May Kay Rummel on November 23, 2014 - A Poet for Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, we have some poetry you will be truly thankful for! Mary Kay Rummel, Poet Laureate of Ventura County, will be our Featured Poet on Sunday, November 23, 2014 at 4:30 p.m. The reading will take place in the Bolton Hall Museum, L.A. Historical Monument No. 2, and a National Historical Landmark, on Commerce St. in Tujunga.  We start with a segment of open mike and follow the feature with another open mike segment. We have lots of talented poets and a few local originals, including former Poets Laureate of Sunland Tujunga and the current Poet Laureate, Elsa Frausto.

MARY KAY RUMMEL

Mary Kay Rummel is the first Poet Laureate of Ventura County, CA. Her seventh book of poetry, The Lifeline Trembles, has been published by Blue Light Press of San Francisco as a winner of the 2014 Blue Light Poetry Prize. Recent publications include poems in Nimrod, Pirene’s Fountain, Askew and in the anthologies, Woman in Metaphor by Stephen Linsteadt; Meditations on Divine Names (Moonrise Press); A Bird Black As The Sun (Green Poet Press); and Creativity and Constraint (Wising Up Press).Mary Kay has received four Pushcart nominations, was 2013 winner of the Irish American Crossroads Contest in San Francisco. She teaches part time at California State University, Channel Islands and lives in Ventura. More information: marykayrummel.com.

Burnt Dress

Even in old ageI need you,

your voice a ululation

across a meadow tracked

by the capricious ash grey hare.

Your words sprout

from my heart like mallow.

You tell me to claim

the wildness I once wanted.

Your words, stones

I keep fingering.

Beauty walks this world aging everything—

each colonnade, leaf, sparrow,

lintel, scarf, water bird.

I am an angel in a burnt dress.

I call you now from the square,

stalls hung with yellow roses and handbags.

So much stone here,

astarfall of stained glass.

One egret in a field.

The loneliness

of angels without

even the body of a shadow.

My breath spread so thin

that nothing’s left but bone
white emptiness, whisper of ruins.

Weaving, forever weaving

into and out of this world.

From The Lifeline Trembles

            Mary Kay Rummel

California Morning Song

Olive tree bent on the hill,

bathed in expectancy.

Lavender, and white stone.

Sea wind turns the world transparent.

Jade shell

Pink Perfection camellia

water-cuts in sand

mutate on the zigzag border

between wholeness and coming undone.

The horizon a gold line,

broken by tankers and tall ships,

between visible and unseen.

How loneliness ends

though you are far from home.

How a sailor becomes

the oceans she sails across.

From The Lifeline Trembles

            Mary Kay Rummel

At each Village Poets Monthly Reading we pass the George Harris hat - to collect $3 per person for refreshments and to donate to the Little Landers Historical Society for the upkeep of the Bolton Hall Museum. Here's George in his hat, and a poet's hat... 

PHOTO ALBUMS FROM PREVIOUS READINGS

LINDA DOVE - OCTOBER 26, 2014

https://picasaweb.google.com/Maja.Trochimczyk/VillagePoetsLindaDoveOctober262014

Poets in Hats at Linda's Reading - the Museum's current exhibits is on hats...

PEGGY DOBREER - SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

https://picasaweb.google.com/Maja.Trochimczyk/VillagePoetsPeggyDobreerSeptember2014

ELSA FRAUSTO - POET LAUREATE, JULY 27, 2014

https://picasaweb.google.com/Maja.Trochimczyk/VillagePoetsElsaFraustoJuly2014

THE FOURTH OF JULY PARADE WITH ELSA FRAUSTO

https://picasaweb.google.com/Maja.Trochimczyk/FourthofJuly2014

SHARON HAWLEY AND PETER JUSTUS - MAY 2014

https://picasaweb.google.com/Maja.Trochimczyk/VillagePoetsHawleyAndJustusMay2014

Village Poets Feature Linda Dove on October 26, 2014

Village Poets have the pleasure to invite poets, poetry lovers, and other interested parties with a profound fascination with the spoken word to attend the next Village Poets Monthly Reading at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga CA, on Sunday, October 26, 2014 at 4:30 p.m. in the afternoon. Our featured poet will be Linda Dove and we will also have two segments of Open Mike and serve refreshments. The Bolton Hall Museum is made available to Village Poets by the Little Landers Historical Society and we pass George Harris's hat to collect suggested donations of $3 per person to donate back to LLHS for the Bolton Hall use.

LINDA DOVE

Linda Dove has published two award-winning collections, In Defense of Objects (Bear Star, 2009) and the chapbook O Dear Deer, (Squall, 2011). She holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature and was a college English professor for many years. She currently lives in Monrovia, California. More info lives here: www.dovemuse.com.

St. Nicholas of Tolentino Begins with Prayer

Patron Saint of Vegetarians and Lost Souls

I do not refuse meat.

I am humble around kitchens, the copper conserva, the sauces and chickens.

My hands rub rosemary and purple flowers fall.

I am often at the gate.

I sit down and sign the cross in steam.

I am a child. I climb a tree.

I water stars.

The hens relent, transform to parsnips and beets.

I pass a bowl of salt.

The stem of a broom slants toward the sun.

I am served roast partridge in a black fig agrodolce.

I give thanks. I darn a blue hole.

Ave Maria, piena di grazia.

My face maps the distance between two circumstances.

A length of red beads slips into the sea.

A bee sews a bee cell shut.

I bow my head. The bird flexes, lifts off the plate.

Its wings beat and shed the dark sweets.

(c) by Linda Dove

PHOTOS FROM READING BY PEGGY DOBREER 

& 100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE

 We did not have 100  thousand poets, only about 20, but we did agree on principles of change: we will change the world if we continue doing exactly what we are doing, that is create poetry, make art, and reflect on the beauties and mysteries of the world. The power of positive thinking, of thoughtful reflection, of compassionate sharing of our knowledge and insights is the power that will make our world a better place. Why? Because it already has!

As the host in charge of the event "for change" I brought some hats I had in my trunk, so people would have something to change into. At the end only Lois and I have decided to wear the hats. No man would be caught dead with a gem, or a scarf on their hat... so that did not work so well... 

And here we are, changed!

The idea of George Harris, a rough and tough pioneer in an evening hat with jewels? Why not? \

Only Kathabela Wilson stayed faithful to her hats and even read a poem about it while Rick played the flute.

Here are some hatless folks in white. We are the "white knights" or "angels" of the poetry world, are we not?

Jack Cooper, without a hat but with his wits right where needed.

Mari Werner and Marlene Hitt shared a laugh.

.... and Peggy Dobreer had the last word.