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

8th Annual UkiaHaiku Festival and a Haiku writing and teaching workshop.

The eighth annual UkiaHaiku Festival is now accepting Haiku submissions, both online and at the Ukiah Library.
We have forms for those of you who prefer them. Come to the Reference Desk and pick one up.

Check out the website http://www.ukiaHaiku.org

Techniques in Writing and Teaching Haiku, a Workshop for Teachers
by Jane Reichhold

Tuesday January 19th, 4:00 – 5:30 pm, Grace Hudson Museum, in Ukiah


In preparation for the Eighth Annual ukiaHaiku festival, internationally-celebrated haiku master Jane Reichhold will give a workshop in Ukiah on “How to Teach Haiku,” to be held on Tuesday January 19, 4:00 – 5:30 pm at the Grace Hudson Museum, 431 S. Main Street, 467-2836. At the workshop, Jane will describe what haiku is, talk about Haiku writing techniques, update us on "haiku rules that have come and gone," and discuss techniques for teaching students, including those who are beginners. The workshop is free. Simple refreshments will be provided.

April is National Poetry Month

Ukiah Library Poem of the Day for National Library Month
April 22, 2008

WANTING MORE AND MORE

TO LIVE UNOBSERVED, UNOBSERVING

Jane Hirshfield

Wanting more and more to live unobserved,

unobserving,

like a dog who takes the bone and goes to another room

where it just fits under the low-legged table or couch.

In the farthest depths, no sunlight reaches.

Yet certain fish, now eyeless streak with luminescence

when excited;

a lowered bathyspere turns on a floodlight

and is mobbed, the strange-formed bodies drawing in for miles.

No one was ever meant to see this.

Certainly not the fish, who see nothing, whose

tentacles travel the cold light, and no one know how or why.

Like human beings to a mystery

They imagine feels some passion for their fate.

And the dog? Fallen into the marrow-pleasure completely.

Willits Library National Library Month Poem of the Day April 22, 2008

Special Earth Day Poem

Philip Appleman

Last-Minute Message for a Time Capsule

I have to tell you this, whoever you are:

that on one summer morning here, the ocean

pounded in on tumbledown breakers,

a south wind, bustling along the shore,

whipped the froth into little rainbows,

and a reckless gull swept down the beach

as if to fly were everything it needed.

I thought of your hovering saucers,

looking for clues, and I wanted to write this down,

so it wouldn’t be lost forever –

that once upon a time we had

meadows here, and astonishing things,

swans and frogs and luna moths

and blue skies that could stagger your heart.

We could have had them still,

and welcomed you to earth, but

we also had the righteous ones

who worshipped the True Faith, and Holy War.

When you go home to your shining galaxy,

say that what you learned

from this dead and barren place is

to beware the righteous ones.