Games for Children at the Ukiah Library

Games for Children
Tuesdays from 1:00 to 2:30
Ukiah Library: Children’s Room



Children ages 7 – 17 are welcome to come play games every Tuesday afternoon at the Ukiah Branch Library.
Magic, Bananagrams, Apples to Apples, Quiddler, Yatzee,
Dominoes, Chess or bring your favorite.
This is not a drop off activity. Children must be supervised.

ukiaHaiku Festival this Sunday

ukiaHaiku festival features winning
poems and taiko drumming


Sunday, April 18, Ukiah Civic Center, 1:30-4 p.m.


early spring--
ukiah sprouts
haiku and taiko


Suspense is building with the approach of the Eighth Annual ukiaHaiku Festival and Awards Ceremony. The poems have been written and submitted, the judges have made their decisions, and the best is yet to come: the opportunity for the community to spend an afternoon basking in the haiku form of poetry. The ukiaHaiku festival and Awards Ceremony will take place on Sunday, April 18, from 1:30 to 4 p.m. at the Ukiah Civic Center at 300 Seminary Avenue. The thunderous sounds of Yokayo Taiko will drum the festival to life beginning at 1:30 p.m. in the courtyard by the fountain; the indoor ceremony will begin at 2 p.m.


Taiko drumming is a poetically perfect way to usher in a haiku festival because both haiku and taiko are art forms that originated in Japan. "Taiko" is actually the Japanese word for drum, but in North America it also refers to ensemble drumming using Japanese drums. The eleven members of the Yokayo Taiko ensemble, directed by Jennifer Ung, will perform "Taiko Train", "Renshu" (Practice), "Hiryu Sandan Gaeshi and Isamigoma" (Leaping Dragon and Brave Horse), and "Iwai" (Celebration), written by Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan. Poets and audience members are encouraged to arrive early to experience the spine-tingling drumbeats of Yokayo Taiko. (Rain will cancel the drumming because it would damage the drums).


The indoor portion of the program will begin at 2 p.m. with brief remarks by Mayor Benj Thomas and Poet Laureate Theresa Whitehill. Winning poets from age 6 to 66+ will then read their poems aloud to an appreciative audience and receive their awards. A reception with refreshments will follow, during which audience members will have the opportunity to scan many of the fine poems that did not make the final cut and learn more about the Japanese art of origami, or paper folding. A booklet of winning poems will be on sale before and after the ceremony.


The 2,362 entries to the competition set an all-time record this year, up from 1,581 entries in 2009. The Poet Laureate Committee's new emphasis on local poets meant that the majority of the entries came from Mendocino, Lake, Humboldt, and Sonoma Counties. A significant number of poems were submitted in Spanish, and students from twenty Mendocino and Sonoma County schools participated. Submissions to the Jane Reichhold International Prize Category arrived from ten states, ten countries, and four continents. Poets from Australia, Denmark, Ghana, New Zealand, Portugal, Serbia, and England entered the competition. Ukiah's little haiku festival is on the map!


The 2010 ukiaHaiku festival wishes to thank the sponsors who have made it all possible. Sponsorship for 2010 includes a grant from the Measure X Transient Occupancy Tax Funds, City of Ukiah, along with: Haiku Vineyards; Susan Sparrow and Hal Zina Bennett of Tenacity Press; OCO Time Restaurant; Mendocino Book Company; Mulligan Books; Leaves of Grass Bookstore; Taka Japanese Grill; Copperfield's Books, Healdsburg; CGC Website Designs; Yokayo Taiko; and UFO (Ukiah Folding Organization). The 8th Annual festival has been produced by The Poet Laureate Committee of Ukiah, Grace Hudson Museum, City of Ukiah, Ukiah Branch Library, Nine Trees Design, Ukiah High School, Writers Read, Colored Horse Studios, and Marianchild Writing & Publicity.


Please note that the venue for the festival has changed from previous years. To reach the Ukiah Civic Center take the Perkins Street off-ramp from Hwy 101. Go west to State Street and turn left. Seminary Avenue is the third street on the right. The festival is free to the public. For more information about the haiku festival please go to www.ukiahaiku.org. For more information about Yokayo Taiko please go to www.yokayotaiko.org.

Kate Marianchild

April is National Poetry Month

Benj Thomas posted this poem on his Facebook page.
Perfect for this crazy month of April.

but I think the lady protests too much. Spring sucks us in....

Spring

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under the ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

April is National Poetry Month

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poems of the Day – April 8, 2010

THREE BY EMILY

* * *

Exultation is the going

Of an inland soul to sea,

Past the houses – past the headlands –

Into deep Eternity –

Bred as we, among the mountains,

Can the sailor understand

The divine intoxication

Of the first league out from land?

* * *

Between My Country – and the Others –

There is a Sea –

But Flowers – negotiate between us –

As Ministry.

* * *

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing Poetry –

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll –

How frugal is the Chariot

That bears the Human soul.

EMILY DICKINSON

Ukiah Library National Poetry Month: Quote of the Day

Poetry's

work

is the

clarification

and

magnification

of

being"

Jane Hirshfield

Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry

HarperCollins 1997

April is National Poetry Month

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 6, 2010


CELEBRATING LUCILLE CLIFTON
(June 27, 1936 – February 13, 2010)

won’t you celebrate with me

won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my one hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

Ukiah Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for April 8, 2010

Actually Haiku
The ukiaHaiku Festival is Sunday April 18th at the Ukiah Civic Center
Here are a few winning Haiku from previous years.

Abandoned cow field
Chilly winter deer visit
Silhouettes in fog by Donna Kerr

On the autumn pond
a flotilla of gold leaves
riding wind ripples by Kayla Wildman

the mucky goose bowl
always needed fresh water
until Coyote Cathy Monroe

April is National Poetry Month

Happy Birthday William Wordsworth


April is National Poetry Month, Ukiah Library Poem of the Day
The World is too much with us

written 200 years ago and still relevant:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune,
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea
;Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 7, 2010

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH’S BIRTHDAY!
Wordsworth’s greatest poems were written during the time he
lived with Dorothy, his sister and muse.

To My Sister

It is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before
The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.

My sister! (‘tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun….

No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living calendar:
We from to-day, my Friend, will date
The opening of the year.

Love, now a universal birth,
From heart to heart is stealing,
From earth to man, from man to earth:
--It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more
Than years of toiling reason:
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts will make,
Which they shall long obey:
We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above,
We’ll frame the measure of our souls:
They shall be tuned to love….

April is National Poetry Month

Ukiah Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for April 3, 2010

ELAINE EQUI

Etudes

Autumn is a solitude
Winter is a fortitude
Spring is an altitude
Summer is an attitude

Summer is a multitude
Autumn is an aptitude
Winter is a Quaalude
Spring is a prelude

Spring is a lassitude
Summer is a longitude
Autumn is a gratitude
Winter is an interlude

Winter is a beatitude
Spring is a platitude
Summer is a verisimilitude
Autumn is a semi-nude

from the tiny



Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day - April 3, 2010
　　
Wendell Berry
Woods

I part the out thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
there is singing around me.
Though I am dark
there is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
there is flight around me.

April is Poetry Month

Donna Kerr and I, Eliza Wingate, will be posted poetry most days in April. We are both out of town this week, but here is the first poems.

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 1, 2010
CONRAD AIKEN
from sonnet sequence, FROM AND IN THE HUMAN HEART
"Green, green, and green again…"
Green, green, and green again, and greener still,
spring towards summer bends the immortal bow,
and northward breaks the wave of daffodil,
and northward breaks the wave of summer’s snow:
green, green, and green again, and greener yet,
wide as this forest is, which counts its leaves,
wide as this kingdom, in a green sea set,
which round its shores perpetual blossom weaves –
green, green, and green again, and green once more,
the season finds its term – then greenest, even,
when frost at twilight on the leaf lies hoar,
and one cold star shines bright in greenest heaven:
but love, like music, keeps no seasons ever;
like music, too, once known is known forever.

Ukiah Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day April 2, 2010
ROBERT BLY
from the New Yorker

Wanting Sumptuous Heavens

No one grumbles among the oyster clans;
And lobsters play their bone guitars all summer.
Only we, with our opposable thumbs, want
Heaven to be, and God to come again.
There is no end to our grumbling; we want
Comfortable earth and sumptuous Heaven.
But the heron standing on one leg in the bog
Drinks his dark rum all day, and is content.