems for February
Here are several short poems from Simic’s collection The World Doesn’t End ©1989 Harcourt, Brace & Company. To read more of his poetry, check out the Poetry Foundations selection of his work at this link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charles-simic.

My mother was a braid of black smoke.
She bore me swaddled over the burning cities.
The sky was a vast and windy place for a child to play.
We met many others who were just like us. They were trying to put on their overcoats with arms made of smoke.
The high heavens were full of little shrunken deaf ears instead of stars.

*   *   *

            She’s pressing me gently with a hot steam iron, or she slips her hand inside me as if I were a sock that needed mending. The thread she uses is like the trickle of my blood, but the needle’s sharpness is all her own.

            “You will ruin your eyes, Henrietta, in such bad light,” her mother warns. And she’s right! Never since the beginning of the world has there been so little light. Our winter afternoons have been known at times to last a hundred years.

*   *   *

            It was the epoch of the masters of levitation. Some evenings we saw solitary men and women floating above the dark tree tops. Could they have been sleeping or thinking? They made no attempt to navigate. The wind nudged them ever so slightly. We were afraid to speak, to breathe. Even the night birds were quiet. Later, we’d mention the little book clasped in the hands of the young woman, and the way that old man lost his hat to the cypresses.

            In the morning there were not even clouds in the sky. We saw a few crows preen themselves at the edge of the road; the shirts raise their empty sleeves on the blind woman’s clothesline.

*   *   *

            Ghost stories written as algebraic equations. Little Emily at the blackboard is very frightened. The X’s look like a graveyard at night. The teacher wants her to poke  among them with a piece of chalk. All the children hold their breath. The white chalk squeaks once among the plus and minus signs, and then it’s quiet again.

*   *   *

            In the fourth year of the war, Hermes showed up. He was not much to look at. His mailman’s coat was in tatters; mice ran in and out of its pockets. The broad-brimmed hat he was wearing had bullet holes. He still carried the famous stick that closes the eyes of the dying, but it looked gnawed. Did he let the dying bite on it? Whatever the case, he had no letters for us. “God of thieves!” we shouted behind his back when he could no longer hear us.

*   *   *

            The stone is a mirror that works poorly. Nothing in it but dimness. Your dimness or its dimness, who’s to say? In the hush your heart sounds like a black cricket.

________

Terry Ehret
Co-editor, Sonoma County Literary Update

Dear Literary Folk,

Contrary to all the long-range weather forecasts for this winter, we’ve been blessed with several good drenchings and this current atmospheric river, filling creeks and rivers over their banks. Behind my house, Thompson Creek is singing and rising and rushing headlong toward the Petaluma River. Flooding from the rain has closed access to our cabin in the Sierra, and now snow is falling there, too. We’re staying safe at home this New Year’s Eve with a fire in the fireplace, supper and a movie with a friend.

I wish you all, my dear literary community, a safe New Year’s Day, however you celebrate it, and a creative year ahead.

Poems and Music for Social Justice/Earth Justice
I saw many of you at the extraordinary evening of poetry and music on December 16 at Sebastopol Center for the Arts, called “In View of the Whale: Songs and Poems of Social Justice.” Special thanks to choir director John Maas for organizing this event, and for bringing us together alongside Joe Sances’ monumental 51 ft. long whale, embodying myriad historical images relating to social justice and environmental degradation. Sances’s Or the Whale will be on display at SCA until February 2. Don’t miss it!

Here’s a link to a Youtube video of the talk Sances gave about this art piece at SCA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTIA6TOMtW0

Two Central Valley Poets Read at Rivertown on Monday, January 9
Rivertown Poets will gather virtually to celebrate the poetry of William O’Daly and Indigo Moor. You won’t want to miss this reading with two fine California poets, both with recent books. The reading starts promptly at 6:15. Open mic follows the features. The first twenty poets to sign up will read for up to three minutes apiece. Please sign up quickly; the list can fill in a few days. Email Sande Anfang at rivertownpoet@gmail.com. Zoom in to listen at https://zoom.us/j/6508887879

Peter Omer at Book Passage on Sunday, January 22
Book Passage presents Peter Orner in conversation with Tom Barbash at 4 pm. Featured book: Still No Word from You, a new collection of pieces on literature and life by the author of Am I Alone Here? Covering such well-known writers as Lorraine Hansberry, Primo Levi, and Marilynne Robinson, Orner’s highly personal take on literature alternates with his own true stories of loss and love, hope and despair. In person at the Corte Madera Store, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd. Details: www.bookpassage.com/event/peter-orner-tom-barbash-still-no-word-you-corte-madera-store

Poet Laureate Elizabeth Herron at OCA, Sunday, January 29
Occidental Center for the Arts Literary Series is thrilled to open the New Year with current Sonoma County Poet Laureate, Elizabeth Herron, as she continues her Being Brave Poetry Project with a reading of recent poems about courage and poems from In the Cities of Sleep, her newest collection (Fernwood 2023) centered on life in a warming world. The program starts at 2 PM. Free admission, Q&A, book sales and signing. OCA: 3850 Doris Murphy Way, Occidental. OCA’s facilities are accessible to people with disabilities. For more info: occidentalcenterforthearts.org or 707-874-9392.

Calls for Submission
Sixteen Rivers Press Announces Call for ManuscriptsFrom November 1 2022 to February 1, 2023, Sixteen Rivers Press is open to submissions for full-length poetry manuscripts. The press is on a three-year production cycle. A manuscript accepted in this cycle would be published in April 2025. You can read the submission guidelines on the website at: https://sixteenrivers.org/submit-work/.

We hope you’ll consider sending us your work!

Call for Submissions for SCW’s Women Artists DatebookOne of my favorite publishers is the Syracuse Cultural Workers in New York state. I’ve promoted their work here before because it is rare to find a group so committed to the creative folk who move our collective vision forward, and so inclusive in their promotion of artists.

The deadline for submissions to their Women Artists Datebook is January 15, 2023. You can submit these at datebook@SyracuseCulturalWorkers.com. Guidelines are at: https://www.syracuseculturalworkers.com/art/call-for-art

Wordrunner eChapbooks’ annual themed anthology
Sonoma County-based Wordrunner seeks submissions to its next anthology, from January 1 to February 28, 2023. Online publication will be mid-April. 2023. The theme: Salvage or Salvaged (interpreted broadly, whatever can be rescued or saved from anything at all, be it relationships or ships at sea). More details and submittal link:  https://echapbook.com/submissions.html

Poem for January
In the years before Covid, my husband and I hosted a New Year’s Poetry Brunch for over 20 years. Before we began reading our poems for the new year, I would ask everyone to write down on a slip of paper something they would like to let go of or to realize in the year ahead. These were burned in a smokeless blue flame. Thus we all inhaled each other’s invocations and carried them out into our lives. The ashes went into our garden at the spring planting. I miss this ritual, and so give you instead a poem about a similar New Year’s tradition.

Burning the Old Year
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Burning the Old Year” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. Copyright © 1995.

Here is a short list of New Year’s poems to call on after the clock strikes midnight on December 31:

Classic Poems for the New Year

“A Song for New Year’s Eve” by William Cullen Bryant
Stay yet, my friends, a moment stay…

 “The Old Year” by John Clare
The Old Year’s gone away…

 “Song for the New Year” by Eliza Cook
Old Time has turned another page…

“In Tenebris” by Ford Madox Ford
All within is warm…

“At the Entering of the New Year” by Thomas Hardy
Our songs went up and out the chimney…

 “The Passing of the Year” by Robert W. Service
My glass is filled, my pipe is lit…

“In Memoriam [Ring out, wild bells]” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky…

“The Year” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
What can be said in New Year rhymes…

Contemporary Poems for the New Year

 “A New Law” by Greg Delanty
Let there be a ban on every holiday…

 “For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet” by Joy Harjo
Put down that bag of potato chips…

“I Want to Save This Whale” by Lisa Olstein
The one right in front of me…

“Resolution” by Lia Purpura
There’s the thing I shouldn’t do…

 “Te Deum” by Charles Reznikoff
Not because of victories…

“A House Called Tomorrow” by Alberto Ríos
You are not fifteen, or twelve, or seventeen…

“Elegy in Joy” by Muriel Rukeyser
We tell beginnings…

“Duet” by Lisa Russ Spaar
Two sisters side by side…

See more at: https://poets.org/poems?field_occasion_tid=515

Terry Ehret
Co-editor, Sonoma County Literary Update

Dear Literary Folk,

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limόn at Santa Rosa Junior College
Thanks to Steve Trenam, many of us in Sonoma County had the chance to hear our 24the Poet Laureate of the United States reading her work at Santa Rosa Junior College’s Burbank Auditorium the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The reading and conversation were simulcast to the Petaluma Campus and made available via zoom.



Originally from Sonoma, Limόn now lives in Lexington, Kentucky, but makes regular trips to her home town. She was selected as the new U.S. Poet Laureate in July. The August post of the Literary Update offered an introduction to Limόn’s work, for those not familiar, including her poem “A New National Anthem,” which was one of the selection she read to the crowd at SRJC. You can catch Limόn’s poetry podcast, “The Slowdown”: https://www.slowdownshow.org/.

A fine review of the event, written by Mya Constantino, appeared in the Press Democrat last week: https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/ada-limon-24th-u-s-poet-laureate-speaks-at-santa-rosa-junior-college/.

And for those who missed the reading, you can watch it online at this address:

https://santarosa-edu.zoom.us/rec/play/qkWoMG1dxurux8xtPMldUKdgHYarEIneVkQl-T-wWak8uVYBuxM1qI8ZLjk-fJq6C9nnJKjVfSoHe3dP.kYVfDxbsoX4LaA6y?startTime=1669147329000&_x_zm_rtaid=BdBh_l0wRgOp9t6sdMgqng.1669876820092.fd5e7449d2c2fdb5df8bc961c6ac92a8&_x_zm_rhtaid=346

Remembering Michael Rothenberg
feature and photo by Susan Lamont

One of the most alive people I know — Michael Rothenberg — died on November 21st at age 71 in Tallahassee, Florida of 4th stage lung cancer. His death was a loss to the world, because he had taken his poetry and his activism around the world.

Michael had undergone radiation and chemo, but it wasn’t enough. When he was diagnosed, he said he only wanted a few people to know because he wouldn’t be able to handle responding to everyone. He had SO many friends the world over. So he swore me and some others to secrecy. Therefore, of course, this comes as a surprise to many.

Some of you knew him through his poetry and some of you knew him through his activism after the killing of Andy Lopez. I first met him after I’d heard of his and Terri Carrion’s idea to create 100 Thousand Poets for Change (100TPC) – from a Facebook post by Penelope LaMontagne (another poet we have lost). Then, a young woman came into the Peace & Justice Center and asked me if I knew anything about the project. While we were talking, Michael called. He was thrilled by the synchronicity and that I’d heard of the project and we immediately became great friends.

I organized many 100TPC readings in Sonoma County for quite a few years – usually at Gaia’s Garden – while Michael and Terri promoted global readings which numbered 700 one year. And then Andy Lopez was killed and Michael and Terri threw themselves into the fight for justice as energetically as they supported poetry. When Michael and Terri do something, they do it 100%. We organized several 100TPC events around the life of Andy and a poem Michael wrote about Andy and a superficial and hypocritical Sonoma County has been translated and published in other languages.

Michael was not a newbie to activism, as he had been an environmental activist for many years in San Mateo County. He was also the founder of a nonprofit which helped poets in financial need. And, of course, 100 TPC was an activist enterprise.

He had hoped that the cancer wouldn’t return because the treatment had screwed up so many systems in his body and he knew he’d be unable to tolerate further treatment. And then he fell down some stairs and sustained a concussion. The last time we talked, he called me up to ask if he could cry because he was having such trouble with the rest of his body – and that was before the cancer returned. Of course, I said “yes.”

He was in the middle of several projects. Books in the works. Also a CD/recording of poems and music. (After all, he once lived in Nashville and tried to write music there!) Every day, he drew and painted. He was always so busy, always creating. He created an online poetry magazine, edited many books of poetry, worked with a wide variety of musicians; they sought him out. It’s impossible to imagine that energy stilled.

Terri has been left with many loose ends to tie up — all the works in progress, continuing the work on his brother’s estate — and she recently lost her mother, who had lived with them. She is deeply involved with a non-profit for Lake Jackson to which their house backs up.

Over the last few years, Michael had lost so many people who were fundamental to his life – one death after another, one grief after another – his son, his brother, his dearest poet friends. Joanne Kyger and Michael McClure come most immediately to mind. Now he has followed them.

You can find out more about him at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Rothenberg

RIP Michael

Novelist Jane Smiley at Book Passage in Corte Madera
On Saturday, December 10 at 1:00 p.m., Book Passage will host Jane Smiley reading from her new novel, A Dangerous Business. From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning and best-selling author of A Thousand Acres: a rollicking murder mystery set in Gold Rush California, as two young prostitutes follow a trail of missing girls. In person at the Corte Madera Store, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd. Details: www.bookpassage.com/event/jane-smiley-dangerous-business-corte-madera-store

Two Great Local Writers Pair Up at Bird and Beckett
Come hear Dan Coshnear and Bart Schneider on Tuesday, December 13, at 7:00 p.m. Dan will read from his story collection Separation Anxiety, and Bart will read his poems on food from The Daily Feast. The event will be held at Bird & Beckett bookstore, 653 Chenery Street, San Francisco.

In View of the Whale: Songs and Poems of Social Justice<
Join Sebastopol Center for the Arts on Friday, December 16, for an evening of prominent local poets’ readings interspersed with music sung by SebArts’ new choirs led by John Maas, aligned with Joe Sances’ monumental 51 ft. long whale, embodying myriad historical images relating to social justice and environmental degradation.

Poets will include SoCo’s current Poet Laureate, Elizabeth Herron, previous SoCo Poet Laureate, Terry Ehret, and more!

For details and to reserve a seat (the event is free), use this link: https://www.sebarts.org/classeslectures/p/in-view-of-the-whale-songs-and-poems-of-social-justice

Doors open: 6:30 pm, Show: 7:00-8:30 pm
Location: Sebastopol Center for the Arts 282 South High Street Sebastopol, CA, 95472

Another Chance to Hear the Poems of “Freedom”
On Sunday, December 18 4:00-5:30 pm. Occidental Center for the Arts Literary Series is thrilled to host a selection of poets from this year’s anthology, The Freedom of New Beginnings, Poems of Witness and Vision from Sonoma County, edited by Phyllis Meshulam with Gail King, Gwynn O’Gara, and Terry Ehret. Most of the 30 poets included in the anthology call or have called Sonoma County, California home. Readers on December 18th will include Pamela Stone Singer, Lilah Tuggle, Raphael Block, Phyllis Meshulam, Terry Ehret, Gwynn O’Gara, Gail King, Kat Winter, John Johnson, Iris Dunkle, Bill Greenwood, and Donna Emerson, many of whom have honored OCA’s stage with their poetry in previous years. Free admission, all donations gratefully invited. Selected readings by above poets, a Q&A, followed by book sales & signing. Refreshments, wine/beer/coffee/tea for sale. OCA: 3850 Doris Murphy Way, Occidental, CA. OCA’s facilities are accessible to people with disabilities. For more info: occidentalcenterforthearts.org or 707-874-9392.

Translated from The Original: One-inch Punch Fiction
Guy Beiderman’s new book is being released this week by Nomadic Press. Guy is a Sonoma county ex-pat, who still teaches in Sonoma County. In fact, Guy will be teaching a flash fiction workshop at Occidental Center for The Arts in the spring. This month, Guy will be making two appearances to launch Translated from the Original.

The first is on Saturday, December 3, 6-8 pm as part of the Nomadic Press book launch. Here’s the link for that: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=472229108250244&set=gm.602373401269919

The second event is on Monday, December 5, 6:15 pm as one of the features at Rivertown Poets, along with Robert Rubino, hosted by Sande Anfang. This will be a hybrid reading, so you can attend in person at Aqus Café or zoom in from home. The Zoom open mic list has been filled, though there may be room for one or two more live readers. Email Sande Anfang at rivertownpoet@gmail.com. Zoom in to listen at https://zoom.us/j/6508887879

Sixteen Rivers Press Announces Call for Manuscripts
From November 1 2022 to February 1, 2023, Sixteen Rivers Press is open to submissions for full-length poetry manuscripts. The press is on a three-year production cycle. A manuscript accepted in this cycle would be published in April 2025. You can read the submission guidelines on the website at: https://sixteenrivers.org/submit-work/.

We hope you’ll consider sending us your work!

Call for Submissions for SCW’s Women Artists Datebook
One of my favorite publishers is the Syracuse Cultural Workers in New York state. I’ve promoted their work here before because it is rare to find a group so committed to the creative folk who move our collective vision forward, and so inclusive in their promotion of artists.

This year’s 2023 Women Artists Datebook is available on their website at www.SyracuseCulturalWorkers.com. Select calendars, then datebook. You could order a copy for yourself, or to give as gifts. Or browse the website for other items that might suit your taste and needs. If you like what you see, consider submitting your art or poetry for the 2024 datebook. The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2023, but early submissions are welcome. You can submit these at datebook@SyracuseCulturalWorkers.com. They are also accepting submissions of artwork for their 2024 Peace Calendar. Guidelines are at: https://www.syracuseculturalworkers.com/art/call-for-art

Poem for December
For those who celebrate the season of Yule and the Winter Solstice, here’s a quote from poet Wendell Berry that reminds us of what the darkness can teach us.



Terry Ehret
Co-editor, Sonoma County Literary Update