Voices of Gold: California Poets in the Schools Celebrates 50 Years of Poetry, Oct. 10-12 at IONS Earthrise in Petaluma

Poets, teachers, poet-teachers, and plebeians who want to become poets in the schools: join us October 10 -12, for our 50th Anniversary celebration, Voices of Gold Symposium at IONS in Petaluma. If you haven’t yet marked this on your calendar, do it now. Good job! Now, if you can't attend the whole the weekend, then come for Saturday's fabulous festivities. You'll get to spend the day or the entire weekend participating in innovative writing workshops and partying like rockstars with kindred poets, of course.

Did we mention that many California poets laureates, and civic poets laureates are/were CPITS poets—including Jane Hirshfield, Celia Woloch, Molly Fisk, John Oliver Simon, and our latest California Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera, have gone on to win huge accolades? Yep. Poetry is us. Jane Hirshfield credits CPITS as that “superb and still thriving program” that gave her first job as poet teacher; she said CPITS instils in young writers a passion for poetry, allows freedom of mind and offers the open-ended “writing invitation.”



LA poet-actor-playwrignt Jack Grapes, publisher of ONTHEBUS, will lead a deep writing intensive on Friday, Oct. 10. His Method Writing Approach teaches us to listen deep within ourselves. Celebrate and honor the elders of CPITS with a banquet, and welcome newcomers with special festivities.



Saturday, Oct. 11 former California Poet Laureate and CPITS board member, Al Young will give a keynote address, followed by four sets of workshops that embrace themes of poetry & sound, poetry & visual art/media, poetry & movement, and poetry performance—we'll be joined by special guests, performance poet-activists Josh Healey and Jason Bayani.

California poet teachers—from San Diego to Del Norte—will lead ab-fab workshops. CPITS workshop leaders include Amanda Chiado, Phyllis Meshulam, Karen K Lewis, Claire Blotter, Tree Bernstein, Jim Cartwright, Karen Benke, Dan Zev Levinson, Julie Hochfield, Prartho Sereno, DanaTeen Lomax, Blake More, Margo Perin, Kathy Evans and Sally Doyle.

More cool workshops on Sunday morning, including poetry & yoga, poetry & art—and don't forget to leave extra time to say those long goodbyes with newfound friends.

WHERE: at IONS Earthrise Retreat Center in Petaluma—right off Hwy 101, at San Antonio Creek. The beautiful campus is nestled in the Northern California foothills. You will dine on sumptuous organic meals while engaging in a multitude of interactive poetry workshops that will enhance your own writing or teaching in the classroom.

Please visit https://www.cpits.org/events.htm for registration information and complete workshop descriptions or contact Tina@cpits.org, better yet, just call Tina 415-221-1401 to register. See you there!

CPITS Poetry & Writing Symposium

California Poets in the Schools

Passing the Gift Forward

A Poetry and Writing Symposium

September 14 - 16, 2012 Institute of Noetic Sciences Petaluma, California

Inverness Fire

Yesterday I spent quite some time working on my obsessively long prose poem to my neighbor, Sonny Lowe, Obsession, after I returned from the Mendocino Woodlands. Like the Inverness fire, it's growing by leaps and bounds and shows no sign of ending.

I haven't had a chance to write in my journal since I came back from the Mendocino Woodlands. I came home to the big Inverness fire and to O.J. Simpson's acquittal. There was little news to be had in the deep woods, but on Tuesday we did get the news of O.J. Simpson. The woods couldn't filter that injustice out, it was so atrocious. 

Meanwhile 12,000 acres of Bishop Pine went up in smoke as the Pope gave mass in the pouring New Jersey rain, drenched believers filling the football field.

Last night I went to a party with Verona Seiter and Herman Berlandt at Zoravia Bettoil's flat in Pacific Heights, she is a Brazilian artist. Full moon over the San Francisco Bay took our breath away. A magical night.

We danced the samba, the lambada, with the Latin American ex-pats. Zoravia said I can move my hips like no other. I am flattered. I guess. She said that she thought that she could gyrate and flick her pelvis, until she saw me in action. She said every man's eyes were glued to my hips. I was wearing the ruffled tea dress from my 25th high school reunion, which helped. The Brazilian Consul wanted more than just a dance in the moonlight.

That complement coming from a Brazilian from São Paulo is a compliment indeed, but then I had reason to move like that. The more I hurt inside, the harder I danced, rejected by my neighbor Sonny and his latest skank, Pat. Because of them I am somewhat homeless, she is now living with him, invading my space with her negative energy. I can't be at my home anymore. This is why I danced so hard.

Herman and I snuck off to Bolinas on Sunday. And I tried to find out if my friends were burned out. At the American Red Cross in Point Reyes, I find Stephen Torre's name on the roster. The fire left his house standing, miraculously, since it stands atop Drakeview Estates Road, at the ridgeline. His neighbor, Van Morrison, lost everything. His place burned to the ground. Even the gold and platinum records. Bob Hamilton and I once almost bought the lot next to Van's place but there was no water.

Steve's house was listed as habitable but he did not show up for the Russian River Writers' Guild Monday night reading, nor did Kathy Evans. Oh well. I called her to see why she didn't show up for her reading, and she's having a hit histamine reaction to the world, and to the smoke. I give her the allergic saga, how works the immune system.

Meanwhile, Steve is in British Columbia thinking he has no home. I tell her it's still standing. Kathy can't believe it. Stress levels threaten to undo us all. No way to reach Steve.

Anyway, to catch up on things, last Sunday afternoon, Herman and I hiked from RCA Beach to Palomarin Beach. There were very few people on the trail. We didn't realize we had hiked so far north. 

Behind the roped off area, was the fire zone. The park rangers were quite surprised to see us, saying we'd hike to a fair distance. The park is closed as the trees are still sizzling. And looters have invaded, making their mark. There are cops everywhere. The rangers rifle, a symbol for martial law.

We can't see the fire, but my voice begins to hurt by nightfall. We hiked up one creek to a waterfall. Herman, for all his 72 years, is surprisingly agile. He continues to remind me of my grandmother. How odd. How we used to go on long hikes and adventures without any real preplanning. They just happen. 

Herman too likes this spontaneous approach to dailiness, we are invincible. We spend Sunday night in his cabin on the Mesa. A nice dinner of salmon and couscous. I always take it upon myself to cook most meals, treating Herman. I suspect Verona does the same, but I like to cook for him. Maybe it's the female thing. He purchases most of the food and does the dishes, so it's a decent exchange. 

I've been managing to keep away from home because of Sonny. Which means my life is changing. I don't have my home anchor anymore. Sonny's son Nathan hardly ever visits anymore and wonders why I'm never home. I explain, it's not forever. Yesterday Nathan's mother, Cindy, came to get him, leaving Sonny and Pat alone, and I growl. 

I've taken to flipping him off whenever they drive by. Safe within the walls of my tiny cabin, I'm living between two places—my cabin, and my truck, my bags are always packed. Bolinas is my refuge, it's becoming my new home, and I am on fire, raging against betrayal, and the injustice of it all.

THIS IS JUST TO SAY (for Kathy Evans)

THIS IS JUST TO SAY
             (an occasional poem for Kathy Evans)


Because the collected Love Poems slept all night long
on top of O'Hara's Lunch Poems, Dostoyevsky is implied
though the window sill is composed of pure morning light.
I moved the bottle of grapefruit juice from the floor
beneath the rocking chair (& one lone shoe) to the sink
only to have it explode in the sunlight onto the photos of your children
smiling crazily at us from beneath a juicy glaze—
& Oleg hurries to save them from the indifferent nature
of love in this world; the mathematical division of families—
his own children asleep on the other side of the world,
your mother wondering why a stranger with a Russian accent
answers your phone on a Sunday morning.
We continually face separations of the heart
that is why it hungers for sum totals.
Everything needs translation—
The sea plane outside your window taxies across alluvial mud;
the pilot has to go so far to reach water these days.
The French family on the dock screams goodbye
to their papá as he lifts off from the gravity of this world.
This division cleaves us from what we know to be true.
If only it were so simple: Peterson's Guide to Western Birds
holding us aloft and classified from human wishes,
last year's wives, and the daily remains—
enough to sustain our increasing appetites.
Migratory birds sup most delicately on soup du jour,
the mud — moist, hard and moaning. No free lunch here.
You will not die from the multiple invasions of winter
without a single answer from the abundance of nature.
This thirst we share in common.


4/21/91
Mill Valley  mudflats

1992 Artists' Palette, Mill Valley, 1st Honorable Mention, chosen by Rosalie Moore & Kathy Evans


4/21/91
Hmm, my prose piece is
Easter Sunday, April 19, 1992 typo?

Sunday Morning, Berth 1-11, Sausalito 
GEWOON MAAR OM JE TE LATEN WETEN
         ( een gelegenheidsgedicht voor Kathy Evans)

Omdat de verzamelde Love Poems de hele nacht sliepen
boven op de Lunch Poems van O'Hara zit Dostojevski er ook tussen
al is de vensterbank gemaakt van zuiver morgenlicht.
Ik heb de fles met grapefruitsap, op de vloer
onder de schommelstoel (& een eenzame schoen), op het aanrecht gezet
maar daar explodeerde hij juist in het zonlicht over de fotoos van je kinderen
die met een streep door ze heen naar ons lachen van onder een sappig glazuur—
& Oleg haast zich om ze te redden van de onverschillige aard
van liefde in deze wereld; de wiskundige deling van gezinnen —
zijn eigen kinderen in slaap aan de andere kant van de wereld,
jouw moeder die zich afvraagt waarom een vreemde met een Russisch accent                
bij jou de telefoon opneemt op een zondagmorgen.
We zien steeds scheidingen van het hart onder ogen
daarom hunkert het naar totalen.
Alles heeft vertaling nodig —
Het watervliegtuig voor je raam taxiet over aangespoelde modder;
de piloot moet zo ver gaan om bij water te komen tegenwoordig.
Het Franse gezin aan de kade schreeuwt tot ziens
naar hun papá terwijl die loskomt van de zwaartekracht van deze wereld.
Deze deling klieft ons van wat wij weten dat waar is.
Was het maar zo eenvoudig: Peterson's Guide to Western Birds
die ons omhoog houdt en in een andere klasse dan mensenwensen,
de echtgenoten van verleden jaar, en de dagelijkse overblijfselen —
genoeg om onze toenemende begeerten gaande te houden.
Trekvogels souperen zeer kies op soep du jour,
de modder — vochtig, hard en kreunend. Geen gratis maal hier.
Je zult niet doodgaan aan de meervoudige invasies van de winter
zonder een enkel antwoord van de overvloed van de natuur.
Deze dorst hebben we samen gemeen.


 21/April/91
Maureen Hurley
De  schorren en slikken van Mill Valley
Nederl. vert. Vins van Neerven, 10/92

Cazadero Academy 3rd annual benefit reading, date?