Monday, April 23, 2012

April is Poetry Month

LESSON IN FIRE
Linda Noel

My father built a good fire
He taught me to tend the fire
How to make it stand
So it could breathe
And how the flames create
Coals that turn our faces
Or eyes
Or fish swimming
Out of flames
Into gray
Rivers of ash
And how the eyes
And faces look out
At us
Burn up for us
To heat the air
That we breathe
And so into us
We swallow
All the shapes
Created in a well-tended fire

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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

4 Women Reading Women

Press Release
A Women's History Month literary event in Ukiah
4 Women Reading Women, March 18, 2011, 7 pm, Grace Hudson Museum

To commemorate Women’s History Month, 4 local women writers will celebrate the works and contributions of various women writers of their choice. Donna Kerr, Mary Norbert Körte, Linda Noel, and Theresa Whitehill will offer a reading Friday, March 18, 7pm at the Grace Hudson Museum.

The 4 women come from varied backgrounds, including
:
- Körte, who received a post graduate degree in Silver Latin; she studied and hung out with some of the great Beat Poets, including Lew Welch and William Everson, before relocating to the Noyo River basin where she has resided for nearly 40 years

- Kerr, a librarian for Mendocino County for twenty years who channels the words of Dorothy Wordsworth and has published 2 poetry chapbooks and been a keynote speaker at the UkiaHaiku Festival

- Noel, who is a Koyungkowi California Native who grew up in Willits, where she discovered poetry while a student at Willits High School; she has been published in anthologies and journals and served as Ukiah Poet Laureate 2006-200
;
- Whitehill, who is a graphic designer and letterpress printer; her latest book, A Grammar of Longing, was released in 2009 by Pygmy Forest Press; her poetry broadsides and commissioned poetry hang in university libraries throughout the country; she is the current Ukiah Poet Laureate.

The women have made their own selections of the writers they wish to present including personal favorites, those who have inspired them or a larger following through their writings, and women who have had a profound impact on not only the literary world but society and culture, including: Anne Sexton, Joy Harjo, Gertrude Stein, Emily Dickinson, Muriel Rukeyser, Sharon Olds, Alice Walker, Adrienne Rich and Leslie Silko.

Light refreshments will be offered following the reading which is free of charge with donations welcomed.

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Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Poetry for April 11, 2007

Ukiah Library Poem of the Day for April 11, 2007

RAIN BELIEF

Linda Noel former Ukiah Poet Laureate

swollen

sky

sing us some rain sway

oak arms shed

your blue clothing let

free you moist flesh flung

against bone windows flaunt

your sleek body fly

above thirsty dreams fall

into my parched canyon throat fill

my river up fool

me into thinking wetness is enough watch

me flood myself feed

the memory

melt mountains

make mud

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for April 11, 2007

EMILY DICKINSON

Just lost, when I was saved!

Just felt the world go by!

Just girt me for the onset with Eternity,

When breath blew back,

And on the other side

I heard recede the disappointed tide!

Therefore, as One returned, I feel

Odd secrets of the line to tell!

Some Sailor, skirting foreign shores –

Some pale Reporter, from the awful doors

Before the Seal!

Next time, to stay!

Next time, the things to see

By Ear unheard,

Unscrutinized by Eye –

Next time, to tarry,

While the Ages steal –

Slow tramp the Centuries,

And the Cycles wheel!

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