By the Numbers

It’s another new year. So I guess it’s time to tally up my score for last year. And I think I did pretty well. As a writer I need to track where I submit things to and what the outcome is. I keep a database which makes it easy to count up some of my important statistics.

Resting on Laurels

Back on December 1^st California’s Poet Laureate visited Bakersfield. For those that don’t know, that’s a position given to someone that does a lot to represent poetry. In particular, California’s Poet Laureate, Dana Gioia (JOY-yah), has made it his goal to present poetry in every California County. Which, given the population of some of our counties, means he’ll be talking to some pretty empty rooms.

Getting Judgmental

I was recently asked to be a judge for a poetry contest held by the student editors of Taft College's literary magazine, A Sharp Piece of Awesome. This magazine has been put out by the students for the past five years, with their next issue due out next May. However, this was the first year I learned of their poetry reading event.

The event, like many of their book launch events, was held at the Black Gold Cafe in downtown Taft. The owner is a strong supporter of the schools in Taft.

There were probably twenty people there, mostly Taft College students, but a few other people came out to hear and read their poetry. There were three judges. Bill Devine is a professor at Taft College, teaching English classes. Then Clarissa Alderete, who is a student at Taft College and one of the Sharp Piece of Awesome editors. Then there was me. I had been invited since I'm a Kern County published poet.

We (the judges) took a few minutes before the reading started to go over the criteria we wanted to us. Since it was a contest of reading, some of the criteria were performance based (like articulation), and since it was a poetry contest, some of the criteria were literary (like clarity and imagery). Then we scattered to different parts of the room to listen. Then afterwards we got back together and discovered we'd all agreed on the top three. Oh, we did have them in slightly different order, but we all had the same top three. So after a little discussion we decided on a consensus order.

Given that most of the people there were Taft College students, it's not too surprising that two of the prizes went to some of them (first and third prizes). But second went to an older man (probably in his seventies, maybe eighties). His poems, while not in a modern style, were very good, and he was a very good reader. Well, actually he had his mostly memorized. The audience as a whole also got to vote their favorite, and again the majority went for him.

So all in all this was a fun event. I had a chance to meet some new people, talk poetry and have a good time. It was quite an honor for Geoffrey Dyer, the Sharp Piece of Awesome faculty advisor, to think of me as a possible judge for their event. Hopefully I'll have a chance to do something similar again.

Spoetry

This post will also be found in Tehachapi's The Loop Newspaper.

 I really like portmanteaus. This is where a new word is born by combining parts of other words. Like the word “brunch” coming from breakfast plus lunch. Or “smog” coming from smoke plus fog. The word portmanteau isn't a portmanteau, which is a shame, but instead came about from Lewis Carroll explaining that the word slithy was like a portmanteau, which was a two compartmented piece of luggage. That is to say the word held meaning from two different words, in his case “lithe” and “slimy” (the word appears in “Jabberwocky”, which is filled with portmanteaus).

False Accusation

The following is a haibun. A haibun is a combination of typically prose and a haiku. (Modern haiku does not require a specific syllable count.)

The Brown Recluse isn't a common spider. Though its deadly reputation strikes fear into vast numbers of people that have never seen one and are unlikely to ever actually see one. Their range is limited to areas around Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas, where I grew up. And even in their home range, they are rare enough. But outside their range, like here in California, people scurry from any spider which is unfortunate enough to be brown. Especially if it has anything looking like a marking on its back, since the "fiddleback" is one of the identifying marks of the Brown Recluse. But there have been only a handful of sightings of Brown Recluses in California. And these were all associated with people or things having come in from out of state. From back in Oklahoma, Texas or Arkansas. So many spiders, falsely accused of being a deadly Brown Recluse, are killed, merely for the crime of being brown.

little spiders

no innocence project saving

the falsely accused

Just Awesome

On Saturday (May 11th) I'm going to be headed for Taft. This will be the first event held to showcase the release of the third volume of Taft College's Sharp Piece of Awesome. This year they selected three of my poems to be included. The event will be held at the Black Gold Coffee House in Taft at 5:00 PM.

Being a college magazine/journal, the editorial staff consists mostly of college students. And each of the past two years have seemed enthusiastic and to have really enjoyed the project. Many of them are also contributors to the journal. The variety of what they chose has been really interesting from haunting short stories and memoirs, to some very good poetry. And this year they seem to have picked some of my weirder stuff. Which I appreciate greatly. Sometimes the weird stuff takes more time to write than the more normal fare. I'm looking forward to going and meeting this year's editors and the other poets and writers. Some of our works will be read and faces will be put to the names and writing.

And this year they've added a second reading at Russo's on Saturday the 18th from 1 to 3 pm. And the book will be on sale there.

Accidental Librettist

I've only recently become familiar with what a libretto is. And that is because I have accidentally become a librettist. So despite not particularly caring for musicals (except things like Little Shop of Horrors and The Rocky Horror Picture Show) I find myself working on one.

Versify

This post will also be found in Tehachapi's The Loop Newspaper.

 Well, once again it is April. Which means that it is National Poetry Month. Which means I'm going to once again try to encourage you to think about verse. Now just the other day I accidentally had some grade school students thinking in verse.

Venus Transit

The Transit of Venus took place June 5th. A transit is where a planet goes between its star and the observer. So Venus was going to go between us and the Sun.

I still had available the solar observing telescope that was used for the eclipse a couple of weeks ago. This time set up in my backyard here in Tehachapi.

The transit started in the mid afternoon and continued through early evening. The usual Tuesday Poetry group gathered in my backyard and watched the transit. Then went inside and created poems inspired by the event that won't be seen again until 2117.

Here is an image of the transit, projected through the telescope onto the white metal screen of the solar observing system. The black dot on the image of the Sun is Venus.

 The citizen science group planethunters.org uses changing light levels as a way of detecting transits of extra-solar planets, that is, planets around other stars.

National Poetry Month

 This post will also be found in Tehachapi's The Loop Newspaper.  

I have written poetry for many years. I have at least one that I wrote back in 1978. A fairly sappy thing called “The Unicorn”. At some point I'm going to have to bring myself to share it with people again. 

Resolution

 This post will also be found in Tehachapi's The Loop Newspaper.  

 

It's that time of year again. Time for New Year's Resolutions. Popular resolutions include: losing weight, saving money and managing stress. But I'm making slow progress on the first two and the last one doesn't apply to me too often. Only when one of Tehachapi Community Theatre's shows takes over my life. And that's generally short term and voluntary.

Diary of a WIMPy Particle

This post will also be found in Tehachapi's The Loop Newspaper. 

The Universe is filled with stuff we cannot see. And humans have been coming to grips with these things and forces since, well, basically since we've been human. 

We see the effects of the wind, but we cannot see the wind itself. So we come up with hypotheses about how winds come about. By using our lungs and mouths we can generate small scale effects that are like wind. We do it when we blow up balloons, or blow out candles. So we can hypothesize that there exist large creatures that cause the winds. Some kind of wind spirit, perhaps.

snowplant

snowplant a photo by mathnerd on Flickr.

over the moon
reflecting off granite walls
snowplant pushing up
vampire red
sucking the life's blood
of the pine roots
at the mercy
of Spring