Poems of Joy and Celebration, Day 21

Primavera

by Louise Glück

Spring comes quickly: overnight
the plum tree blossoms,
the warm air fills with bird calls.

In the plowed dirt, someone has drawn a picture of the sun
with rays coming out all around
but because the background is dirt, the sun is black.
There is no signature.

Alas, very soon everything will disappear:
the bird calls, the delicate blossoms. In the end:
even the earth itself will follow the artist’s name into oblivion.

Nevertheless, the artist intends
a mood of celebration.

How beautiful the blossoms are—emblems of the resilience of life.
The birds approach eagerly.

from A VILLAGE LIFE by Louise Glück. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.

Most Poetry will post a poem on the theme of joy and celebration, selected by our members, each day through the month of September.

Poems of Joy and Celebration, Day 20

anyone lived in a pretty how town

by e.e. cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

Source: Complete Poems 1904-1962 (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1994)

Most Poetry will post a poem on the theme of joy and celebration, selected by our members, each day through the month of September.

Women in America Exhibit Tour

The Women in America exhibit at the Mistlin Gallery was open for two days before being closed due to the additional orders and our high virus numbers. The exhibit celebrates the 19th Amendment and the success of Women In America. The Modesto branch of National League of American Pen Women participated with artists and writers pairing to respond to the other’s work in the ekphrastic method. The ekphrastic section of the show has both the art and writings of the works and some other individuals in addition to Pen Women participated with their ekphrastic work. In addition to the ekphrastic pairings of art there is a variety of different works relating to the theme of Women in America and the 19th Amendment.

Though there is virtual tour information on the gallery website, it is not the same as seeing the work in person. For this reason Henrietta Sparkman has organized private showings on these upcoming dates to see the exhibit:

October 8th at 1:00pm
October 15th at 1:00pm

The showing are for about 5-6 people in order to stay safe. Of course masks are necessary and physically distancing inside the gallery. Please contact the gallery director at ccaagallery@gmail.com in order to schedule your viewing of the show.

The gallery is located at 1015 J Street. If there is no available parking on the street, you may park at the 10th Street parking facility only and receive a parking voucher at the gallery that is good for 4 hours.

Women in America Exhibit Tour

The Women in America exhibit at the Mistlin Gallery was open for two days before being closed due to the additional orders and our high virus numbers. The exhibit celebrates the 19th Amendment and the success of Women In America. The Modesto branch of National League of American Pen Women participated with artists and writers pairing to respond to the other’s work in the ekphrastic method. The ekphrastic section of the show has both the art and writings of the works and some other individuals in addition to Pen Women participated with their ekphrastic work. In addition to the ekphrastic pairings of art there is a variety of different works relating to the theme of Women in America and the 19th Amendment.

Though there is virtual tour information on the gallery website, it is not the same as seeing the work in person. For this reason Henrietta Sparkman has organized private showings on these upcoming dates to see the exhibit:

October 8th at 1:00pm
October 15th at 1:00pm

The showing are for about 5-6 people in order to stay safe. Of course masks are necessary and physically distancing inside the gallery. Please contact the gallery director at ccaagallery@gmail.com in order to schedule your viewing of the show.

The gallery is located at 1015 J Street. If there is no available parking on the street, you may park at the 10th Street parking facility only and receive a parking voucher at the gallery that is good for 4 hours.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin’ Dog – on Zoom!

Join host Stella Beratlis in our monthly reading + open mic series. This month we are excited to feature Eliot Schain, author of THE DISTANT SHORE, and Patrick Cahill, author of THE MACHINERY OF SLEEP.

Patrick Cahill’s prose and poems have appeared in over forty journals, including TriQuarterly, Volt, Poets Eleven, the Irish magazine Into the Void, Subprimal, and Eclectica. His poems have twice won the Central Coast Writers Award. He is a cofounder and editor of Ambush Review, a San Francisco–based literary and arts journal and was a contributing editor for the Sonoma County anthology Digging Our Poetic Roots. Patrick received his Ph.D. in History of Consciousness from the University of California, Santa Cruz and wrote a study of Whitman and visual experience in nineteenth-century America. Portions of this work have appeared in The Daguerreian Annual and Left Curve.

Eliot Schain’s poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Santa Monica Review, Another Chicago Magazine, and Miramar, among other journals, as well as in three anthologies: The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed, Christopher Buckley and Gary Young’s Bear Flag Republic: Prose Poems and Poetics from California, and America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience. Schain’s books include American Romance from Zeitgeist Press and Westering Angels from Small Poetry Press. He has served as program director for the Poetry Society of America, has taught high school, and now works as a psychotherapist. A proud member of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, he lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Mary.

 

Open mic follows: sign up in advance (10 slot available): https://form.jotform.com/berattle/secondtuesday

Zoom: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/91739636824

Or iPhone one-tap (US Toll): +16699006833,91739636824# or +12532158782,91739636824#

Or Telephone: +1 669 900 6833 (US Toll)/Meeting ID: 917 3963 6824