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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April is National Poetry Month

Ukiah Library Poem of the Day for National Poetry Month

April 19, 2008

Just As You Said Love

It’s A Death

‘runners using the heart to span the brink of disaster’

Mary Norbert Korte

mark this night carved upon the breast carved

deep into the skin as the scars of some

mediaeval mystic everyone left alone

mark this down into the belly where it

disappears under the shadow that shadow inside

where love dries stiff clotted dries where

madrone blossoms sit like virgins burning

inside a remembering dark this night

carved upon the breast carved

upon the nipples lifed like amaranth

it is the tough the touch that scores

the skin this blossomed flesh the moss rose

lips lying the tongue at those petals

the light dimmed by the body the learning

the night this marked night carved upon the breath

carved into the hollow space where passion sits

thingking with branches growing from it

growing branches that bargain for some light

where the only light is stubs in flames that lick

the air slowly of its breath its breath

carved into thighs the strong swelling

the proud the pulse the seed the great

thrust leaping in the hands into a vortex a vortex of

bent trees ghost cries amaranth moss rose amaranth

just so love it’s a death a drawing out of life

fine as silt through spread hands fine as fire

this cold spring dried fine and rooted with pain

a world gathered against the skin a world

heaving and backing about the breast covered

with moss rose with coral root with amaranth amaranth

the breast all covered and carved with holy saving this night

set rivers in stone tumbling and pushing to the sea

Sanctuary Station

28 May 1977

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day April 19, 2008

Poem for the 1^st Passover Seder

MARGE PIERCY

Matzoh

Flat you are as a door mat

and as homely.

No crust, no glaze, you lack

a cosmetic glow.

You break with a snap.

You are dry as a twig

split from an oak

in midwinter.

You are bumpy as a mud basin

in a drought.

Square as a slab of pavement,

you have no inside

to hide raisins or seeds.

You are pale as the full moon

pocked with craters.

What we see is what we get,

honest, plain, dry

shining with nostalgia

as if baked with light

instead of heat.

The bread of flight and haste

in the mouth you

promise, home