Poetry Night in San Diego

I read on Weds, Sept 15 at Word Soup in San Diego, a terrific series hosted by my longtime poetry friend Seretta Martin (pictured at left.) Next to me is a new poetry friend, Jackleen Holton; she and I were the two featured poetesses of the evening! This inspirational poetry night also featured many amazing open microphone readers!

Phantom Seed 4 Reading @ Palm Springs Museum

Blow Torch (or: desert diaspora v_02)

what it's like
to not feel safe
because the fire rages around all of us
destroying some lives entirely
and inexplicably sparing other homes

it's koran-burning talk on TV
in the basement of Riverside Medical Center,
waiting for an x-ray and huddled with held-back tears
I can't read the script, can't hear the words
then the doctor says: lungs clear.

this is the world of many homeless
this is where the old orange grove once was
next to the make believe river which is dry
until you get close enough to the hidden heart
mid-cottonwood, mini-cauliflower cosmology
water-cycle-breath
mountains to valley to sea

we stopped it up
by tearing it apart

the Bible, the Koran,
they both
came from a desert
just like this
Noah's Ark, I remember
getting those little plastic
animals at the Arco Gas Station
in Rialto on Foothill Boulevard

it's unpredictable, the planners will say
we have to make it safe
we don't want floods
we do want suburban homes

I believe you have asthma, my lass.
that's why your chest has been hurting so badly
that's why your upper back feels like it's burning sometimes.
that's why you cough and wheeze until you cry.

walgreens for an asthma inhaler.
then Bristol Farms on Country Club, Palm Desert,
samples of erotica

dams don't always work
earthquake version 9.0 about to erupt
and southern California's inland coastal valleys
are pockmarked with false lakes
cement waterways
never enough
to put out the drought
to combat fire season
some of us live closer
to the source
and feel its loss
while others yet don't
and how they yet mock

something about the desert
too much dust, not enough trees
too much emptiness of the interior
plastered with remembered and remodeled facelifts.
Grass - lear jet backwash across
Whitewater Wash
an empty face of sand
imprisoned between
miles of gold courses
narrowing its neck (remove double chins)

it always happens to someone else
because they asked for it
because of how they built their life
what did they expect?
love-making on the worst night of fire season
the last time the life-shred Santa Anas swallowed
chunks of Malibu, the San Fernando Valley
you brought this on
it is all your fault

it was gray too soon in the I.E.
but burning blue and white out here, as always,
and so I diamond shop for dinner, a cartier of the mouth,
lacking soul food:

lemongrass linguine + mushroom medley + cauliflower-red pepper
+ stir fry + grilled salmon salad + expensive gouda cheese
+ eggplant hummus +
one recyclable plastic fork (a new thing)

swallowing
is what we all do,
let's just speak the truth

it's downtown Riverside, la tablita on university by the front window
hugging friends who randomly stop by, chili_relleno and no bread
darkness vaporizes
I drive home on the 91-215-60-10-cook street loop
for the 492n'd time (somewhere around there)

and you'd always drive my car, it was all good
something about 2 am and broken bridges
being retrofitted for e-q standards
gets a little old,
as if I would be the one
to be on that bridge
the instant the big one hits (again)

it's the pool guy banging on the slider, just wanted to say thanks
for moving the trash cans that were in my way in the side yard where I come in
and the weather is suddenly so cool...........weightless..........

it's the fleece cougar blanket, two fleece jackets, one orange pashmina and
a pricey cotton sweater for creative writing at noon: the classroom is COLD
I offer what warmth I can to my students, and they take me up on it

don't worry
we can save ourselves
200 cans of organic soup
29 boxes of shotgun ammo
a new gate more securely locked
restraining order against the stalker
two big dogs and camping supplies
I know how to backpack for months
I've done it before
life on the streets
in the woods
freeze-dry food, instant oats
we don't need much to survive

it's not Tarah texting/her 2nd week in Minnesota
with new in-laws I don't know
others. numbers I don't know who's behind them.
"what ru doing 2day"
"I love you"
"yr my hero"
"can you call me I need to talk"
"full tilt boogie"
"come over!"
"where u at?"
"do you have flyers for your next event?"
"I want my fam to know ur my still my friend"

it's the small hairbrush
it's Brindle and Shasta shedding fur
it's my new do-it-yourself-haircut that everyone seems to love
it's paying off the American Express bill
and slicing the cheese extra thin
it's curling up in the back bedroom on the new bed I bought 6 months ago
in a blanket and crying myself back to sleep at dawn
it's paperwork I can't get through
it's dishes I can't understand
it's waking up to peace + bird-songs by the window:

...................it's another day and I am now taking asthma medication
maybe I'll be able to breathe this afternoon
and write the gratitude list:
I am grateful for sunrise
I am grateful for the dark water
I am grateful for the dogs
I am grateful, um, to have a job
I am grateful for the bullet holes, I can believe, I think,
that they offer light after all

there's no children to worry about
..........pictures of lost parents
on the milk cartons...............

you are free! Free at last!
..........to do what, to reach for
what missing fingers you once had......

sort of like my lungs
wanting to feel at one
with the rest of my entirety
stomach, breasts, and heart
but lacking a windpipe

I'll make up for that
the other organs are there,
the negatives demonstrate that
I just need to remember
to reach for the suck-plunge inhaler
invite oxygen, even though
it causes rust

I make up for gambling
by going to extra church

I make up for not reading
by burning books

I make up for God
by making the sign of the cross
when I drive by highway accident sites
offering the crude wooden cross

it's 9.11 tomorrow and I imagine emergencies,
books burning and the hole left deep in mid-city ground,
invisible catch-all
with no words
printable
for this

one step away from empty brain,
empty book,
9.11 of the soul
something to sedate us all for
body memory
one part
many wholes

bellow: does it mean: below
or
to blow
or reach for the hose
fire of breath
dead center
has new meaning for me now
Buddha
taking arrows between the eyes,
He approves

Ruth Archives

A little archiving for my files and hopefully for your viewing and listening pleasure...and so I don't forget.

April, 2010: My Western Wilderness Conference, 2010, UC Berkeley presentation. Featuring the California Desert and some of my desert poetry as stars: Panel moderated by Malcolm Margolin and featuring Kenneth Brower, Tim Palmer, and Kimi Kodani Hill. Film excerpt by my friend Cyrus Emerson who works at Blackstone Audio.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=471563005080&subj=559231276

September, 2008: Interview with poets Ruth Nolan + Juan Felipe Herrera, KCET Arts Block, SoCal. Interviewed by poet Ching-In Chen.

http://www.kcet.org/socal/podcasts/artsblock-live/ruth-nolan-and-juan-felipe-herrera.html

Another goody-item for my blog grab bag

Here is a link to the 2008 Joshua Tree Photo Shoot sponsored by UCR-CMP and Sweeney Gallery....and a writeup of my role in the film I wrote and read poetry for (I just found this writeup....I'll post the entire project description in a separate blog posting)

Escape to Reality: 24 hrs @ 24 fps

Once a rough cut of images was assembled, we approached the author of Phantom Seed, poet Ruth Nolan to add her vision of Joshua Tree. Ruth, a resident of Palm Desert, became excited about the video project and set about writing and narrating Joshua Tree Imprimatur (excerpted below). She also recorded footsteps walking and running through Joshua Tree, a place she had spent many days and nights growing up. While Mabel Luhan's memoirs, featured in sub-title form are the voice of Escape to Reality, it is Ruth Nolan's words that are its soul. She paints a picture of the desert that is complex, ironic, mysterious, and beautiful.

The film clip is at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gowJF2HLNYY

Joshua Tree Imprimatur (excerpt)

In Joshua Tree
In the land that crowns its needled glories with sand
In the desert made of pavement fallen from the Milky Way
In the desert made of deep holes, carved by grinding stones
In the desert made of gashed canyons, cut straight through stone
In the desert made of walking rain that the eye can far-off see
In the desert made of fan tree palms
In the desert made of cold
In the desert made of Blinding mirage
In the desert made of light so old it whispers like grooved bones
Where the woolly mammoth and rattlesnake cross time and home,
Oceans of time rising and receding, land quaking in their paths
Where the granite batholiths arch their backs
where the red-tailed hawks vault their hunting songs
by Ruth Nolan


AND HERE IS....

The upcoming California Legacy Project, Nature Dreaming. Sponsored by Santa Clara University & the National Endowment for the Arts - in progress, and I'm one of the invited humanities scholars from the state who will be part of the project:

http://californialegacy.org/radio_productions/Nature_Dreaming/

California Legacy Project + Poets of Bodie

What a day! I've been invited to participate in an exciting California Legacy Project, by Santa Clara University, which will be comprised of interviews of prominent state scholars (me?) on California authors whose works they admire-value for their investment and connection to "place." Not surprisingly, I'm going to focus on the literary legacies by several literary heavyweights interwoven deeply the California desert and the Inland Empire region. Whee! Too cool for words. This project is funded by Santa Clara U and the National Endowment for the Arts.

So....how did I get from point A to point universe? Not long ago I was a shy and uber-private mom and teacher who hiked all the time in the desert...with Tarah and maybe a friend or two and quite often singularly alone....no public life beyond....teaching at the college, and prior to that, high school...and emphatically too scared to read my poems publicly, except rarely, and in a hushed tone.

Now - ???? A desert book? Invitations like this? I'm floored, astonished, happy, and also the thread of bittersweet walk of beauty and sad lacing through the fabric of my life...breathing and humming as one...tasting so much, tasting so little, tasting it all. From Philip: a found email from months ago: "be a hologram." Too cool for intellect, to the next worlds I go. For the record, the project is inspired in part by the legacy and works of the great California poet-writer Robinson Jeffers. For more:

Also, I'm now formally connected to an amazing poetry writing collaborative-project, "Poets of Bodie," organized and overseen by the incredible Nicelle Davis who is another desert poet/writer! A group of poets and writers from throughout the west are assuming personae based on real lives of those who lived through one of California's largest mining towns from the late Gold Rush-early 20th century era; it is now one of the world's most famous ghost towns, located east of the Sierras near Mono Lake and Bridgeport, CA. I've been there and it's unreal. Well, yes, it's a ghost town, after all. It's one of Tarah's favorite places; I took her there as a little kid on one of our many extended summer travels through the state as she was growing up. Bodie Ghost Town: http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=509

I'm writing from an imagined persona of Mary Winnemucca Tate, a Mono Lake Paiute-Anglo woman bent on transformational revenge and "putting into right balance" the evils perpetrated on the abundant Native American people of the region. The westward expansion of the "California Gold Rush" were a death sentence for the indigenous peoples, many tribes being eradicated quickly and entirely during this time.

Read more, if you'd like, about my persona and her poetic intentions at:
http://bodiepoetryproject.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/poets-of-bodie-ruth-nolan/

You may also read about all of the poets/writers and their goals with this project at: http://bodiepoetryproject.wordpress.com/

The results of this collaborative will be published and performed as a book in the near future. I'll keep you posted! This is so cool!

Art VULUPS project!

Sept 2, 2010: Art VULUPS meeting at downtown Riverside Library (my adopted "2nd home" for so many events, since 2004.) I'm working as part of an arts-planner collaborative for Riverside County - teamed with Mike Harrod to focus on "sound" and many amazing others - for this ongoing project that will run for 2 years and cuminate in permanent installations throughout the region: VULUPS stands for "Art as a Vehicle to Understand Land Use Planning & Sustainability Project." 16 teams altogether. I'm so honored to be part-of! I am the only writer. Wow. Their website is:http://www.artvulups.org/

I'll post updates periodically.

Slouching Towards Mt. Rubidoux Manor, Issue 3, Sept 16 @ Back to the Grind

Inlandia Writers Workshop-Riverside, Summer 2010
Reading and Anthology Release Scheduled

members of the writers workshop - photo taken August 26, 2010

Creative writers and their works from the summer, 2010 Inlandia Writers Workshop in Riverside will be showcased at an Inlandia-sponsored reading on Thursday, September 16 at Back to the Grind coffee house, from 7-9 pm. The workshop has been taught continuously during summer, fall, winter and spring sessions by Ruth Nolan since its inception in June, 2008, who is also the workshop founder.

An eclectic and diverse range of poetry and prose – including memoir, essays, and short stories – will be shared and read aloud by workshop participants at the event, which is free and open to the public. This will be one of many readings held by the group throughout the year, and is the second reading held at Back to the Grind. In addition, the reading will also feature the launch of the workshop’s yearly anthology of collected works, Slouching Towards Mt. Rubidoux Manor, issue No. 3. All of the works are original pieces and were written during the summer workshop session.

“I’m very proud of this summer’s writers – their enthusiasm, their hard work, and the community spirit built and generated by those in the workshop have all been major factors in the success of this summer’s workshop, as well as the high quality and inspirational quality of the writing to be featured in our anthology, as well as at our Sept. 16 reading,” says Nolan. “This is a strong and true community of writers, one that adds a vital and vigorous litany of voices to the emerging body literature of the Inland Empire.”

Participants in this summer’s session/contributors to the anthology include local residents/writers Karen Bradford; Vickie Buchanan; Brian Dale Bywater; Deenaz P. Coachbuilder; Nikia Chaney Mike Cluff; Harki Dhillon; Heather Dubois; Cyrus Emerson; Ellen Estilai; Amy Floyd; Michelle Gonzalez; Joan Koerper; Danielle La Paglia; Lorraine Lefaivre; Peter Naggi; Kamelyta Noor; Michael Sleboda; Zachary Smith; April Strout; Vicky Tuey; Jean Waggoner; Celeste Walter; and Sharon Zorn-Katz.

The Inlandia Writers Workshop-Riverside is one of several writing workshops in the Inland Empire region, including Idyllwild and Palm Springs. The fall, 2010 session of the Riverside workshop, to be led by Ruth Nolan, will begin on Thursday, September 30 at 6:30 pm at the downtown library. For more information on this or the other workshops, contact Marion Mitchell-Wilson at the Inlandia Institute.

Special thanks for the production of this year’s anthology go to Marion Mitchell-Wilson, Inlandia Institute Director; April Durham, Inlandia Advisory Committee Member and graphic designer of Slouching Towards Mt. Rubidoux Manor, issue #3, and members the Inlandia Institute Publications Committee, chaired by Cati Porter. Ruth Nolan is the founder/editor of Slouching Towards Mt. Rubidoux Manor, and also a member of the Inlandia Advisory Committee and the publications committee.