Thursday, December 18, 6-9 pm
Ruth Nolan presents Desert Poetry & Film
and Phantom Seed Magazine!
buffet dinner, poetry workshop, presentation & music!
LOCATION: Kath Abela & Rick Wilson's Literary Salon
439 SO. Catalina Ave #306 Pasadena, Ca 91106
press 027 (on the call box) (or press R.Wilson) call button to be buzzed in.
cell phone 805 886-9384
print out directions from the Internet:
http://www.oldflutes.com/Kathy&Rick/directions
Time: arrive anytime starting at 6 pm - buffet dinner at 6 pm,
followed by poetry workshop at 6:30 pm (bring poems with theme of "Desert"
if you'd like to have your poetry workshopped + 20 copies to share)
Ruth Nolan - presentation: 8:15-9:00 p.m.
This Thursday evening, December 18 we will have a special program on Desert Poetry by Ruth Nolan, a native of the Mojave Desert circa Apple Valley, and Associate Professor of English College of the Desert near Palm Springs, CA. She is also a poet, writer, and book editor/publisher.
The poetry highlight will be followed a film with commentary, of desert photographs, "Escape to Reality", and poetic commentary by Ruth Nolan. Her program will include short interludes and accompaniment by Rick Wilson on Native American flute.
Ruth publishes the beautiful journal "Phantom Seed" and will be interested in poems for future issues. Any poems you have already submitted to her are being considered for the next issue, in March, and new poems are welcome.
The optional theme for poems this evening, will be "Desert". For Thursday's workshop bring 20 copies of a poem on his or ANY theme (whatever you are working on) for friendly commentary. Each poet directs their own 5 minute (hourglass timed) session as they like.
More information about how the "workshop/critique" part of the evening runs....
Timing of our evening- 6 PM buffet dinner starts and continues throughout the evening, if you come late it is always there. If you come early, enjoy relaxed comfortable conversation with poets for a half hour before the start. Please make copies on our copier during this time if needed.
When you arrive: 1. If you need copies please try to come at 6 PM or before, to use the copier. 2. Pick a reading number from the bowl on the buffet table when you arrive, to read in the workshop session. Write your number clearly on the top corner of the poem.
3. There will be clipboards at each table place setting, and extras. Add your poem in the correct numerical ORDER onto the clipboards. Everyone including latecomers will have all poems. *Each poet directs an hourglass timed five minute workshop on their poem. Poets are encouraged to really maximize this opportunity! Written comments returned to the poet are especially appreciated and can be more detailed than the short commentary session allows. It is up to you. You can ASK specific questions, if you like, to direct comments on specific parts of the poem, or request general response. Open conversation as at a dinner party is our usual way, including politely giving everyone who wants to speak a chance to speak, thus limiting length of comments. If necessary, please resort to raised hands, and reading poet acknowledge. Ask for email address to continue longer conversations and comments. You are also welcome to read only, more than one poem, for no comments, but be sure to state your preferences before you begin. But it is best to give everyone copies of everything for best appreciation.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Heyday Books Holiday Party Dec 11
I had the fun and pleasure to visit the Heyday Books office in Berkeley, CA yesterday for their annual holiday party. I mixed a bit of business - reviewing editing and permissions matters with my supervisor, Heyday Books acquistions editor Gayle Wattawa - with a lot of fun. It was great to see Malcolm, and meet other amazing literary people who are doing so much in their work to embody and record California legacy and heritage through their many projects with Heyday.
I was honored to meet people who are working on a Sierra Nevada-region literary anthology; Stan Yogi, who co-edited the well-received "Highway 99" anthology ten years ago; several photographers and designers; a Steinbeck scholar; and others who are as thrilled and enthused about their regions and parts of the state as I am about the desert.
Malcolm asked me how I maintain my vigor and vitality for what I do, with desert literature. That is really a good question, and it makes me pause. I think part of it is that I was taken to the desert from the grungy Inland Empire area of southern California (Rialto - smog - suburbia) high up to the "high" desert on the other side of the San Bernardino Mountains - at the age of 13, and made an immediate connection with the open spaces and desert energy. Part of it, a literal and visceral, physical response to the power of the landscape and vast opportunities for exploration and discovery, but another part of it an opening of space in which my own creative language could develop.
Most people use "culture" and the societies around them as the basis of their work; for me, the desert has become, in many ways cheekily, my own "cultural" identity - in part based on the inherent irony of the lack of people and society - at least in my formative years; people went to the desert to escape from the above - and that's the spirit by which my father relocated our family to what was essentially the middle of nowhere - except for the vast fields of ravens landing at sunset, the pinks and purples behind sharp Joshua tree needles, the mirror of light bouncing from boulders, the tumbleweeds and icy wind on many spring mornings. My ideas about desert as a cultural identity are a bit bizarre but also not too far off base, I realize, as I learn more and more about the longtime residents of the region, the many tribes of indigenous people, who preceded me there for centuries and knew and used the desert wisely.
I guess I've dug deep to find my cultural connections - and it's based on a sense of remoteness from people and society that was sprung upon me at an early age. But my present day vitality and vigor come from this: sharing my imaginative interactions with the desert, the healing and release, the catharsis and expression, that I've nurtured and enjoyed for years , with other people, through poetry, community-building, and sharing and showing the desert to people whenever, however I can. This is where my vigor and vitality come from.
The ironic but deeply satisfying ability I've gained, through the years of so much time I've spent mostly alone in the desert, steeping in its creosote tea in silent, imposing windswept kettles of land - to find something, a vision, an essence, a beauty, a renewal, a reward of things and places and memories bigger and more permanent than our minutary and fickle permuatations. In short: hope, inspiration, and relief springing from the drop dead and jump alive beauty and power of the barren desert land, and its ability to forth-bring people from their barest secrets and selves. And it would be nothing, no reason to go there again, without sharing it with people.
I was honored to meet people who are working on a Sierra Nevada-region literary anthology; Stan Yogi, who co-edited the well-received "Highway 99" anthology ten years ago; several photographers and designers; a Steinbeck scholar; and others who are as thrilled and enthused about their regions and parts of the state as I am about the desert.
Malcolm asked me how I maintain my vigor and vitality for what I do, with desert literature. That is really a good question, and it makes me pause. I think part of it is that I was taken to the desert from the grungy Inland Empire area of southern California (Rialto - smog - suburbia) high up to the "high" desert on the other side of the San Bernardino Mountains - at the age of 13, and made an immediate connection with the open spaces and desert energy. Part of it, a literal and visceral, physical response to the power of the landscape and vast opportunities for exploration and discovery, but another part of it an opening of space in which my own creative language could develop.
Most people use "culture" and the societies around them as the basis of their work; for me, the desert has become, in many ways cheekily, my own "cultural" identity - in part based on the inherent irony of the lack of people and society - at least in my formative years; people went to the desert to escape from the above - and that's the spirit by which my father relocated our family to what was essentially the middle of nowhere - except for the vast fields of ravens landing at sunset, the pinks and purples behind sharp Joshua tree needles, the mirror of light bouncing from boulders, the tumbleweeds and icy wind on many spring mornings. My ideas about desert as a cultural identity are a bit bizarre but also not too far off base, I realize, as I learn more and more about the longtime residents of the region, the many tribes of indigenous people, who preceded me there for centuries and knew and used the desert wisely.
I guess I've dug deep to find my cultural connections - and it's based on a sense of remoteness from people and society that was sprung upon me at an early age. But my present day vitality and vigor come from this: sharing my imaginative interactions with the desert, the healing and release, the catharsis and expression, that I've nurtured and enjoyed for years , with other people, through poetry, community-building, and sharing and showing the desert to people whenever, however I can. This is where my vigor and vitality come from.
The ironic but deeply satisfying ability I've gained, through the years of so much time I've spent mostly alone in the desert, steeping in its creosote tea in silent, imposing windswept kettles of land - to find something, a vision, an essence, a beauty, a renewal, a reward of things and places and memories bigger and more permanent than our minutary and fickle permuatations. In short: hope, inspiration, and relief springing from the drop dead and jump alive beauty and power of the barren desert land, and its ability to forth-bring people from their barest secrets and selves. And it would be nothing, no reason to go there again, without sharing it with people.
Joshua Tree film + desert poetry interview
"Joshua Tree: Escape to Reality, 24 hrs @ 24 fps film + Joshua Tree Imprimature narrative poem by Ruth Nolan http://www.youtube.com/
UCR Arts Block - desert poetry & literature interview
Ruth Nolan desert poetry and literature interview: http://www.artsblock.ucr.edu/
and very honorably (and humbled) to be showcased alongside poetic great Juan Felipe Herrera in his interview, done the same time, day, place, UCR-CA Museum of Photography, Sept 1, 2008.
UCR Arts Block - desert poetry & literature interview
Ruth Nolan desert poetry and literature interview: http://www.artsblock.ucr.edu/
and very honorably (and humbled) to be showcased alongside poetic great Juan Felipe Herrera in his interview, done the same time, day, place, UCR-CA Museum of Photography, Sept 1, 2008.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Coachella Valley Preserve, Quiet December
Coachella Valley Preserve
Palm Desert, California, Sunday Dec 7, 2008
1,000 Palms Oasis to McCallum Grove oasis
1,000 Palms Oasis to McCallum Grove oasis
These pictures are from a lone hike I took in the twilight hours yesterday, December 7th. A bit chilly, the last hiker on the trail - which is often the case for me and which I enjoy - saying thank you's and building good wishes and energy for myself, family, friends, my daughter, my community, the world, particularly in these trying times (can my $500 windmill stock investement, a gift from my parents last spring, actually be worth only $179 as of 11/30? How ironic, our area is so riddled with windmills, and my investment is almost worth nothing? think of the environmental price we, consumers, are paying - someone is getting rich - most of us are not - at least in terms of money), and remembering that I have it pretty damn good. A nice career, a job, a home, food, love, and the gift to express my own life's confusions, ecstasies, challenges, in words to share with the world.
I felt odd and off. It's "that time of year" for teachers - we run a marathon for 16 weeks, beginning in the odd auspices of summer, when here, it's still 110 or 115 degrees and sweltering with humidity, more often than not. The long, slow slide into cooler weather - though it's been a very warm fall, overall - and the pressure to wrap everything up - student grades, tenure reviews, committee reports, SLO-revisions, sabbatical presentation plans - in that short, 4 month span. But I am grateful for tenure, grateful for being able to say I can still make my house payment although times are tight and that I have a job.
I extend my "walk in beauty" of yesterday reconnecting with the desert, the earth, in an odd-lop of late day, tired Sunday solitude....a day of fielding my daughter's stresses and frustrations with her life.....the pressures of co-habiting with a young adult offspring, to redefine our relationship and boundaries more as "peers" than "parent/kid"- we are so close and love each other so much, and it's been a very hard past two years since Tarah finished high school (with high honors, I must add!)....a day of relishing all of the good things I've been up to but also unwinding from a very long and hard four month work pull at my teaching job AND with the desert anthology, along with numerous other poetry places, people and things - all my lifeblood, all so important, and all so necessary to balance.
Putting everything around me, in my life, in "right relation." Another Native American wisdom. I realize it has to start right now, with me, with my walk, my every step, and that I've done way too little hiking and earth-connecting this fall and must essentially get that back. Even when I look at the trail and realize that just since last year, the trail I walked yesterday is that much more "pounded," used, more signs, more blockades to not wander off-path, a bit of litter - I dropped my Hindu prayer beads - yes, I was doing a lot of chanting and japa - shout out to my dear and amazing teacher and friend, Swami Ramananda - and almost had a panic attack - but found them like a snake on the trail, reminding me to savor and hold gently and lightly onto those threads of sanity, healing, and nourishment we all must - for me, a walk of healing and goodness and renewal in the quiet, lonely, chilly twilight pink desert.
For the earth, for me, for this astonishing and life-giving oasis in a harsh desert environment, putting my steps into right relation, I share this walk in beauty with whoever reads this. It's a chilly and scary December this year - so many illusions have shattered - but the oases and the trail to and fro are generous, renewing, eternal, calm.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Anouncing...Desert Lit Seminar Dec 13
join us....
December 13, 2008, 1:30-4:30 p.m.
Desert Literature Seminar!
taught Ruth Nolan
The Living Desert Preserve
Palm Desert, CA
sign up today!
contact Ruth for more info: runolan@aol.com
Trapdoor Poetry Dec14, Palm Springs 6 pm
Trapdoor Poetry
invites you to a poetry reading
Sunday, Dec. 14, 2008
invites you to a poetry reading
Sunday, Dec. 14, 2008
6:00 p.m.
Featuring…..
Mike Cipra
Caryn Davidson
Joshua Tree Park Ranger-Poets
Featuring…..
Mike Cipra
Caryn Davidson
Joshua Tree Park Ranger-Poets
there will also be an open microphone
Palm Springs
Wine and Art Gallery
242 No. Palm Canyon Dr.,
Palm Springs, CA 92262
760-325-9991
DOWNTOWN PALM SPRINGS
BEHIND “Hair of the Dog” British Pub”
Thanks to Ruth Nolan & Steve Peterson,
Poetry Series Coordinators!
More information: runolan@aol.com
Saturday, December 6, 2008
PEN Women's Book Fest 12.6.08 Palm Desert
Ruth with copies of Phantom Seed Issues #1 & 2
PEN Women/Palm Springs Chapter
Book Festival, December 6, 2008
Desert Falls Country Club
happy face - it's good to sell books!
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