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Posted by: wordrunner | May 1, 2015

May 1, 2015

Dear Literary Folk,

Fanfares and Drumrolls!
The Literary Update’s Jo-Anne Rosen and Ed Coletti both have new books out this month.

What They Don't Know: Selected FictionJo-Anne’s first book, What They Don’t Know, is a selection of 18 stories. Dan Coshnear says, “The actors in these beautiful, often sad stories carry with them complex histories of desire and pain, often longing for what they can’t or shouldn’t have. You’ve met them, fathers and mothers, daughters, sisters, uncles, lovers, presented here with humor and dignity, with a keen and dispassionate eye, reminiscent of another great Canadian storyteller, Rosen’s cast will surprise you, instant by instant.”

Jo-Anne invites you all to a publication party on Sunday, May 3 at 4 PM at Iota Press, 925-D Gravenstein Hwy. South, Sebastopol, CA (behind BeeKind). You’ll be treated to refreshments and a short reading among the old typesetting equipment in the Iota shop.

Ed Coletti. The Problem with BreathingEd’s newest collection of poetry is The Problem with Breathing, published by Edwin E. Smith (Little Rock).  Copies may be purchased through Amazon, which describes the poetry book as “a collection of highly personal meditations on aging and reconciliations with life’s vicissitudes.” Ed has published many books of poetry and has had work in numerous literary journals. He may be better known to all of you as Internet publisher of Ed Coletti’s P3 and also No Money In Poetry. More recent poetry collections have included When Hearts Outlive Minds, released 2011, and Germs, Viruses, and Catechisms, December 2013.

Ed will read from his new book at SoCo Coffee, 1015 Fourth Street, Santa Rosa, on Saturday, May 23 at 5 PM. He’ll be reading with two other Sonoma County greats: Poet Laureate Katherine Hastings and poet and playwright David Beckman.

AWP Report
Last month, Jean Heglund, Abby Bogomolny, Iris Dunkle, Susan Raines, and I were among the writers from Sonoma County who traveled to Minneapolis for the Associated Writing Program’s annual conference. 13,000 writers descended on the eminently hospitable Twin Cities. Drought-parched Californians rushed to the windows of the conference center one afternoon when the rain shifted to snow. Minnesotans don’t take pictures of snow. They shovel it, curse it, trudge through it, but don’t find it particularly romantic. Still, it was a hoot to see how thrilled we west coast writers were by a few flakes.

The conference opened with a welcome from Minneapolis’s mayor, Betsy Hodges. She read “Half-Finished Heaven,” by Tomas Tranströmer to start, confessed to being a writer of YA fiction herself, and to starting her day with poetry. She was smart, witty, and ironic, and I thought, “I want a mayor like that!” The keynote speaker was the young Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! We older folk grumbled a bit about her youth, but she gave a good talk about the importance of creative play.

After that, the conference was off and running. The highlight for me was “Keeping Our Small Boat Afloat: A Tribute to Robert Bly,” which drew a standing-room-only crowd. Bly, whose News of the Universe and his many translations, including Rilke, Transtromer, and Montale, helped shape the poetic imagination of a generation. Frail at 89, Bly sat in front while writers, singers and a magician reflected on Bly’s influence on poetry and American culture. At the end, Bly read a few of his poems  from a new collection Like the New Moon.

Abby Bogomolny sends this report:
AWP-conference-2015The AWP Conference April 8-11, 2015 in Minneapolis, MN was a delightful cornucopia of approaches to teaching, reading, writing, editing, publishing and enjoying the imaginative word. From panel discussions focusing on community college creative writing pathways, contemporary black poetry, making surprise suspenseful in fiction, creative writing as job training, and negotiating gender bias in publishing, the AWP Conference offered something for everyone. Many events, however, competed with each other, forcing participants to be quite selective. The Minneapolis Convention Center also required this usually sedate educator to summon her higher powers of navigation. One of my highlights included hearing “The Pink Tuxedos,” consisting of former US Poet Laureate Rita Dove, joined by Marilyn Nelson, Sophie Cabot Black and Carol Muske-Dukes, sing respectable verses to 50s-60s doo wop tunes. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard “William Butler Yeats’ “The Lake Isle of Innisfree sung to the tune of “La Bamba” by Richie Valens, “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath sung to the tune of “Dream Lover” by Bobby Darin, or “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth sung to “I Heard It through the Grapevine” by Whitfield and Strong. Significantly beautiful readings by poets Alicia Ostriker, Afaa Michael Weaver, Alexandra Teague, Linda Hogan and Carolyn Forché were worth the price of admission alone. The Midwest did not disappoint: Publishers such as Coffee House Press, Graywolf, and Persea Books sponsored several magnificent readings.

And here’s the AWP scoop from Jean Heglund:
I think the events I loved attending most were the poetry readings: Bernadine Evaristo, Alicia Ostriker, Kevin Young, Carolyn Forche, Afaa Michael Weaver, and Tomasz Rozycki were all jaw-dropping marvels. I also sat in on an inspiring panel in which Maxine Hong Kingston, Kim Stafford, and several other writer-teachers discussed how important it is, in “a world of toxic criticism,” to make sure the writing workshops we lead are places where we can support emerging writers and “nurture what hasn’t yet been written.” And Susan Gaines, Michael Byers, Peter Mountford, and I had fun discussing the challenges and pleasures of incorporating specific disciplines or bodies of knowledge into fiction on a panel about what we’ve been calling “Nerd Novels.” All in all, it was a hoot of a four days.

Poem for May
Wing-MichelleSome of you noticed that in my April post, I paid tribute to two poets who had passed away the previous week: Tomas Tranströmer and Adrienne Rich. Of course, Rich had actually left us two years ago. That error prompted this poem by Michelle Wing, which I’m delighted to share as this month’s featured poem.

Farewell Again, Adrienne
Michelle Wing

Adrienne Rich died again this month.
Not content to leave the world once
bereft, grieving, all those poets in black,
in April she somehow staged a second exit
so we could mourn again.

Yes, I now know it was merely
a misquoted entry floating through
cyberspace, one of those anniversary
notes somehow translated into
a repeat funeral.

Fitting, though, that this literary lion,
who dared us to dive into the wrecks
of ourselves, and pushed open doors
three times her size with
crippled hands

would challenge death
to one more round.

Posted by: literaryfolk | April 3, 2015

Dear Literary Folk,

Within hours of posting the April 1 Update, I realized I had quite unintentionally misreported Adrienne Rich as passing away last week: a poet of such extraordinary powers, she could die twice! Once on March 27, 2012, and a second time on Facebook, where her obituary was enigmatically circulating, perhaps to note the anniversary.The correct date now appears in the post below.

I could claim it was an April Fool’s trick, but the only truth to that is I was your April Fool–the mind slipping ever-so-gently toward that southern hemisphere fishing village where, according to Billy Collins, the memories we used to harbor go to retire.

Looking ahead to the AWP Conference in Minneapolis, I’ve had a couple of requests to report back on this website, so I will attempt to do that, perhaps enlisting the help of those Sonoma County writers who’ll be making the trek. Stay tuned!

Terry Ehret, Sonoma County Literary Update Co-editor

Posted by: wordrunner | April 1, 2015

April 1, 2015

Dear Literary Folk,

Another National Poetry Month begins!

Sonoma County’s Recently Published Authors
Congratulations to this month’s recently published authors in Sonoma County. See who’s in print at Thanks to Ed Coletti who keeps this page of the Literary Update current with your notices of work you’ve had accepted for publication in literary journals and magazines.

Special NPM Events
For any of our readers in the East Bay, I recommend two readings this week. Tonight, April 1 at 7:00, Katherine Hastings, Sonoma County poet laureate, and I will be featured readers at Frank Bette Center for the Arts, 1601 Paru St., Alameda. Open reading will follow features. Then on Thursday, April 2 at 7:30, three Sixteen Rivers poets, Stella Beratlis, Lisa Robertson, and Helen Wickes, will read from their newest poetry collections at Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore, 2904 College Avenue, Berkeley. Closer to home, on Sunday, April 12, 2:00-4:00, The Sitting Room in Cotati hosts “In Translation: A Global Reading” exploring the rich poetic traditions of Europe, South America and the Middle East. And on Monday, April 13, 6:00 p.m. BARDS (Bay Area Readers Drama Society) reads Aristophanes’ Lysistrata at Aqus Cafe, 189 H Street, Petaluma.

Find out more about these and many more readings, writing workshops, and forums on the calendar page.

AWP in Minneapolis
This month, I’ll be traveling to Minneapolis for the Associated Writers and Writing Program’s annual conference. Hope to see some of my fellow Sonoma County Writers there. Keynote speaker is novelist Karen Russell, and featured presenters include Ted Kooser, Carolyn Forsche, Ron Carlson, Louise Erdrich, Tony Hoagland, and Francine Prose. If you’re coming to this gathering of the tribes, stop by the Sixteen Rivers table in the Book Fair and say hello!

Tributes to Tranströmer and Rich
Tomas-TranstromerWe launch our National Poetry Month with a tribute to two extraordinary poets, one who passed away in the past week: Tomas Tranströmer, Swedish Nobel Laureate, psychologist, pianist, entymologist, and curator of an extraordinary imagination. Following a stroke more than two decades ago, he lost his ability to speak and could play the piano with only one hand, but he continued to produce poems of remarkable sensitivity. He was 83 when he died on March 26.

Frances Mayes handed me a few of his poems in her prose poem workshop at San Francisco State back in 1982, saying she thought I’d find him a kindred spirit. Those poems changed my life. Not long after that, I had the chance to hear him read on one of his visits to San Francisco. I shamelessly imitated him, taught his poems whenever I could, and also used his poetry in the original Swedish as the source of many mistranslations over the years.

What was it about his poems that moved me so? Hard to say. They are quirky and disorienting, but always deeply human. He wrote both lyric and prose poems, and all are imbued with what Robert Bly referred to as “dragon smoke”: the ability of certain poets to move back and forth between the conscious and the unconscious like a lighthouse beacon. If you don’t know his work, lucky you! You’re about to discover a great artist. A good place to start is this website: I recommend the short nine-minute film on his life and work you’ll find there, as well as the ten English translations of his poems. My favorite collection of his work is The Half-Finished Heaven, translated by Robert Bly. I will include a poem from this collection at the end of the post.

Adrienne RichThe second poet who left us this three years ago this week is Adrienne Rich. The New York times obituary opens with these words: “Adrienne Rich, a poet of towering reputation and towering rage, whose work — distinguished by an unswerving progressive vision and a dazzling, empathic ferocity — brought the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse and kept it there for nearly a half-century.”

I first encountered her poetry in 1981 at a writing conference at Stanford. I was reading an excerpt from Diving into the Wreck, which made me wonder what lay below the surface of my own life, and would I ever have the poetic skill to make that descent, as she had. Her poem, “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” caught my eye when I was buying broadsides in a bookshop in Hay–on-Wye (a book lover’s dream town!), and I bought it as a gift to the Sitting Room, where it hangs. It is included at the close of this post.

The Times article concludes, “For all her verbal prowess, for all her prolific output, Ms. Rich retained a dexterous command of the plain, pithy utterance. In a 1984 speech she summed up her reason for writing — and, by loud unspoken implication, her reason for being — in just seven words. What she and her sisters-in-arms were fighting to achieve, she said, was simply this: “the creation of a society without domination.”

Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers
by Adrienne Rich

Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer’s finger fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

by Tomas Tranströmer

After a black day, I play Haydn,
and feel a little warmth in my hands.
The keys are ready. Kind hammers fall.
The sound is spirited, green, and full of silence.
The sound says that freedom exists
and someone pays no tax to Caesar.
I shove my hands in my haydnpockets
and act like a man who is calm about it all.
I raise my haydnflag. The signal is:
“We do not surrender. But want peace.”
The music is a house of glass standing on a slope;
rocks are flying, rocks are rolling.
The rocks roll straight through the house
but every pane of glass is still whole.

Terry Ehret, co-editor, Sonoma County Literary Update

Posted by: wordrunner | March 1, 2015

March 1, 2015

Dear Literary Folk,

thunder stormI loved Saturday afternoon’s thunder, blue-black storm-clouds, and cold, drenching rain that poured down here and there with much drama. Somehow, west Petaluma seemed to miss the downpour, but the strange turn in the weather reminded me to ask you all to share your California drought/ climate change thoughts with us here at the Literary Update. Whether it’s a photo, a poem, a short essay, a rant, a prayer—let’s keep the drought-inspired work coming!

Remembering Phil Levine
Phil LevineMuch beloved American poet Phil Levine passed away on Valentine’s Day, February 14, at age 87. He was among the country’s most decorated poets, winning the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Ruth Lilly Poetry Award, among many others. He taught at Princeton, Columbia, and Cal. State Fresno, and in 2011, he was appointed United But perhaps his greatest legacy is the impact he has had on a generation of writers, and not just those enrolled in university creative writing programs. He took the time to write back to poets who sent him their work, to answer the phone and chat, and though it got him into trouble with his colleagues at time, to welcome the occasional student too broke to pay tuition as an auditor in his classes. There hasn’t been another American man of letters who had a greater gift for expressing “the hard work we do to make sense of our lives,” in the words of Librarian of Congress James Billington. Levine was a native of Detroit; his parents were Russian Jewish immigrants, and this working-class upbringing found its way into his work though his subjects, themes, and plain-spoken.

Everyone I know who ever met Levine has a story to tell of his kindness and decency. Ask around, and you’ll hear some of these. My own story dates from April 2001 at the AWP Conference in Palm Springs, where Levine was being honored. The morning after the formal gathering, I spotted Levine behind me in the breakfast line at the hotel. He looked a bit rumpled, with a baseball cap pulled down low over his face, more like the average furnace repairman than the poet of the accolades. No one else in line recognized him and clearly he wanted to enjoy his breakfast incognito. The hostess was taking names from the podium at the head of the line. When she called out to Levine, he looked a little sheepish and mumbled something under his breath. “What?” she shouted over the din. I realized the awkwardness of the moment, slipped quickly to the front of the line, and whispered his name in the hostess’s ear. She nodded, still clueless about who he was. As I turned to rejoin the line, Levine caught my eye and winked. In remembrance of Levine, I have included his iconic 1968 poem “They Feed They Lion” as our selection for the month of March. Its rhythms are strange and powerful; as Levine once said, ‘Rhythm is deep and it touches us in ways that we don’t understand. We know that language used rhythmically has some kind of power to delight, to upset, to exalt, and it was that kind of rhythmic language that first excited me.”

Sonoma County’s Recently Published Authors
Congratulations to this month’s recently published authors in Sonoma County. See who’s in print at Thanks to Ed Coletti who keeps this page of the Literary Update current with your notices of work you’ve had accepted for publication in literary journals and magazines. Two local writers were published recently in Petaluma-based, Wordrunner eChapbooks’ themed anthology, Strange Encounters.

A Few Upcoming Events
Our calendar for March and April is brimming with events. Please do take a look at what’s happening in our literary community this month. There are a few I’m including in this post, but this is just a taste to whet your appetite.

Today, March 1, from 5-7pm, the Geri DiGiorno and the Redwood Cafe in Cotati will host poets Michael Rothenberg, (100,000 Poets for Change) Terri Carrion, and Patti Trimble. Join them for words on Politics and Other Things, music by bassist Steve Shain, and local beer on tap. 8240 Old Redwood Highway, Cotati.

Next Saturday, March 7, at 2:30 PM, The Sitting Room in Cotati presents “Opening to Poetry,” featuring Iris Dunkle, Rebecca Foust and Terry Ehret whose reading will lauch the Spring 2015 exhibit dedicated to the Sitting Room Poetry Collection at 2025 Curtis Drive in Penngrove, just off Petaluma Hill Road.

Changing Harm to HarmonyOn Sunday, the Ides of March (March 15 for those of you not inclined to soothsaying predictions on Roman dates), the Petaluma Arts Center presents a reading from Changing Harm to Harmony: Bullies and Bystanders Project. This is one of the most important topics any poetry anthology has embraced—one you may want to bring your family to hear. Poet, editor, and Marin County Poet Laureate Joe Zaccardi has assembled a brilliant cast of writers whose work helps us all find a way toward “restorative justice.”Readers include David Beckman, Rose Black Ed Coletti, Lucy Lang Day,Francesca Dezza Parada, Juliet Emerson-Colvin, ‘Lyn Follett, Helen Heal, Jodi Hottel, Janet Jennings, Dave Seter and Patti Trimble. Petaluma poet Donna Emerson, PAC’s Val Richman, and Joe Zaccardi co-host this evening of poetry, stories, and letters from 6-8 PM at the Petaluma Arts Center, 230 Lakeville Street, Petaluma.

Poem for March
“I would say that the best poem I ever wrote came easily, came rather quickly: “They Feed They Lion.” It’s about a reaction to the riots and the sort of urban rebellion of the ’60s in Detroit. And it tries to reach into the depths of what causes things like this.”
—Philip Levine

Click on LISTEN to hear Phil Levine read the poem and talk about how he came to write it.

They Feed They Lion
By Philip Levine

Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter,
Out of black bean and wet slate bread,
Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar,
Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies,
They Lion grow.

Out of the gray hills
Of industrial barns, out of rain, out of bus ride,
West Virginia to Kiss My Ass, out of buried aunties,
Mothers hardening like pounded stumps, out of stumps,
Out of the bones’ need to sharpen and the muscles’ to stretch,
They Lion grow.

Earth is eating trees, fence posts,
Gutted cars, earth is calling in her little ones,
“Come home, Come home!” From pig balls,
From the ferocity of pig driven to holiness,
From the furred ear and the full jowl come
The repose of the hung belly, from the purpose
They Lion grow.

From the sweet glues of the trotters
Come the sweet kinks of the fist, from the full flower
Of the hams the thorax of caves,
From “Bow Down” come “Rise Up,”
Come they Lion from the reeds of shovels,
The grained arm that pulls the hands,
They Lion grow.

From New Selected Poems (Alfred A Knopf, 1991), © Philip Levine 1991, used by permission of Alfred A Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
See more at:

Posted by: wordrunner | February 1, 2015

February 1, 2015

Dear Literary Folk,

Terry Ehret isn’t writing the SoCo Lit Update post this month; she’s having a well-deserved get-away over the weekend but will be back in Petaluma on Monday, February 2 to read with Nancy Long at Rivertown Poets’ A-muse-ing Monday. Readings begin 6:40 p.m. at Aqus Café, 189 H Street, Petaluma, followed by an open mic.

Literary Valentines
Nothing literary is scheduled for Valentine’s Day when presumably everyone will be otherwise occupied. But we have Linda Watanabe McFerrin on “Writing Sexy Stuff,” February 8 at the Redwood Writers Club meeting, Flamingo Hotel, Santa Rosa. The 2015 Healdsburg Literary Guild Poetry Valentine event takes place on February 10 at the Healdsburg Regional Library. Congratulations to the 21 poets who are published in this year’s chapbook. On February 15, Third Sunday Poetry Open Mic invites attendees to share a poem or short story about love of any kind by you or someone else. Details for all of these may be found on our calendar, as well as more open mics, readings, book clubs, workshop reminders and author readings.

Featured Authors
Copperfields Books brings us a diverse selection of author events every month, including local authors. Of note in February, Jonah Raskin will be discussing his new book A Terrible Beauty: The Wilderness of American Literature with Arthur Dawson on Wednesday February 18 at Montgomery Village Copperfields. You might also want to catch Joyce Carol Oates (Friday, February 20, Montgomery Village) or Daniel Handler (Tuesday, February 24, Petaluma). Some of the Copperfields readings are included in our calendar. Check out the Copperfields Books event calendar for a complete list of author readings:

Dining With Authors, a monthly event hosted by Jeane Sloane, features Susan Gunter, Auriela  McCarthy, David Matson Hooper, Sharon & David Beckman, and J. B. Grant on Tuesday, February 9 at Gaia’s restaurant in Santa Rosa.

Congratulations to this month’s recently published authors in Sonoma County. See who’s in print at Thanks to Ed Coletti who keeps this page of the Literary Update current with your notices of work you’ve had accepted for publication in literary journals and magazines.

Jo-Anne Rosen
Co-editor, Sonoma County Literary Update

Posted by: literaryfolk | January 3, 2015

Post for January 2 , 2015

Dear Literary Folk,

Happy New Year to all our friends, our writers, and our readers! On behalf of co-editor Jo-Anne Rosen and myself, blessings to you and your beginnings.

Terry-2Friend Jerry Meshulam caught this photo of  this year’s ceremonial burning of the hopes/wishes for 2015 in a “magic” smokeless flame. At the annual New Year’s Poetry Brunch, we each put in our wish for something we’d like to bring into the world in the coming year, and these silent wishes are then carried out the door by all who witness. We, none of us, can bring our hopes to fruition without the help of others, nor without action. Whatever you wish to be, do, or make happen in 2015, begin today to imagine it.

Note: My husband and I have been hosting this pot-luck of food, conversation, company, and poems for 16 years: our way of saying thank you to this amazing community of writers we’re lucky to be part of. The event has grown over the years, and the guest list has always been subject to serendipity, the whims of the ether, the weather, and even the occasional New Year’s flood. Also because our house is limited in size, we can only accommodate about 35 guests. If you received an invitation in the past, but not this year, that may have been a result of my inadvertently deleting the list I’d cobbled together over the years. I created a new list from past RSVP’s, but it wasn’t as complete or current as I’d hoped. If you’re interested in being added to the invitation e-mail list for next year, send me a message with the subject heading “New Year’s Poetry Brunch,” and I’ll make sure your and your current e-mail information are included:

Remembering Mark Baldridge
Joyce-MarkA week ago, Mark Baldridge, Joyce Jenkins husband and partner, passed away too young and too soon. He was a gentle, guiding force behind Poetry Flash and Watershed Poetry Festival. The projects he championed will continue, but it you’d like to help Joyce and others keep these going, consider making a donation in Mark’s memory to Poetry Flash or to the Center for Environmental Literacy. ).

You can also send a donation directly to the Flash:
Poetry Flash /
1450 Fourth Street, #4
Berkeley, California 94710
WordTemple Readings

One of the jewels in our local literary firmament is the WordTemple Reading Series, hosted by our Sonoma County Poet Laureate Katherine Hastings. On Saturday, January 24, 7:00 p.m. WordTemple returns to the Sebastopol Center for the Arts hosting Marin County Poet Laureate Joe Zaccardi, editor of the anthology Changing Harm to Harmony — Bullies & Bystanders Project. A number of contributors, including several Sonoma County poets, will read from the anthology that night. Andre Le Mont Wilson, Gerald Fleming, CB Follett, Katherine Hastings, Jodi Hottel, David Beckman, Ed Coletti, Stephanie Mandel, Rebecca Foust, Susan Terris, Mark Meiderding, Julia Vose, Eva M. Schlensger, Barbara Welch Brooks, Alan Cohen, Linda Enders and Calvin Ahlgren. Also reading is Ellery Akers, celebrating her latest collection, Practicing the Truth, and Sonoma County poet Phyllis Meshulam who will read from her new chapbook from Finishing Line Press, Doll, Moon. Location:  282 S. High Street, Sebastapol.

Got a Literary Event or Program to Promote? Guest Contributors Welcome!
In keeping with the collaborative history and nature of the Sonoma County Literary Update, Jo-Anne and I warmly invite writers from around the county to contribute features for each month’s post. We don’t have a guest feature for December, but please contact Jo-Anne and/or me if you’re interested in a feature for January:

Sonoma County’s Recently Published Authors
Congratulations to this month’s recently published authors in Sonoma County. See who’s in print at Thanks to Ed Coletti who keeps this page of the Literary Update current with your notices of work you’ve had accepted for publication in literary journals and magazines.

Two Poems for the New Year

The Coming of Light

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.

Excerpted from The Late Hour by Mark Strand.
Copyright © 2002 by Mark Strand.

On the second day of the year, I rest.
I fill the well,
pick up small, broken pieces of glass,
throw away lists,
light a fire with the stumps of last year’s candles,
indulge a few dreams of magic,
pluck out tiny shards of envy that have nestled
just under my skin,
fly solitary on the wind,
a little drunk with light.

Excerpted Night Sky Journey, by Terry Ehret.
Copyright © Kelly’s Cove Press, 2011

Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update Co-editor

Posted by: wordrunner | December 1, 2014

December 1, 2014

Dear Literary Folk,

The Lovely, Glorious, Slender Rain!
Among my Thanksgiving appreciations this year is a thank-you for the rain. Isn’t it wonderful to walk out into the drizzle and smell the sweet scent of wet leaves and earth? And the days ahead promise more of what we enjoyed this past weekend. If the rain (or absence of rain) has inspired a poem, story, short essay, photograph, or art-work, send it along to us. We’d love to include it in our next Literary Update.

Got a Literary Event or Program to Promote? Guest Contributors Welcome!
In keeping with the collaborative history and nature of the Sonoma County Literary Update, Jo-Anne and I warmly invite writers from around the county to contribute features for each month’s post. We don’t have a guest feature for December, but please contact Jo-Anne and/or me if you’re interested in a feature for January:

Sonoma County’s Recently Published Authors
Congratulations to this month’s recently published authors in Sonoma County. See who’s in print at Thanks to Ed Coletti who keeps this page of the Literary Update current with your notices of work you’ve had accepted for publication in literary journals and magazines.

California Poets in the Schools Celebrates 50 Years Inspiring Young Writers
Poetry Crossing: 50 lessons from 50 yearsOn December 6th, in commemoration of its 50th birthday as an organization, California Poets in the Schools will be holding a county-wide poetry reading at Sebastopol Center for the Arts, where students from many different schools will get together to share their writing.  10am-12pm, Saturday, Dec. 6th Sebastopol Center for the Arts in the “Dining Room,” 282 S. High St, Sebastopol. For details, check the Calendar page:

Along with this county-wide reading, CPITS has also just brought out Poetry Crossing, a far-reaching offering of poet-teacher lesson plans, student poems, and sample poems by student poets, poet-teachers, and some great poets from around the world. More details on our Sonoma County in Print page: Poetry Crossing is available at

Petaluma Reader’s Theater Presents a Holiday Double-Feature
xmas-treechilds-xmas-walesIn years past, I’ve attended the PRT’s presentation of Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory.” This year, they are reprising this holiday classic, and adding a performance of Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” This is a delightful way to bring the arts of short story and poetry to dramatic life. I hope to see you there this year!

Two performances: Saturday, December 13 and Friday, December 19—both at 7:30 PM. at the Petaluma Arts Center, 230 Lakeville, Petaluma. For information about ticket prices and ordering in advance, use this link:

Dine With Local Authors at Gaia’s Garden
On Monday, December 8, 6:00-8:00 p.m., come hear the authors share their books: Freedom Doesn’t Just Come Along With A Tree, children’s book, Joelle B. Burnette; Cry of The Nightbird, anthology, M. Wing, A. Hutchinson, K. Farrell; Buyer’s Remorse, poetry, Roy Mash; Growing More Beautiful, personal growth, Jennifer Robin. Call or email to request dining at a specific author’s table: 544-2491 or Local Author’s Distributor: $5.00 minimum food purchase. This special event will be at Gaia’s Garden, 1899 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa.

Every Day is Christmas Eve in London at the Dickens Fair
Dickens fairIn my family, it’s tradition to launch the holidays with a day at the Great Dickens Christmas Fair: A Victorian Holiday Party. It really is a hoot to wander the streets of Victorian London, hobnobbing with Fagin, Bill Sykes, Ebenezer Scrooge, the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, and, of course, Charles Dickens himself, reading his story to intimate audiences in his parlor. If you’ve never been, treat yourself this year. It’s family-friendly and accommodating to those with disabilities or limited mobility. The fair runs on Saturday and Sunday, December 6/7, 13/14, and 20/21. For more information, check the website:

Mark Strand, 80, Dies; Pulitzer-Winning Poet Laureate
Mark StrandPoet Mark Strand passed away on Saturday, November 29, at the age of 80. In his honor, here is one of his most frequently anthologized poems: one well-worth yet another read. To read more about Strand’s life and poetry, check out the article by William Grimes in Saturday’s New York Times:

Keeping Things Whole
From Selected Poems by Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

Copyright © 1979, 1980.

Terry Ehret
Co-editor, Sonoma County Literary Update

Posted by: wordrunner | November 1, 2014

November 1, 2014

Dear Literary Folk,

Hope Valley in Aspenglow

aspen-treeAutumn leafI know so many writer-friends who hail from the East Coast, and who profoundly miss the intense autumn colors of oak, maple, and sumac. Being a Californian , born and raised on the Pacific Coast, I had never seen this display until two weeks ago, when I headed to Hope Valley on the Carson Pass in the Sierras just south of Lake Tahoe. If you are longing for a real hit of color, consider making an October visit there. Best time to catch the aspens is mid-month, around Columbus Day. We caught them a week later, still in their glory.

Sonoma County’s Recently Published Authors
Congratulations to this month’s recently published authors in Sonoma County. See who’s in print at Thanks to Ed Coletti who keeps this page of the Literary Update current with your notices of work you’ve had accepted for publication in literary journals and magazines.

Our Dead Who Light the Way
November first is the traditional Feast of All Saints. Tomorrow is the Feast of All Souls. In Europe’s Celtic world, Samhain (Hallowe’en) marked the beginning of the new year. And in Mexico and other parts of Central and Latin America, the sacred day is called El Dia de los Muertos, fast becoming a part of the autumnal traditions around Sonoma County. Our dead are near during these days, and we can invite them to be with us to console, to guide, to gently turn us in the direction of the light as we begin our journey into the darkest season of the year.

Dylan Thomas’s Centennial
Had he lived past his 39 short years, Dylan Thomas would be 100 years old. His birthday, October 27, brought back to me and my fellow writer-travelers in Wales, vivid memories of our time in his homeland and especially three days in the village of Laugharne. There was a fine article in the Chronicle’s Travel section on Laugharne and the “Birthday Walk.” If you missed it, here’s the link:

And if this inspires any of you literary folk to consider a writing retreat and literary tour of Wales, check out my website: The first trip was in the summer of 2013. The 2014 trip didn’t have enough travelers to launch, but if enough travelers are interested, we could aim for summer of 2015 or 2016. Let me know if you’d like to be included!

Carolyn Kizer and Galway Kinnell
Carolyn KizerWe have lost two great poets this past month: Carolyn Kizer and Galway Kinnell. Both were poets of exquisite craft and brimming imagination. Both were also influential teachers. Back in the 1980’s, when the Napa Writers’ Conference was first launched by Dave Evans, Kizer and Kinnell were both among the teaching staff, and that’s where I had the opportunity to meet them.

Galway KinnellKinnell once said, “poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment.” There are many ways to bear witness, both the deeply personal and the historic.

To honor these two writers, Kizer and Kinnell, I’ve included poems of witness which you’ll find at the end of this post, right after this months contribution to the ongoing “Thoughts on the Drought.”

Mexico’s 43 Desaparecidos
At this year’s Poetry of Remembrance Community Reading, in its new location under the great oak behind the Petaluma Historical Museum, one of the team of organizers, Israel Escudero, lit 43 candles in memory of students at the Ayotzinapa Normal teacher-training school who have been missing since September 26th. Israel then told us that six students from the school were murdered by municipal police and other gunmen, and forty-three others were “disappeared” in the small city of Iguala, in the Pacific-coast state of Guerrero.

A march was held in Mexico City yesterday, coinciding with the Day of the Dead holidays, and a “mega march” is scheduled for November 5th, the day that Mexico’s universities and colleges are planning a national strike.

Let’s keep them in our thoughts. For more information, here is a link to a New Yorker article from October 30:

Tonight’s El Dia de los Muertos Procession with Mariachis and Big Puppets
El Dia de Los Muertos PetalumaIf you’d like a special way to remember your loved ones, consider joining the community of marchers participating in the Day of the Dead candlelight procession. The events kicks off at 6:00 PM in front of Water Street Bistro in Petaluma, right by the river at the end of Western.

Sonoma County Literary Update Turns 10 This Year
Last month, local writer Michelle Wing interviewed me and Jo-Anne Rosen about the evolution of the Literary Update. She then published a short feature on the Update with the Sonoma West Times and News. Thanks to Michelle for taking the time to highlight the various features and the collaborative nature of the website, and especially for acknowledging Jo-Anne’s steady, professional managing of all the information you submit to us.

If you didn’t see the article, here’s the link:

Got a Literary Event or Program to Promote? Guest Contributors Welcome!
In keeping with the collaborative history and nature of the Sonoma County Literary Update, Jo-Anne and I warmly invite writers from around the county to contribute features for each month’s post. For November, we’re happy to feature Michelle Wing and the new reading series she’s involved in up in Cloverdale.

Books on Stage — New Reading Series in Cloverdale
Cloverdale is host to a lively arts scene, with a co-op art gallery, a jazz club, an active historical society, and a sweet theater venue, the Cloverdale Performing Arts Center (CPAC), offering a full season of top-notch dramatic performances. All that was missing was something for writers, especially since the closure of the town’s only bookstore a few years ago.

Thanks to an alliance with CPAC, lovers of the literary arts now have a venue as well, a new reading series called Books on Stage. It happens every other month on a Thursday night at the 99-seat CPAC theater. The concept is simple. The evening features both a poet and a prose writer. Each has thirty minutes to read from their work, followed by an audience Q&A period, with a brief intermission between readers. Afterwards, all are invited to the theater lobby for refreshments and wine, book sales and signings, and more personal conversations with the authors.  Michelle Wing, creator of the series, serves as emcee and host. The evenings are free, a gift to the community from the CPAC board.

When selecting readers for Books on Stage, Michelle says there are two primary considerations she keeps in mind. Literary merit, of course. But equally important for this series, she seeks authors and poets who can powerfully bring their words to life from the page.

The series opened in July with Sonoma County Poet Laureate Katherine Hastings and novelist Gil Mansergh. September’s reading featured poet Michelle Wing and novelist Amanda McTigue. The November 6 reading will showcase two writers visiting from Hilo, Hawai’i — poet Ruth Thompson, author of Woman with Crows, and novelist Don Mitchell, author of A Red Woman Was Crying.

Upcoming on January 15 is a reading featuring Healdsburg poet Russ Messing, author of A Convergence of Unanticipated Consequences, and memoirist and short story writer Laura McHale Holland, author of Reversible Skirt and The Ice Cream Vendor’s Song. Future dates are March 12 and May 15, with readers still to be decided.

Shows start at 7 p.m. The theater is located at 209 North Cloverdale Boulevard, Cloverdale, CA 95425. For more information about Books on Stage and upcoming authors, see

About Our Contributor
Michelle Wing is the author of Body on the Wall ( and co-editor of Cry of the Nightbird: Writers Against Domestic Violence, a fundraiser for YWCA Somona County (

Thoughts on the Drought
Since January, I’ve been inviting the Literary Update readers to send me their poems, stories, essays, and anecdotes on the drought. This month, I’m featuring a poem by Amy Elizabeth Robinson. Please send me your thoughts on the drought or, if you prefer, on the recent rains that have been so welcome. Photos and artwork, too!

An Ordinary Day

A poem for Flood Wall Street and the People’s Climate March

September 21-22, 2014

by Amy Elizabeth Robinson

I’m staying
in my pajamas
because I can.

I’m curling
back in bed with
my computer
and checking Facebook,
not one time,
not two times,
but eighteen times
while my children are at school.

I might bake cookies.
I might go back to sleep.
I might type
and “climate”
into my Google bar and
see how things I care
about connect.
You know—
stretch my mind,
and not my body.

I might sit
on the front step.
Listen to the chainsaws
complain about fire-prone firs,
watch the naked shapes of cardboard
cookies for hard-scrabble birds
on manzanita
in the morning wind…
and then the afternoon wind….

I might wonder when the rain’s coming,
and then begin
to dance
thinking of the vibrant
hum of humans
rising from New York,
two thousand nine hundred thirteen
miles away.

I think
I’ll imagine
walking with them
today. Because I can.
My mind is built for that—
crossing mountains,
stretching the plain,
until it hums
with possibility.

Amy Elizabeth Robinson’s blog,  Still Life, Turning Planet, is about writing freely, sitting quietly, and living out loud on this Earth

“October 1973”
by Carolyn Kizer

On September 11, 1973, backed by the U.S. CIA, a military coup in Chile ousted the democratically elected Salvador Allende, who was later found dead—possibly assassinated, though the official version is suicide. Within the month, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, a friend and supporter of Allende, who’d spent years in exile for his political stance, was also found dead.

In the month of October, 1973, Carolyn Kizer wrote the following poem for her friend Nicanor Parra Sandoval, another great Chilean poet, celebrating his 100th birthday this year. In this poem, Kizer dreams of trying to reach her friend to learn of his fate.

October 1973

Last night I dreamed I ran through the streets of New York
Looking for help for you, Nicanor.
But my few friends who are rich or influential
were temporarily absent from their penthouses or hotel suites.
They had gone to the opera, or flown for the weekend to Bermuda.
At last I found one or two of them at home,
preparing for social engagements,
absently smiling, as they tried on gown after gown
until heaps of rich, beautiful fabric were strewn
over the chairs and sofas. They posed before mirrors,
with their diamonds and trinkets and floor-length furs.
Smiling at me from the mirror, they vaguely promised help.
They became distracted—by constantly ringing phones,
by obsequious secretaries, bustling in with packages,
flowers, messages, all the paraphernalia,
all part of the uninterruptible rounds of the rich,
the nice rich, smiling soothingly, as they touched their hair
or picked up their phone extensions.
Absently patting my arm, they smiled, “It will be all right.”

Dusk fell on the city as I ran, naked, weeping, into the streets.
I ran to the home of Barbara, my friend,
Who, as a young girl, rescued four Loyalist soldiers
from a Spanish prison;
in her teenage sweater set and saddle shoes and knee socks,
she drove an old car sagging with Loyalist pamphlets
across the Pyrenees all the way to Paris without being caught.
And not long ago, she helped save a group of men
from Franco’s sentence of death.

In my dream, Barbara telephones Barcelona.
I realize this isn’t quite right,
but I just stand there paralyzed, as one does in dreams.
Then, dimly, from the other end of the line,
through the chatter of international operators,
we hear artillery fire, the faint tones of lost men,
cracked voices singing, “Los Quartros Generales” through the pulsations
of the great, twisted cable under the ocean.
Agonía, agonía, sueño, fermente & sueño.
Este es el mundo, amigo, agonía, agonía.

“No, Barbara!” I scream. “We are not back there.
That’s the old revolution. Call up the new one.”
Though I know that, every day,
your friends, Nicanor, telephone Santiago,
where the number rings and rings and rings
with never an answer. And now the rings
are turning into knells:

The church bells of Santiago
tolling the funeral of Neruda, his poems looted,
his autobiography stolen, his books desecrated
in his house on Isla Negra.
And among the smashed glass, the broken furniture,
his desk overturned, the ruined books strewn over the floor,
lie the great floral wreaths from the Swedish academy,
the wreaths from Paris, South Asia, the whole world over.
And the bells toll on…
Then I tell Barbara to hang up the phone.

She dials the number again, then turns to me, smiling,
smiling like an angel:
“He is there.” Trembling, I take the phone from her,
and hear your voice, Nicanor,
sad, humorous, infinitely disillusioned,
infinitely consoling:
“Dear Carolyn…” It is Nicanor!
And the connection is broken, because I wake up,
in this white room, in this white silence,
in this backwater of silence
on this Isla Blanca:
Nicanor, Nicanor,
are you, too, silent under the earth,
Brother, Brother?
Carolyn Kizer, “October 1973″ from Cool, Calm & Collected: Poems 1960-2000. Copyright © 2001 by Carolyn Kizer.  Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, .P. O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA  98368-0271, Source: Cool, Calm & Collected: Poems 1960-2000 (Copper Canyon Press, 2001)

by Galway Kinnell

The following poem by Galway Kinnell appeared in his twelfth collection of poems, Imperfect Thirst, published by Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994. It honors the memory of Kinnell’s sister as she was dying.

Bending over her bed, I saw the smile
I must have seen when gaping up from the crib.
Knowing death will come, sensing its onset,
may be a fair price for consciousness.
But looking at my sister, I wished
she could have died by surprise,
without ever knowing about death.
Too late. Wendy said, “I am in three parts.
Here on the left is red. That is pain.
On the right is yellow. That is exhaustion.
The rest is white. I don’t know yet what white is.”
For most people, one day everything is all right.
The next, the limbic node catches fire. The day after,
the malleus in one ear starts missing the incus.
Then the arthritic opposable thumb no longer opposes
whoever last screwed the top of the jam jar.
Then the coraco-humeral ligament frizzles apart,
the liver speckles, the kidneys dent,
two toes lose their souls. Of course,
before things get worse, a person could run for it.
I could take off right now, climb the pure forms
that surmount time and death, follow a line
down Avenue D, make a 90° turn right on 8th Street,
90° left on C, right on 7th, left on B, then cross
to Sixth Avenue, catch the A train,
to Nassau, where the A pulls up beside the Z,
get off, hop on the Z, hurtle under the river
and rise on Euclid under the stars and taste,
with my sweetheart, in perfectly circular kisses,
the actual saliva of paradise.
Then, as if Wendy suddenly understood
this flaw in me, that I could die
still wanting what is not to be had here, drink
and drink and yet have most of my thirst
intact for the water table, she opened her eyes.
“I want you to know, I’m not afraid of dying,”
she said, “I just wish it didn’t take so long.”
Seeing her appear so young and yet begin to die
all on her won, I wanted to whisk her off.
Quickly she said, “Let’s go home.” From outside
in the driveway came the gargling noise
of a starter motor, and a low steady rumbling, as if
my car had turned itself on and was warming up the engine.
She closed her eyes. She was entirely white,
as if freshly powdered with twice-bleached flour.
Color flashed only when she opened her eyes.
Snow will come down next winter, in the woods;
the fallen trees will have that flesh on their bones.
When the eye of the woods opens, a bluejay shuttles.
Outside, suddenly, all was quiet,
I realized my car had shut off its engine.
Now a spot of rosiness showed in each cheek;
blushes, perhaps, at a joy she had kept from us,
from somewhere in her life, perhaps two mouths,
her and a beloved’s, near each other, like roses
sticking out of a bottle of invisible water.
She was losing the half-given, half-learned
art of speech, and it became for her a struggle
to find words, form them, position them,
quickly say them. After much effort she said,
“Now is when the point of the story changes.”
After that, one eye at a time, the left listened,
and drifted, the right focused, gleamed
meanings at me, drifted. Stalwart
the halves of the brain, especially the right.
Now, as they ratchet the box that holds
her body into the earth, a voice calls
back across the region she passes through,
a far landscape I seem to see from above,
in prolonged, even notes that swell and diminish.
Now it sounds from beneath the farthest horizon,
and now it grows faint, and now I cannot hear it.

To hear the poet Galway Kinnell read this poem, as well as “Oatmeal” and “Saint Francis and the Sow,” click here:

Terry Ehret
Co-editor, Sonoma County Literary Update

Posted by: wordrunner | October 1, 2014

October 1, 2014

Dear Literary Folk,

Sonoma County’s Newly Published Authors
Congratulations to this month’s newly published authors in Sonoma County. See who’s in print at Thanks to Ed Coletti who keeps this page of the Literary Update current with your notices of work you’ve had accepted for publication in literary journals and magazines.

The Walk Rocks!
In September, the Petaluma Poetry Walk once again brought together writers from around the county and beyond for our annual movable feast of words. I am so grateful to the good folk who continue to make this a premiere arts event in the San Francisco Bay Area. Hats off to Geri Digiorno, Michelle Baynes, Nancy Long, Bill and Bridget Vartnaw, David Magdalene, Carl Macki, and many others, including all who read and attended.

More Celebrations
This month, we have several more occasions to celebrate the bright lights in the firmament of Sonoma County’s literary community. TAUREAN HORN PRESS, founded by Bill Vartnaw, is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a reading on October 25 at Coffee Catz. SIXTEEN RIVERS PRESS celebrates its 15th anniversary with a garden party and benefit reading on October 5. LITQUAKE comes to San Rafael with an open mic reading at Rebound Books you’re all invited to participate in. And TINY LIGHTS celebrates 19 years of publication under the creative guidance of Susan Bono with a reading on October 17 at the Occidental Arts Center.

Sixteen Rivers Celebrates 15 Years on Sunday, October 5.
Kay RyanThis month, the Bay Area Poetry Publishing Collective Sixteen Rivers Press celebrates its 15th year with a garden party and reading in a beautiful garden in Marin County, featuring Kay Ryan, Sixteen Rivers advisor and former U.S. poet laureate. The event is this Sunday, October 5, 3-5 PM, with tickets beginning at $25. You can purchase tickets and get driving directions to the event at Brown Paper Ticket Site:

Hello, Goodbye: A Book Launch for Susan Bono and a Tribute to Tiny Lights!
Susan BonoAmong the brightest lights in our literary community is Susan Bono—friend, editor, teacher, and writer extraordinaire! Now, after 19 years as editor and publisher of Tiny Lights, Susan is retiring the personal essay journal she founded in 1995. On October 17, join her in paying tribute to the writers and artists who made Tiny Lights such a guiding beacon. There will be readings by select Tiny Lights authors Dan Coshnear and Clara Rosemarda, and souvenirs of Tiny Lights’ illustrious past. After toasting the end of an era (there will be champagne!), Susan will read from her latest publishing project: What Have We Here—a collection of her own essays about keeping house and finding home. The event is 7:00-9:00 p.m. at the Occidental Center for the Arts, 3850 Doris Murphy Court, Bohemian Hwy at Graton Rd., Occidental. For more info: 707-874-9392 or

The Magic of Mexican Poet Ulalume González De León—Saturday, October 11
Ulalume González De LeónThose of you who were at the Petaluma Seed Bank for the opening reading of the Petaluma Poetry Walk were treated to the debut of a translation project I’ve been working on this past year: a collaboration with two other local poets– John Johnson and Nancy Morales. Celebrated in Mexico and Latin America, González de León’s poetry is not yet known among English-speaking audiences.

Nancy, John, and I would like to extend an invitation to the literary community to hear more about the life and work of Ulalume González de León, and to share with us your thoughts about the place of translation in a writer’s life. The event is on Saturday, October 11 my partners and I will present a bilingual reading from Plagios: The Poetry of Ulalume González de León at the Petaluma Arts Center, 3-5 PM.

Ulalume González de León (1932-2009) was born in Uruguay and became a Mexican citizen in 1948. In the 1960’s and 70’s, she was an inspirational leader of a generation of women writers experimenting with language. Her poetry earned her many awards, including the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize, the Flower of Laura Poetry Prize in 1979 (the Center for International Studies) and Alfonso X Prize. Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz called Ulalume González de León “the best Mexican poet since Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz,” recognizing the visionary quality of her work.

The event is part of a month-long celebration of Mexican culture sponsored by the El Día de los Muertos Committee in conjunction with Petaluma People Services Center, SRJC Petaluma Campus and the Petaluma Arts Center. For more information, visit or like the Facebook page El Día de los Muertos Petaluma.

The Arts Center is located at 230 Lakeville Street, Petaluma, CA, 94952, in the Historic Railroad Station. Admission is free. Light refreshments will be served. Donations to the Art Center are appreciated.

El Día de los MuertosThe annual month-long multi-cultural celebration of El Día de los Muertos, sponsored by the Petaluma Arts Center, begins this Friday, October 3, with an Opening Night Reception for the Exhibition of Traditional and non-traditional altars, collectible posters from Mission Gráfica and fine art curated by Anthony Torres of the Richmond Arts Center. Mini-tienda from The FolkArt Gallery of San Rafael. 6:00-8:30pm. For the full calendar of El Dia de los Muertos events, check out

LitQuake comes to the North Bay on October 11, 2014
Ever since Mark Twain hung out in San Rafael and the Beats cruised the houseboats of Sausalito, San Francisco’s literary greats have had a strong North Bay connection. From 10 Am to 11 PM, Litquake San Rafael features Bay Area writers in this first-ever series of free events along the downtown 4th St. corridor of cafes, restaurants, and shops. There are several opportunities to join in open-mic readings, including at Rebound Bookstore. For details check out

Enough to keep you busy? If not, then check out the calendar and workshops pages to find an event that suits your schedule and your pleasure. Special thanks to Jo-Anne Rosen who keeps these and the entire Literary Update current with your events and announcements.

Thoughts on the Drought
Since January, I’ve been inviting the Literary Update readers to send me their poems, stories, essays, and anecdotes on the drought. I didn’t receive any this month, but please consider send ing me your thoughts on the drought. Photos and artwork, too!

Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update co-editor

A Poem for October
I’m teaching a workshop at the Sitting Room this fall on the subject of Silence in Poetry. One of the writers participating in the workshop spontaneously recited this poem during our opening discussion of the topic, and later sent me the text. I offer this to you, with thanks to Valerie Marshall.

The Lightest Touch

Good poetry begins with
the lightest touch,
a breeze arriving from nowhere,
a whispered healing arrival,
a word in your ear,
a settling into things,
then like a hand in the dark
it arrests the whole body,
steeling you for revelation.

In the silence that follows
a great line
you can feel Lazarus
deep inside
even the laziest, most deathly afraid
part of you,
lift up his hands and walk toward the light.

— David Whyte
from Everything is Waiting for You
©2003 Many Rivers Press

Posted by: wordrunner | September 1, 2014

September 1, 2014

Dear Literary Folk,

September has traditionally been the month to launch a new literary year with the twin events of the Sonoma County Book Festival and the Petaluma Poetry Walk.

This is our first year in a long time we won’t be gathering the tribes for the annual Book Festival. What a great run we had! Many thanks to all those in our literary community who worked (and played) to bring us together each September in an eclectic mix of writers, readers, publishers, book vendors, book lovers, rappers, and artists.

PetalumaPoetryWalkOur other September literary event is still going strong: the delightful moveable feast of poetry and music known as the Petaluma Poetry Walk, founded by writer, artist, and former Sonoma County Poet Laureate Geri Digiorno. This year’s Walk will begin on Sunday, September 21, 11 AM at the Seed Bank in Petaluma, then will proceed to five other venues downtown before ending up at the Aqus Café. Readers include Beverly Burch, Donna Emerson, John Johnson, Dick Bakken, Adelle Foley, Jack Foley, Michelle Baynes, Geri Digiorno, Nancy Keane, Joyce Jenkins, Jeanne Powell, Kim Shuck, Molly Fisk, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Nancy Daughterty, Nancy Long, Eileen Malone, Katherine Hastings, Ron Salisbury, Lynn Watson, Clara Bellino, Marvin Hiemstra, Kirk Lumpkin, and David Madgalene.

For a full list of readers, venues, and bios, here’s the link:

“Get Lit” Literary Reading Series
Last month, the Literary Update post included a feature on the monthly reading series at the Aqus Café (Rivertown Poets: A-Muse-ing Mondays), and a mention of a reading series Kara Vernor and Dani Burlison are hosting in Petaluma, called “Get Lit.” For this month’s post, Kara Vernor composed this short feature to introduce the literary community to her monthly series.

“Get Lit” happens the fourth Wednesday of the month, 7:00-9:00 p.m., at the Corkscrew Wine Bar in Petaluma (100 Petaluma Blvd. N.). Three featured writers read during the first hour and open mic readers follow during the second, which is sometimes kicked off by a comedian or musician. Get Lit is a free and 21+ event that aims for lively, funny, heartbreaking and real, and the Corkscrew Wine Bar’s intimate space narrows the traditional divide between readers and the audience. September’s reading—featuring Molly Giles, Peg Alfred Pursell, and Siamak Vossoughi—will be the last one that takes place at Corkscrew until January 2015. October’s reading, entitled “Misfortunes in Love and Life: A Comedy / Storytelling Event,” will be held at the Elbo Room in San Francisco as part of SF Lit Crawl, and then Get Lit will break for the holidays in November and December. More info at facebook/GetLitReadings.

Heyday Books Celebrates 40 Years
Malcolm MargolinJust today, The San Francisco Chronicle included an article about Berkeley-based Heyday Books, celebrating its 40th Anniversary. Founded by Malcolm Margolin, Heyday published stories no one else has told–from native peoples and newly arrived immigrants, stories about the delicate Calliope hummingbirds and 14,000 foot peaks, to the explorations of California’s most original thinkers, poets, and visual artists. The anniversary is marked by Kim Bancroft’s new book The Heyday of Malcolm Margolin: The Damn Good Times of a Fiercely Independent Publisher,

Margolin is author of several books, including The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco–Monterey Bay Area, named by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the hundred most important books of the twentieth century by a western writer. He has received dozens of prestigious awards, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fred Cody Award Lifetime Achievement from the San Francisco Bay Area Book Reviewers Association, and a Cultural Freedom Award from the Lannan Foundation. He helped found the Bay Nature Institute and the Alliance for California Traditional Artists.

I especially like the way Margolin characterizes the common element in Heyday’s 350 titles: “‘The kitchen voice,’ the authentic unself-conscious voice that provides a window into the real lives of people who’ve contributed to our history and culture.”

Taurean Horn Press Also Celebrates 40 Years
Bill VartnawOn Thursday, September 11, at 7:30 p.m., Taurean Horn Press will celebrate its 40th anniversary at Many Rivers Books & Tea, 130 S. Main Street, Suite 101, Sebastopol. Founder Bill Varnaw will be reading with Avotcja, whose With Every Step I Take Taurean Horn published last year. Besides publishing so many great local writers, Bill Vartnaw is a fabulous poet who served as Sonoma County Poet Laureate from 2012-2013. He currently helps coordinate the Petaluma Poetry Walk, among his many generous contributions to our Literary Community.

Sixteen Rivers Celebrates 15 Years
Still a newcomer by comparison with Taurean Horn and Heydey’s 40 years, the Bay Area Poetry Publishing Collective Sixteen Rivers Press celebrates its 15th year this October. Inspired by the same egalitarian, non-hierarchical ethos that Taurean Horn and Heyday embody, Sixteen Rivers is a non-profit, all-volunteer collective press, with the goal of bringing into print beautiful books that reflect the voices of the greater SF Bay Area.

Ryan-KayAs one of the founders of the press, I’d like to extend a personal invitation to each of you to help celebrate our anniversary with a garden party and reading in a beautiful garden in Marin County, featuring Kay Ryan, Sixteen Rivers advisor and former U.S. poet laureate.

We’ve changed our annual fundraiser to a Sunday-afternoon event, October 5, 3:00-5:00 p.m., with tickets beginning at $25. The garden party and reception will be catered with outrageously good food and drinks; there will also be a silent auction, and books by Kay and press members will be available for purchase.We hope you’ll join us for this special garden party.

You can purchase tickets and get driving directions to the event at Brown Paper Ticket Site:

Sept. 27th is the next Global Event Day!
100,000 Poets for ChangeThree years ago, Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion sent out the following invitation: “Do you want to join other poets, musicians, and artists around the world in a demonstration/celebration to promote peace and sustainability and to call for serious social, environmental and political change?” The response was international and overwhelming, launching the 100 Thousand Poets for Change Movement.

On Friday, September 26, and Saturday, September 27, musicians, photographers, artists, and writers will be gathering in their communities all over the world to be the change they want in the world. Locally, there are events in Healdsburg, Petaluma, and Santa Rosa. To find out more or sign up to participate, check out the website at or send an e-mail to You can also follow their blog at

Thoughts on the Drought
Since January, I’ve been inviting the Literary Update readers to send me their poems, stories, essays, and anecdotes on the drought. This month Sebastopol writer Patrice Warrender sent in her poem, “Autumn drop of apples, crackle of bone-dry grass.” Along with that, I am including “The Last Drought,” by Lee Perron, which Larry Robinson featured two days ago in his daily poetry e-mails.

Please send me your thoughts on the drought. Photos and artwork, too!

Congratulations to this month’s newly published authors in Sonoma County. See who’s in print at

Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update co-editor

Autumn drop of apples, crackle of bone-dry grass

Exhausted by the last hot breath
of autumn, parched hills pale
against a blue sky, unburdened
by clouds. A solitary vulture
sweeps the sky, fingered wings
stirring still air for ripe scent of
what’s been left behind. It circles
once, twice,
drops down to wheel low
over a deserted orchard, where
a scraggy doe noses the dust
of drought. The deer bolts.

The bird gathers its wings, soars
up to circle the sky.

—Patrice Warrender

The Last Drought

Winds that bring no clouds
clouds that carry no rain
falling rain that doesn’t reach the ground

I grieve bitterly for the home that has been lost

tonight outside: sounds of rain, of a thin
brief rain falling to the piteous earth—
voices tender as ghosts
that claim neither present nor future

yet the memory of a birth-right to rain
lingers— crystalline, flawed
reaching across synapses
that are already doomed by delusion

we are dispossessed
we wait
but we are owed nothing by the sky.

— Lee Perron, © 2014.

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How To Make An Awesome Cauliflower Crust Pizza!

There comes a time in every girls life where she finds an extra head of cauliflower in her fridge, converts that head of cauliflower into pizza, and then proceeds to nonchalantly shove that ENTIRE pizza down her pie hole. You know that whole “dance like nobody’s watching” saying we hear so frequently? This is the sneaky-awkward-alone with my feelings on a wednesday-food-blogging-girl equivalent. I ate this pizza like no one was watching (even though my dog watched the whole time–begging–judging–begging). Should we make some “Eat Like Nobody Is Watching” t-shirts? Maybe, yes. Sometimes you just have to let your hair down and go for it. Er… maybe in this case pile your hair into a messy bun on top of your head to avoid any sauce splatter that is headed straight for your coif. Don’t give me that look–like you’ve never gotten a big chunk o’ tomato sauce stuck in the ends of your ponytail. We’re friends. We can admit these things. This is a safe space. We’re in the trust tree. […]

Roasted Cauliflower Salad With Olives And Capers

Look-y here. I’ve managed to make you something that isn’t breakfast. I’ve apparently been on one serious breakfast-y kick. I’ve been turning out waffles, quiche, and smoothies galore. I point out the fact I’m bringing you something non-breakfast since I am pretty sure tomorrow (or at least soon) I am posting something breakfast-y. Sorry (not really).
So…yesterday got weird. Mostly because I’m me and can’t seem to stay off the internet no matter how terrifying it can be. I had a weird tingle in my leg, which I promptly Googled (bad move). Don’t do this, friends. Don’t Google every twinge or tingle or pain that happens in your body just because you can. I’ve been telling myself this for years, but I can’t seem to take my own advice. When you Google a symptom, no matter what your symptom is, it usually leads to “OMG, I AM DYING!!!” Since I was experiencing a weird leg tingle, the sage and soothing advice of the interweb made me believe that I was probably, most likely, right in the middle of a stroke. Things got dramatic. I started pacing back and forth, thinking “OMG. I am having a stroke. This is not good. This is extremely bad.” The dog looked at me suspiciously and without major concern. Aren’t dogs supposed to be sympathetic? Geez. […]

Skinny Shepherd’s Pie | Gluten Free

Yesterday I couldn’t get it together.

I tried to come to this space and write for you, but my brain seemed to still be on a three day weekend.

Weren’t those three days nice?  My weekend included some of the following events:

Thai food with one of my main gals. I commented on how much Pad Thai was in front of me and proceeded to eat everything but two bites. I boxed it up as if to say “See? I totally knew that would be too much.” We both knew I could have finished it. I was trying to be a lady.

I managed to watch three Disney oldies. The Rescuers, The Rescuers Down Under and The Aristocats. I have a serious soft spot for talking animals of any kind. I had to talk myself down off the ledge from actually watching Santa Buddies. If you haven’t seen the cover, it’s a bunch of golden retriever puppies wearing santa hats.  Some might think this is off-putting. I’m not one of these people. Don’t judge me. We can’t all be perfect. (If we are being honest, I think the creepiest thing in that picture is the glazed over Santa. What is he going to do with all those puppies?) […]

Cheesy Cauliflower Bake

 When the seasons start to change, and the weather starts to shift, I find myself going into hibernation mode. I nest. I start to do things like organize weird, neglected cabinets in the house and bake pumpkin scones. I want to be comfortable and warm and cozy.  I want to stuff my face with cheese and starch.  I want to break out my husbands over-sized, fleece sweatpants and make them acceptable to wear in public.  Let’s redefine sexy.  Right? This probably won’t happen, but I am still hoping.  Hey, Pajama Jeans happened, and no one saw that coming.  There’s  a chance.

I am off topic. […]

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Let kids’ confidence rocket this Bonfire Night

24 October 2013

With fireworks being more than twice as loud in terms of decibel level as road traffic and often louder than a gunshot, it is common for children to develop a lasting fear early on.  Peltor Kid Passive Ear Defenders by 3M are a practical and cost-effective solution for parents to help ensure their children are protected against and not frightened by noise from fireworks this Bonfire Night.

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Art & photography

Maddox, Conroy. (1 of 15). National Life Story Collection: Artists' Lives

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    1996-03 and 1996-04 and 1997-10 and 1997-11 and 1998-3

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    Interviewee's home, London, United Kingdom

  • Interviewees

    Maddox, Conroy, 1912-2005 (speaker, male)

  • Interviewers

    Dutt, Robin (speaker, male)

  • Abstract

    Part 1. Description of Conroy Maddox's (CM) early life, grandparents, parents and other immediate family; CM's liking for rambling as a child; description of his middle-class / upper-class country home and farming background; CM's father's collection of artistic objects, machinery, automata, etc. CM's early life in Ledbury; description of converting home from gas to electric power; CM's early schooling and early art lessons; his memories of the First World War; discussion of class structure in CM's early life and 'the new Edwardians'; remarks on friends, hop-picking, pocket money, sweets, making fireworks and reading magazines; CM's recollections of move to Chipping Norton and country life there.

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    Conroy Maddox interviewed by Robin Dutt: full transcript of the interview

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Maddox, Conroy. (1 of 15). National Life Story Collection: Artists' Lives

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Soundscapes of Narco Silence

Journalists Protest against rising violence during march in Mexico City, Courtesy of the Knight Foundation

Journalists protest in silent march in Mexico City, Courtesy of the Knight Foundation

Since the drug war began, the lives of approximately 95,000 people have been claimed, with an estimated total of 26,000 disappearances (“Continued Humanitarian Crisis at the Border” June 2013 Report). At the University of Texas, Pan American – an institution located 25 miles north of Reynosa, Mexico (a Mexican city that has been hard hit by drug violence in recent years) – I teach students who have been dramatically impacted by drug war violence.  Many have close relatives affected or hear horrific stories of those who have been kidnapped by the cartels; many fear traveling to Mexico to visit loved ones as a result and, in some cases, they report having relatives involved in the drug cartel business. Dinorah Guerra, psychotherapist and head of the Red Cross in Reynosa, describes the devastating psychological and physical toll: “There is a huge risk for people’s self esteem. They cannot speak about what they have seen or what they have heard. [They] lose [themselves] and lose [their] identity” (qtd. in Pehhaul 2010).

I name the space of the drug war and its resulting terror in the U.S.-Mexico border the “soundscape of narco silence.” This soundscape includes death and intimidation, from the brutal killings of news reporters by cartel members to the decapitation of citizen-activists who use online media to alert communities of narco checkpoints. It also consists of those powerful acts that call attention to silence as a tactic of terror. The Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, for instance, brought together tens of thousands of people in Mexico to speak out against drug violence through silent marches. Cultural productions, such as narcocorridos, or contemporary drug ballads that document the cross-border drug economy, also become part of the soundscape. The narcocorridos function as a powerful critical response to silence and fear because they enable those in Mexican society, as Jorge Castañeda, author of El Narco: La Guerra Falllida, explains, “to come to terms with the world around them, and drug violence is a big part of that world. The songs are born out of a traditional Mexican cynicism: This is our reality, we’ve gotten used to it” (Qtd. in Josh Kun 2010).

In this blog post, I focus on the role of U.S. Latina/o theater produced in the South Texas border region as it responds to the soundscape of narco silence. Building on David W. Samuels, Louis Meintjes, Ana Maria Ochoa, and Thomas Porcello’s definition of “soundscapes” in “Soundscapes: Towards a Sounded Anthropology” as “the material spaces of performance and ceremony that are used or constructed for the purpose of propagating sound” (330), I suggest that soundscapes of silence in theater function as material spaces of performance that focus the public’s attention on silence – with the intent of intervening in acts that propagate silence and fear. Soundscapes of narco silence are characterized not only by violence and terror, but by cultural productions that function as forms of critical resistance – those works that focus the publics’ attention on the economy of silence and fear that fuels the drug war, and in the process, enable communities to cope with narco violence.

Journalists Protest against rising violence during march in Mexico City

Journalists protest in silent march in Mexico City, Courtesy of the Knight Foundation

To closely listen to the soundscape of narco silence, I engage with the play script and production of Tanya Saracho’s play El Nogalar at South Texas College Theatre (STC) under the direction of Joel Jason Rodriguez in McAllen, Texas in June 2013. The play was first produced at the Goodman Theater in Chicago in April 2011, with a West Coast premiere at the Fountain Theater in Los Angeles in January 2012. I critically analyze the STC Theatre production’s incorporation of a multi-genre soundtrack that included narcocorridos, rancheras, and nortec (norteño + techno). I argue that this soundtrack focused audiences’ attention not only on the devastating effects of silence, but also the function of silence as a form of capital for those most excluded in society. I also offer a brief critical listening of the script’s rendering of silence through character dialogue and stage directions.

El Nogalar tells the story of an upper-class Mexican family comprised of three generations of women (Maité, Valeria, and Anita) whose land and home in the fictionalized estate of Los Nogales in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and its adjacent nogalar (pecan orchard), are under threat by the maña (drug cartels) moving into the region. The play focuses on the women’s responses to the drug war economy as a result of their different relationships to home (both their estate and the space of Mexico). It also centers the experiences of Dunia, their maid, and López, a former field worker who now works for the maña.

STC Theater Production of El Nogalar. Photo Credit: Miguel Salazar

STC Theater Production of El Nogalar. Photo Credit: Miguel Salazar

Cecilia Ballí, in her article “Calderón’s War: The Gruesome Legacy of Mexico’s Antidrug Campaign,” explains the particular circumstances of marginalized men in this society: “The worst casualties of this ‘civil war’ were the estimated 7 million young men to whom society had closed all doors, leaving them the options of joining a drug gang or of enlisting in the military, both of which assured imprisonment of death” (January 2012, 48). With the characters López and Dunia, the play asks audiences then to listen to the impact of the drug war on the most vulnerable populations in Mexico and the US-Mexico border region.

The play script conveys how “narco silence” can be used by those who either seek to preserve traditional class hierarchies (the story of the matriarch Maité) or to survive and profit in the new drug economy (the story of López). “Narco silence,” a term coined by reporter Jonathan Gibler in his book To Die in Mexico, refers to “not the mere absence of talking, but rather the practice of not saying anything. You may talk as much as you like, as long as you avoid the facts. Newspaper headlines announce the daily death toll, but the articles will not tell you anything about who the dead were, who might have killed them or why. No detailed descriptions based on witness testimony. No investigation” (2011, 23). In an early exchange between López and Dunia, López defends “narco silence” as a strategy of survival:

STC Theater Production of El Nogalar. Photo Credit: Miguel Salazar

STC Theater Production of El Nogalar. Photo Credit: Miguel Salazar

DUNIA: Why are you the only one they leave alone, Memo?

DUNIA: All the men your age. Killed. Why Memo? (Beat).

LÓPEZ: Because I know when to keep my mouth shut which is not something I can say for you….

DUNIA: So that’s all it takes to be best of friends with the Maña? That doesn’t seem so hard to do? (American Theatre Magazine July/August 2011, 74).

Later in the play, Dunia, heeding López’s advice, offers a powerful observation of how “narco silence” enables her community to cope with death: “We all just walk around like we’re a movie on mute. You can see people’s mouths moving but all you hear is the static (my italics)” (American Theatre Magazine July/August 2011, 73-74).

The STC Theatre production enhanced the script’s soundscape of narco silence through its sound design, with a soundtrack that included rancheras, narcocorridos, norteño and nortec. This music provided audiences with a connection to the world of Los Nogales and captured each character’s process of coping with narco violence. For example, Maité’s soundtrack consists of several rancheras, such as Lola Beltran singing “Los Laureles” and Chavela Vargas’s powerful rendition of “Que te vaya Bonito.” Beltran’s “Los Laureles” – a cancion ranchera that includes Beltran’s powerful female vocals and mariachi orchestra instrumentation – invites audiences to hear Maité’s nostalgia and desire for an idealized Mexican society and her wish to preserve traditional class hierarchies.

Vargas’s powerful rendition of “Que te vaya Bonito” captures Maite’s pain and suffering as she loses her home to the cartels.  In Vargas’s version of “Que te Vaya Bonito” – a song about love and abandonment – audiences hear Vargas’s choking and sobbing voice, accompanied by a single guitar.

Vargas’s voice conveys, what Lorena Alvarado powerfully argues, is “the body’s dilemma between the hysteria of sobbing and the intelligibility of words, between resignation and retribution” (2010, 4). Vargas’s powerful singing also conveys, as Alvarado further describes, “un nudo en la garganta,” a common expression in Spanish that describes “the knot in the throat, when one cannot speak because words will not come out, but the desperate, or quiet, breath of tears” (Alvarado 2010, 5).

To sonically register the drug cartel economy and lifestyle underlying the “new” Los Nogales, the soundtrack also included narcocorridos. The first sounds we hear in the play are from the narcocorrido “El Carril Número Tres” – which includes two acoustic guitars and an electric bass – by Los Cuates de Sinaloa.

“El Carril Número Tres” – tells the story of a secret “lane number three” that allows a Mexican drug lord to freely go back and forth between the US and Mexico because he makes a deal with the CIA and DEA. With this focus on the US government’s involvement in the drug trade, the song centers how silences north of the US-Mexico border have perpetuated drug violence.

The music also included nortec, with songs by the Mexican Institute of Sound, particularly the track “Mexico,” which is a critique of the Mexican government’s complicity with the narcos.

With “Mexico,” audiences hear a fusion of norteño, electronic, and hip-hop with lyrics that use the symbols of Mexican national identity and culture to focus the public’s attention on violence and terror. With the lyrics “green like weed, white like cocaine, red your blood” (referencing the Mexican flag) and “at the sound of the roar of the cannon” (alluding to the national anthem), the song powerfully invokes the visual and sonic soundscape of violence that terrorize Mexican residents. With this charged critique of government corruption, “Mexico” momentarily interrupts the soundscape of narco silence rendered in the play script and rest of the soundtrack.

Ultimately, the production’s combination of rancheras, narcocorridos, and nortec captured the class tensions in Mexican society and emphasized the play’s critique of class structures that have enabled drug war violence to persist. With this range of music, the director explains he wanted to “maneuver between the [various] aspects of [the story]: the nostalgia, the corridos, the narcocorridos, and also this fusion of saying ‘we want something more,’ and so that was the whole aspect of it; the blending of the old, the new, and what the present is” (Interview with author July 2013).

The production also deliberately incorporated the sound of silence, particularly in the final scene. By the end, López buys the Los Nogales estate, thereby increasing his class status and social power. Saracho’s stage directions in this final moment indicate “an interpretive sound of trees falling. Now don’t go cueing chainsaws because it’s not literal. Just make me feel trees are falling. Along with the upper class” (87). The play’s reference to the staging of “an interpretive sound of trees falling” brings to mind the philosophical question: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” We might then interpret the final sounds of El Nogalar as inviting audiences to listen attentively to the soundscape of narco silence, implicating audiences as social actors in the politics of the drug war that continue to devastate Mexican society.

Featured Image: Journalists Protest against rising violence during march in Mexico, Courtesy of the Knight Foundation

Marci R. McMahon received her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California with affiliations in the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity. She is an assistant professor at the University of Texas, Pan American, where she teaches Chicana/o literature and cultural studies, gender studies, and theater and performance in the Departments of English and Mexican American Studies. She is the author of  Domestic Negotiations: Gender, Nation, and Self-Fashioning in US Mexicana and Chicana Literature and Art published by Rutgers University Press’ Series Latinidad: Transnational Cultures in the United States (May 2013). Her essays on Chicana literature and cultural studies have been published in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies; Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of MALCS; and Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies. Her second book project, Sounding Latina/o Studies: Staging Listening in US Latina/o Theater explores how contemporary Latina/o drama uses vocal bodies and sound to engage audiences with recurring debates about nationhood, immigration, and gender.

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REWIND! . . .If you liked this post, you may also dig:

Listening to the Border: “’2487’: Giving Voice in Diaspora” and the Sound Art of Luz María Sánchez–D. Ines Casillas

Quebec’s #casseroles: on participation, percussion and protest–Jonathan Sterne

Deejaying her Listening: Learning through Life Stories of Human Rights Violations— Emmanuelle Sonntag and Bronwen Low

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Oglethorpe rising senior Andrew Steioff checked back in to share more about the Oglethorpe Men’s Basketball team’s travels in Costa Rica.

“Halfway through our excursion through Costa Rica has our team feeling cultured and a bit tired. The past couple days have been filled with a game against the five-time defending champs of the top professional league in Costa Rica, a community outreach activity, sightseeing at an active volcano, a relaxing night indulging in natural hot springs, and a whitewater rafting trip.

Our game against Barva was highly anticipated by my teammates and me—we wanted to see how we stacked up against top flight international competition. We would not be disappointed as the Barva team was one of the biggest and most athletic teams I have personally ever played against on the collegiate level. Undersized and considerably younger (most of Barva’s players were around 28 or 29 years old), we struggled to compete early as Barva jumped out to an early double digit lead. Our team once again showed tremendous heart and defensive effort as we clawed back to take the lead halfway through the third quarter, only to eventually fall to the Barva squad. Barva’s best player, a wing from Panama, was one of the most athletic and best physical specimens I have ever shared the hardwood with. Once again, Alec Pitts was named the MVP followed closely by Sam Purdy who was once again lights out from 3-point range. Two other players rounded out the night with double figures: freshman Tyler Courson and me.

The next morning we embarked on a community outreach activity at a local children’s center in San Jose. We came bearing gifts of candy, coloring books, clothes, and of course some stuffed “Peteys” to share with the children. Unanimously, the most rewarding part of the trip thus far was when we spent a few hours with the kids playing on the playground. Their most favorite activity was being carried on our shoulders through the playground. Not to be outdone, Coach Ponder had a record crowd as he shared with the children some of his famed magic tricks. When the time to depart came it was hard to tell who was more upset we were leaving: the children or the players.

After departing the center, we began our four-hour bus ride to the famed Arenal volcano located in the rainforest region of the country. The scenery throughout the ride was breathtaking as we climbed through the mountainous terrain to views dubbed “postcard worthy” by Price Hamilton. We arrived at the base of the Volcano to take some snapshots of the scenery and to explore the surrounding lake. Later that night we traveled to a resort to experience some of the natural hot springs formed by the active volcano. The resort included 11 different hot spring pools of various temperatures with the hottest a scorching 122 degrees. The most popular aspect of the resort was by far the three water slides which we rode for a good two hours straight.

Today we began our day with a white water rafting trip through the rainforest. With some views that seemed to be taken straight from the Jurassic Park series, we traveled more than 30 miles downriver that we all enjoyed except maybe for Alex Vital whose screams of terror from the rapids echoed throughout the forest. We ended our trip in a traditional lunch that included everything from chicken, beef, to fresh sea bass which I found to be extraordinarily delectable. Exhausted from our rafting workout and a long day in the sun, we are now enjoying a few hours of relaxation at the hotel before another great meal later tonight. Tomorrow we leave bright and early for Playa Hermosa on the Pacific coast of the country to partake in a couple of days of sun and zip lining through the rainforest canopy which has been giving Tyler Cerone nightmares for the whole trip thus far. So far, the trip has been much more than advertised and by far the best vacation I have ever had the privilege to be a part of.”

The story continues!  Read Part 3
Did you miss Part 1?

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College of Allied Health Professions
Department of Physical Therapy
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The USA PT facilities are now housed on the main University campus in the new Health Sciences Building. Other Health Professions, including, Biomedical Sciences, Cardiorespiratory Care, Emergency Medical Services, Occupational Therapy, Physician Assistant Studies, Radiologic Sciences and Speech Pathology & Audiology. The School of Nursing is also located in a separate wing of the Health Sciences Building.

Our facilities include:
  • Over 18,000 square feet of space, including:
  • Two dedicated PT classrooms with open access Wifi throughout the department
  • Ample laboratory space for practical learning sessions, including:
    • Musculoskeletal PT Lab
    • Neuromuscular PT Lab
    • Integumentary/Physical Agents PT Lab
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    • Motor Performance Research Lab
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    • Hydrotherapy Lab
    • Einstein's Deli - HAHN 1st Floor

  Movement Analysis Lab

A research and instruction lab for aspects of movement analysis and observation of human movement.
  • 50 foot long walkway
  • two force platforms
  • manual & computerized gait analysis
  • seven camera video capture system integrated with force platforms and 12 channel EMG

  Musculoskeletal Lab

Students gain skills in all examination and intervention techniques for musculoskeletal and sports/orthopedic injuries.
  • ten hydraulic, adjustable plinths
  • mobilization belts and wedges, taping supplies
  • models of spines & peripheral joints
  • traction table
  • Home cervical and lumbar traction units
  Integumentary-Physical Agents Lab

Students gain skill in integumentary physical therapy and application of electrophysical modalities.
  • dedicated IPA lab with 12 plinths
  • full range of thermal, electrotherapy and mechanical modalities, either kept onsite of brought in throughout the year for lab demonstration and practice
  Neuromuscular PT Lab

Students gain skill in examination and intervention for Neuromuscular conditions, Pediatrics & Therapeutic Exercise.
  • parallel bars, hi-lo mats, low mat tables, tall plinths
  • weight training / exercise equipment
  • Lite Gait (body eight support ambulation training) and rehab treadmill
  • A wide variety of adult and pediatric intervention equipment
  Motor Performance Labs

A research and teaching lab for analysis of aspects of muscle performance.
  • a computerized isokinetic dynamometer
  • exercise bike, arm ergometer, electronic digital inclinometer, hand help dynamometer
  • Electrodiagnostic equipment including verve conduction testing and surface/needle EMG
  Cardiovascular Pulmonary Lab

Students gain skills in PT intervention for the cardiovascular and pulmonary systems.
  • a variety of aerobic exercise equipment including treadmills, cycles, steppers
  • free-weights, cuff weights, theraband
  • Cybex resistance equipment
  Anatomy Lab

A dedicated PT lab for study of human anatomy.
  • allows study of skeleton/bone structures and anatomical prosections
  • the lab is used for study of neuroanatomy specimens
  • the human body dissection still takes place in the College of Medicine Gross Anatomy Lab

University of South Alabama Pat Capps Covey College of Allied Health Professions Department of Physical Therapy