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.

Prospecting, Indio Hills

for Phil

through this slot canyon
we have decided to explore
past the ancient palm trees
living on a waterless shore
and pillared by a fault zone
we traverse a mud walled wash
that gets thinner and thinner
while late November clouds
pillar into silent gray burdens
above our heads, you say rain
I assure you that water isn't
attracted to this dry spot,
I see walls rising higher,
you say the flood will easily
cascade past us today, the
rocks fall away beneath my
feet and I find a small stack
of black crystals, the first I've
ever found in 20 odd years
of driving the sandy back
roads now I almost get stuck
again in my battered Toyota
RAV4 once again, it's not
a new 4WD, it’s from the
wandering into narrow places
unknown except to a few
desert rats and the sand dunes
are mostly leveled on the
valley, low, now the fat rain
pushes down for birthing,
I advise a hasty retreat
to a thermos of hot tea
and you want tacos again,
good thing I didn't lose
the keys this time, you win,
the rain terrorizes windshield
and hood, now I drive away,
turn to ask whether you want
chicken or beans, you’re gone,
conversation shattered, my
fingers, around these rocks.



by Ruth Nolan, copyright (c) 2010 by Ruth Nolan

NP4@P Review + Desolation Tango

Here is a nice review of NP4@P (my new acronym for the desert book) and my friend Deanne Stillman's Joshua Tree book, Desolation Tango. The generous review was penned by my friend/author Cynthia Anderson, who lives in Joshua Tree. Cynthia's poetry has been featured in Phantom Seed Magazine (an offshoot publication I publish once or twice a year of contemporary poetry and prose)and will be featured again in Phantom Seed #4, coming out next month. Check my blog soon for upcoming readings, which will begin in mid-September.

Here is the writeup:

Being laid up for a couple of weeks with an injured back has had its advantages, mainly the chance to read for hours on end. Happily, I had just ordered a pile of books from Amazon and they've been steadily trickling in. Here are a few of my favorites.

"No Place for a Puritan" is an anthology of desert writing, both poetry and prose. There are heavy hitters like John Steinbeck and Sylvia Plath (!), the usual suspects like Mary Austin and Edward Abbey, and a host of others you've never heard of but will be glad you did. Editor Ruth Nolan has done a superb job of bringing together diverse voices. I devoured this book!

Last night I actually made it to an author reading at the Red Arrow Gallery that featured Ruth Nolan along with Deanne Stillman, author of "Joshua Tree: Desolation Tango" as well as a definitive book on wild mustangs and an expose about a 1991 murder in 29 Palms. Another desert writer worth checking out.

You can read the review on Cynthia's blog at:
http://cynthiashidesertblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/summer-reading.html

Thanks, Cynthia!

Desert Writers Issue, Summer 2010, Sun Runner Magazine

Salton Sea, south shore, near Obsidian Butte, photo by me but not in the summer.

Desert Writers Issue, Sun Runner Magazine, Summer 2010 is out...

http://issuu.com/thesunrunnermagazine/docs/sraugustdig10

the issue looks RAD and there's a generous review of No Place 4 A Puritan.

Enjoy! This issue is a GREAT READ! Perfect for mid-August. It's drenching hot here in Palm Desert - our tropical weather with a twist of Death Valley heat thrown in. Too hot to go bike riding, even at 10 pm. Yuck-weather, too supernovabaked to breathe. Swim-mind, body-dope. That's what this is, and I'm heading to Northern California to visit my brothers Patrick (San Jose) and John (Oakland) before.....school starts.

PS how is this for an 11 pm temperature (from the weather channel)

11:00 PM, PALM DESERT, AUGUST 16 2010
95°F
Feels Like: 101°
45% humidity

YUCK!

Crazy Creek Camp Chair

Here's a poem of mine that appeared in the summer, 2008 Sun Runner Magazine Desert Writers Issue....one I've never read publicly but that I think is...wobbly yet precise in its depiction of a relationship between a teenage girl and her mother...(for the record, the 2010 Desert Writers Issue is about to hit the shelves...I'll post the link when it's ready.)

Crazy Creek Camp Chair


Backpacking trip, mother and daughter, furtive coyote prowling

for short grouse. We plan to arrive at dusk, trade places, she hikes

front, I behind. We are close to the same height and weight but



I am wobbly on this jagged mountain range, a ledge, 9,100 feet,

seeking a campsite. It's May, and she is tall, eclipsing me, it can't be

helped. I am in her long shadow now, frustrated by her easy pace.



I slip behind to find a walking stick, imagine how the swirling hot

chocolate I’ll prepare will ease the aches of sleeping on the ground,

but she, she loves to sleep outdoors. How deceived she is, by our



sixteen-year routine, mother and daughter bundled side by side

in matching sleeping bags, expecting me to erect the tent, prime

the stove, the usual exchange. The meadow is yet beaten down and



a fresh-cheeked sunset chokes the joys of flowery smiles peeking

through the snow. I know the creek will sleep tonight. I’m not so far

behind, and the old birds sing in the new grass with winter’s last breath.


Ruth Nolan, Palm Desert, copyright(c) 2008 & 2010 by Ruth Nolan

the issue, which features poetry and prose by other desert-based writers, can be visited at:
http://www.thesunrunner.com/Stories/Desert_Writers_Issue_2007/Nolan_DWI_07/nolan_dwi_07.html