Sonoma County Literary Update

Dear literary folk,

In March, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I spotlighted the work of Ukranian-American poet Ilya Kaminski and Ukranian Yulia Musakovska, an award winning poet from Lviv. Looking back to my post from a year ago, April, 2021, I see I devoted a section of the Literary Update to the great Ukranian poet, Adam Zagajewsky, who passed away in March of that year. Given the continuing crisis for the Ukranian people in their struggle against Russian aggression, this seems an appropriate time to remember Zagajewsky’s life and work.

Zagajewski was born in 1945 in Lwów, Soviet Union (now Lviv, Ukraine). He lived in Paris from 1982 to 2002 when he moved to Kraków. Zagajewski’s books of poetry in English include Tremor (1985), Canvas (1991), Mysticism for Beginners (1997); and Without End: New and Selected Poems (2002).He is also the author of a memoir, Another Beauty (2000) and the prose collections, Two Cities (1995) and Solitude and Solidarity (1990).

The reviewer Joachim T. Baer noted in World Literature Today that Zagajewski’s themes “are the night, dreams, history and time, infinity and eternity, silence and death.” About his own poetry, Zagajewski said this:

“I will never be someone who writes only about bird song, although I admire birdsong highly – but not enough to withdraw from the historical world, for the historical world is fascinating. What really interests me is the interweaving of the historical and cosmic world. The cosmic world is unmoving – or rather, it moves to a completely different rhythm. I shall never know how these worlds coexist. They are in conflict yet they complement each other – and that merits our reflection.”
 
In September 2001, his response to the tragedies of 9/11, “Try To Praise the Mutilated World,” became for many of us an anthem for the work of our lives. The poem was written on September 17 and first published in the New Yorker on September 24, 2001.

Try To Praise the Mutilated World
by Adam Zagajewski

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the grey feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

April is National Poetry Month
. . . and the Academy of American Poets has some terrific suggestions for how to celebrate.

Check out 30 ways to celebrate National Poetry Month online and at home, including 30 ways to celebrate National Poetry Month in the classroom, find online poetry events on our Poetry Near You calendar, add your own, and more. 

Thanks to Ed Coletti and Café Frida Gallery
It’s been a long time since the Sonoma County literary community came together for a live event. If we don’t get hit by another surge, we may begin to see more live events on the literary calendar as we move into spring and summer. On a windy, overcast Sunday, Sonoma County poet Ed Coletti gathered 9 poets to read at Café Frida Gallery in Santa Rosa. Bass player Steve Shain provided accompaniment, and miraculously the predicted rain waited until the reading was over. It was such fun! Café Frida Gallery is a wonderful reading space with outdoor stage and covered seating. Ed plans another reading in two months on May 29th.

Poetry in Action 2022:
A Youth Poetry Reading and Conversation on Equity and Compassion.
We’re ready to start “recruiting” teens to read at the open mic! We need your help to spread the word to teens!!
 
Please forward, post, and share widely announcement with any youth you think would be interested in participating, with schools, teachers, poets, and/or anyone who will help us spread the word. A snapshot of the information is included below. Poets do not need to live in Sonoma County to participate.
 
This is a Sonoma County United In Kindness event, in cooperation with AAPI Coalition of the North Bay.
https://www.facebook.com/SonomaCountyUnitedinKindness/
AAPI Coalition of the North Bay – Home | Facebook
 
Hosted by: Ella Wen, 2021 – 2022 Sonoma County Youth Poet Laureate
When: Saturday, April 23, 5:00 – 6:00pm – a Zoom event
Who: Teens, age 13 – 19
What: This event will include a live open mic; providing an opportunity to read an original poem, or one written by any poet of choice. Limited to two poems or up to two minutes. “Family friendly” language poems please. Closed video will be an option; signed parent authorization required for ages 13 – 17 (the form is attached)
 
Topic/Suggested prompts: What do you want to say about equity and compassion? What do equity and compassion mean to you? How have you experienced them in your life? How do you practice them in your life? What power do they have in our world? How do they relate to tolerance, diversity, unity, social justice, kindness, and equality? Say it through the power of poetry!!
 
How: SIGN UP IN ADVANCE FOR OPEN MIC – DEADLINE: MONDAY, APRIL 4
Email YouthPoetry-UIK@InterfaithSonoma.org to sign up. A practice session will be scheduled prior to the event – date to be announced.
 
Incentives: A cash/gift card prize and Certificate of Participation for anyone who reads during open mic.
 
Why: United In Kindness hopes to provide a supportive forum and public platform, designed and hosted by and for Sonoma County youth, ages 13–19, to write, present, and have conversation about the topics of equity and compassion, through the art of poetry, with a focus on the practice, experience, meaning of, reflection upon, and/or power of equity and compassion — on a human scale, in the US, and in their day-to-day lives. To include the topics of inclusion, tolerance, unity, social justice, kindness, and equality. To engage youth in a conversation of equity and compassion…through the power of poetry. In celebration of April – National Poetry month.
 
Thank you again for helping us spread the word! Remember…deadline to sign up for open mic is MONDAY, APRIL 4.
 
On behalf of the United in Kindness Poetry in Action committee,
Liz Larew
YouthPoetry-UIK@InterfaithSonoma.org
 
Reverberations Two: A Visual Conversation
April 9 to May 15
Ekphrastic poetry is poetry inspired by a work of art. In 2018, Sebastopol Center for the Arts premiered “Reverberations: A Visual Conversation,” an exhibition in which poetry was written in response to pieces of artwork.

Reverberations:two A Visual Conversation reverses this dynamic, asking artists to create a piece of artwork in response to poems. Each artist in the exhibit was given a different poem to respond to.

To be honest, we weren’t quite sure it was going to work. Would it be possible for artists to work with a never-before-seen poem and create new work in the limited time of few months? To our astonishment, more than 200 visual artists responded to our open call, from which 50 were selected. The poets were selected by poet Charlie Pendergast, who encouraged us to do this second Reverberations show.

The resulting collaboration between poetry and visual arts is the focus of Reverberations:two, which will be showing at Sebastopol Center for the Arts from April 9 to May 15.

You are invited to the opening reception: April 9, 2-4 p.m.

We have created a beautiful companion book (above, right) for the exhibition, which will be available at the SebARTS gallery shop.
 

Poetry, Music, and the Language of the Spirit with Diane Frank
Saturday, April 16, 1:00 p.m. Redwood Writers Club presents Diane Frank on “Poetry, Music, and the Language of Spirit.” Author and poet Diane Frank will share ideas about poetry as the language of the soul, virtuoso editing techniques, and how to write poems inspired by music. This speaker event is part of Redwood Writers monthly general meeting, and will be held in person at the Finley Center in Santa Rosa or online via Zoom. Register at redwoodwriters.org.

Last Call for Nominations for the Next Sonoma County Poet Laureate
Deadline: April 15, 2022
Nominations are open for Sonoma County’s 12th Poet Laureate. The Poet Laureate is a Sonoma County resident who has demonstrated a commitment to the literary arts in the County. The Poet Laureate often participates in official ceremonies and readings and receives a $2,000 stipend payable in yearly $1,000 increments.

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

DOWNLOAD NOMINATION GUIDELINES
NOMINATION APPLICATION FORM
Please direct any questions to admin@sebarts.org.

Sixteen Rivers Press Announces its 2022 Publications
Beyond the Time of Words / Más allá del tiempo de las palabras, poems by Marjorie Agosín, with translations and foreword by Celeste Kostopulos-Cooperman

Plagios/Plagiarisms, Volume II, poems by Ulalume González de León, a bilingual edition, with a foreword by Mary Crow. Translated by Terry Ehret, John Johnson, and Nancy J. Morales

Subscribers who order our April releases each year are given a special subscription rate, which includes shipping, handling, and tax. The 2022 subscription rate for both books is $38 (a savings of more than $10). Books will be shipped after the April 2 publication date. 
https://sixteenrivers.org

The first reading from Plagios/Plagiarisms, Volume Two, will be on Tuesday, April 12 @ 7:00 p. m. PDT via ZOOM. The reading is hosted by Stella Beratlis and the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center. It will feature the poetry of Mexican poet Ulalume González de León read by translators Terry Ehret & Nancy J. Morales with guest poet-translator William O’Daly
RSVP required: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvdu-oqDktGNSizk4tQoG2D1gD0ynwn0CD 

An Evening with Andrei Codrescu, Thursday, May 5th, 2022 
Occidental Center for the Arts’ Literary Series is thrilled to present star of page, screen, and NPR, Andre Codrescu on Thursday, May 5th, 2022 @ 7:00 p.m. Location: 3850 Doris Murphy Way, Occidental, CA.

A poem by Andrei Codrescu in a limited handset letterpress broadside edition of 100, designed and printed at Sonoma County’s own North Bay Letterpress Arts will be available to ticketholders at the event.(an exclusive signed & letter A-Z letterpress edition will also be available)
Tickets $25 GA/ $20 for OCA Members. occidentalcenterforthearts.org

Two Poems for National Poetry Month

In my craft or sullen art
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

from The Poems of Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1939 by New Directions Publishing Corporation.

Más allá del tiempo de las palabras
by Marjorie Agosín

Más allá del tiempo y las palabras
La bruma disipando las formas,
Crepitando entre los umbrales,
Siempre la niebla hechicera,
Invitada inoportuna y a destiempo.
El pasar de un tiempo sin tiempo,
Un silencio sin ecos.
El terror a los espejos y a nosotros,
Viajamos entre las sombras
Y la confianza de lo conocido
Que es lo desconocido.
Más allá del tiempo y las palabras
En el reverso de la escritura muda,
Asombros. La vida en sí.
En la claridad fugitiva del ocaso:
Una mujer dando a luz.

Beyond the Time of Words
Translated by Celeste Kostopulos-Cooperman

Beyond the time of words
The mist dissolves forms,
Curling between the thresholds
Like an ill-timed and
Unwelcome sorceress.
The passage of time without time,
A silence without echoes.
Dreading mirrors and ourselves,
We travel among the shadows
And a trust of the known
That is unknown.
Beyond time and words
On the other side of silence,
A universe of astonishment. Life itself.
In the fugitive clarity of twilight:
A woman giving birth.

From Beyond the Time of Words / Más allá del tiempo de las palabras.
Copyright © 2022 by Sixteen Rivers Press.
_______

Terry Ehret, Literary Update Co-Editor

Thinking about Ukraine

Dear Literary Folk,

Our next door neighbors at our cabin in Serene Lakes are Ukranian. As you can imagine, they have been deeply distressed about the Russian invasion of their homeland, angered by the violence, devastated by the blow to their independence, and anxious about colleagues, friends and family in harm’s way as the violence broadens to include civilian casualties. I have learned a lot about Ukraine in the past week. My neighbor recommended this short video which does a really good job explaining deep historical roots of the conflict in under 10 min. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK-yJD_fAtk 

There will be two rallies this weekend to protest the war on Ukraine.

On Saturday, the group from Redwood Forest Friends (organizers of last Saturday’s gathering) will hold a rally in Courthouse Square beginning at 11:30 and going until 1:00.

On Sunday, CodePink has put out a national call for protest and the Peace & Justice Center will be holding a rally in Courthouse Square from noon until 2:00. Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/3023124281334846?

Before this week, what little I knew about Ukraine had been influenced by the Ukranian students I taught at the JC and by the books I read, such as Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2002 novel Everything is Illuminated: the story of a young American Jew who goes on a quest to find the woman who saved his grandfather during the Holocaust. The setting is the small Ukrainian town of Trochenbrod, haunted by the ghosts of those who were killed there during 1941-44, when Nazis wiped out the Ukrainian-Jewish shtetls. Its dark humor and surreal elements can be disturbing, but I found the characters and unfolding of the plot to be fascinating.

Another writer whose work has shaped my perception of Ukraine is the poet Ilya Kaminsky. Ilya was born in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa, and lost most of his hearing at age 4. His family was granted political asylum in the US in 1993. His most recent collection of poems, Deaf Republic, opens in an occupied country in a time of political unrest. “When soldiers breaking up a protest kill a deaf boy, Petya, the gunshot becomes the last thing the citizens hear—all have gone deaf, and their dissent becomes coordinated by sign language.”

This could be the Odessa of Kaminsky’s childhood, or Kiev today: it could be the US, or anywhere democracy is threatened. Here is an excerpt from Kaminsky’s poem “Deafness, an Insurgency, Begins.”

Our country woke up the next morning and refused to hear soldiers.
     In the name of Petya, we refuse.
     At six a.m., when soldiers compliment girls in the alley, the girls slide by, pointing to their ears. At eight, the bakery door is shut in soldier Ivanoff’s face, though he’s their best customer. At ten, Momma Galya chalks No One Hears You on the gates of the soldiers’ barracks.
     By eleven a.m., arrests begin.
     Our hearing doesn’t weaken, but something silent in us strengthens.
     In the ears of the town, snow falls.

I have selected another poem by Kaminsky, “In a Time of Peace,” for the March poem. Scroll down to read it.
  
March is Women’s History Month
…and in honor that, here are four of the many fabulous workshops and events coming up in March that feature women writers. You can find these and more on the Calendar Page.

Sunday, March 6, 5:00 p.m. Book Passages presents editor and publisher Brooke Warner in a live and online, two-hour class. Discover the Five Things She’s Learned during her nearly two decades of leading and championing women-only publishing about the ways that women writers work, collaborate, and succeed.

Saturday, March 12, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Dominican University presents Do the Math: How to Keep Pressing Forward When We Feel Stuck, a Creative Writing Workshop with Kim Culbertson. Free, via Zoom. Registration required. Details on Workshops page.

Saturday, March 19, 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. A Day of Wild Writing with Patti Trimble at Limantour Beach, Pt. Reyes Station. For details and registration: www.eventbrite.com/e/a-day-of-wild-writing-tickets-231944370857

Sunday, March 27, 3:00-4:30 p.m. Occidental Center for the Arts Literary Series celebrating Women’s History Month presents Shugri Said Salh’s The Last Nomad. Shugri was born in the desert of Somalia in 1974 and spent her early years living as a nomad, emigrating to North America in 1992. In her debut novel she recounts stories heard from her grandmothers and nomadic community when she was young.

26th Annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival—Celebrate Writers, Nature & Community
Traditionally a fall event, the annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival was postponed in 2021; this year it is a spring event, scheduled for Friday, March 18-Sunday, March 20. All events will be live on Zoom and recorded for posting on the Poetry Flash YouTube channel. Zoom registration links will be available ten days in advance. 

See Poetryflash.org for schedule updates and Zoom links.  
 
Watershed Programs:
Friday, March 18, 7pm PT
Saturday, March 19, Noon PT
Saturday, March 19, 3pm PT
Sunday, March 20, 1pm PT
Sunday, March 20, 3pm PT
 
Featured Poets & Presenters:
Linda Hogan, Barbara Jane Reyes, contributors to Poetry & Science: Writing Our Way to Discovery, read: Alison Hawthorne Deming, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Elizabeth Bradfield, Lucille Lang Day. Patti Trimble performs with musician Peter Whitehead. California Poets in the Schools K-12 student-poets, presented by Maureen Hurley. Eco-dance by Sharon Coleman. Live steamed Nature Walk & Talks, We Are Nature Open Reading hosted by blake more, with a featured presentation by Santa Clara University eco-poetics students. Hosts are Joyce Jenkins, Kirk Lumpkin, Chris Olander. More to be announced!

Nominations for Sonoma County Poet Laureate Are Open Until April 15, 2022
The public is invited to nominate qualified poets. Information about requirements and application instructions can be found on the Sebastopol Center for the Arts website at www.sebarts.org/poet-laureate.

Nominations for Poet Laureate require that the poet be a resident of Sonoma County whose poetry manifests a high degree of excellence and who has produced a critically acclaimed body of work. The nominee must also have demonstrated an active commitment to the literary arts in Sonoma County, must propose and perform a project of their own creation, and must agree to participate in official ceremonies and poetry events. Consistent with tradition, the Sonoma County Poet Laureate will not have a formal job description but will be encouraged to develop an agenda promoting poetry and the literary arts in Sonoma County.

Whether you’d like to nominate a poet for this position, or you’d like to be considered for this position yourself, the Poet Laureate Selection Committee welcomes your application.

Reading in April to Launch Plagios/Plagiarisms, Volume Two
Many of you have been following the translation project I’ve been working on for nearly a decade now. Along with John Johnson and Nancy J. Morales, we’ve been translating the complete published poems of Mexican poet Ulalume González de León.

Volume Two (of a three volume series) is now available from Sixteen Rivers Press, and our first poetry reading to launch the release of volume two will be on Tuesday, April 12, at 7 PM. This will be an online event hosted by the Stanislaus-Modesto Poetry Center Second Tuesday Poetry Series.  

My translation partner Nancy J. Morales and I will be joined by acclaimed translator and poet William O’Daly. The reading also includes an open mic segment.

Here’s the link for the Stanislaus-Modesto Poetry Center. Check here (after March 8) to register for the reading: https://www.mostpoetry.org/events/list/

And you can order your copy of Plagios/Plagiarisms on the Sixteen Rivers Website, using this link: https://sixteenrivers.org/authors/gonzalez-de-leon/.

Poems for March
I have selected two poems for this month. Because this is Women’s History Month, I did a search online to acquaint myself with women poets from Ukraine. I selected a poem by Yulia Musakovska, an award winning Lviv-based poet, author of four poetry collections, and translator of Ukrainian poetry into English. She works in the IT industry.

Do not kiss me on the forehead like a corpse
by Yulia Musakovska, translated by Yury Zavadsky

Do not kiss me on the forehead like a corpse
say, almost twice withered, the glasses and eyes themselves.
Mixed medicines with sweets, the pages of the book as yellow as his skin.
He pours a few of his precious stories into the empty space.
I see all the protagonists as old acquaintances. KGB officers squatting on the same hospital bed, in shiny Hungarian shoes — for these he could kill. The look is mocking.
He said, these Beatles, this foreign languages department, would not do you any good.
All this is for the chosen ones, not for orphans, poor relatives.
And he hid like cheese in butter, quietly like a mouse.
We caught people like you in the alleys, cut the roots.
Respectable people liked it, this was respected.
It would be for his son. For a fighting pear, for live warm meat.
I also see that woman, her crooked, bright mouth. Her
spider legs, dotted porcelain, metal tools.
A musty apartment with ceilings that are too high.
But I see him the clearest of all — strong, with a guitar.
With eyes wide open and his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans.
With thousands of book pages stored in memory.
With a face open to the world. To the dark and deep water.
Not for a girl, not for a dispute –
for the free range of arms,
for a high wave, albeit not on the shoulder.

The second poem is by Ilya Kaminsky. You can learn more about Kaminsky and read more of his poetry on his website: https://www.ilyakaminsky.com/.

In a Time of Peace
by Ilya Kamisky

Inhabitant of earth for forty something years
I once found myself in a peaceful country. I watch neighbors open
their phones to watch
a cop demanding a man’s driver’s license. When a man reaches for his wallet, the cop
shoots. Into the car window. Shoots.
It is a peaceful country.
We pocket our phones and go.
To the dentist,
to buy shampoo,
pick up the children from school,
get basil.
Ours is a country in which a boy shot by police lies on the pavement
for hours.
We see in his open mouth
the nakedness
of the whole nation.
We watch. Watch
others watch.
The body of a boy lies on the pavement exactly like the body of a boy.
It is a peaceful country.
And it clips our citizens’ bodies
effortlessly, the way the President’s wife trims her toenails.
All of us
still have to do the hard work of dentist appointments,
of remembering to make
a summer salad: basil, tomatoes, it is a joy, tomatoes, add a little salt.
This is a time of peace.
I do not hear gunshots,
but watch birds splash over the backyards of the suburbs. How bright is the sky
as the avenue spins on its axis.
How bright is the sky (forgive me) how bright.

From Deaf Republic. Copyright © 2019 by Ilya Kaminsky.

_____

Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update Co-editor

Dear Literary Folk,

Happy Lunar New Year, February 1, 2022! We’re entering the year of the tiger. In Chinese culture, the tiger is the symbol of bravery, wisdom and strength, much like the lion in Western tradition. Celebrations of the Lunar New Year often start the weekend before and continue for weeks after. The Lantern Festival symbolizes the end of the New Year season and is marked by the flying of paper lanterns and eating of turnip cakes and tangyuan, a Chinese dessert of sweet rice-ball dumplings. This year, it lands on Feb. 15.

Lantern Festival
by Cigeng Zhang

Red lanterns
Shine in the sky
The moon smiles
So many tiny new stars
Drift out of the night
Really busy!
Amber eyes
Warm and sweet
Make a wish, please
At the special night
Make a wish, please
What’s the best wish?
Let the real spring
Come, come, quickly
Come, the real spring
Come, the vernal light

Last year’s February post focused on the transition from the Trump presidency to the Biden inauguration, featuring the poetry of Amanda Gorman with her stellar recital of “The Hill We Climb.” One year later, we’re still climbing that hill, still hunkered down to protect ourselves and our communities from the overload of Covid surges, and still vigilant about protecting voting rights and the fundamentals of our democratic elections.
 
What can we as a writing/literary community do to engage these times we’re living? Stay vigilant. Stay involved. Support one another as writers and artists. Write from the heart and witness your truth.

We can begin by looking to our young writers for their voices and vision.

Poetry Out Loud Competition Celebrates Youth Voices
On Sunday, January 30, seven gifted high school students competed in an online version of the Poetry Out Loud competition. The Sonoma County winner is Chelle Servais, a student at Santa Rosa High. The runner-up is Ella Wen from Maria Carillo, and third place is Cris Nunez from Roseland University Prep.

Congratulations to all the participants, and thanks to the teachers and coaches who worked to help the students prepare and video-record their recitations. The evening’s online event was coordinated by Sonoma County poet Jodi Hotel, who was able to help all the participants and judges pivot from the planned in-person event to an online format. No easy task, that!

Chelle Servais will go on to the California state level of competition. We wish them all the best!

Interested in Working With Young Writers?
Poet wanted to facilitate a teen poetry group, once a week for about an hour and a half. Looking for someone who loves teenagers to facilitate a poetry circle (not a study group), someone who can create a safe space for teens who want to explore creativity, self-expression, and find a voice through poetry. Many will be musicians; all are artistic in one way or another. Most, if not all, will be homeschoolers and/or unschoolers. It will likely be a Zoom/in-person (in nature?) hybrid. Pay will be fair. For more information contact Soneile Hymn at sonihymn@gmail.com. If possible, send a short summary of your vision for the group you would like to facilitate and why you are interested. 

Teen Poets Write on the Themes of Resistance and Resilience
On Sunday, February 20, at 4 PM PST, Sixteen Rivers Presents hosts a unique poetry reading and chance to hear new poems of resistance and resilience by the six winners of the Sixteen Rivers Youth Poetry Contest.

Young poets from all across the country were invited to participate. They each selected a poem from the anthology America, We Call Your Name, then composed an original poem in response. Finally, the poets videotaped themselves reciting their poems and submitted them to Sixteen Rivers Press.

Six grand-prize winners of this national contest for teen poets will read their poems, plus the poems from our anthology, America, We Call Your Name, that inspired their work.

To attend, please register in advance with this link:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIocuirrzgoG9dOe65vddySNL93zYVFhOuy
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing a link to join the reading.

Nominations for Sonoma County Poet Laureate Open February 10, 2022
Nominations will be opening soon for Sonoma County’s 12th Poet Laureate. The Poet Laureate is a Sonoma County resident who has demonstrated a commitment to the literary arts in the County. The Poet Laureate often participates in official ceremonies and readings and receives a $2,000 stipend payable in yearly $1,000 increments.

The Sonoma County Poet Laureate is chosen by a distinguished panel with a profound knowledge of, and an active dedication to, the life of poetry in Sonoma County. Members of the Selection Panel represent the five Sonoma County Supervisory Districts, Sonoma State University, Santa Rosa Junior College, and Sonoma County Library. Each member of this panel has a proven passion for poetry and a history of enriching the life of poetry in our community.

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

Consistent with tradition, the Sonoma County Poet Laureate will not have a formal job description but will be encouraged to develop an agenda promoting poetry and the literary arts in Sonoma County.

The public is invited to nominate qualified poets. Information about requirements and application instructions can be found on the Sebastopol Center for the Arts website at www.sebarts.org/poet-laureate.

Remembering Kate Willens
Earlier this week, The Press Democrat ran an obituary I didn’t expect to read. It was for a friend (and sometime student) Kate Willens. Kate was a spiritual seeker whose heart soared through her music. She had an extraordinary voice, and when she accompanied herself on guitar or harp, it was a gift. To say we didn’t agree politically is putting it mildly, especially since the 2016 election and recent COVID controversies. But I appreciated her many gifts.

In 2011, Kate was one of seven poet-travelers who went with me on a journey through West Ireland. One memory of that trip stands out for me today.

On our first outing on a windy, rainy morning, we visited Poulnabrone Dolmen in County Clare. Kate insisted on bringing her traveling harp wherever we went, and she would improvise songs for the landscape as she was inspired. At one point, she held the harp up in front of the dolmen’s gate (it is an ancient burial portal), and let the wind blowing through the dolmen play the harp strings, like an Aeolian harp, conjuring a haunting music. Stranger still, when Kate held the harp up for the wind to play, but away from the dolmen’s gate, the music we heard was different. These photos capture that moment.

News from the Redwood Writers Club
Author Launch: On Saturday, February 19, 1:00-4:00 p.m. Celebrate the success of 16 Bay Area authors at the annual Redwood Writers Author Launch event. Moderated by Jeane Slone, authors will share excerpts from their recently published books at this free online event. To learn more about our featured authors and their books, plus register and receive a Zoom link, visit redwoodwriters.org/featured-authors-2021-22

Call for Members’ Submissions: Redwood Writers Poetry Anthology: Are you a member of Redwood Writers? Have you submitted your poem to the 2022 poetry anthology yet? Redwood Writers are invited to submit up to 5 poem of any topic. Deadline is Feb. 28. See the guidelines and how to submit at redwoodwriters.org/2022-poetry-anthology.

Plagios/Plagiarisms, Volume Two Special Pre-Pubication Offer
Plagios/Plagiarisms, Volume Two is now available from Sixteen Rivers Press. You can order on our website, using this link: https://sixteenrivers.org/authors/gonzalez-de-leon/

Many of you have been following the translation project I’ve been working on for nearly a decade now. Along with John Johnson and Nancy J. Morales, we’ve been translating the complete published poems of Mexican poet Ulalume González de León. The first volume came out in 2020, just in time for the Covid lock-down, which prevented the kind of book launch/celebrations we’re used to. Now the second volume is about to be released, and still it seems we’ll have to wait until summer to properly launch. We do have an outdoor reading planned at the beautiful Nicholson Ranch Winery in Sonoma, and we’ll keep you all posted about when that will be.

But in the meantime, we’re setting up online readings, and as we get closer to April 2, our official publication date, I’ll make sure these virtual events make it onto our Literary Update Calendar Page.

Online Creative Writing Workshop with Eliot Schain
On Saturday, February 26, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Dominican University presents “Writing to Restore the Self.” This free workshop, presented by psychotherapist, teacher, and poet Eliot Schain, will feature writing and discussion about imagery that can help process both positive and negative experience and unite disparate parts of the self.

Schain’s own books include American Romance and Westering Angels, both available from Zeitgeist Press and a newer collection, The Distant Sound, published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2020. He has served as program director for the Poetry Society of America, taught high school, and now works as a psychotherapist in Berkeley, California.

Register here. Details on Workshops page. You can discover more Dominican University online workshops at this link:
https://www.dominican.edu/news/news-listing/mfa-creating-writing-hosting-free-online-events

Poetic License Sonoma — “Love and Loss” with special guest poet, Maya Khosla
Poetic License Sonoma, a group of 8 poets read each month at Sebastopol Center for the Arts Fourth Tuesday Zoom Poetry Series. Though often a solitary pursuit, the writing of poetry, like all artistic forms of communication, is nurtured through the collaboration and support of others. They encourage and celebrate this form of artistry in our region, and beyond, through poetry readings, like this one; the publication of their work; and a steady stream of new writing.

This month PLS explores the theme of “Love and Loss” in Poetry and are joined by special guest poet Maya Khosla. Kusum Irene Jain will be acting MC; Guest Student poet from SRJC will be Dee Jaehrling.

Poem for February
February 14, Valentine’s Day, is traditionally the celebration of romantic love, though it can be extended to include friendships, family relationships, animals we love, or nature itself. Since the theme of Poetic License Sonoma this month is “Love and Loss,” here is a poem that speaks to that theme, by Linda Gregg. Gregg found inspiration for her poems in nature, in urban settings, and in broken relationships.

Surviving Love
by Linda Gregg (1942–2019)

I work hard at managing, grateful
and spare. I try to forgive all trespasses
and give thanks for the desert. Rejoice
in being alive here in my simple world.
Each evening I walk for an hour, paying
attention to real things. The plover
sweeping at my face to get me away from
its ground nest. An ant carrying the wing
of a butterfly like a flag in the wind.
A grasshopper eating a dead grasshopper.
The antelope close up, just staring at me.
Back in the house, I lie down in the heat
for a nap, realizing forgiveness is hard
for the wounded. Near the border,
between this country and the next one.

Linda Gregg, “Surviving Love” from In the Middle Distance. Copyright © 2006 by Linda Gregg.
____

Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update Co-editor

Happy New Year to all our literary folk!

I hope you are managing to stay healthy in this next twist of the pandemic. As 2022 begins, I hope our friendships will thrive, our creativity flourish, and our democracy survive the challenges to its integrity.

This is the second New Year’s Day without the annual gathering of writers at my home in Petaluma. It’s always been a highlight of my holiday season, and I miss hosting the potluck of poems and good food. I have felt the absence of such gatherings these past two years, and imagine most of you do, too.

If we can catch a break between storms, this New Year’s, my husband Don and I will be up at our cabin in the Sierra, digging out from the plentiful December snowfall. We’ve hired a crew to help us find the steps and the front door. More snow is in the forecast, of course, but we’ll work on keeping that path to the front door clear.

Call for Submission for Women Artists Datebook
The Syracuse Cultural Workers is one of my favorite organizations. I’ve featured them here before because I admire the work they do to support art as a form of cultural activism: Founded in 1982, SCW is a progressive publisher committed to peace, sustainability, social justice, feminism and multiculturalism. In addition to posters and calendars, cards, and t-shirts, they publish each year a Women Artists Datebook, which couples poetry and visual art. Here in Sonoma County, we have some mighty fine women artists and poets. I’ve had the honor and the pleasure of seeing several of my poems in the Datebook over the years, and I hope you’ll consider submitting your work. The deadline for the 2023 Datebook is January 15, 2022. Here’s the link to learn more about SCW: https://www.syracuseculturalworkers.com/about-scw. And here’s the link for the submission guidelines:
https://www.syracuseculturalworkers.com/art/call-for-art?utm_source=scw-announce&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CallForArtDB

Jordan Rosenfeld on Writing Emotional Scenes
Former Sonoma County author and writing teacher Jordan Rosenfeld will present a workshop on “How to Evoke Emotion in Every Scene on Saturday, January 15, 1:00-2:45 p.m. The Workshop is sponsored by the Redwood Branch of the California Writers Club. Presentation will be virtual only, via Zoom. For details, costs, and registration, visit http://redwoodwriters.org

Book Launch for Dan Coshnear’s Separation Anxiety
In December’s post, I gave a shout-out to Dan Coshnear’s new collection of short stories. If you missed his reading last month, you have another chance to hear him read on Sunday, February 27, 3:00-4:30 p.m. Occidental Center for the Arts (rescheduled from January 16, due to Covid restrictions). Details: www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org/upcoming-events/book-launch-separation-anxiety-by-dan-coshnear

Online Creative Writing Workshop with Raina León
The Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing program at Dominican University of California is hosting an online creative writing workshop — “On Future Worlds”— presented by educator/writer/coach Raina León, professor of English Education at St. Mary’s College, on Tuesday, January 25, from 6-8 p.m. via Zoom. To register for the event, which is free and open to the public, follow this link: https://bit.ly/3m7rC7h

In this workshop, presenters will read news articles that explore potential crises and imagine what inner and outer worlds might emerge, ones that are about flourishing and collective organizing and possibility. The workshop will study science fiction (in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual arts) alongside the news to inspire generative writing from a place of artivism for preservation and action.

Les Bernstein’s New Book Loose Magic
Many of you from the Sitting Room workshops and from the Redwood Writers know the potent, enigmatic, minimalist jewels of Les Bernstein’s poetry. In November, Finishing Line published her latest collection, Loose Magic. About these poems, Rebecca Foust says, “How to chronicle a lifetime? If it can be done at all, it must be in poems like this, written straight from the heart and spanning a decade, plainspoken, and lyrical with authentic and earned emotion. You can read more about Loose Magic and order your own copy at this link: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/loose-magic-by-les-bernstein/

Les is a winner of the 6th annual Nazim Hikmet Festival and a Pushcart Prize Nominee for 2015. Her poems have appeared in journals, presses and anthology in the U.S.A. and internationally and her chapbooks Borderland, Naked Little Creatures and Amid the Din were published by Finishing Line Press. She has been the editor of Redwood Writer’s anthologies for the last five years and was also the editor of the Marin High School Anthology 2018.

If you’d like to hear Les reading her poems, tune in on Tuesday, January 25, 7-8:30 pm, when she will be the special guest poet with Poetic License Sonoma. Registration is required to receive the zoom link. Fee: $5 Details and registration: www.sebarts.org/classes-lectures/poetic-license-pandemica

Nominations for the next Sonoma County Poet Laureate Opening Soon
The Sebastopol Center for the Arts and the Poet Laureate Selection Committee will be accepting nominations this spring for Sonoma County’s 12th Poet Laureate. The Poet Laureate is a Sonoma County resident who has demonstrated a commitment to the literary arts in the County. The Poet Laureate often participates in official ceremonies and readings and receives a $1,000 stipend.

If you know someone you’d like to nominate, or if you’d like to be considered for this prestigious post, check with the Sebastopol Center for the Arts website at www.sebarts.org/poet-laureate. Nomination forms and guidelines will be available soon.

Two New Book Stores on the Russian River
Russian River Books & Letters is a newly opened bookstore in Guerneville (next to Coffee Bazaar) on Armstrong Woods Rd. Pat Nolan reports it’s a terrific “well-lighted” space with plenty of new titles in all genres. Stay tuned for special events including music, readings, open mics, book clubs, and writing workshops. The proprietor, Michael, is very interested in promoting local authors. He can be reached at story@booksletters.com or 707-604-7197 Details: https://www.booksletters.com

Poet’s Corner Book Store in Duncans Mills, a “charming curated book shop,” is the smallest bookstore in the county. Open since November 2020. Details: https://poetscornerbookshop.com

Notable Writers We Have Lost in 2021
We’ve been blessed to be alive during such a great era of writing. So many writers with their unique and diverse voices have found their home in print. This year, many of our literary heroes passed away, and their voices will be sorely missed. But their influences live on in us and in the poems, stories, novels, memoirs, and essays we are inspired by them to write. Here’s a short list of authors who left us in 2021. For a more comprehensive list, here’s a link to the NYT article. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/obituaries/notable-deaths-books.html

Poet, publisher, at Beat-era legend Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who opened the famous San Francisco bookstore City Lights in 1953, died on February 22 at the age of 101.

Polish poet and dissident Adam Zagajewski died on March 21 at the age of 75.

Children’s literature legend Beverly Cleary died on March 25th at the very impressive age of 104.

Larry McMurtry, the storyteller and subversive mythmaker of the American west who was best known as the author of Lonesome Dove, died on March 25 at the age of 84.

Al Young, American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and professor, died on April 17 at the age of 81.

Pulitzer prize winning poet Stephen Dunn died on June 24, which was his 82nd birthday.

The Italian novelist, critic, scholar, and legendary publisher Roberto Calasso, whom The Paris Review once described as “a literary institution of one,” died on July 28. He was 80 years old.

Poet, translator, antiwar activist, and Minnesota cultural icon Robert Bly died on November 21 at the age of 94.

Anne Rice, the prolific and beloved author of gothic novels, most famous for her 1976 debut Interview with the Vampire and its sequels, died on December 12 at the age of 80.

bell hooks, essential feminist thinker, died on December 15 at the age of 69.

Joan Didion, iconic essayist who explored culture and chaos, died on December 23 at the age of 87.

Donations to the Sonoma County Literary Update always Welcome!
Most of you know that the SCLU began during my tenure as Sonoma County Poet Laureate, 2004-2006. It has continued largely through the behind-the-scenes efforts of Jo-Anne Rosen. We volunteer our time, happily so, but there are some expenses to keep the website going, most recently an update that keeps the Update free of advertisements.

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

Poem for the New Year

For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet
by Joy Harjo

Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.
Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.
Open the door, then close it behind you.
Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.
Give it back with gratitude.
If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back.
Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.
Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time.
Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.
Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.
Don’t worry.
The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves.
The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.
Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time.
Do not hold regrets.
When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.
You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.
Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.
Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.
Ask for forgiveness.
Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.
Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.
You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.
Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.
Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.
Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.
Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.
Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.
Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark. 

Reprinted from Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 2015 by Joy Harjo.

Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update Co-editor

Dear Literary Folk,

Phyllis Meshulam Will Be Recognized
by Sonoma County Board of Supervisors
In ordinary times, our new Poet Laureate is recognized at a Board of Supervisors meeting within the first month or two of their term. When Phyllis became our Poet Laureate in April of 2020, the formal recognition fell off the agenda, as so many things did in the early days of COVID-19.

But I’m pleased to announce that Phyllis will finally have her moment of recognition. At December’s Board of Supervisor’s meeting on Tuesday, December 7, at 8:30 AM, a resolution will be read proclaiming that Phyllis is the Sonoma County Poet Laureate. There will be an opportunity for public comment.

Phyllis and others can speak on behalf of the resolution during the public comment period at the beginning of the meeting. Details for doing so are noted in the agenda at the link below.
https://sonoma-county.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx

Members of the public can watch or join the meeting using one of the following methods.

Watch Livestream:
https://sonoma-county.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx
Once the meeting has started, click the “In Progress” hyperlink to begin viewing.

Join the Zoom Meeting:
Participate by computer, tablet, or smartphone application:
Go to: https://sonomacounty.zoom.us/j/98487700261?pwd=eUxDcUF4aWU5RFJGd1UwcDRXK09odz09
Enter meeting ID: 984 8770 0261
Enter Password: 919371

Public Comment:
Public Comment may be made live during the zoom meeting or live, in person, in the Board Chambers. Available time for comments is determined by the Board Chair based on agenda scheduling demands and total number of speakers. Public comment during the meeting can be made live by joining the Zoom meeting using the above provided information.

Upcoming Literary Events
We’re heading into the holiday season with yet another COVID variant keeping us cautious about indoor gatherings, including literary events. But a quick scan of the December calendar shows quite an array of virtual events or hybrid events scheduled for the month, even a few live events for the vaccinated. Here are four that caught my attention.

Dan Coshnear and Richard Krause
Wednesday, December 1, 5:45-6:45 p.m. Unsolicited Press invites you to an online reading with short story authors Daniel Coshnear and Richard Krause.

Sonoma County author Coshnear will be reading from his newest collection, Separation Anxiety, eighteen stories that explore how pervasive the disorder can be in everyday lives. Coshnear paints separation anxiety as an engine of change while being careful to tend to the delicateness of the disorder’s consequences. Dan is the author of a previous collection of stories, Jobs & Other Preoccupations (Helicon Nine Editions), which was awarded the Willa Cather Prize in Fiction. In 2003, Coshnear was awarded the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, and in 2005 the Christopher Isherwood Foundation Fellowship. He teaches in a variety of university extension programs, including University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University. Coshnear works at a group home for homeless men and women with mental illness. He lives in Guerneville, California with his wife Susan and their children Circe and Daedalus.

Richard Krause grew up in the Bronx and on farms in Pennsylvania. He drove a taxi in NYC for five years and taught English for nine years in Japan. Oddly, those disparate occupations forge a finely hammered toughness into this collection, giving the reader plenty of quirky, desperate characters presented in a melodious, poetic fashion. Currently, he teaches at a community college in Kentucky. Krause’s collection, Studies in Insignificance, was published by Livingston Press.
Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/92407165847?pwd=Zy9qLzBBbU85anc1REgrRGFOcmxPdz09

Writing and Healing
Sunday, December 5, 1:00-2:30 p.m. Book launch for Nina Ayin Reimer’s Artist as Healer: Stories of Transformation and Healing. At Coffee & Moore, 6761 Sebastopol Ave., Sebastopol. Book sale and signing. Indoor event. Please wear masks when not eating or drinking.

Tuesday, December 7, 4:00 p.m. Book Passages presents Michael J. Fox in conversation with Willie Giest. In No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality, Michael shares personal stories and observations about illness and health, aging, the strength of family and friends, and how our perceptions about time affect the way we approach mortality. Live, online, ticketed event. Buy book and receive email ticket, $18. Shipping of book not included. Details and registration: www.bookpassage.com/event/michael-j-fox-no-time-future-online-event

Local History/Family Saga
Sunday, December 19, at 4:00 p.m. Sonoma County author Chris Riebli’s novel The Egg Man will be launched at Occidental Center for the Arts. Set in the North Bay region of California in the late 19th and early decades of the 20th century, The Egg Man is the story of Arnold Bert Miller—poacher, teamster, drinker, dreamer—an Everyman of his day, “nose to nose with the hard truths about himself.” This novel is a prequel to The Body’s Perfect, (2012) and traces two earlier generations of the Miller family. Proof of vaccination and indoor masking required.

Poem for December

A House Called Tomorrow
by Alberto Rios

You are not fifteen, or twelve, or seventeen—
You are a hundred wild centuries
And fifteen, bringing with you
In every breath and in every step
Everyone who has come before you,
All the yous that you have been,
The mothers of your mother,
The fathers of your father.
If someone in your family tree was trouble,
A hundred were not:
The bad do not win—not finally,
No matter how loud they are.
We simply would not be here
If that were so.
You are made, fundamentally, from the good.
With this knowledge, you never march alone.
You are the breaking news of the century.
You are the good who has come forward
Through it all, even if so many days
Feel otherwise. But think:
When you as a child learned to speak,
It’s not that you didn’t know words—
It’s that, from the centuries, you knew so many,
And it’s hard to choose the words that will be your own.
From those centuries we human beings bring with us
The simple solutions and songs,
The river bridges and star charts and song harmonies
All in service to a simple idea:
That we can make a house called tomorrow.
What we bring, finally, into the new day, every day,
Is ourselves. And that’s all we need
To start. That’s everything we require to keep going.
Look back only for as long as you must,
Then go forward into the history you will make.
Be good, then better. Write books. Cure disease.
Make us proud. Make yourself proud.
And those who came before you? When you hear thunder,
Hear it as their applause.

Copyright © 2018 by Alberto Ríos.

You can find more poems by Alberto Ríos and many others on the theme of generosity and hope.
“Be Kind” by Michael Blumenthal
“Go Give the World” by Otto Leland Bohanan
“Hope is the thing with feathers (254)” by Emily Dickinson
“On Giving” by Kahlil Gibran
“May Perpetual Light Shine” by Patricia Spears Jones
“To Rebuild” by Hallie Knight
“A House Called Tomorrow” by Alberto Ríos
“The Silver Thread” by Afaa Michael Weaver

I wish you all a healthy, civil, and creative holiday season, however you celebrate.
Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Joyous Kwaanza,
Glad Yule, Happy New Year, and many illuminating Epiphanies ahead.

Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update Co-editor

Dear literary folk,

Since last month’s post, we’ve had rain, glorious rain! As I write this, the wind is whipping the rainy air, stripping the trees of their autumn leaves. I’m so grateful for this weather and for the new growth of grass on our hillsides—something I don’t remember seeing this early in the year.

Poetry of Remembrance/Poesia del Recuerdo Community Reading
Thanks to those of you who were able to join us on zoom for our virtual Poetry of Remembrance/Poesia del Requerdo Community Reading last Thursday. It was surprisingly moving and intimate, despite the zoom format and the tendency of the new version to mute everyone. We had 45 attending.

In addition to the twenty poets and hosts who read their remembrances of the dead, the program included a traditional call to the directions and virtual smudging by co-host Jabez Churchill; poems by children read by co-hosts Phyllis Meshulam and Sande Anfang; Jabez’s telling of the story of “La Llarona” and his performance of the song; and a musical performance by Revolt. Midway through the event, we had a slideshow of altars and celebrations of Day of the Dead, put together by co-host John Johnson and narrated by Margaret Tilden, who joined us from Mexico.

Though we celebrate Día de los Muertos during the month of October, traditionally, the celebrations are held on November 1 and 2. You can still participate in this by sending a poem, photograph, or video to our Poetry of Remembrance/Poesia del Requerdo website: welcome@poetryofremembrance.com.

The Petaluma Arts Center is currently curating an exhibit on the theme Amor Nunca Muere/Love Never Dies, and they will be hosting a special closing celebration on Tuesday, November 2, 3-7 PM.

NaMoWriMo: November is National Novel Writing Month.
If you’ve been thinking about starting a novel or getting back to work on a novel you’ve shelved, consider connecting with NaNoWriMo. This is a nonprofit organization which believes in the transformational power of creativity, providing the structure, community, and encouragement to help people find their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page. It’s a teaching tool and curriculum taught in 5,920 classrooms. This month not the right time for you? No problem! NaNoWriMo’s programs run year-round. More information at: https://nanowrimo.org/about-nano

Congratulations to Sonoma County’s New Youth Poet Laureate!
Ella Wen, a sophomore at Maria Carillo High School, was recently selected to be Sonoma County’s next Youth Poet Laureate. Check out Phyllis Meshulam’s Poet Laureate News for details about Ella: https://socolitupdate.com/poet-laureates-news/

Sixteen Rivers Reading, Fall Benefit, and Call for Manuscripts
Two events are coming up this week featuring past and present member-authors of Sixteen Rivers Press. The first of these is on Monday, November 1, 6:15-8:15 p.m. Rivertown Poets features Dane Cervine and Stella Beratlis, followed by open mic (3 minutes per reader, 20 readers max). Sign up at aqus.com/online. Choose “Aqus Poetry Open Mic” and fill in the form. Join directly at: https://zoom.us/j/6508887879

The second event is on Sunday, November 7th, 3:00 PST, when Sixteen Rivers Press will host its Annual Benefit Reading on ZOOM. This year we will do another version of the very successful event two years ago, in which Sixteen Rivers poets each read a selection from their work published by the Press. This gives a rich sense of what Sixteen Rivers has accomplished over two decades, and more confirmation of the diversity of poetic voices here in Northern California. Among the many readers are several from Sonoma County: Lynn Trombetta, Maya Khosla, and Terry Ehret. Please join us if you can. Registration is through Eventbrite: https://2021fundraiser.eventbrite.com or you can access it via our website: sixteenrivers.org.

November 1 is also the official opening of Sixteen Rivers’ manuscript submission period, which continues until February 1.We especially encourage poets of color, young poets, and LGBTQ writers to submit. If you have a book-length manuscript and are interested in a cooperatively run publishing company, check out our submission guidelines on our website: https://sixteenrivers.org/submit-work/

______

Poem for November

The Owner of the Night
by Mark Doty

interrogates whoever walks
this shadow-lane, this hour
not reserved for you: who

are you to enter it?
Orion’s head over heels
above the road, jewel-belt

flinting starlight
to fuel two eyes looking
down from the air:

beacons in reverse,
since light pours in
toward her appetite

until she wings her noiseless outline
between our rooftop and the stars,
over this door and all the doors

hidden in the grass:
dreaming voles,

firefly province,

wasps in the palace
they’ve hollowed under the hill.

Mole resting his face against his splayed hands.

Perch, blink. Pose
the evening’s question
to the sleepless

while the moon if there is one
scatters islands
on a field of ink. Who

maps this? The owner
of the night looks down
to mirror and admit the hours

before the upper vaults
begin to lighten and recede.
Did you hear what I said,

a face looks down from the night?
Did who hear me? Who
reads this page, who writes it?

Copyright © 2017 by Mark Doty. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 8, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

About This Poem
“I spend about half my time in the city, in a built landscape where one knows the name of just about everything; in this way it’s a city of language, a world mediated by words. The rest of the time I live in a place where sky and weather, plants and animals are as present as sidewalks and vehicles are in town. My inner process of narrating experience in words slows down there, even vanishes for moments at a time; then I’m just raking, or weeding, or looking at the sky not supplying words for what I see. Thus it’s startling, at twilight, or deep in the night, when the dark itself seems to say a word: who. It seems the right question, the one the owl asks; as Stevens said of the harbor lights in Key West, that sound arranges, deepens, and enchants the night.”
—Mark Doty

______

Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update co-editor

Dear Literary Folk,

I have just returned from a road trip to Colorado where the aspens are in their autumn glory. Here in Petaluma, the air has a crisp feel in the mornings and evenings, but we’re also still in the midst of fire season, as well as the unpredictable COVID-19 pandemic.

2021 marks the second autumn without some of the literary events that have brought us together for years, especially the beloved Petaluma Poetry Walk and the Poetry of Remembrance Community Reading.

On Sunday, September 19, Bill Vartnaw hosted a virtual Poetry Walk, bringing together poets and friends of Geri DiGiorno to celebrate her life, her visual art, and her poetry. It was lovely to remember Geri’s sassy, generous, and unconventional approach to living, writing, collaging, painting, and embracing the world. Thanks to Bill and Bridget Reymond for organizing this tribute to a great Sonoma County poet.

El Día de los Muertos Returns for 2021
The Petaluma Arts Center is curating an exhibit on the theme Amor Nunca Muere/Love Never Dies, which runs from October 9-30. An artists’ reception is scheduled for Saturday, October 9, 6-8 PM, and a special closing celebration on Tuesday, November 2, 3-7 PM.

Poesίa del Recuerdo/Poetry of Remembrance Website
Those who wish to honor the memory of someone who has died are also welcome to send a poem, comment, favorite memory, photograph, video, audio, to our website called “Poetry of Remembrance/Poesía del recuerdo: welcome@poetryofremembrance.com.
The website is hosted by John Johnson.

Join Us for a Virtual Poesίa del Recuerdo/Poetry of Remembrance Community Reading on Thursday, October 28, 7:00- 8:30 P.M.
Come enjoy an evening of friendship as members of the community gather virtually to read poems in honor and remembrance of special people in our lives. Hosts for the evening are John Johnson, Sande Anfang, Phyllis Meshulam, Jabez Churchill, and Terry Ehret. If you are interested in attending or sharing a poem, please contact Terry Ehret to sign up at tehret99@comcast.net. You will receive the zoom link at that time.

“La poesía…es la resurrección de las presencias”
“Poetry…is the resurrection of presences”
– Octavio Paz


The Petaluma Día de los Muertos Committee has put together a calendar of events to keep this important tradition going through our second year of the pandemic. For more information, visit Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/El-D%C3%ADa-de-los-Muertos-Petaluma-154451587898565/

Black and White in Black and White: Ekphrastic Poetry Reading October 1
The Petaluma Historical Library & Museum is hosting a virtual exhibit of photographs by John Johnson, an African American photographer from Lincoln, Nebraska, whose work portrays the dignity, hope, and diversity in America. The exhibit is available online through November 6. https://www.petalumamuseum.com/black-and-white-in-black-and-white/.

On Friday, October 1, 7:00 p.m. The Petaluma Museum is hosting an ekphrastic poetry reading and slide show featuring the winners of the recent poetry contest for its new online exhibit, Black & White in Black and White. The reading will be on Zoom. The public is welcome to attend, though there will not be an open mic. Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87432536427?pwd=OWtKcFVZVnF4cEQ2a1pDQ0oxZExpdz09

Marlene Cullen Offers Free Jumpstart Writing Sessions
If you’re looking for an inspirational way to get back into your writing rhythms, discover new wellsprings of creativity, or break out of familiar habits, check out the Writers Forum series starting on Saturday, October 2, 1:00-3:00 p.m. Writers Forum hosts four afternoons of writing on the Zoom platform with Marlene Cullen, who will lead these free writing sessions, using prompts from The Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Discoveries. Registration is required. Details on the October Calendar page.

Lit Quake Returns In-Person and Online October 7-23.
Litquake 2021 offers 80+ Events, 300 authors, Online & In-Person. Many events are free, including KidQuake and Lit Crawl. Lit Quake is a ten-day literary spectacle for booklovers, complete with cutting-edge panel discussions, unique cross-media events, and hundreds of readings. See Fest Schedule: www.litquake.org/upcoming-events.html

Reawakening American Democracy
Never was it more urgent for us to consider the fragility of our democracy, as well as the efficacy of youth-led resistance movements from Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock to March for Our Lives, the Global Climate Strikes and #MeToo.

On Sunday, October 17, 4:00 p.m., Occidental Center for the Arts hosts a book launch for Michael Levin, author of Generation Occupy: Reawakening American Democracy. On the ten-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, Levin examines how this movement marked a new era of social and political transformation, altering the way Americans see themselves and their role in the economy through the language of the 99 versus the 1 percent.
Details at www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org/upcoming-events/generation-occupy-reawakening-american-democracy  

Connections: A Benefit for California Poets in the Schools October 21
Five local poets bring you a live evening of poetry: Sandra Anfang, Kirsten Avilla, Ernie Carpenter, Hilary Moore and Larry Robinson, with music by John Christian.The event will be held at Sebastopol Center for the Arts from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Donations at the door. Net proceeds to benefit California Poets in the Schools. Attendees must be vaccinated; check website for mask requirements.

Rebecca Solnit at Point Reyes Books on October 30
Acclaimed essayist and memorist Rebecca Solnit, winner of the Northern California Book Award in Nonfiction for Recollections of My Nonexistence, will discuss her new book, Orwell’s Roses, a reexamination of George Orwell’s life and writings through the lens of his passion for gardening, in conversation with artist and writer Jenny Odell. For details and to purchase tickets, click here: www.ptreyesbooks.com/event/rebecca-solnit-and-jenny-odell
 
Poem for October
In the many years since Marlene Cullen and the Poet Laureate Committee helped me launch the Sonoma County Literary Update, and in the years that Jo-Anne Rosen has kept this rangy animal going strong, I’ve concluded each post with a poem, sometimes by local writers, sometimes by contemporary poets, often reaching across borders or back to our literary roots.

By request, for October, I am offering this poem of my own, first composed two years ago.

Waking in Fire Season

Remember when you awaken to be still.
Whatever dream you have been wearing
in the dark body of sleep
still lies near, a deep fold
of pleasure, a sleeve of old trouble,
a name on a grave. Leave the dream-clothes
under your skin that now you wash
and lotion and paint. Dress slowly for the day
just dawning in the smoky east. Remember
from time to time to touch the prayer fringe
of dream-fragments as you walk
down the path under the falling sycamore leaves.
Remember the sound they make
rattling all night in the wind.

Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update Co-Editor

Dear Literary Folk,

Remembering Jack Hirschman

Brilliant poet, scholar, translator, and advocate for the rights of the dispossessed, former San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman passed away on Sunday, August 22, at the age of 87.

Hirschman was born in New York City and grew up in the Bronx. He worked as a copyeditor with the Associated Press in New York as a young man, and earned degrees from City College of New York and Indiana University, where he studied comparative literature. He taught at UCLA in the 1970s, before he was fired for his antiwar activities and for encouraging his students to resist the draft. Hirschman remained in California, “making an artistic and political home in the North Beach district of San Francisco” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jack-hirschman).

I did not know Jack personally, but his presence in the San Francisco Bay Area poetry scene was wide and deep and profound. Opal Palmer Adisa wrote this personal reflection and brief tribute to Jack:

Farewell My Friend, Jack Hirschman
(December 13, 1933 – August 22, 2021)
“Jack Hirschman was a friend, a poet and a social activist who lived inclusion and diversity in and throughout his work. I met him when I first moved to San Francisco, and he saw me at an open mic and invited me to one he was hosting in North Beach, where he featured me. Thereafter he featured me on numerous occasions, and always invited me to participate in any anthology in which he was engaged, even as recently as last year. Jack was funny in a not-so-obvious way; he was committed to change and transformation. He believed in poets as change-makers; he advocated for us; he created spaces for us to share our work, to have meaningful dialogue, to write and share our truths. Long Live Jack Hirschman…You will be missed, but your spirit will travel the globe, continuing to make space so the word is heard loudly…ASÉ”

This poem, reprinted from Front Line and featured on the Academy of American Poets website, will give you a taste of Hirschman’s poetry. You can read more at https://poets.org/poet/jack-hirschman. And if you scroll down to the end of the post, you’ll find one of Hirschman’s translations for the September poem.

________

The Happiness
by Jack Hirschman

There’s a happiness, a joy
in one soul, that’s been
buried alive in everyone
and forgotten.

It isn’t your barroom joke
or tender, intimate humor
or affections of friendliness
or big, bright pun.

They’re the surviving survivors
of what happened when happiness
was buried alive, when
it no longer looked out

of today’s eyes, and doesn’t
even manifest when one
of us dies, we just walk away
from everything, alone

with what’s left of us,
going on being human beings
without being human,
without that happiness.
________

Crime Mysteries Author at Copperfield’s
Those of you who are fans of Vera and Shetland are in luck! You have a chance to hear the creator of both these popular British Crime Mysteries on Thursday, September 9, 11:00 a.m. Copperfield’s Books presents New York Times bestseller Ann Cleeves in conversation with Barbara Lane.

I admit when I first read this announcement, I envisioned Ann of Cleves, the fourth wife of Henry VIII (for about 6 months), reinvented as a contemporary British crime detective. And why not? Jane Austen and Elizabeth Bennet have come back to solve murders and fight zombies. Sherlock Holmes boggles his contemporary fans not far from the Millennial Bridge and the London Eye. But I jumped to entirely the wrong conclusion.

I have seen many episodes of Vera, and am now getting better at keeping up with the quick twists of plotline (using English subtitles helps), but I had never noticed the name of the author of the books behind the series. I did catch several zingers that made me laugh, so I should have known there was a keen writer behind a line like this:
“I don’t understand how anyone can write if they don’t use public transport. I earwig all the time.”

Anne Cleeves is the author’s name, and her new book is The Heron’s Cry: A Detective Matthew Venn Novel, the extraordinary follow-up to The Long Call, soon to be a major TV series, alongside her two hit TV shows . The event is online and free, but you do need to register ahead to get the link to tune in. Details and registration: www.copperfieldsbooks.com/event/ann-cleeves-conversation-barbara-lane-online.
____________

Where Literature Meets Science
Occidental Center for the Arts presents a conversation with novelist Susan M. Gaines and Sonoma County Poet Laureate emerita Maya Khosla. The conversation will take place on Sunday, September 12, 4:00-5:00 p,m, and will be moderated by Ray Holley.

Former Sonoma County Poet Laureate Maya Khosla is also a field-based biologist whose concerns for the natural world have led her through the wild, to the page, and to the screen. She is currently working to assess the forests and rivers of California. Her book All the Fires of Wind and Light was the winner of the 2020 Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award.



Trained in chemistry and oceanography, Susan M.Gaines is the author of the novels Accidentals and Carbon Dreams, and co-author with Geoffrey Eglinton and Jurgen Rullkötter of the science book Echoes of Life: What Fossil Molecules Reveal about Earth History. Her short stories have been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. She is a former fellow of the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study in Germany. In 2018, she was awarded a Suffrage Science Award for women in science and science writers who have inspired others.

You can attend live at the OCA amphitheater and online via OCA’s YouTube channel. No pre-registration required. Free, outdoor event (Follow COVID-19 safety measures according to county regulations). Refreshments, wine, beer, and signed, personalized books for sale. OCA donations welcome. For more info: 707-874-9392 or occidentalcenterforthearts.org. OCA is accessible to people with disabilities.
____________

Celebrating Fran!
Poet and teacher extraordinaire Fran Claggett-Holland has for many years been a guiding presence and an inspiration. Fran will read, along with her friends and “family” on Monday, September 13, 2:00-4:00 p.m.

Fran taught high school English and humanities for many years. Former department chair and mentor teacher at Alameda High School, Fran was twice named Teacher of the Year in her district and county, where she initiated an achievement and portfolio writing assessment program. Her teaching experience includes college appointments in English, biology, and physical education; she has also been the James Lynch Lecturer in English at the University of California, Berkeley. She has given workshops for teachers across the country, evaluated schools in Guam, and taught in the Bay Area Writing Project Panama and the Virgin Islands summer workshops.

In October of 2020, Naomi Shihab Nye, writing for the New York Times Magazine, featured a poem by Fran called “On Taking the Measure of Your Book.” Shihab Nye writes:

“In this deeply appealing poem. . . from her new book The Consciousness of Stone (RiskPress Foundation), reading is experienced as a supple activity, an actual posture as one moves to engage with textual experience. It’s a physical revelation as well as a landscape — not just a passive stare. I could feel the fresh exhilaration of a beach, wind and air inside my own body after reading this, without having been to any beach for a long time. Sometimes when people ask how to read a poem, one might simply say, “Go inside it.”

You can read Fran’s poem at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/01/magazine/poem-on-taking-the-measure-of-your-book.html.

Most important, you can join in celebrating one of Sonoma County’s finest poets. This event will be held on Zoom at this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82943803259?pwd=NTRoZnJnVk1CMHV5K2cxc2MzckNKUT09
____________

Last Call for the Upcoming Sonoma County Poetry Anthology
I want to remind you all about the anthology Phyllis Meshulam is creating as one of her Poet Laureate projects. If you have already submitted poems for this, thank you! If not, please consider sending up to three poems touching on one or more of the themes noted below.

* Gratitude
* Honoring our Pain for the World
* Seeing with New Eyes/Talking Back to Foundational Texts

You can submit 1-3 poems, each poem no longer than 65 lines, including title, epigraph (if any), and any acknowledgement of prior publication.

Please send English language poems to Phyllis by midnight on September 1, 2021.
Spanish language poems and poems by teens will be accepted up to midnight on September 15, 2021.
Send poems to this e-mail: phyllie@sonic.net.

For more information about this project, or to see sample poems and prompts on the themes mentioned above, be sure to check out the archives of the Poet Laureate News on the Sonoma County Literary Update webpage: https://socolitupdate.com/poet-laureates-news/laureate-archive-2020-2022/.
____________

Poetry and Translation: A Conversation with William O’Daly and Terry Ehret
On Saturday, September 25, I have the great good fortune to spend an hour and a half sharing poetry and conversation with acclaimed translator William O’Daly. The program is called Poets in Conversation, and runs from 4-5:30 PM Pacific Time.

Phyllis Klein, poet, founder, and host of Poets in Conversation, describes it as a Zoom poetry reading with two authors at a time, featuring poems from the books as well as conversation and connection between the readers and the audience present in the Zoom Room. The conversations are then posted to Youtube for later viewing.

William O’Daly has translated eight books of poetry of Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, and most recently Neruda’s first volume, Book of Twilight, a finalist for the 2018 Northern California Book Award in Translation. O’Daly’s chapbooks of poems include The Whale in the Web, also published by Copper Canyon, as well as The Road to Isla Negra; Water Ways, a collaboration with JS Graustein; and Yarrow and Smoke. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, O’Daly was a finalist for the 2006 Quill Award in Poetry and has been chosen to receive the 2021 English Language Literary Award from the Korean-American journal Miju Poetry and Poetics.

I first discovered Bill O’Daly’s fine renderings of Neruda’s poetry back in the early 90’s. Our literary paths crossed again when, in appreciation for his work, I sent him a copy of Plagios/Plagiarisms, Volume One, a bilingual translation of poems by Ulalume González de Leόn. Bill wrote back and graciously agreed to write a blurb for Plagios/Plagiarisms,Volume Two, which is currently in book production and due out in April 2022.

Check out Poets in Conversation at this link: https://phyllispoetry.com/poets-in-conversation/. To let Phyllis know you’re interested in attending, contact her at poetry@phyllispoetry.com
____________

Poem for September
I chose this poem by Roque Dalton in gratitude for the many conversations I had with my student at Santa Rosa Junior College, Bryan Chavez Castro. He introduced me to the poetry of Roque Dalton, and the bravery of his life and work. Born in 1935 in El Salvador, Roque Dalton was the author of several influential poetry collections, including Taberna y otros lugares. He spent much of his life in exile in Mexico and Cuba and died in 1975.

Like You
by Roque Dalton, 1935-1975
Translated by Jack Hirschman

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-blue
landscape of January days.
And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.
And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

____________

Como Tú

Yo, como tú,
amo el amor, la vida, el dulce encanto
de las cosas, el paisaje
celeste de los días de enero.
También mi sangre bulle
y río por los ojos
que han conocido el brote de las lágrimas.
Creo que el mundo es bello,
que la poesía es como el pan, de todos.
Y que mis venas no terminan en mí
sino en la sangre unánime
de los que luchan por la vida,
el amor,
las cosas,
el paisaje y el pan,
la poesía de todos.

(Curbstone Press, 2000), edited by Martín Espada.
____________

Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update co-editor

Dear Literary Folk,

Black and White in Black and White: Photography Exhibit
Petaluma Historical Library and Museum
September 26-November 6



The Petaluma Historical Library & Museum will present, starting September 26, a virtual exhibit of photographs by John Johnson, an African American photographer from Lincoln, Nebraska, whose work portrays the dignity, hope, and diversity in America. 

In an article in the Smithsonian, “Lost and Found Again,” you can read the story of how Douglas Keister began his collection of Johnson’s historical photographs, and the remarkable portrait they give of what historians call “The New Negro Movement. The beginning of the 20th-century was a time of great promise and hope for race relations in America . . . a period which set the stage for the Harlem Renaissance. No one better captured the essence of this time of advancement than African American photographer John Johnson.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/lost-and-found-again-photos-of-african-americans-on-the-plains-4344450/

Black and White in Black and White Ekphrastic Poetry Contest
You can be a part of this extraordinary and timely exhibit. Preceding the opening on September 26, the Museum is sponsoring an ekphrastic poetry contest open to all poets residing in Sonoma County. The contest is currently open, and interested poets may preview the exhibit images at:
https://www.petalumamuseum.com/black-and-white-in-black-and-white/. Use passcode: ee2021.

Send poems to prize coordinator, Sandra Anfang at wrdpntr51@gmail.com by August 31, 2021. Snail mail submissions will not be accepted. Poems must be no longer than 500 words of original work – no translations. Prizes will be awarded to three poets residing in Sonoma County:  $50.00 first prize, $25.00, second prize, and $25.00 third prize. Additionally, each finalist will receive a copy of the chapbook created from the selected entries. There is no entry fee. Winners will be notified by early September.

For questions and more information contact Clint Gilbert, contest coordinator: clint@petalumamuseum.com.

Click on this link to download the Submission Guidelines PDF

Bill Vartnaw and Taurean Horn Poets
Petaluma poet, executive director of the Poetry Walk, Sonoma County Poet Laureate Emeritus, and founder of Taurean Horn Press, Bill Vartnaw will be reading with several poets he has published on Sunday, August 15, 2:00-3:30 p.m. San Francisco Public Library is hosting the event, which will be online. Bill Vartnaw (Suburbs of My Childhood) will be joined by poet and musician Avotcja, poets Gail Mitchell (Root Tracings, Bone Songs) and Jeanne Powell (February Voices), Tom Sharp (Spectacles: A Sampler of Poems and Prose), and San Francisco Poet Laureate emeritus Kim Shuck (Clouds Running In).

Register to attend: sfpl.org/events/2021/08/15/performance-poets-taurean-horn-press

Interested in Graphic Novels?
Brian Fies will discuss the art of graphic storytelling—how words plus images add up to more than the sum of their parts—and how Brian used comics to tell the story of our community’s trauma and renewal during recent fires in his latest book, A Fire Story. The event will be on Saturday, August 21, 1:00-2:30 p.m., and will be hybrid in format: In other words, you may attend in person at Finley Center, 2060 W. College Ave., Santa Rosa, or virtually via Zoom. The event is hosted by Redwood Writers. Details and registration: https://redwoodwriters.org

Remembering Janice Mirikitani
American Sansei poet, dancer, and community activist Janice Mirikitani was celebrated for her poetry and for her dedication to helping others. Mirikitani co-founded Glide Memorial in San Francisco with her husband, Cecil Williams. She passed away on July 29.

Mirikitani was born in 1941 in Stockton, California, and earned a BA from UCLA. As a child, she was interned, along with her parents, in an Arkansas camp during World War II. Through her poetry and activism, Mirikitani dedicated her life to addressing the horrors of war, combating institutional racism, and advocating for women and poor people. Her collections of poetry include Awake in the River (1978), Shedding Silence (1987), We, the Dangerous: New and Selected Poems (1995), and Love Works (2001). Mirikitani has edited several anthologies, including Third World Women (1972), Time to Greez! Incantations from the Third World (1975), and Ayumi: A Japanese American Anthology (1980). In 2000, she was named the second poet laureate of San Francisco.

Katherine Hastings, Sonoma County Poet Laureate emerita, wrote this about Janice:

“Janice Mirikitani was a goddess. She helped so many people with the deepest kindness, patience and love, including me in the mid-80s when I was healing from old unbearable trauma. She refused to be silenced about her own past suffering and encouraged others to speak up, to re-claim themselves. As they did, she was a fountain of support and hope not just for people who had experienced what she did in her childhood, but any kind of trauma.  I’ll never forget my time with her during my years at Glide, including a reading I participated in from an anthology she wrote an introduction for, and being introduced by her, in person, to the equally powerful Maya Angelou, who also provided warmth and support.  All of it was love. The real kind.  I’m saddened that she is no longer with us but relieved to know, from what I hear, that she didn’t suffer in her passing. Janice, you always were an angel. Thank you. Peace and Love and Gratitude forever.”

Katherine has selected a poem of Janice’s for August. Scroll down to read this. You can read more about Janice’s life and work on the Poetry Foundation website: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/janice-mirikitani

Many poets are gathering to honor Janice Mirikitani in a Zoom event on August 12th at 2PM.  Follow this link to register: https://sfpl.org/events/2021/08/14/celebration-poets-honor-janice-mirikitani?fbclid=IwAR0yWL5pMqo2xFan1FCchdBX5dDYwf_n8JsvZqhQfu1mxJLfUz2kMl5ysHM

Celebration of Life for Amy Trussell
Last month, we shared the sad news of Amy Trussell’s passing. I wanted to update you on Amy’s Celebration of Life, scheduled for Saturday, August 28, starting at 2 PM. It will be held at the Sebastopol Youth Annex. Music will be provided by Midnight Sun Massive, 2-10. For more information, use this link: https://everloved.com/life-of/amy-trussell/.

The family of Amy Trussell welcomes donations in Amy’s memory to help with medical expenses and help with her celebration of life. Here’s the donation page link: https://everloved.com/life-of/amy-trussell/donate/

Plagios/Plagiarisms wins the Northern California Book Award in Poetry Translation
Five Sonoma County authors were nominated for a Northern California Book Award this year: Joan Frank, Kathleen Winter,  John Johnson, Nancy Morales, and Terry Ehret. At the awards ceremony on July 11, Plagios/Plagiarisms, Volume One was honored by the Northern California Book Reviewers with first place in Poetry Translation. This year, for the first time, the translation competition was statewide. If you’d like to order this collection of poems by Mexican poet Ulalume González de Leόn, you can do so directly from the publisher, Sixteen Rivers Press, at this link: https://sixteenrivers.org/authors/gonzalez-de-leon/

I had the additional honor of receiving the award on behalf of my translation partners, John Johnson and Nancy J. Morales. In my acceptance speech, I thanked the NCBA for including translation among its award categories, which is surprisingly rare, and quoted what Nancy and John had to say about the importance of literary translation:

“Ulalume’s poetry reminds us over and over that we live in a world of others, among the words of others, and that we are all participants in the act of meaning-making, which is above all a pleasure.” (John Johnson)

“Living in the United States, a country with a diverse and international population, but operating under a monolinguistic and monocultural paradigm, it is necessary and vital that we experience poetry from other countries.” (Nancy J. Morales)

Nancy and I will be participating in the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference First Book Panel on Friday, August 6 at 9 AM. To find out the schedule for this year’s conference week, check this link: http://www.napawritersconference.org/. See also the reminder below.



Napa Valley Writers’ Conference August 1-6
The Napa Valley Writer’s Conference begins today. If you are thinking about attending one of the readings or craft lectures open to the public, keep in mind that, the Conference will be held on the main campus of Napa Valley College, in the heart of Napa, CA. This move also provides ample outdoor spaces on the main campus for all daytime events, including workshops, craft talks, and meals, making it a safer choice for social distancing. Evening readings will also be outdoors on the main campus. You’ll need a facemask for any indoor events.

Poem for August

INSECT COLLECTION
by Janice Mirikitani

I collected insects
for my biology class
            beetles
            crickets
            butterflies.
Dropped them into a bottle
of cyanide fumes
and quickly stilled
those beating wings.

                        He locked me
                        in an airless vault of shame,
                        the darkness of closets, barns,
                        and muffled bedrooms.
                        Kept me in a jar
                        of silence
                        with the poisons of threat:
                        “If you speak of this,
                        you will kill your mother.”

I pinned dead insects
neatly on paraffin
with gleaming
silver straight needles.

                        I think I hear
                        butterflies
                        scream.

                        He peeled back my skin,
                        pierced my flesh
                        with the dull blades
                        of his hands,
                        slowly pulled off my wings,
                        impaled me, writhing.
                        Without swift mercy
                        of insecticide,
                        I suffocated slowly,
                        swallowing bits of my tongue.

                        My body
hollow
in the mute row
of corpses
pinned
to paraffin.
____________

Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update co-editor

Dear Literary Folk,

Remembering Amy Trussell

A bright light in the Sonoma County literary community has gone out. Like many of you, I knew Amy from her presence at so many readings and events in the community, especially at the Sitting Room. I didn’t really know her poetry, though, until I read a stunning selection submitted to accompany her nomination for Sonoma County Poet Laureate (which I believe was 2015). Amy’s poetry was a gift, as was her indelible presence—gentle, strong, spiritual, funny. Amy’s friend Nancy Dougherty composed this remembrance of Amy. And if you scroll down to the end of this month’s post, you’ll find two poems of Amy’s, selected for the Literary Update by Nancy and Abby Bogolmony.

______________

Amy Ruth Trussell
June 15, 1959 – June 3, 2021

It is with great sadness that I share the news of Amy Trussell’s passing this June 3, 2021. Revered by the Sonoma County poetry community, Amy took part in many readings and local contests. Her poems were widely published and she was author of five books including Meteorite Dealers, Ungulations, Physical Address, Poems in Ursa Minor, The Painted Tongue Flowers. Recently, she was a finalist for the William Faulkner Award.

Amy’s poetic voice—with its unique weaving of images and myth—reached for sky and earth, for an archaeology of meaning. We enjoyed writing together, at different cafes, and it never stopped amazing me how her poems unfolded. Unexpected, dreamlike, there was often a spiritual message, or a close look at the underpinning of the forces of life. They had a bit of her Topeka, Kansas upbringing and roots in the South, a touch of Anne Bradstreet; and the doula, dancer, and devoted mother and wife; all these identities. Humor and wit, too!

She embodied for me the essence of poetry, the life lived around and for poetry, and deeply held in friendships. Her words and heart touched many. She was beloved by her Monday Poetry group. I will miss her.

−Nancy Cavers Dougherty
______________

To read more about Amy’s life and poetry, and to get news about her celebration of life (tentatively scheduled for Saturday, August 28), use this link: https://everloved.com/life-of/amy-trussell/.

The family of Amy Trussell welcomes donations in Amy’s memory to help with medical expenses and help with her celebration of life. Here’s the donation page link: https://everloved.com/life-of/amy-trussell/donate/

______________

The Poetry Project at Sebastopol Center for the Arts

This ongoing series is presented every second Thursday through the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, and hosted by Fran Claggett-Holland, Les Bernstein, and Linda Loveland Reid

The Poetry Project is not just for people who write or read poems, but it is designed to allow people to think about what poetry could mean to them, an opportunity to discover new and familiar poets. The hosts and their guest poets explore how poems are created, edited and critiqued. Poetry can throw sideways light on the miraculous ordinary, or as Ted Kooser says, “a chance to see the life play in everything.”

The next Poetry Project program will be on July 8, 2021, 7-8:30 PM. The topic is Ekphrastic Poetry: Writing a poem to a work of art.

The SebArts 2018 art exhibit titled Reverberations featured works by famous artists curated from personal collections in Sonoma County. Poets were asked to write a poem about an assigned piece of art in the exhibit. Seven poets from Reverberations will be sharing those poems with us. The three hosts−Fran, Les, and Linda−will be joined by guest poets JoAnn Smith, Alicia Hugg, Freeman Ng and Michael Franco.

Note: A second exhibit, Reverberations II, is currently in the works and scheduled for early 2022. For this, poets’ works have been paired with visual artists who are asked to create an original piece in response—a kind of reverse ekphrasis.


Emilie Lygren and Naomi Shihab Nye Read for Blue Light at the Gallery

Friday, July 9, 2021 – 6:00 pm Pacific Time / 8:00 pm Central Time

Emilie Lygren is a poet and outdoor educator who loves talking to strangers, taking long walks, cooking for friends, and reading Naomi Shihab Nye’s poetry. Emilie has developed dozens of publications and curricula focused on outdoor science education and social-emotional learning through her work at the award-winning BEETLES Project at the Lawrence Hall of Science. Her first book of poems, What We Were Born For, was published in April by Blue Light Press. Visit Emilie’s website for more of her work and words: emilielygren.com.

Naomi Shihab Nye is a longtime fan of Emilie Lygren and her work. They met at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center years ago and have spent many happy weeks writing together there. Naomi lives in San Antonio, Texas, is on faculty at Texas State University,. and is the Young People’s Poet Laureate through the Poetry Foundation (Chicago). She is author of author of Cast Away (Greenwillow/HarperCollins), The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions), and many more books we all love.

Please join on Zoom. RSVP to bluelightpress@aol.com to get the link.
(No RSVP required if you’re already on our “all readings” list.)


Fog and Light: San Francisco through the Eyes of the Poets Who Live Here

The poems in Fog and Light were selected by Diane Frank. A love letter to San Francisco… in this collection of poems, we show you the city that most tourists miss…

This anthology includes poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Hirschman, Alejandro Murguía, Thomas Centolella, Kathy Evans, Alice Rogoff, Alison Luterman, Daniel J. Langton, Robert Scotellaro, Jane Underwood, and many other celebrated poets.

Among those “other celebrated poets” are Sonoma County’s Jodi Hottel, Gail Newman, Barbara Quick, and former poets laureate Katherine Hastings and Gwynn O’Gara.You can catch a recording of the June 24 reading, hosted by Poetry Flash on Facebook.com/PoetryFlash and the Poetry Flash channel onYouTube.

This anthology is available at https://bookshop.org/lists/poetry-flash-readings. 




Napa Valley Writers’ Conference August 1-6

Although not a July literary event, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference comes us the first week in August, so I wanted to give you all a chance to mark your calendars.

For those of you who will be making the trip to the conference, note that in 2021, the Conference will be held on the main campus of Napa Valley College, in the heart of Napa, CA. This represents a return to the conference roots – for the first several years, the Conference was held in Napa. This move also provides ample outdoor spaces on the main campus for all daytime events, including workshops, craft talks, and meals, making it a safer choice for social distancing. Evening readings will also be outdoors on the main campus, with a return to area wineries as soon as safe practice allows.

As always, Napa Valley Writers’ Conference offers an opportunity for local book-lovers and writers in the Napa Valley and North San Francisco Bay Area to hear daily readings and lectures by world-class authors of poetry and fiction. To find out the schedule for this year’s conference week, check this link: http://www.napawritersconference.org/


The 40^th Annual NCBA Ceremony on July 11

Congratulations to Sonoma County authors who have been nominated for a Northern California Book Award this year! This year’s nominees include and Joan Frank in Creative Nonfiction, Kathleen Winter in Poetry, and John Johnson, Nancy Morales, and Terry Ehret in California Translation in Poetry.

The awards will celebrate books published by Northern California authors and California literary translators in 2020. Each year, outstanding works are selected by Northern California reviewers and editors, members of Northern California Book Reviewers. All of the nominated books are acknowledged and celebrated at the ceremony. The Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement and Service will also be presented to a distinguished member of the Northern Californian literary community; the award carries a $1,000 honorarium.

The online event will be on Sunday, July 11, 2021 • 2:00 pm PDT, and will simultaneously broadcast on the San Francisco Public Library YouTube channel and Zoom.

Zoom Registration http://bit.ly/NoCalBook7-11-21
NCBA website with nominee list http://poetryflash.org/programs/?p=ncba_2021
Facebook Event Page https://fb.me/e/2gKXlu6tA
SF Public Library https://sfpl.org/events/2021/07/11/celebration-northern-california-book-awards

The event is free and open to the public. However, you will need to register in advance. After you register, you will receive an email with a link and information on how to join the reading. Or you can watch it as a YouTube Live Stream event at the link provided on the San Francisco Public Library website.

Here’s the full list of nominees in each category.

POETRY
Indigo, Ellen Bass, Copper Canyon Press
Piñata Theory, Alan Chazaro, Black Lawrence Press
Spring and a Thousand Years (Unabridged), Judy Halebsky, University of Arkansas Press
Bonfire Opera, Danusha Laméris, University of Pittsburgh Press
Storage Unit for the Spirit House, Maw Shein Win, Omnidawn
Transformer, Kathleen Winter, Word Works

FICTION
Tell Me, Signora, Ann Harleman, Elixir Press
The Prince of Mournful Thoughts and Other Stories, Caroline Kim, University of Pittsburgh Press
A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth, Daniel Mason, Little, Brown and Company
Only the River, Anne Raeff, Counterpoint
The Son of Good Fortune, Lysley Tenorio, Ecco/HarperCollins

CREATIVE NONFICTION
Try to Get Lost: Essays on Travel and Place, Joan Frank, University of New Mexico Press
Mobile Home: A Memoir in Essays, Megan Harlan, The University of Georgia Press
Synthesizing Gravity: Selected Prose, Kay Ryan, Grove Press
Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir, Rebecca Solnit, Viking
Scratched: A Memoir of Perfectionism, Elizabeth Tallent, Harper

GENERAL NONFICTION
Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa, Marilyn Chase, Chronicle Books
Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy, Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano, W.W. Norton
The Forests of California: A California Field Atlas, Obi Kaufmann, Heyday
American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland, Marie Mutsuki Mockett, Graywolf Press
Empire of Resentment: Populism’s Toxic Embrace of Nationalism, Lawrence Rosenthal, The New Press

CALIFORNIA TRANSLATION
California Translation in Poetry
Plagios/Plagiarisms, Ulalume Gonzalez de Leon, translated by Terry Ehret, John Johnson, and Nancy Morales, from the Spanish, Sixteen Rivers Press
Etudes: A Rilke Recital, Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Art Beck, from the German, Shanti Arts Publishing
My Village: Selected Poems 1972-2014, Wu Sheng, translated by John Balcom, from the Chinese, Zephyr Press
California Translation in Prose
Heaven and Earth, Paolo Giordano, translated by Anne Milano Appel, from the Italian, Pamela Dorman Books/Viking
Surrender, Ray Loriga, translated by Carolina De Robertis, from the Spanish, Mariner Books
Bezoar and Other Unsettling Stories, Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Suzanne Jill Levine, from the Spanish, Seven Stories Press
Savage Kiss, Roberto Saviano, translated by Antony Shugaar, from the Italian, Farrar, Straus and Giroux Nine Moons, Gabriela Wiener, translated by Jessica Powell, from the Spanish, Restless Books

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
Children’s Literature: Younger Readers
The Good Song, Alexandria Giardino, illustrated by Penelope Dullaghan, Cameron Kids
You Matter, Christian Robinson, Atheneum Books for Young Readers
A Book for Escargot, Dashka Slater, illustrated by Sydney Hanson, Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers
Children’s Literature: Middle Grade
Orphan Eleven, Gennifer Choldenko, Wendy Lamb Books
The Lonely Heart of Maybelle Lane, Kate O’Shaughnessy, Knopf Books for Young Readers
Land of the Cranes, Aida Salazar, Scholastic Press
Children’s Literature: Young Adult
We Are Not Free, Traci Chee, HMH Books for Young Readers
Dark and Deepest Red, Anna-Marie McLemore, Feiwel & Friends
The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea, Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Candlewick

___________________

Two Poem by Amy Trussell for July

A Cauldron of Crows

Why the steady rain
pelted like salt in a wound,
I don’t know.
Except at night, when we were safe
under blankets; then it felt like
olives raining down wanting to
be cured to nourish us,
by gentler means than lye.
Leslie Oliver lamented how it stirred
A “slow river of grief” that runs through her.
The bells of the Bodega Church tower
below Joy Road tolled for no one
except an overflowing cauldron of crows
descending through a film of fog.
Once, just before a wedding there,
I lit a sputtering indulgence in the foyer
because my father had died
and I was still harboring a deluge.
The wedding packed a punch
but after a while the marriage was on the rocks.
Eventually Northern Lights, across the street,
was listed “non-essential” and shuttered.
That was the surf shop where the Guinness
Book of World Records going for most days
in a row surfing used to buy his surf wax.
We sold our thin wetsuits back to them,
not having enough fat to hack
the Artic current
that ran through spring into summer.
“Never turn your back on the ocean!”
the Point Reyes radio station begged us.
Sleeper waves, riptides, and Sirens
can grab you by the ankles
and drag you in.
I keep turning over the hanged man card
in these candlelit spreads.
To baffle meant to hang by one foot
hoping to induce visions.
Hermit, hold out your lantern.
We may be walking closer to the edge
of a sea cliff than we know.


Head Afire, Waters Breaking

Feeling empty as a gourd after days of smoke
and ungulates running across the roads
nearly getting hit by rescue trucks.
Roughing out a new plan on old paper,
sticking a hand into the reserve tank of letters
while turning my head in the other direction
into the jade of what’s still here–
like the bamboo garden and the rose geranium
Melody brought us in better times before
“civilization” took a rapid decline.
Straining for the sounds in the ethers
clairaudients hear that issue from
certain lauded places like the Mayácamas
mountains, in a kind of woven geometry.
Fire and hurricane lashed over opposing coasts
simultaneously leaving us crestfallen.
Also the battle of the elements in the head–
defensible spaces and charred offerings of each history.
So many questions in the remains.
How can a fire jump over a major artery out of here?
We implore those lightning bolts that started one fire
to fold back into the clouds forever.
And that the idea of fireworks at a gender reveal
is dropped like a wet blanket.
A gravid woman could break her waters
over that kind of excitement.
We’re on the lookout for high winds in the west
and on the Doppler radar in the deep south.
And attach to the thrill seeking fools
trying to drive a ram beneath the storm eye.
We wish all survivors auspicious materials to rebuild
and calm waters in which to wash their feet.
To see the breeching whales or leaping fish.
Calves soothed by crenellating seaweed
in the primordial soup.
___________________

Terry Ehret
Co-editor, Sonoma County Literary Update