RIP Bliss Buys Cochran

Bliss in Sonoma County, 1982 trying to look corporate.

Bliss Buys Cochran through the ages. I felt it when Bliss passed. I awoke this morning, knowing she was no longer with us. No longer of this earth. The sensation was peaceful, as if she was finally at rest, and more importantly no longer suffering. This shining light, this compassionate rescuer of animals, and all wayward souls.

My deepest condolences to all her friends and to her family. I was blessed to have known her way back in the Sonoma County Stump days, 1979 to 1982. She gave me my first job in the alternative newspaper business because she believed in me, saw something worth cultivating. It surprised me when she said that I was a role model for her, because she was a role model for me. She said she admired my formidable intellect, my drive, and my willingness to get to the essence of things. 

We lost touch, after the Sonoma County Stump folded, we were all jobless. So Simone Wilson and I marched on down to The Paper and insisted they hire us, they were terribly surprised to see us because they were a rival newspaper, but they took us on anyway. Bliss sold ads for The Paper but it didn’t work out so well. Tom Richmond owed her money and didn’t want to pay up, so he fired her. He tried to fired us too, but to his chagrin, we refused to be fired.

And then Bliss later went onto what she appropriately described as the corporate soulessness of the Press Democrat to sell ads— complaining that she couldn’t even wear pants, she had to wear nylons, and this was in the late 1980s. Eventually she took over an antiques newspaper, which led her to Mendocino, and to Gualala, where she met her husband, sailor and musician Jim Cochran, and they sailed off to Mexico in a sailboat, where they settled in San Carlos, and lived for 16 years.

Jim Cochran said: March 17, 1989 was the day we met in  Petaluma, CA at the Irish Pub there. We split the last corned beef and cabbage dinner they had. We felt it was a lucky day for us. We timed all our big decisions for St. Pat's Day after that... and it worked. Right now, I just try to concentrate on what is right in front of me and deal with it. There will always be time for sorrow in the future..

Bliss Cochran, watercolor by Jim Cochran, 1991

Not only did they sing together, and produce an antiques guide for the western United States, but she also rescued animals from the streets of Sonora, rehabilitating, and finding homes for them. If there is a rainbow bridge, surely it is crowded and in danger of capsizing with all the animals that she rescued.

Bliss and I lost touch, but we found each other again on Facebook. And then out of the blue, we reconnected with each other a few years ago when I was reading for the Petaluma Poetry Walk. We spent a few days together at her son, Jay’s house in Petaluma, we drank a lot of wine and I collected some of her oral history, always expecting to go back and finish it. See my blog post. Bliss Buys remembers (oral history) Sonoma County

When I first heard the news that Bliss had a stroke, I literally could not sleep the entire night. I hadn’t heard from her on Facebook for a few days and I had a bad premonition so I went to her page and discovered that she had had a stroke, probably exacerbated by the cancer treatment. Something similar happened to my mother, the chemo gave her a heart attack.

In a perfect world I would have jumped on a plane and come visit. But I can’t. Teaching obligations, and no passport. I want to say to her son, Jay, thank you for being there. You were central to her universe, a shining star, even way back when during the Sonoma County Stump days. I remember seeing you, a small boy quietly playing in the Stump office. I need to stop now before I weep.

Bliss was a central figure in the back to the land movement, and lived at Morningstar, Wheeler Ranch, and Open Lands. She was a progressive thinker, like her Stump business partner Joe Leary, she was always looking at holistic alternatives to the watered-down Americana experience that was not meeting her needs. In 1992 she went to Cuba, something I didn’t know, otherwise, I would have interviewed her more on it. We kept thinking there was more time.

She was always asking when I was coming down San Carlos to visit her. I kept thinking, soon. Soon. But then, the pandemic. And now she’s gone, but she is still also with us as well. I am sure she is still playing in the band she founded, Angel Wings, playing to a full house on Cloud Nine.

Her hospital bills have been enormous, and there is a GoFundMe page. https://gofund.me/3b130367

Animal Rescuer Extraordinaire Now Needs Rescue

Bliss Cochran has lived in San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico for sixteen years. Eleven years ago she took in her first rescue, a battle-scarred little dachshund found alone on a remote road. Since then she has worked closely with animal rescue organizations in San Carlos, Guaymas and Empalme, while fostering small breed dogs and puppies in her condo and raising donations for local animal rescue groups. A portion of her social security check paid for pet food, veterinarian expenses, and transport for animals to their new homes. Most of her San Carlos friends are people who either brought her homeless animals or adopted one of her fosters. She considers animal rescue the most meaningful work she has done in her life

A week ago, Bliss was diagnosed with rectal cancer. She was shocked and frightened but decided to go ahead with treatment, which will involve staying in a city two hours’ drive from home and receiving daily outpatient radiation and chemotherapy. The treatment is costly, and she does not have insurance. In addition to renting an AirBNB, she must pay out of pocket for all medical services, nursing, and medicine. After years of raising funds to save animals, she needs help herself.

Bliss begins therapy in four days. Although 80 years old, she has an excellent chance of recovery—the cure rate for this type of cancer is said to be about 90 percent. The hospital is one of the best in Northern Mexico, with great doctors, and she feels confident that all will be well, but she needs your assistance. There are still so many more animals in the community that need loving homes, and she just wants to get back to her passion of saving dogs and cats.

To see this page on Facebook with additional photos, go to: https://www.facebook.com/100063475633095/posts/658266872965828/

A note to Andrei Codrescu on the launch of his Plague Diaries

Well Andrei, it’s good to see you’re alive. After all these years. Last time I heard from you was in a blanket cc email asking  me whether or not I was dead or alive. Afraid of the outcome, like Schrodinger’s cat, I didn’t know whether to answer it, or to not answer it. Rest assured, I didn’t take it personally. After all it was addressed—or was it undressed—to practically everybody else in Sonoma County. Is you in or is you out?

Yes, I’m delighted to say we’re all still alive and kicking. Gail King and Pat Nolan are on Facebook. Well, Gail is. You know how Pat. Jeffrey Miller is still dead. Hunce Voelcker, too. I wonder if his Brooklyn Bridge castle still stands in the deepwoods of Monte Rio?

I finally got around to scanning my old slides if it. All this free time. If you want to see them, give a shout. It’s fairly quiet in this neck of the woods. No one is out and about, it’s like a rollback in time to the 1960s sans logging trucks. The Summer of Love hasn’t yet happened. We’re all honing our backwoods skills. Victory gardens and foraging. Everybody’s baking bread. We’re all getting fat. And we howl nightly with the neighbors. Lately the coyotes have taken to joining us.

Glad to see you’re here. As you know, there is no there there. On some level, via group memory, we never quite let go of you and your stories. And you’ve no idea who is am, I was one of the young poets taking sprout in poetry’s garden. You are still part of the strange Ur text of our lives. And we’re delighted that you are in fine fettle too. You’re looking good. What a long strange trip it’s been. Carry on.

Bliss Buys Cochran saw my note and wrote: I'm also glad you're still around, Andrei. You probably don't even remember me, but maybe you remember the Sonoma County Stump, where Mo and I both worked. I believe you submitted some articles (a column?), it's been 50 years so forgive me if my memory's vague. I look forward to your Plague Diary and I hope you'll be safe in the epicenter. Tried to friend you, but FB says you already have too many friends—5,000!...never knew they could put a limit on your friends. Wonder if THEY'RE all still around.

I told Bliss that I posted her note to Andrei Codrescu. If you go to his author page you can like it and then leave a message there directly if you would like.

Andrei wrote back: Wow! What a blast from the past. Not quite sure who’s who but I’ve been in touch with Pat. I love his Lufe of Crine, his novels and blog. I’m back in New York after 50 years or do... living in Brooklyn. It’s like I left 10 mins ago — a huge demonstration just went past toward the Brooklyn Bridge, probably about to meet thousands in the other side in the old rad Lower East Side.
I have occasional bouts of nostalgia about Monte Rio but too busy to indulge it. I post 3x/a week a video Plague Journal at codrescu.com/my-news. If you want to see it on FB it’s at the Andrei Codrescu Here page. I wonder what Jeff would have thought about the internet, but he’d have recognized all this, it’s just crazy continued. I like your memoir and yes, I’d love to see those pics. Maybe send by We Share or Mail Drop?
Stay sane compadres, love,
Andrei

I said, Andrei,  Bliss Buys and Joe Leary ran the Sonoma County Stump, I was photographer and poetry editor, probably how I met Pat. But then I began to cut my poetic teeth by organizing readings at the Cotati Cabaret, and Sonoma State, circa 1979. I think you were long gone by then. But the stories of you survived. You were the grand poet in absentía at our gatherings. 

I remember when the Jeffrey Miller’s posthumous book came out, we read his poems from inside a redwood tree. Drinking may have been involved. But Marianne Ware was always championing your stories. You could hardly forget Marianne, Jewish mama as wide as she was tall, and a generous soul to go with it. If we ever get out of this alive, I will start scanning those photos very soon.

• A note to Andrei Codrescu on Life of Crime

Bliss Buys remembers (oral history) Sonoma County Stump

Simone Wilson, Bliss Buys & Joe Leary, 1980. Maureen Hurley photo

I ran into former Sonoma County Stump founder and editor, Bliss Buys after a poetry reading, the Petaluma Poetry Walk. Bliss, Simone Wilson and I had lunch at Dempsey’s and reminisced. I am sorry to say that I did not take any notes, it was a whirlwind visit. A blast from the past. Simone and I booth cut our journalism teeth at the Sonoma County Stump. There was so much more catching up to do, as I hadn’t seen Bliss since the Stump folded in 1981, when I was new to writing. I worked at the Stump from 1979-1980 until it folded.

I had a camera, I happened to live near the Sonoma County Stump office, I wandered in once day to see what I could see, and next thing I knew, I was given the centerfold to create a double-truck spread on Sonoma County poetry, and a deadline—and the rest is history. —The Paper and the Sonoma County Stump

Bliss and I met up in Petaluma the next day as she needed to meet up with her clients, to renew ads for a antiques periodical she had founded in 1989. It was so enthralling to trail after her as she visited a plethora of Petaluma antiques stores. The antiques guide went from a small Sonoma County monthly throwaway tabloid newspaper to an annual West Coast guidebook. Bliss was touching base with her clients.

Bliss wrote this synopsis in a Facebook group, Russian River History and Memories, “Our first office was on River Blvd. in Monte Rio where we got flooded. The last one was over the Mexican restaurant in downtown Forestville. At one point, we were located behind the Rio Theater in Monte Rio. We had an office on Hwy. 116 north of Sebastopol (where the late, beloved Joe Leary came onboard), one in Guernewood Park (where we got flooded again). There were two periods when we couldn't afford an office and worked out of my home, once in Pocket Canyon (where my partner was Patrick Lanzing), once on Trenton Rd. in Forestville. I wish I remember the last name of the designer of the masthead...John something. The theme was borrowed from a painting by Joan Miró depicting a tree stump that has one of its roots firmly gripping the axe that did the job. Probably the most complete collection of The Stump that exists, went to the museum at Sonoma State University. It may even include some of the very first editions, when Jack "The Carpenter" Husband started it and I was the typist. Deadlines were typically all-nighters. We typed the text, cut out the columns and pasted them with melted wax on big galley sheets. Those copies might still be there, in some dusty corner of the SSU storeroom. We had a good run—more than ten years. 

What follows is an ad hoc oral folk history interview with Bliss at her son Jay’s house on Pepper Road, Petaluma, reminiscing about the past. As is with most verbatim conversations, it’s sometimes disjointed, but one of the things I’ve learned about collecting oral folklore from my UC Berkeley professor, Dr. Alan Dundes, is to not try and fix syntax, grammar, or timeline. Nor interrupt.... Akkk!

The Value of Poetry: Pure Gold

After I sent out a zany email to the Press Democrat to cover our upcoming California Poets in the Schools symposium, Voices of Gold, they decided to write a little feature on me instead. Oops. I became the news. Last time the PD did a story on me, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck. The next time I had something big and newsworthy, 9/11 happened—just as I was going out the door to the Marin Poetry Center reading, and the coffee table book I was promoting, Writing the Rails—Best Loved Train Stories (Black Dog & Leventhal), was remaindered before it was released. Third time's a charm? These are my soft notes. It will be interesting to see how it will be shaped. It has a Sonoma County slant as those are the newspaper demographics. It took me two days to write this—like a cat writing my way out of a paper bag. Of course, now that I've sent it in (too late now), I see all kinds of rough segues, errors, and bits in need of revision. It is what it is...

What is the value of poetry?

The doctor poet-William Carlos Williams wrote: 'It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” Poetry allows us to examine our emotions and and contemplate our thoughts. Wordsworth scribed: “Poetry is human emotion recollected in tranquillity.” Not that there’s much by way of tranquillity to be had during this day and age. In the process of recollection, poetry gives shape and form and meaning to those constantly chattering voices inside our heads, and renders them into an art form.

What can poetry accomplish that prose cannot?

Prose is to poetry as math is to music—you need both—but prose is analytical, expository, and tends toward the utilitarian. Poetry is like dancing with words. Poetry gives shape to our innermost feelings, and presents them in a tangible art form that others can enjoy, and get the Aha! epiphany. The ancient Greeks dubbed poetry as the mother of all arts. During a poetry lesson on “If…,” one of my kindergarten students at San Miguel School stood up and proclaimed: “If I were king of the universe, I’d dance for a living.” He got the Aha! moment.

Ironically I hated the study of poetry when I was young, because I didn't get it. I have dyslexia—which was part of the problem. But I was looking at form versus content, or meaning. As a writer, I’m not a big fan of metered verse, though we tend to speak in iambic stress. It took me a long time to make that full circle—which is ironic in that I coach high school students to recite poetry for the Poetry Out Loud competition.

CPITS poets create a personalized a standards-based grade level curriculum (California history, the ancient world, water cycles, or health ed.,) and infuse it with magic and mystery, often marrying theatre, music and visual arts with the literary arts.

How does the CPITS program capture—and hold—a child’s interest?

Through the immediacy and approachability of our CPTS poetry lesson plans, we offer poems from the great body of literature, as well as peer student poems, as models. It’s a mirroring process. We write our own poems based on other poems. 

Imagine being a student cut off from writing about your feeling and thoughts. With the current state curriculum standards, most student writing is expository, or fill in the dots, and there’s no room for creative self-expression. Then imagine these wild poets who come along, they take language, they damsel it up and shake it all about. Suddenly that stuffy poetry is equal parts theater and soap-box pulpit, coupled with innermost feelings fueled by wild imagination—and suddenly it’s all fun.

Most kids discover that writing their own poetry is liberating—especially those kids who traditionally don’t do well in school, or have trouble accessing the language arts curriculum. Because there’s no right or wrong way to write poetry, it’s a place where they can excel. Then, their poems are published in a school handout or a book—and suddenly poetry matters.

Suddenly you’ve kids with a vested interest in getting every word right, and every simile and comma in its exact right place. It happens like that. I was teaching in a tough East Oakland inner-city school where a fifth grader, Franklin, my star poet, was expelled. As he cleared out his desk, he eavesdropped in on the poetry lesson. He put his stuff down, grabbed some paper out of the trash, and madly wrote an amazing stream of consciousness poem that was later published in our 2012 CPITS anthology, Turning into Stars.

I wish there was a CPITS residency offered when I was in school. Since CPITS was founded in 1964, it could’ve been technically possible. It would’ve changed my entire relationship with school and with poetry. About the time I began to write poetry, I was also diagnosed with dyslexia. There’s a reason why I had so much trouble in school, and why did I have to wait until I was 30 to discover that I loved to write?

When traditional education failed, poetry taught me to think, and I went on to write essays and arts grants—I had seven California Arts Council artist-in-residency grant at Mark West School in Santa Rosa. And I became a feature writer for the Sonoma County Stump as well as for the West Sonoma County Paper (now the North Bay Bohemian.) None of it would’ve happened if I hadn’t discovered poetry.  

The reason why I’m in the classroom, is that, as a poet, I’m a role model. I can reach those kids who traditionally fall through the cracks, and show them how they can access their minds. Poetry creates a powerful tool for change and self actualization. A former student from Mark West School, who didn’t think poetry was important, called me up at midnight to read me a poem he’d just written out of the blue. Scott Meisner was a 21-year-old college student with a MBA who finally got the Aha! moment when he realized that poetry matters.

If the program isn’t at my child’s school, how can I help bring it there?

The best way to get poetry into the schools is usually through a parent volunteer, the PTA, or a teacher. At Alexander Valley School, a teacher, Peggy Maddock, brought poetry to the school—and now first grade teacher Shannon Hausman continues the tradition. Since 1991, I’ve taught an entire generation of Alexander Valley kids poetry.

There are numerous school and community funding sources that can be utilized to fund a CPITS residency. We are trained to work with teachers to locate and develop funding sources: including specialized school funds—from gifted and talented, youth at risk, library funds, etc; to state and local arts education resources: the Community Foundation of Sonoma County, and the California Arts Council. We’ve become gifted grantwriters in the process.

During this time of dire funding for the arts, we’ve some great breaking news: thanks to a California Arts Council /Artists in Schools grant, Sonoma County CPITS poets will offer long-term, in-depth poetry writing residencies at four schools in Sonoma County. Contact the Sonoma-Napa CPITS Area Coordinator Meg Hamill, megmariehamill@gmail.com, or the San Francisco CPITS office info@CPITS.org, (415) 221-4201, for more information.

CPITS, a collective of professional poets who bring literary craft into classrooms statewide, is one of the nation’s oldest visiting writers program—and this weekend we’re celebrating our 50th anniversary October 10-12 at IONS Earthrise Retreat on the Sono-Marin border. If you’re an artist and want to work in the schools, or you’re a teacher interested in enriching your language arts curriculum, our CPITS Symposium, Voices of Gold, is an excellent resource and training ground. We’ve ten more spaces open for day-use folks, either Saturday, or Saturday and Sunday. Two more IONS rooms just opened up if they need to stay over. The view from the ridge is breathtaking and the food is fabulous.

Our keynote will be former California Poet Laureate Al Young. On Friday, an intensive “method writing” workshop will be led by Los Angeles poet and screenwriter Jack Grapes. The symposium will also features spoken word artist Josh Healey and visiting poets from around the state who will share proven strategies to deliver hands-on and out-loud poetry in schools.

If you’d like to become involved as a teacher, poet, donor or school, please find us on the web at www.cpits.org to help build the future for young writers in California. Statewide CPITS residencies reach more than 25,000 students, and trained CPITS poets offer time-tested teaching tools to enhance literacy, and foster creative problem solving and self-expression. Poetry workshops are held at public and private schools, juvenile hall, libraries, after-school programs, hospitals, multilingual settings and other community venues.

And if you can’t come to the symposium, you might want to order our inaugural CPITS lesson plan book, “Poetry Crossing: 50 Lessons for K-12 Classrooms.” Edited by former CPITS AC, Phyllis Meshalum of Sebastopol, it’s a large format ready-to-roll writing lesson ideas for all ages.

Remembering Nick Valentine & Phil Osborn at The Paper

Nick Valentine, 1941-2011. 

Where to begin? I find myself wandering incoherent as a cloud, woolgathering attempting to trick myself into writing this obit in medias res with a mea culpea to you, Dear Reader, and to two newspapermen I once knew, as well as to the end of an era. 

What I really want to say to my blog is: Not today, Dear, I have a headache. Gutting closets, tearing the house apart and whatnot has left me stiff and the raging headache is a byproduct of—or rather, a result of old car injuries acting up. To begin my morning with tea and advil. And bad news. Ugh. If i don't just start writing—warts and all—it'll never happen. The self-imposed dreadline.

Today the bad news just kept on coming: an old friend, photographer and writer, Simone Wilson, emailed me that our mentor and newspaper legend of The Paper (now the North Bay Bohemian), editor Nick Valentine died on June 25, in Brisbane, Australia (1941-2011).

And hard on the heels of that sad news, Simone told me that Phil Osborne (1938-2011) the photographer who trained me in the darkroom arts, also died in July 15, in Cloverdale, CA.

Perhaps it's not so strange that these two men died within weeks of each other. For over a decade, Nick & Phil were the backbone and ribs of an alternative weekly tabloid newspaper owned by Elizabeth Poole that we worked for during the 1980s and 1990s. What I learned about photography and writing—I owe to these two great mentors who taught and encouraged me, and allowed me to develop my own style. Godspeed.

Editor Nick Valentine 1941-2011 ©1991 Jesse Valentine

Nick Valentine was founding editor of The Paper: West Sonoma County's Independent Voice (1979—1993). The Paper was where I learned my varied and sullen craft: writing and photography.  Jazz pianist Bob Lucas was The Paper's first publisher, he paid the bills. Shortly thereafter, Bob sold it to Elizabeth Poole whose family owned a string of newspapers back east. So you could say Elizabeth was born into the newspaper business.

One story has it that Guerneville resident Stan Buck was credited with generically naming it The Paper—the place where people got their local news. But the other story has it that when Elizabeth Poole came to work with Nick as an intern from Sonoma State, an Abbot and Costello Who's on first conversation followed. And the paper became The Paper.

During that time, The Paper evolved from a mimeographed flyer to a tabloid. Nick was editor-in-chief for ten years, focusing on local news, with in-depth political and environmental coverage pertinent to West county. Nick had a finely-honed sense of justice and strong working class ethics—he kept a sharp lookout for the rights of the little guy. Perhaps his short stint with The Russian River News—then owned by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, sharpened his political awareness. 

"Poole bought the financially struggling Paper that year and kept it alive with her family’s money through the 1980s, when at its peak it was printing 15,000 copies a week. After Poole sold it in 1990 The Paper evolved into The Independent and moved to Santa Rosa where it became the Northbay Bohemian." —Frank Robertson, Sonoma West Times & News. 7/27/2011.

The financially strapped Paper offices bounced up and down the Russian River: Monte Rio, Guernewood Park, Guerneville, Forestville. When The Paper morphed into The West Sonoma County Paper, it made a break with the River and moved to the tiny hamlet of Freestone. Then it moved to urban Santa Rosa, it tried to grow up and lose its hippie duds, and then it became the The Sonoma County Independent ca. 1993 (publishers Boland-Carroll Inc.).

The Paper, 1989

Ironically, one of my writing students from Mark West School, Gabe Meline, is now the editor of the North Bay Bohemian. I must've taught him something, it's improved greatly under his tenure. Here is a link to a 25-year retrospective of The Paper from the Bohemian's rather flat lens.Then, The Paper was rebranded The North Bay Bohemian  when it was purchased by Metro Newspapers (Rosemary Olson, publisher). By the time it became the Bohemian (when was that 1996?), and Greg Cahill was editor, the paper no longer had any West County roots to speak of, and I was unceremoniously kicked to the curb. 

NICK VALENTINE

Nick Valentine died in Brisbane, Australia, at the age of 69 from pneumonia—complications of a lung disease. Most likely emphysema. To my way of thinking, Nick died too young. A bearded bear of a man, Nick never did take very good care of himself. Svelte dark Virginia Slims cigarettes and Coca-Cola were his mainstay.


Nick was one caf-fiend Coke-swigging smoking chimney of an editor during Wednesday-night-cum-Thursday morning production drop deadline. When the Coke ran out, Nick switched to leftover coffee sludge, spiked with condensed milk and sugar, and kept on working. I think he only missed the printer's deadline once.

Brother Toby of the Starcross community in Annapolis challenged the notion that AIDS was solely a "gay" disease by offering shelter to AIDS infected orphans. His story shepherded AIDS into mainstream consciousness.

Putting the paper to bed in the wee hours meant that we—the paste up crew, and the darkroom tech (me)—pulled many all-nighters working against time itself in the ramshackle offices above the store. Many's the time I drove home to Forestville along River Road in my VW Bug, with dawn nudging the reluctant stars out of the sky. A few times I delivered the flats to the Healdsburg printer at daybreak.

Nick Valentine, the Oak Leaf, May 1976.

PHIL OSBORN

Interview with Katharine Harer, Statewide Coodinator, CPITS

SONOMA COUNTY STUMP 

January 7-14, 1982 
Artists cannot deal with the simple business side of life including filling out forms, earning a living, and relating normally to people around them, Fact or fiction? How many people buy the myth?

Poet Katharine Harer,  Sebastopol resident and native of the Bay Area, is the Statewide Coordinator for California Poets-in-the-Schools, and she very much disproves the myth that all artists are incapable of surviving in the 20th century.

In an interview, she debunks the myth entirely. She began teaching in Poets-in-the-Schools in 1978 and rapidly moved forward into the position of Office Administrator; in 1981, she was nominated the Statewide Coordinator for the entire program.

CPITS had its beginnings at San Francisco State University in 1964 and was spawned out of a writing program called the Pegasus

California Poets-in-the-Schools (CPITS) is a statewide community-based Artists-in-Schools (AIS) program jointly sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council, and is the only AIS program in the country which is fully administered by practicing poets. 

CPITS is the largest writers-in-schools program in the US and, as of last year, there were 130 poets teaching in the program in 220 schools in 21 regions of the state. Poets work directly with 19, 000 kids, kindergarten through 12th grade, in workshops lasting anywhere from 5 days to the whole school year. 

CPITS had its beginnings at San Francisco State University in 1964 and was spawned out of a writing program called the Pegasus Project. Similar to the Youth-in-Arts program in Marin County, CPITS brought established published poets into the schools to give readings at assemblies and special events. In 1971 the poets started going into the classrooms to actually teach children their craft. The results were astounding.

There was almost a 100% positive response: everyone wrote poems, and everyone could see the value of one another's poetic vision. Not only that, kids began to do better in other school activities. An enhanced reading and writing enrichment program, Poets-in-the-Schools has consistantly proven itself to be an important part of the school curriculum.

CPITS is especially active in Sonoma County, which has been dubbed a "hot-bed of activity, " due to Area Coordinator Lee Perron and the incredible energies of the local poets.

When asked what it's like to work for CPITS, Katharine Harer said, "I love my job because I not only believe in the program (bringing poetry to the kids) but the people I work for are creative and exciting. We are making it possible for poets to work at what they believe in, to do what they love to do.

Poets don't have to starve, bes, pump as or bus dishes…There’s a crazy kind of dignity that comes from walking into a school and having everyone know who you are— “Oh, you're the poet!'—and want you in their school. "

Maureen Hurley: In a recent article I wrote, Education: Back to Basics, Art as the 4th R" with Lee Perron (see Dec. 3-10, 1981 of the Stump), two of the themes I was concerned with were one's role as an artist, and the role of being a coordinator. How do artists function in the 20th century, and how does an artist deal with the myth of being incompetent and "flakey?"

Katharine Harer: I think a lot of poets in the program are disproving that. There’s such a bad reputation about artists, which is also part of the positive, romantic reputation of being an artist. aura that surrounds an artist, especially a poet, is that you can't deal with the world, that you re too cosmic, that you’re too involved in your neuroses. You’re too out of it. You can't do  paperwork, etc. It’s a myth. Last year poets raised a total of $225,000. That's money raised in the communities which includes private foundation grants and community money—that's an incredible statement about what we're able to do.

MH: Yes, how those flakes are hustling..

KH: That's right! I'm not saying there's something intrinsically great about being able to handle paper-work, but how do you live without being aware of some of those realities?

MH: A lot of poets today wind up in university situations but jobs there are limited. I think CPITS allows poets to continue being poets and still survive financially, which is a challenge, isn't it?

KH: It's a challenge to say you're not a technician in the schools, a mechanic who goes in to turn the right levers and the right screws. You're a poet. Hopefully  you're publishing and sharing your work in the community.

MH: How do you deal with people who are technicians? I mean, there are great poets who can't teach and great teachers who are not artists.

KH: By encouraging them to continue to write and publish their work. I think a lot of us forget as we deal with all kinds of administrative and functional aspects of the CPITS program that we can never forget we're poets.

The Sonoma County group is very active. You put on readings for the communities. I think it's essential to keep reading the poems, and sharing the work.

MH: I've always felt that being a poet is a full time occupation, and being a poet-teacher in CPITS is also a full time occupation. You we’re saying earlier, it’s a challenge to stay a poet, with the two together. We're working double time as compared to most people, and we've got to somehow intertwine the two…

KH: yes, but somehow the one really spirals the other. Once I was a cocktail waitress and I thought I was going to write great cocktail waitress poems from this experience and it didn't happen. I think it's because I was so exhausted spiritually, because the job didn't give me much energy. A part of me feels that it's important—it's dignifying to work, and that was real work. I was in the union and working my ass off. Whereas when I teach, I'm so excited about poetry that I want to write. I want to be in the process of writing. In a way, we're working morè, but it's a self stimulating cycle.

MH: What about being with the kids and watching the creative process unfold?

KH: Part of the strength and dynamism of what we do in the classroom is not what gets down on a piece of pap-er, but our presence as a poet. I'm a poet. This is what I do. I get up in the morning and write poetry. Wanna see my notebook? I want to show them the process. It's messy. There are doodles and crossouts in it. If we can extend that to other textures and possibilities, like bringing in paintings, music, drama, mime, it enriches their sense of what expression is all about. I think that poets. are in the schools because kids need to be guided toward that poetic part of themselves just like adults do.

Adults are more rigid. They've been pushing words on paper for so long that they're really stuck on structures. What we're trying to do is to open the structures up. So, when kids write, because they're newer to language, they can open up much faster.

MH: That's what I really get a buzz from. Seeing them opening up the structure and seeing my own writing change so dramatically. When I'm writing in the workshops, that brings the whole process back home for me.

KH: You go back to your own work and realize you're stuck on structure too. I wanted to talk about why poetry is such an important medium for the expression of language with kids. Why poetry? Why not essays? Why not stories or sentences? There's a real interesting difference between a sentence and what we call in poetry, the line.

In poetry the line can be any length. It can be one word or one syllable. Or it can be twenty words strung together. The difference has to do with syntax, punctuation, length, and visibility. It's all those open structures that poetry offers compared to the closed structure of the sentence. When we're teaching poetry in the classroom, we're not only teaching competence or familiarity or excitement with language, which, of course, is essential, but we're also teaching a way of thinking, a way of thought which is right brain—non-linear circular thought. A process of opening up your mind to accept all kinds of possibilities. You're teaching a process of thought, and all those processes affect the way kids would approach any task in school.

Think of physics—all the things they discovered by mind leaping. That's what poetry is, leaps. What we're trying to do is to help the student learn the process of discovery. In poetry there are no right answers. In the process of writing, we discover we are independent thinkers.

For more information on Poets-in-the-Schools, contact Area Coordinator for Lake, Napa and Sonoma Counties, Lee Perron, 9312 Champs, Forestville, or call (707) 887-7850.

Education: Back to Basics—Art is the 4th "R": an interview with Lee Perron, Sonoma County Stump

BENEATH THE WEIGHT OF COWS, and DEPART

BENEATH THE WEIGHT OF COWS

Beneath the weight of cows

The water, churning down
from the Swiss Alps flows by me.
The sound of the nightingale
is lost under the white roar of waterfalls.

Centuries of snowmelt
loosing from sky blue glaciers
slipped by me. I have never heard
a nightingale singing.

In the lizard heat of the sun,
I sit on a rock and listen
to the drowsy hum of bees
as alpine clover is crushed
beneath the weight of cows,
their heavy dank breath
exuding chlorophyll and trembling sunlight.

They cease their chewing a moment.

Their ears pivot towards the scaled notes
of the nightingale wavering
by this icy, ancient stream at dusk.

11/23/1981

SC Stump 1981

DEPART
    —from a visual translation of Rimbaud's poem Depart

So say you,
visions recanted in trees.

Toes of the air,
so say I. Rumors spread like valleys.

O parting night and morning sun,
today, they say
arrest life.
O rumors of visions
departing on the dance of affection
in the bright night,
trees swaying,
toes of the air.

11/23/1981
added 10/16

Copperfield’s on a Rainy Afternoon

Copperfield's on a rainy afternoon
by Maureen Hurley

On a blustery Sunday afternoon over 50 poetry aficionados braved torrential downpours to listen to 4 poets read at Copperfield's Books, (formerly Myst Books) of Sebastopol. It was standing room only with people crowded in among the stacks, sitting on the floor and in the aisles as Ina Scrocco, Boschka Layton, Gerrye Payne and Ann Zimmer read from their works.

Scrocco, Layton and Zimmer are former students of Gerrye Payne, who teaches adult education creative writing through the Santa Rosa J. C. Their poetry reflects the diverse styles of their writing even though their connection is that they are former students of Gerrye Payne's writing class.

Canadian poet Boschka Layton read some humerous love poems and poems about her cat Ivan. Cats have a special place in literary circles from Cat Geoffrey in Jubiatante Agno by Christopher Smart, to the present day tortoise shell cat of Copperfield's who nonchalantly strolled across the tops of books to visit the kids browsing in the children's section.

Ina Scrocco, coordinator of SSU's new series, "Poetry Readings at the Pub, " held every other Thursday, shared wonderful image-laden glimpses, of her world with us; and Ann Zimmer read long narrative poems of love, Cinderella retold, and birth. There's an old Chinese saying... a picture is worth a thousand words...

Taking that a step further, I'd like to say a poem is worth a thousand pictures and that adequately describes Gerrye Payne’s work.

Payne, a Marriage & Child counselor for the Erickson Institute in Sebastopol, has a book soon to be out from Loon Press called An Amatuer Plays Satie. Ms. Payne is also the publisher of White Bear Books, which has printed 5 titles so far. Grandmother Spider, an anthology of local writers, is one, and Richard Welin's book The Ride Back is in libraries all over the US. Although The Ride Back is sold out, most of the other books are available at Copperfield's Books.

The owners of Copperfield's are dedicated to providing a special sort of bookstore for people to feel at home in. Series Coordinator Donna Fisher, who limelights as a 6th grade teacher at Brookhaven Jr. High during the day, said "We wanted to provide authors with a warm place to read their works. For me, its a resourceful place, people come in off the street, develop a dialogue with the bookstore and come back again for the readings." 

One of the co-owners of Copperfield's, Barney Brown, who founded People's Music ten years ago was also a teacher in the Berkeley School System. Barney, his partner Paul Jaffe (no relation to Sherril Jaffee, the writer) and Donna Fisher have created a unique atmosphere and provide the Sebastopol community with a well received weekly reading series that has gained a lot of momentum since is started last September. Readings are held on Sunday afternoons from 2 to 4 p.m. The events are free.

*
Stump Poetry Editor Maureen Hurley will join Zara Altair & Andrea Granahan at Copperfield's for a California Poets-in-the-Schools reading, November 22 at 2pm

On Sunday, November 22nd at 2 p.m. Copper-field's will present a Sonoma County Poets-in-the-Schools reading with Maureen Hurley, Zara Altair and Andrea Granahan.

Students from Analy High School, where Altair and Hurley are poet-teachers in an after school program, will also read from their recent works. The event is free. For more information on California Poets-in-the-Schools, contact Lee Perron, 1932 Champs 'd Elysees, Forestville, 95436.

FOR THE FISH IN MY LIFE

FOR THE FISH IN MY LIFE

A minnow sleeps in my bed

and noses at the watery quilt.

As I climb into bed,

concentric ripples form

where, toe first, I slip in and under.

I'm careful not to disturb him.

All night long, the fish thrashes

and turns as I sleep

in a bed of soft stone.

If I turn over too fast,

will he be thrown from the bed,

or drown from lack of water?

10/81

Sonoma County Stump 8/18/81

Dynamic poetry at Garbo's (photos) Hass & Maxon

SONOMA COUNTY STUMP

Dynamic poetry at Garbo's

By Maureen Hurley and Alene Balsé

On August 17, Garbo's Monday Nite Poetry and Prose Series hosted Robert Hass and Suzanne Maxson. The performance was well attended and the audience captivated by the poets' personable prose style and universal appeal.

Hass began his reading with work by the exiled Polish poet Czeslaw Miloz,  the 1981 Nobel Prize winner in poetry.

On all fours they crawl out of the dugout.
Dawn. In the distance, 

Under a cold aurora, 

A slow blind train.

Hass, who also translates haiku, has been referred to as "one of the best kept secrets of well known American poets"; won the Yale Younger Series Poets Award in 1973 for his book, Field Guide. Also highly acclaimed most recent book, Praise, which does poetic justice to the English language. "Ideas and emotions are inseparably interwoven, and the pull of their ramifications steer the poem toward universality. " 

Each thing moves its own way 

in the wind. Bamboo flickers,
the plum tree waves, 

and the loquat
is shaken.

—from The Beginning of September

Maxson's tiny and unassuming presence made the impact of her socially conscious poetry all the more dynamic. From her first book, Our Lady of Names, she read poems of war-stricken El Salvador and Lebanon where 'bowls were filled with whitest yogurt" and beggars cried "bak- sheesh, baksheesh." She then read a poem about her son, "Gabriel on a Sunday," (See poem, this page) and we embark on a journey back to the gentleness of our experiences from that of the jolting reality of the world's harsh existence.

Hass's and Maxson's easy manner and casual humor made their appeal both genuine and personal and made for a wonderful evening of poetry on the River. As Hass commented, "how calm people's faces get when they hear poetry, how the lines smooth out on their faces.

THIS KISS

THIS KISS 

    for DJ Hamilton

This maiden voyage of tongues,
Sleek suckle of cavorting seals
Undulating in kelp beds,
Capriciously nesting,
And antlered,
Rutting under the gibbous moon
Not the watery abyss
Licking shriveled toes and lips
Left too long in the bath.

7/29/81 Pt Townsend
rev. 8/81; 4/87 Sonoma County Stump 8/18/81

PORCUPINES

Galway says porcupines will consume

almost anything the human hand touches

Table legs, axe handles, toilet seats.

In my heart a slumbering porcupine is stirring.

Was it the shape of my breast under the loose shirt,

his hands slipping in and leaving traces of salt behind?

Words pierce the flesh. Will work their way in

to the heartwood? Salt in the wound.

A porcupine awakens slowly in winter.

1981 Sonoma County Stump, 12/10/81

IN A BLUE CUP

In a Blue Cup

Humming
Don't worry.
Something flows up quickly like milk in a blue...
Don't worry.
Yellow skin, yellow sky,
The sailors have all gone home.
These are not islands plotted carefully along the jetstream.
There are mangos in the air.
Suspended flesh
Soft pressure points;
Blue cups.

Blue cast of milk teeth
Puppy's tongue curled when the axe came down, 

green mangos.
Tulip petals crushed at my feet,
Purple dust of stamens covering my hands.
Poor circulation got him dead.

The axe was kinder.
Don't worry, mango skin
Something is flowing in a blue cup. 

(This is a different poem...)

Talk
Neck shadows
Align along the spine like stars
Suckle on milk-white pressure points 

Quick, grasp the warble,
The end of a laugh.

Spinal curve
Uneven steps like layers of chocolate cake
Parched earth
Lizard heat
And the slow alignment of softer pressure points.

Love
Spaces in between
Toes entrenched
Yes, I.

No date, published in the Sonoma County Stump, Oct. 18, 1981

RRWG, Cppperfield's my review of Boschka Layton, Zara Altair & Ina Scrocco

CPITS benefit reading at Guerneville Vets.

I didn’t realize that Pat Nolan was poetry editor of the Sonoma County Stump before I came along six months later.

TO STANDARD OIL & OPEC

TO STANDARD OIL AND OPEC

Rusted ’49 chassis
buried in the grass—
its pelvic shape
like the discolored bones
of dinosaurs.

Hip bones of automobiles
crawling back into the earth;
their slow death rattle
is heard in the rain.

1/15/1980 Sonoma County Stump, 12/17/81

The Paper and the Sonoma County Stump

Since I've discovered that I can now backdate my old blog posts that were crammed into the years 2007, and 2008, when I first began blogging, I've been rearranging old posts. However, they no longer have context. So here's a bit on the newspapers I worked for during the 1980s and 1990s, to give you some kickoff perspective.

See also Old Posts, New Posts

The Paper was first launched in 1979 by Elizabeth Poole and Nick Valentine, in Guernewood Park, and later moved to Monte Rio. After Bliss Buys and Joe Leary's Sonoma County Stump folded around 1981, Simone Wilson and I began working for The Paper. Somewhere along the way, it became the West Sonoma County Paper. Nick Valentine, or the new owner, John Boland (of KQED fame) may have changed the name again. John Boland moved The Paper from Monte RIo to Forestville to Freestone, to Santa Rosa and it became the Sonoma County Independent.

It was purchased in 1994 by Silicon Valley-based Metro Newspapers Group (a chain of 10 weeklies: AAN Metro Silicon Valley and Metro Santa Cruz).  Soon after that, I left The Paper, the thrill was gone, micromanagers and myopic editors, and turfy journalists including Gretchen Giles, ran roughshod over us. I didn't survive the politics. The jerk with whom I was sharing darkroom duties (I was on the road a lot in those days) stole my negatives and  job. And that was that.

The Sonoma County Independent morphed into the Northern California Bohemian in 2000, or rather, The North Bay Bohemian. Alas, the archives only date back to November of 1995. I use the same name throughout, though I worked for at least three iterations of the paper. I got some good stories, I learned a lot. For that I'm grateful.

More here on The Paper.    THURSDAY, JULY 28, 2011

Remembering Nick Valentine & Phil Osborn at The Paper

Activist Mary Moore wrote to the Bohemian editor: Your birth was in Monte Rio around 1979 as The Paper and I still have many articles saved from that time. With Nick Valentine as editor and Tom and Elizabeth as publishers, this brave little weekly with beautiful graphics and extraordinary layout (before computers) became must reading for all us counterculture types. It replaced Bliss Buy's previous paper, the Sonoma County Stump as the activist publication, and was one of the reasons that we were so successful in 1980, the first year that we protested at Bohemian Grove. It took us through the early 1980s protests at Rancho Seco, Diablo Canyon and the Livermore labs as well as covering all our doings here at home.

Impossible to find anything online about The Sonoma County Stump. But I found this:

Patrick K. Lanzing, Editor/Photographer/Life StudentSonoma County Stump1972 – 1975 (3 years) Russian River, California
Learned how to run a local-area community newspaper in the beautiful Russian River region of Sonoma County, CA, alongside one of the great unsung heroines of the American Free Press: Bliss Buys (ne: Cochrane). Helped organize a benefit featuring the Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter Bands. Photographed the Russian River Rodeo and stomped grapes with folks who nowadays own their own wineries. Walked in the redwoods, happy but dirt poor. Wrote stirring editorials and knew my community. Then I went to the big city and got a "real" job.

I found this reference in the March 1978 Oak Leaf: Jerry Garcia Band and Robert Hunter’s band Comfort will be appearing at the Sebastopol Veterans Auditorium on March 22 to do a Benefit for the Sonoma County Stump, a local newspaper. Tickets are on sale now so if you’re interested, go get ’em while they’re still available.