Category Archives: poetry & poets

What I’ve been up to lately

21 Saturday Oct 2017

Posted by in Indie film reviews, Nevada City, poetry & poets, Uncategorized, writers and writing

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I suppose by looking at my blog people would think I was gone or this blog was just another momentary whim, abandoned in cyberspace, but actually, I’ve been very busy, and now that a few projects are done, am happy to take a moment to write.

A new series of poems are emerging, inspired by my dear friends. One of these was submitted to the California State Poetry Society, and was published in the last California Quarterly issue. ‘On Becoming 21st Century Women’ chronicles a lifelong friendship, written as a gift to commemorate a 70th birthday.

Frustrated by the die off of 66 million trees in California, I turned my attention to protecting heritage trees in Nevada City and took the walking tree tour into a digital format. Just published this week, the hope is that through education, these heritage trees will be valued and preserved. Get this new Google Map here.

This project happened with the help of great volunteers, sponsors and community donations. Yay, team trees!

Three years ago I took my Yuba River writings and produced a chapbook as an iBook. But no one seemed to find it and I was busy working and so it has languished. At the request of an associate for a printed copy, I converted this book to print and now have released ‘Swimming Into Sunsets’ for sale here in Nevada County (The Bookseller, Nevada City Chamber of Commerce, Gold Creek Inn). Thanks go not only to those selling the book, but to Caleb Dardick for showing up and asking so definitively for a printed copy—the nudge I needed.

Other news is that my article on the South Yuba Citizen’s League and Wild & Scenic Film Festival is slated for the December issue of Sierra Living magazine (formerly Sierra Heritage magazine). I have wanted to get something in a glossy book, in advance of the Wild & Scenic for a few years and this seems like just right match. Appreciate Roger Hicks, Caleb Dardick, Melinda Booth and Janet Cohen for taking time to provide critical insights and snippets of history that might have gone missing.

These are the ‘extra projects’ and writing— real work on strategy, marketing and content development continues through Thumbler.net.

If you are reading this, thanks for stopping by and be well.

“Longing for the Light” provides poetic start to summer

26 Sunday Jun 2011

Posted by in poetry & poets, Uncategorized

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It finally felt like summer, with light and sun pouring in as Seattle’s ACT Theatre quickly filled for “Longing for the Light,” Copper Canyon Press’ Summer Solstice Reading, the devoted audience leaving the balmy evening for a dark urbane interior.

Poet Heather McHugh

Notable poets from distant corners of the U.S. filled the stage, bringing with them considerable light and a summation of wordful colors.

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Richard Ford on Writing

16 Monday May 2011

Posted by in poetry & poets, Uncategorized, writers and writing

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What can be said about a man so calm and charming that it seems perfectly reasonable to store manuscripts in the freezer or plant a 38mm bullet through an unsavory book? The author himself demonstrates the answer when he reads from his upcoming novel, Canada.  What can be said is the gentleman can surely write. In a few short minutes Richard Ford takes listeners down a windy path, introduces us to a family and splays open their history, from a happenstance beginning to the worn features of lives habituated by compromise.

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Setting the Mantle Aside for an Evening

23 Saturday Apr 2011

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As Dr. Jessica Burstein of the UW English Dept, introduces Joyce Carol Oates, the room grows still. Surely the credits are remarkable and even perhaps incomparable—over 50 novels and dozens of short story collections, the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. Her works Black Water, What I Lived For, and Blonde were all finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2003, Oates was honored with the Common Wealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature. For brevity, here I omit listing her purview at Princeton and other extensive recognitions…

Joyce Carol Oates’ quiet presence filled the room as Seattle’s Benaroya Hall audience sat in on a discussion of Oates work, skillfully and unobtrusively led by Dr. Burstein. But for starters, Oates took off the mantle of her achievements, making it clear that her role was not to distribute wisdom, rather it seems she casts sidelong glances at her worldly accomplishments, not owning them in a way that explains her light touch in discussing her writing process and the consistently unusual choice of topic for her works.

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What was the first moment…

16 Saturday Apr 2011

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… poetry wooed you? So asks Alice Quinn, longtime poetry editor for the New Yorker and current executive director for the Poetry Society of America. The answers are informing, coming from three famous University of Oregon Alumni, gathered around after a Seattle Arts & Lecture (SAL) reading in Seattle.

Major Jackson describes the importance of being raised in  the church, not because of the religious aspect, but because of the respect and honor shown to ritual in his Philadelphia family home. Sacred speech,  like Robert Frost’s Nothing Gold Can Stay, was a beckoning.

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Blue Marble Planet lover Lea Haratani dives deep

02 Friday Jul 2010

Posted by in environment, ocean & fisheries, poetry & poets

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“A lot of people attack the sea. I make love to it.” —Jacques Cousteau

Lea Haratani has had a lifelong passion for the ocean, and every day she tries to show it. Some days, it means not eating fish. Other times, it’s all about taking a walk on the beach—or diving off the coast of Belize with Jim Simon, the vice president of one of the nation’s largest ocean conservation organizations, Oceana. She might also be found circulating petitions against offshore drilling with her children at Bookshop Santa Cruz, or organizing a fundraising event for Oceana at the Saint Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco.

Read more about Lea and ocean activism, featured in Good Times this week.

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Houses Are Fields

17 Monday May 2010

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Silverman reads at Bookshop Santa Cruz

This week I attended a reading by Taije Silverman. Silverman read from her new book Houses Are Fields. (Published by LSU in 2009)

Amazing, soulful. Words hung on a loosely reorganized scaffold of iambic pentameter. A powerful reader whose quiet strength shines through metaphors, and leaves sensual images drawn from a mix of Greek tragedy and the sumptuous landscape of Virginia.

Looks like Santa Cruz has a very active current of poetry running through it, with its own Poet Laureate (Gary Young), amazing residents like Adrienne Rich (more on Rich and her upcoming book later) and an organization dedicated entirely to fostering poetry, Poetry Santa Cruz.

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Lovely song, sacrificed without a passing regret

23 Tuesday Mar 2010

Posted by in environment, poetry & poets

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Poetry and the arts take an important place in the realm of influencing change, raising awareness and stirring the pot. Poets, writers and film makers have been my catalysts and guides along the sometimes confusing trail of conservation and direct action.

Hip Pocket Press publishes a newsletter sharing poets views on the environment. Named Canary for the unique place this lovely songbird held as a harbinger of deadly mine gas, this collection of loosely themed writings informs us of an inner life nurtured by nature.

“The canary in the coal mine” was a primitive early warning system used by miners to alert themselves to poison gases seeping into the mines.  If the canary was found dead, it was time to get out quick.  As a metaphor, its significance for me includes not only the salvation of the humans, but also the casual loss of the canary, that fragile and innocent bird with its lovely song, sacrificed without a passing regret….”—Gail Entrekin, Editor, Hip Pocket Press

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Falling Into Light

12 Friday Mar 2010

Posted by in Book Reviews, poetry & poets

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The More Difficulty Beauty

Molly Fisk’s New Book

Molly Fisk’s new book, The More Difficult Beauty was released yesterday. Somewhere in the Sierra there was a great stirring and release party, I suspect.

See my short review in Sacramento News & Review, or read the full review below.

The More Difficult Beauty

by Molly Fisk

Publication Date: March 10, 2010

Pages: 96

Trim size: 5.5″ x 8.5″, soft cover

Price: $15.00

ISBN 10: 9780917658365

ISBN 13: 978-0-917658-36-5

Hip Pocket Press, 5 Del Mar Court, Orinda, California 94563

Reading Molly Fisk’s The More Difficult Beauty gave me the odd sensation of falling down a well, but instead of into darkness, I fell into light. Fisk’s words give us darkness and shadow, but these poems twist this into a kind of release, leaving the reader with a bittersweet, sobering hope. John Updike considers Fisk’s current poetic offering a “Fearless, clear-eyed work.”

This poet braves the more difficult places and reveals the world’s simple truths. —Dorianne Laux

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