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Sat. August 23 we’re playing at a benefit for the River City Food Bank
At “Beats in the Backyard” 1153 Mariemont Avenue, Sacramento, from 6 to 10pm. It’s picnic style - bring lawn chairs, food and drink for yourself, and canned food donations for the Food Bank.
Thu, 07 Aug 2014 03:12:07 -0400
Sunday September 1 – Ravenswood Poetry Series
Livermore’s current Poet Laureate, Kevin Gunn, will host the continuing series, Ravenswood Poetry onSunday September 1, 2013. The program is from 2-4 p.m. The featured poets start at two and then there is an open mic that follows about 3 p.m.
The featured Poets for this event will beJeff Knorr and Bob Stanley.
Bob Stanley
Poet Laureate of Sacramento from 2009 to 2012, Bob Stanley has published two chapbooks: Eleven Blue Strings (little m press) and Walt Whitman Orders a Cheeseburger (Rattlesnake Press). He and his son John Stanley recorded and released a CD of original compositions entitled Songs from Random Lane. Bob serves as President of the Sacramento Poetry Center, and teaches English at Sac State and Sac City College. His new poetry collection, Miracle Shine, was published by CW Books in May 2013.
Jeff Knorr
Jeff Knorr is the current Poet Laureate of Sacramento. He is the author of the three books of poetry, The Third Body (Cherry Grove Collections),Keeper (Mammoth Books), and Standing Up to the Day (Pecan Grove Press). His other works includeMooring Against the Tide: Writing Poetry and Fiction(Prentice Hall); the anthology, A Writer’s Country(Prentice Hall). His poetry and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies including Chelsea, Connecticut Review, The Journal, North American Review, Red Rock Review, Barrow Street, and
Like Thunder: Poets Respond to Violence in America(University of Iowa).
The event is $5.00 for admission and light refreshments are served.
Open mic is after the featured reading!
Ravenswood is located at 2657 Arroyo Road In Livermore, California
For more information please contact Kevin Gunn: kngrhino@yahoo.com
Wed, 28 Aug 2013 01:55:55 -0400
City of Slow Rivers
Video by Andrew Nixon, Capital Public Radio
Thu, 18 Jul 2013 21:41:43 -0400
Delta Song
Remember when we learned genetic code?
As spirals started curving on their inward line,
we found our rhythm on the levee road.
The turns we wandered down were slow and wide
fog’s cooling labyrinth a lazy rhyme,
but delta water wasn’t all that flowed.
I cut the engine, but the headlights showed
a way through mist. Not certain of the time,
we felt a rhythm on the levee road.
From farm hard by the river, a cock crowed
to celebrate the moon’s mistaken rise.
The delta water wasn’t all that flowed.
That night we shifted, learning one seed sowed
could grow in soil where we could improvise.
We danced the rhythm of the levee road.
Between the current and the land we rode
the edge of what had been, to seabirds’ cries,
and delta water wasn’t all that flowed.
We found our rhythm on the levee road.
Tue, 09 Jul 2013 22:00:47 -0400
Small and round and red
We are many
We fill baskets
our crowns still attached.
We are nobility
sweet and dangerous
cousin of nightshade
once thought to be poison.
While we adorn the rising vines,
You feed us, give us water
and hot sun makes us
Multitudes –
Hundreds turning summer
into globes bright and red
We are magic
We are tomato
We are cherry tomato
And your tongue knows
We have the power.
from Miracle Shine
Thu, 06 Jun 2013 17:29:04 -0400
Storyteller #59
He tells the story of the man with the inside out face who walks, dead feet on dead ground. He gets close to the description, showing small organisms feeding on the man’s wounds. The writer curls into his work; he carves the full range of pain, the wide swath of sorrow. As the sun sets, his colors fade to grey.
The poet draws the sketch of his own youth, newspapers on a windy hillside. Being slow, being fast, the things children remember, like sandwiches. The father is kind, the mother is kind. He doesn’t know how he became a writer, but that is what he has become. He hears that high pitch in his left ear, and waits for it to dissipate.
Wed, 05 Jun 2013 21:32:35 -0400
Sure, you’re singing strawberries,
now make those strawberries drip chocolate.
Your brain knows, but your mouth’s not
fast enough; make your face a fast fish,
fire beneath your breath, lifting
jet from runway, full speed rising together
your harmonies carve a shape in air,
form a fold in the universe of sound,
not only channel the voices of sun and moon
but all the spheres, so when you sing
stars dance across your faces of the sky.
from Miracle Shine, previously published in Eleven Blue Strings
Mon, 20 May 2013 01:00:56 -0400
To be a child again, knowing books change the world. Running up the narrow stairs into soft, yellow light of the old Carnegie branch, and there they are, walls of them. Librarian smiles at Dad and me, kid exchanging finished stack for more.
Now I read titles of courses I will never get to take: The Nature of Culture; Form, Space, Vision; Primate Behavior. If I took all three at once, could I tell new stories, speak new tongues, or just appear an educated gibbon at art opening in midtown?
Clicking through the college catalog I see him - General Ed lurking deep inside, chanting the secret names of what we hope to come to understand: The Joy of Garbage, Urban Geography, Visualization, and he winks at us. What comes from all this work?
Community Engagement, Children and Television, The List Poem: No, not “knowing,” really, but still we climb towards that warm & yellow light.
Thu, 16 May 2013 18:14:16 -0400
