The Morning Reading: "They’d take a new way back."

from Four Good Things

by James McMichael

The mountain north of Pasadena has severe
and angular back canyons where the light is always
unexpected, out of place, too simple for the
clutter of the granite blocks along the creeks.
The slopes have low rough shrubs, some firebreaks.
It rains sometimes, and then the soils wash easily
through Rubio and Eaton canyons to the small
catch-basins and the storage tanks. The bedrocks
tilt toward the west, and so the seepage
drains that way. Along a wall of the Arroyo,
it comes down in springs named Tibbets, Ivy,
Flutterwheel. These are the only steady water,
and the Indiana colony had hauled it out
in tubs and barrels to their lots. They’d cleared
the greasewood from the flats and planted groves of
orange and peach trees, built their houses in the
California Style with battened redwood boards.
Nearer the Arroyo, on its terraces,
they saved a few live oak. They’d have December
picnics there and afterward would walk from
that side, down the bluff. The floor was cool,
and there were sycamore and alder, loose
irregular new channels through the willows.
On the other side, and south, below the San Rafaels,
more oak, the sun. They’d take a new way back.

*

James McMichael reads from his new book,  If You Can Tell, this coming Thursday May 23 on the occasion of his retirement from UC Irvine.  McMichael is a founding member of UCI's English Department.  5 PM in HG 1030. Reception to follow.

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image by Edgar Payne (1883-1947)

Submit! Red Hen Press Short Story Award

2013 Red Hen Press Short Story Award

For publication in the Los Angeles Review 

$1000 Award
Deadline: June 30, 2013
Final Judge: Ron Carlson

The winner of the 2013 Red Hen Press Short Story Award will be announced in 2014.

Established in 2001, in celebration of the new century and a new tradition of literature, this award is for an original short story with a maximum of 25 pages. Submission is open to all writers and themes.

Award is $1000 and publication of the awarded story by Red Hen Press in the Los Angeles Review. Entry fee is $20 for two stories, 25 page limit per story. Please include your name on the cover sheet only. Send SASE for notification. Entries must be postmarked by June 30.

Guidelines

Eligibility: The award is open to all writers with the following exceptions:

A) Authors who have had a full length work published by Red Hen Press, or a full length work currently under consideration by Red Hen Press;
B) Employees, interns, or contractors of Red Hen Press;
C) Relatives of employees or members of the executive board of directors;
D) Relatives or individuals having a personal or professional relationship with any of the final judges where they have taken any part whatsoever in shaping the manuscript, or where, for whatever reason, selecting a particular manuscript might have the appearance of impropriety.

Procedures and Ethical Considerations

To be certain that every manuscript finalist receives the fairest evaluation, all manuscripts shall be submitted to the judges without any identifying material.

Bios, acknowledgments, and other identifying material shall be removed from judged manuscripts until the conclusion of the competition.

Red Hen Press shall not use students or interns as readers at any stage of its competitions.

Red Hen Press is committed to maintaining the utmost integrity of our awards. Judges shall recuse themselves from considering any manuscript where they recognize the work. In the event of recusal, a manuscript score previously assigned by the managing editor of the press will be substituted.

Please submit materials to:

Attn: Red Hen Press Short Story Award
Red Hen Press
P.O. Box 40820
Pasadena, CA 91114

http://www.redhen.org

Red Hen Press will only accept submissions that have been mailed to the above address; please no email attachments or faxes.

Visit the website:  http://redhen.org/awards-2/rhpssa/

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The Morning Reading:"I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame"

Testimonial

- Rita Dove

Back when the earth was new
and heaven just a whisper,
back when the names of things
hadn't had time to stick;

back when the smallest breezes
melted summer into autumn,
when all the poplars quivered
sweetly in rank and file . . .

the world called, and I answered.
Each glance ignited to a gaze.
I caught my breath and called that life,
swooned between spoonfuls of lemon sorbet.

I was pirouette and flourish,
I was filigree and flame.
How could I count my blessings
when I didn't know their names?

Back when everything was still to come,
luck leaked out everywhere.
I gave my promise to the world,
and the world followed me here.

*

The Morning Reading: "bloom how you must i say"

mulberry fields

-Lucille Clifton

they thought the field was wasting

and so they gathered the marker rocks and stones and
piled them into a barn they say that the rocks were shaped
some of them scratched with triangles and other forms they
must have been trying to invent some new language they say
the rocks went to build that wall there guarding the manor and
some few were used for the state house
crops refused to grow
i say the stones marked an old tongue and it was called eternity
and pointed toward the river i say that after that collection
no pillow in the big house dreamed i say that somewhere under
here moulders one called alice whose great grandson is old now
too and refuses to talk about slavery i say that at the
masters table only one plate is set for supper i say no seed
can flourish on this ground once planted then forsaken wild
berries warm a field of bones
bloom how you must i say

*

(photo of the Modjeska Canyon Chinaberry tree by Roy Bauer)

*

The Morning Reading: "The label, the labor, the color, the shade. The shirt."

"Shirt"
-Robert Pinsky


The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams,
The nearly invisible stitches along the collar
Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or Malaysians

Gossiping over tea and noodles on their break
Or talking money or politics while one fitted
This armpiece with its overseam to the band

Of cuff I button at my wrist. The presser, the cutter,
The wringer, the mangle. The needle, the union,
The treadle, the bobbin. The code. The infamous blaze

At the Triangle Factory in nineteen-eleven.
One hundred and forty-six died in the flames
On the ninth floor, no hydrants, no fire escapes—

The witness in a building across the street
Who watched how a young man helped a girl to step
Up to the windowsill, then held her out

Away from the masonry wall and let her drop.
And then another. As if he were helping them up
To enter a streetcar, and not eternity.

A third before he dropped her put her arms
Around his neck and kissed him. Then he held
Her into space, and dropped her. Almost at once

He stepped to the sill himself, his jacket flared
And fluttered up from his shirt as he came down,
Air filling up the legs of his gray trousers—

Like Hart Crane’s Bedlamite, “shrill shirt ballooning.”
Wonderful how the pattern matches perfectly
Across the placket and over the twin bar-tacked

Corners of both pockets, like a strict rhyme
Or a major chord. Prints, plaids, checks,
Houndstooth, Tattersall, Madras. The clan tartans

Invented by mill-owners inspired by the hoax of Ossian,
To control their savage Scottish workers, tamed
By a fabricated heraldry: MacGregor,

Bailey, MacMartin. The kilt, devised for workers
To wear among the dusty clattering looms.
Weavers, carders, spinners. The loader,

The docker, the navvy. The planter, the picker, the sorter
Sweating at her machine in a litter of cotton
As slaves in calico headrags sweated in fields:

George Herbert, your descendant is a Black
Lady in South Carolina, her name is Irma
And she inspected my shirt. Its color and fit

And feel and its clean smell have satisfied
Both her and me. We have culled its cost and quality
Down to the buttons of simulated bone,

The buttonholes, the sizing, the facing, the characters
Printed in black on neckband and tail. The shape,
The label, the labor, the color, the shade. The shirt.

*
( top photograph by Kevin Frayer of rescue effort at a collapsed clothing factory in Rana, Bangladesh where the death toll has now topped 600.)

*

Reading: May Day at UCI: poetry and prose

May Day Literary Event

UC-AFT Local 2226 Invites All to a Reading and Publication Party Mixer for Two Recently Published Lecturers

The union which represents Librarians and Lecturers takes time away from its busy work of defending collective bargaining to celebrate new creative work from two of our favorite members. Congratulations to English (Composition) Lecturers Lorene Delany-Ullman and Peggy Hesketh on publication of their respective books, a novel and a collection of prose poems. Each will read from and sign copies of their books (for sale) at this informal mixer organized to share with the university community our pride in their successes.

Purchase a book. Bring a friend. Celebrate (literary) solidarity with other Lecturers, Librarians and fans of these two terrific writer-teachers.

Reviews below. Wow!

"Telling the Bees is a marvel. With infinite compassion and perfect pitch, Peggy Hesketh has written an American classic: the inadvertent examination of a life unlived, told by the 80-year-old beekeeper who didn't live it. It's a wonderful read for anyone who loves a great and unforgettable story told well.." - Elizabeth George

“Utterly unlike any book of poetry or prose poetry you’ll read in this or any other year, Camouflage for the Neighborhood has the sharp beauty of a hand-made Clovis-point flint tool, and cuts as deeply into one of the central issues of our age: the home-made, always personal violence we do to one another on this earth, and the interconnection of lives in which it takes place.” - Jane Hirshfield


Wednesday, May 1, 5 - 6 PM

Humanities Gateway 1010

Free and open to the public. 

Refreshments served. Books for sale.

*

The Morning Reading: "In her stories I’m always younger"

Hard Life with Memory
~Wislawa Szymborska


I’m a poor audience for my memory.
She wants me to attend her voice nonstop,
but I fidget, fuss,
listen and don’t,
step out, come back, then leave again.

She wants all my time and attention.
She’s got no problem when I sleep.
The day’s a different matter, which upsets her.

She thrusts old letters, snapshots at me eagerly,
stirs up events both important and un-,
turns my eyes to overlooked views,
peoples them with my dead.

In her stories I’m always younger.
Which is nice, but why always the same story.
Every mirror holds different news for me.

She gets angry when I shrug my shoulders.
And takes revenge by hauling out old errors,
weighty, but easily forgotten.
Looks into my eyes, checks my reaction.
Then comforts me, it could be worse.

She wants me to live only for her and with her.
Ideally in a dark, locked room,
but my plans still feature today’s sun,
clouds in progress, ongoing roads.

At times I get fed up with her.
I suggest a separation. From now to eternity.
Then she smiles at me with pity,
since she knows it would be the end of me too.

*