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Dear MPC
readers,
With the March 2010 edition, the venerable MPC quarterly newsletter is
making its debut as an online publication. Saving trees! And saving
fees in an economically challenging time.
But it's also a mighty time for Marin poets. Works by Joseph Zaccardi, Kirsten
Neff and Toni Wilkes all have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes!
With the online launch comes the fervent hope that this bridge to the
future will also facilitate feedback from our loyal readers. Give us
your whimsy, your best ideas, queries, comments, yearnings, notions.
After all, we're in this together, for the poetry community's sake.
-Calvin Ahlgren, editor |
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Jackqueline Kudler
Kirsten Neff
November Lullaby
No worries,
child,
as the wind washes across
your ideas, and wet
leaves
lie upon your sweet beliefs.
No worries, when
memories of sorrow
move in with the clouds
and
settle darkness over
the sky of your life.
No
worries, when the weight
of drenched earth beneath
you
clings to your footsteps,
pulls you downward
into
a strange shame,
when gray dawn blankets you in
loss,
strong as the smell of a
cold night
past.
No worries,
child.
The melancholy of this season
will move in and
fill
the deep grooves of your life
with beauty, like
rain.
-Kirsten Jones
Neff
Summer
Seduction
She is losing her mind again
in
the season's moment. Ardent
grapes, near peak, hang
full,
translucent, glistening, almost for
the
taking.
The balm of
mid-summer air,
a poppy, sky pink in ready
pucker,
another's blush just visible
beneath the veined
skein of bud.
Gladiolas give in to the weight
of their
own frilled bloom,
faint across tomato stems,
whose
purple fruits roll sideways,
opening onto their backs
in
a fertile stench.
Knobbed cucumbers swell
beneath a
blanket of wet leaves,
born of morning's yellow
blossoms,
while fuchsia swing their curls.
It alters
her, this August moment.
She is painfully happy,
seduced
into believing
the world is made for
pleasure.
-Kirsten Jones
Neff
MARIN POETRY
CENTER 2010 ANTHOLOGY GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS
- You must be a member of Marin
Poetry Center. To join, go to www.marinpoetrycenter.org or
write to: Marin Poetry Center P.O. Box 9091 San Rafael, CA
94912
- Submit up to five unpublished
poems (six pages maximum) in a #10 envelope. your name
should not appear on any of the poems. Do not staple pages.
- Enclose a cover sheet and
information (include email if applicable) and bio. Include a
self-addressed stamped envelope.
- Mail to: MPC Anthology c/o
Joseph Zaccardi, Editor P.O. Box 9091 San Rafael, CA 94912
Commandment
Number One for any truly civilized society is this: Let people
be different.
-- David Grayson [pen name of
Ray Stannard Baker], journalist, author
(1870-1946)
The noble art of losing face may one day
save the human race and turn into eternal merit
what weaker
minds would call disgrace.
-Piet Hein,
poet and scientist
(1905-1996)
You write to communicate to the hearts
and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to
let the fire show through the smoke.
- Arthur Plotnik, editor and author (b.
1937)
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The MPC Board of Directors is delighted to announce that
longtime Marin County poet and educator Jaqueline "Jackie"
Kudler has been awarded the 2010 Marin Poetry Center's
Lifetime Achievement Award.
Ms. Kudler is a co-founder
of 16 Rivers Press, publisher of her 2003 collection "Sacred
Precincts," and a longtime teacher in the county-- for 11
years in Marin County high schools, and over a span of 25
years at the College of Marin (Poetry Appreciation and Memoir
Writing classes in the Emeritus Program). She is also credited
as the force behind the annual Sausalito Women's Club poetry
reading event.
Ms. Kudler is a past board chair of MPC
and currently serves on its Advisory Board.
The newly
instituted award is granted to an individual who has made
long-term commitments and major contributions to poetry in
Marin County. An awards ceremony is planned for early June.
Congrats Jackie!
-interviewed
by Rose Black
Kirsten Jones Neff lives with
her husband and three children on a two-acre farmstead in
Novato. Her debut collection of poetry, WHEN THE HOUSE IS
QUIET, is the winner of the 2009 Starting Gate Prize and a
Pushcart nomination from Finishing Line Press.
(http://finishinglinepress.com/KJneff.htm) RB:
As a mother, teacher, gardener, free-lance writer, and poet,
how do you stay in balance?
KJN: I'll
admit, I'm haunted by Simone de Beauvoir's idea that a woman's
happiness rises and falls in inverse relation to the number of
domestic items she manages. I am trying not to let the
"domestic items" take over. I'd rather collect
words.
RB: Talk about how and when you
came to poetry, and how it fits in with your
life?
KJN: I know that I was writing
poetry when I was very young. An aunt of mine just sent me a
poem I wrote in second grade that was published in the local
newspaper. I guess it was my first published poem, and it was
called ALONE. It was about being in a forest, and being
unknown. That sense of smallness is at the heart of a lot of
what I write. My father wrote poetry. He was actually one of
the first Stegner Fellows. He would read his own work to us,
mostly on special occasions, maybe on my uncle's birthday, or
on a late night, camping. And he often was reading other
poets' work. I know that Lord Tennyson was mentioned enough
that I wondered who that guy was and if he lived nearby. But
my father never became a published poet. He never took his
work to the public.
RB: Do you think
your father would have been proud of you, having won the
Finishing Line 2009 Starting Gate Award? And how do you feel
about taking your poetry to the
public?
KJN: Yes, I think he would
have been very proud. As I grew up, I would hear poetry in my
head, the way some people hear song. Yet, it just didn't seem
viable to me. It seemed that if you were a poet it complicated
life, and made it difficult to support yourself and your
family. So I veered away from writing poetry. I went and got a
Journalism degree at UC Berkeley and got into documentary
filmmaking. Poetry was still coming to me, but I pushed it
away. Every once in a while I would just have to write
something down. Almost a secret
compulsion.
RB: So finally it burbled
up to the surface with this manuscript?
KJN: Actually
it was when I had children. I stopped working in documentary
film because I was really torn between my family and my work
at that time. Filmmaking is so wonderfully consuming. So after
my second child was born I stayed home, and that's when I just
let go and allowed myself to write, whenever I needed to,
whatever I needed to.
RB: Do you think
you needed to write more, to counter what you were giving up
of yourself?
KJN: I think so. I think
that what I learned, slowly but surely, was that if poems were
coming to me there was something I needed to locate, whether
it was gratitude, wonder, peace, or a sense of myself. All of
those things. When I learned to stop and find a time that was
quiet and honor poetry, I would be better for it. I would have
a stronger sense of myself and a greater sense of gratitude
for my life, and for this incredibly potent and complicated
time when one is raising young children, when your marriage is
changing, when you're changing emotionally and physically.
It's a beautiful time and a hard time. I really needed
poetry,both to read and to write, and I'm grateful that I'd
been exposed.
RB: Tell me about the
title poem of your book, WHEN THE HOUSE IS QUIET.
KJN:
A friend of mine did a research project recently about
creativity. She did very thorough, hours-long interviews with
people about their creative process and their relationship
with creativity - all different kinds of people - business
leaders, teachers, engineers, poets -and she ended up putting
me in a pot that she called Still Mind Intuitive, and that
absolutely rang true, because I get a lot of signals and
thoughts when I'm going through a busy day, but I can't make
sense of them, and they become
meaningless.
RB: Until the house is
quiet?
KJN: Until the house is quiet.
I've learned to honor the deeper sort of wisdom. And it's a
dual blessing, because it also allows me to collect moments
that are flying by. But I want to say that making the space
for quiet, it's not always this lovely pleasant thing, like
Oh, now I'm going to go be quiet.
RB:
Tell me about trying to make sense of things and of
yourself.
KJN: My husband Sam is a
wonderful partner in a lot of ways. He took the poems I wrote
in the early years of raising our children and put them
together into a collection. He's very supportive. I am
thankful for this long-term working marriage - but I never
want to make light of how hard it has been at times. And he
appreciates that. Writing is a way of honoring our commitment,
the mountains and the valleys.
RB: At
first glance [your home] is idyllic. This space is enchanted,
your children are beautiful. It is easy for people to think
you have the perfect life here.
KJN:
In both of our family histories and both of our lives there is
an incredible mixture of blessing and struggle, and that's
what I want to honor in my work. I'm not going to hold back if
something feels wonderful, but I also don't want to be afraid
to say that an effortless beautiful marriage is a fantasy. It
is a very real thing to have a beautiful marriage, but it's
not an easy thing. I've never seen it be
easy.
RB: It seems that nature and
gardening are very important parts of who you
are.
KJN: I love living amongst woods
and streams and mountains, I feel best that way, and I
suspected that I would be a better mother in an environment
where I could open up the door and my children could spill out
with some sense of freedom. And again, back to Alone, the poem
I wrote when I was in Second grade. Poetry is the way I
translate what I've experienced in the wild. Nature is the
ultimate "quiet house," the place that allows me to find
greater meaning.
RB: Could you talk
about some of the poets whose work influenced
you?
KJN: I actually did create a
quick list of poets who have inspired and influenced me.
Again, my father wrote beautiful poetry, but more often than
not the poetry he read and wrote was remote - we children
often had no idea what he was talking about. Now, I'm not
saying that's bad, but I went a different direction. I admire
Language poets, and people who truly experiment with language,
but that is not the way that I write in
general.
RB: In other words, his way
wouldn't have worked for you.
KJN:
Exactly. As I explored poetry on my own, it was thrilling to
come upon someone like Virginia Hamilton Adair. A good friend
gave her book to me. I read this book, and I started crying.
Hamilton Adair was 81 when she published her first book of
poetry. She had been so busy with her family and her life.
Anne Porter had a similar story. What both of these women
taught me was that it was absolutely fine, and wonderful, to
have your home as your muse.
RB: It
seems that you take small simple things and enlarge them
through your craft.
KJN: I got my [poetic] legs when I
truly accepted that one could write [about] these simple
things. And both Anne Porter and Virginia Hamilton Adair
published late in life, but wrote poetry all along. They
taught me patience. As a journalist, you write something and
you get it out there fast. And what I've been doing for the
past decade or so is writing, and then circling back to poems
to say, let me look at this and see how it resonates, in a
sense of there's no huge hurry here. If these are meant to
come to full bloom or go out into the world, they will. I
admire so many modern poets - Wendell Berry, Maxine Kumin,
Sharon Olds, Ted Kooser, Mary Oliver, a poet named Barbara
Crocker and, of course, Raymond Carver! Gary Snyder, Galway
Kinnell, Mark Strand, Jane Kenyon, Linda Gregg, Denise
Leverton, Dana Gioia. I love Dorianne Laux. Too many to name.
And there are poets who I have always adored. Frost and Yeats
and Blake. Dylan Thomas. Elizabeth Bishop, Christina Rossetti
, Auden and...Well, that's just a short
list.
RB: Are there any other poetry
mentors around?
KJN: I studied under
the brilliant Adrienne Rich, long ago, at Stanford. And I've
been in two different writers' groups over the last 13 years.
I heard through the grapevine that so-and-so was a writer, and
looking to start a writers' group, and this group combined
forces with another and about six years ago we created POETRY
FARM, a monthly reading series. And through Marin Poetry
Center I've met many wonderful people. Slowly but surely I
started to see certain poets or hear certain poets' names and
listen to them read, and that's a mentor right there- MPC. My
life has been so enriched by the North Bay writing community,
at a certain point I thought, I'm going to give more back. A
poetry community as my mentor. Yes, that's what it feels
like.
Kirsten Jones Neff will read with
Rebecca Foust Saturday, June 12 at Book Passage
Songs from a Small Universe by Raphael
Block Beatitude Press, Berkeley, California www.beatitudepress.comISBN:
978-0-9825066-2-2 2009 89 pages, $15.00 "We
take too much credit for our deeds. These poems, like all
things, are gifts. I hope the joy they have given me spills
over to you."
Thus begins the preface to Raphael Block's collection. His
poems, previously published by poetswest.com., re-imagine the
formation of small universes: the cells of the body, the
galaxies of the spirit, the verses that touch us all; the
oneness of the universe we share. I remember when I was in
the fifth grade at St. Mary's grammar school, looking for the
first time at a drop of water through a microscope and seeing
not what I expected, not simply water that came from an
eyedropper onto a glass slide but rather an entire world of
organisms, a world teeming with life and movement. Later I
learned about the divisions of cancer and then about the
invisible things that unite: prayers, the soul,
pain. These are some of Raphael Block's universes; his
realization of the infinite divisibility of the infinite, that
the human race is one part of many parts. No one thing being
greater or smaller than any other. This universe of limitless
configurations. The poems in Songs from a Small
Universe are divided into seven sections; together they form a
chorus of subjects: songs of the natural, the human experience
and songs of remorse and joy. Block's compositions have many
strengths, among them his fine-tuned ear for the music of
language. Here are two excerpts from "Calling." (Page 9) He
sings: ...I let myself be
torn, laughing with March hares and birdsong awakening
fields.... ...Everything is calling in its depth to
our depth.... In the appropriately titled poem,
"Small Universe," (page 13) he concludes with:
I sweep my porch, while a thrush bounces
in a bush. On a clear night I get lost in the Milky
Way. There's a kind of tenderness in his poems
that are insistent in their honesty and constant in their
emotional resonance. In the section titled Tears, the images
are about ritual and loss, the tears are quiet songs. From
"Spell of Being." The poem answers the unanswerable: (page
33)
Alone, I've learned how to
climb into that warm, rounded tree-hole, lined with
a fir-pressed bed, filled with woody pine smells, a
semi-darkness to better hear myself, and entering that
den, catch ringing from the trees, echoes of our
longing. Raphael Block has the gift of precision
and rhythm, like a fine-tuned piano, his voice has beauty and
texture. He is the beholder of great sadness, the holder of
the mouthpiece of a recorder to the lips. Block's musical
skills shine throughout this collection but nowhere more so
than in the final section, "Songs for Singing," where he
invites us to sing along with him. His lyrics are accompanied
by chord sequences. Here's "Angel Of Clouds" in its entirety:
(page 82) Bb Red blasting their
underbellies, Ab
Bb streaming towards the setting sun, Ab bouncing on
a mattress of air, Ab singing high, leaping and
dancing, Bb a skipped beat -- now you're gone. ]
x3 Bb Winged angel of
clouds Ab
Bb explodes the western skies, Ab II reeling the
swallows' invisible
chords Ab
Bb into the raging glow :|| Bb || Stars slip into
the sky,
Ab
Bb and stars around stars around stars
:|| Bb ringing, ringing,
ringing.
] x5 Songs from a Small Universe is an
intensely moving book of poetry, it is indeed a small universe
of beautiful words, and it is vast. Raphael Block was
born on a Kibbutz in Israel and spent his boyhood playing on
the hills of Haifa. Just before he turned nine, his family
moved to England. Learning English shaped his ear for sounds,
and the British climate and temperament fashioned his life
over the next 25 years, until he met and married an American
living in London. Raphael and Deborah moved to Northern
California with their daughter in 1993, and after Deborah's
death from cancer in 2002, he raised their daughter. Raphael
has worked with children of all ages for almost 30 years. He
currently lives in an old apple orchard outside of Sebastopol.
www.raphaelblock.com
Joseph
Zaccardi is editor of the Marin Poetry Center
Anthology. His second collection of poetry, Render, was
published by Poetic Matrix Press in 2009. www.josephzaccardi.com
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MPC CLASSIFIEDS |
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Volunteer Opportunities
Any bean-counting poets out there? We
are looking for an accountant or CPA among our membership who
is willing to occasionally advise on accounting/bookkeeping
matters. Minimal time commitment (and maximum inner
satisfaction) for this volunteer
position.
Public Relations Help us by
posting events in community calendars, drafting press releases
and news articles, and working with the media to
spread the word about Marin Poetry Center
and our programs. Sound like too much work? Then
we'd welcome assistance posting events in community
calendars.
Hospitality Do you set a lovely
table? Share your talents at our monthly events by
shopping for and setting out refreshments (funds
provided).
Contact Margaret Stawowy pencilpusher89@hotmail.com
High School Poetry Needs
assistance. Possible duties include updating the teacher data
base, contacting members, scheduling workshops in the schools,
and assisting with the annual high school poetry anthology and
contest. One person need not be responsible for all the above
tasks. Please contact Barbara Martin at humjourney@aol.com
.
MPC
EVENTS MAR - MAY
Thu
Mar 18 7:30:
Michelle Bitting (Good Friday Kiss) and Jay
Leeming (Dynamite on a China Plate)
Thu
Apr 15 7:30:
Panel Discussion
on "Accessibility and Difficulty in Poetry" with Brenda
Hillman,
Charles Harper Webb, and Matthew Zapruder
Thu
May 20 7:30:
Steve Kowit (The Dumbell Universe)
Sat
May 22 7:30:
Poetry Writing Workshop with Steve
Kowit
9:30 am - 1:30 pm, Book Passage in Corte Madera
$75.00
Attendance is limited To reserve a space,
contact Roy Mash events@marinpoetrycenter.org
2010 MARIN POETRY FESTIVAL
Sunday April 18:
Two Venues, Old Mill Park Amphitheater, 300 Throckmorton Avenue, Mill
Valley, Calif. and Angelico Hall, 50 Acacia Avenue, San Rafael, Calif. on
the campus of Dominican University.
Join local & regional poets in the Old
Mill Park Amphitheater from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. for an afternoon poetry,
music and spoken word performance, then at 7 p.m. in Angelico Hall for
readings featuring:
Diane DiPrima, Nathaniel Mackey, Brenda Hillman
Poets and Musicians at performing at Old Mill Park:
Avotcja, 16th and Mission Plaza Players, Dancing Bear, c.j. sage,
Adam David Miller, Andrena Zawinski, C.P. Skruggs Band, Lynne Knight,
Albert Flynn DeSilver, Margaret Stawowy, Geri Digirono, Doreen Stock,
Jennifer Barone -- Nova Jazz. And Featuring an Open Mic Lottery.
Sponsored in part by the Mill Valley Library, Book
Passage, Rebound Books and the Humanities Department of Dominican University
Tickets at local bookstores and on line at
Brown Paper Tickets
More infomation -- poetnews@sonic.net or message at 415.382.8022
Autobiography for Poets,
Fiction and Non-fiction Writers
Award-winning poet
Robert Sward will lead this workshop, at Esalen Institute
in Big Sur, April 9-11.
Topics include:
Use of dialogue and natural story telling voice, audio/visual
elements for interviews, methods of organizing, getting your
reader's attention, exploring the darker side, telling
secrets, how far can you go?
Bring six or more family
photos and notes, diaries, journals, and/or works in progress.
Also bring a notebook and pen for in-class writing exercises,
and a box of crayons and colored pencils.
Reservations
info (accommodation and pricing) by phone at: 831-667-3005, or online: Esalen Reservations
Register by mail at:Esalen
Institute, Attn: Reservations
55000 Highway 1
Big Sur, CA 93920
or online: Workshop Reservations,
For questions, email robert@robertsward.com
Poetry Farm is a
monthly reading series held at Dr. Insomnia's Cafe in
Novato. This is a well-attended and high-spirited
reading series now in its fifth year. We feature one
published author each month. If you would like to
be considered for our "Featured Farmer" spot, please
send an email describing your work to Kirsten@Neff.Org.
Otherwise, come join the audience or sign up for open
mic.
Second Mondays, 7pm, Dr. Insomnia's
Cafe on the corner of Grant and Reichert in Novato.
MPC Readers: Do you remember how and when
you first wrote a poem? Did your pulse race? Palms go
all sweaty? Did you follow up right away on that first odd tug
of the mind/heart, or did you put the urge aside and write it
out only when you couldn't help it? Do us all a
favor, jot down that memory and ship it off to the newsletter,
for possible sharing with your fellow readers. Send it
to info@marinpoetrycenter.org
.
Open Mic/Poetry Critique at Falkirk
Cultural Center, on the fourth Thursday of each month (except
Dec.), starting at 7pm. Bring ten copies of your poem,
no more than one page in length. This event is free, and
is open to everyone. 1408 Mission Street, San
Rafael. calvinahlgren@att.net.
Sunset Poetry by the Bay series presents:
Wed., March 17: Agneta Falk, Neeli Cherkovski
and special guest.
Studio 333, 333 Caledonia Street,
Sausalito.
Marin Poetry Center Bookgroup meets at 7pm
the second Wednesday of each month, rotating among living
rooms of participants. In December Walt Whitman's Leaves of
Grass will be discussed, and in January The Way It Is by
William Stafford. For more information contact Roy Mash: events@marinpoetrycenter.org
.
Announcement: MPC's own Kirsten Jones Neff
has won the 2009 Starting Gate Chapbook award offered by
Finishing Line Press. Her award-winning chapbook When
the House Is Quiet, will be available mid- December.
Marin Poetry Center Blog is now
online. Just click on the Blog! tab of the MPC website.
MPC members can now upload their own blog posts, receive
comments, and comment on the posts of others. An easy way to
start is to send in a poem or two for the 'Admired Poems'
section of the new MPC blog. These would be poems by someone
else that you particularly admire or that have meant a lot to
you or that you think of as overlooked. Send poems or blog
postings to webmaster@marinpoetrycenter.org
. Comments can be made on the blog itself.
Suggestions, questions, ideas?
Reply to: info@marinpoetrycenter.org
MPC values your
input!
Comment, dream out loud, stimulate, unveil. This is YOUR
newsletter, so use it! Please!
| |
| MARIN
POETRY CENTER |
| BOARD OF DIRECTORS |
CONTRIBUTING
MEMBERS |
| Margaret Stawowy - Chair |
Calvin Ahlgren - Newsletter, Open Mic/ Workshop |
| Barbara Brooks - Recoding Secretary |
Richard Brown - Marin Poet Laureate Liaison |
| Rebecca Foust - Events |
Kirsten Jones Neff - Newsletter |
| Peg Alford Pursell - Corresponding Sec/Membership |
Gabrielle Rilleau - High School Poetry, Aegis Program |
| Barbara Martin - High School Poetry |
Cathy Shea - Anthology Consulting Editor |
| Roy Mash - Events/SWebsite |
Rose Black - Anthology Associate Editor |
| Mark Meierding - Grant Proposals |
|
| Alyse Rall - Treasurer |
|
| Paula Weinberger - Traveling Show |
|
| Joe Zaccardi - Anthology |
| |
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|
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unsubscribe from this newsletter drop a note to
newsletter@marinpoetrycenter.org | |
