Announcements

The Chattanooga Writers’ Guild is pleased to announce their spring writing competition with six categories.
​http://www.chattanoogawritersguild.org/2020-spring-contest.html

The Universe in Verse is a fabulous show every year. This year it was online only, with no lie audience. Here is a link to a past year’s show, with poets celebrating science and scientists.  
https://www.brainpickings.org/the-universe-in-verse/

Christian Collier Chattanooga’s best known poet will offer online classes through Rise Chattanooga https://www.facebook.com/RISECHA.org/

The deadline for general submissions to Boulevard magazine is this Friday. Their poetry contest closes on June 1. https://boulevardmagazine.org/guidelines

There are only a few days to enter the Short Fiction contest from Craft https://www.craftliterary.com/short-fiction-prize/

The Chattery offers several fee-based online classes from cake decorating to financing a new home,  https://www.facebook.com/thechattery/

The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology offers web-based bird identification software. Identify neighborhood birds with five easy questions. Visit this link for a free copy of Merlin bird: ID
https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/

iNaturalist is another excellent web-based software popular with those who love wildflowers. Take a photo and the software offers a few possible matches.  https://www.inaturalist.org/

This week’s online edition of the Chattanooga Pulse is now available: http://www.chattanoogapulse.com/

Podcasts

Get a daily dose of a podcast that is “for the birds. https://www.birdnote.org/get-podcast-rss

StarDate from the McDonald observatory: https://blubrry.com/stardate/

The Slowdown - a poem read aloud each day by Poet Laureate Tracy Smith
https://www.slowdownshow.org/

Response to Joy Harjo’s poem “Perhaps the World Ends Here”
 She speaks of a kitchen table. I wonder, how many of us have sat at such a table where babyies teethed and wars began and ended? I think of communal meals when company came together, and we pulled on each of the round wooden table. It expanded and we put a center board in to accommodate the extra guests. She tells us that children became men and women at such tables. We learned secrets as everyone ate well. Did we live as well as we ate? Reading this poem, I see how she became Poet Laureate of the United States.

Volume 1, Number 1 was first published as a document distributed via email and then as a Note on my Facebook page. It never got to my blog, so today I am reprinting it here. Scroll down for Volume 1 Numbers 2-34 first published here and later shared by Messenger and on my Facebook Page.

Staying Positive in the Face of Pandemic Panic
Ar home like many of you. I fill my time with reading and writing and trying to avoid Pandemic Panic. Welcome to Ray’s reviews, Volume 1, Issue 1. In this first issue, I feature a book review, announcements of creative opportunities, and one of my photographs.

Facing the twin threats of isolation and fear of contagion, I have focused on my creative activities. I also check on friends through phone calls and messaging. As useful as social media may be, it is more persona than personality. Projects like this also relieve the frustration of filing my taxes, filling out online forms for unemployment, and online job searches, whatever that may mean in the new reality of covid-19.

Announcements and Reviews
Jody Harris presented some of his visual and performance art in a new video titled Zora and Me, Directed by Brian Auten. He included several images of the Keeody Gallery. See this striking work at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD6_SrRp9ts

The Chattanooga Writers Guild has gone virtual. Here it is in their own words: Our monthly program for April - National Poetry Month - will feature an interview with John C. Mannone titled, Poetry – A Conversation. John is former president of CWG, a highly published poet, and editor of multiple publications. Please watch this interview streamed at the Facebook group of the Chattanooga Writers' Guild on Tuesday April 14 at 7pm https://www.facebook.com/events/1617892761701289/

Barking Legs has Gone Virtual with streaming presentations. Marcus Patrick Ellsworth is streaming his show, The Floor is Yours, every Friday via the show’s Facebook page. Marcus also presented opportunities for viewers to contribute to some of the performers who rely on performance generated revenue for at least a portion of their income. Look for information on future performances here https://www.facebook.com/TFIYBLT/

Barking Legs Theater is also streaming their Wednesday night Jazz program. https://barkinglegs.org/wednesday-jazz-online/
Shelter in Poems - The Academy of American Poets responded to the current health crises by offering readers an opportunity to be heard on how they find solace in poetry. To participate, visit their web site, read one of the poems there, and send them a one paragraph response. For more information, visit https://poets.org/

The Time is Now - Poets and Writers magazine offers weekly writing prompts for fiction, poetry and nonfiction via email. Read the prompts and start writing https://www.pw.org/writing-prompts-exercises
Here are two poetry programs, each delivering a poem a day:
Alfred A. Knopf http://knopfnopfdoubleday.com/knopfpoetry-signup/
Academy of American Poets https://poets.org/poem-a-day

Listening Woman: a book review.
I thought the western as a fiction genre was dead. Then I discovered the writings of Tony Hillerman. He turned the western on its head by evicting the cowboys and focusing on contemporary Indians. Listening Woman is only one of his novels featuring the legendary lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police. In Listening Woman, Leaphorn copes with bumbling federal agents as he encounters paramilitary villains and tribal history. He finally unravels a grisly mystery.
 

Announcements
Billy Collins recently gave a reading at the Nashville Public Library. Access the program, with several of his popular poems, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq9Az9AUNXo

Barking Legs Theater has moved their regular shows online, including “Wednesday Jazz Online,” and “The Floor is Yours,” a virtual open mic. Access the programs here:
https://barkinglegs.org/events/

The Tivoli Theater is now presenting a virtual cinema. Information on available films here:
https://www.tivolichattanooga.com/events/bobby-stone-film-series/virtual-cinema

I have been taking a class for birdwatchers from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Courses range from beginning to advanced. If a whole class seems like a big commitment, just check out their live Bird Cams
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/

The Chattery offers online workshops, including Birdwatching from your couch porch with Laura Marsh. 
https://www.facebook.com/events/244625910247551/

The Chattanooga Zoo offers some online programs via their Facebook page.

The Chattanooga Public Library is offering programs through their YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8wQB1amgvxPX5JWJtywRQg and on their
Facebook page.

The Tennessee Aquarium has numerous programs online, including three webcams where you can watch the animals, Penguins, and Otters and Sharks, Oh my! The Tennessee Aquarium at Home page also includes educational videos, a link to view IMAX films, and, my favorite, Mr. Bills Blog.
https://www.tnaqua.org/aquarium-at-home/

Send your announcements to znaturalist (at) gmail.com
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Reviews
“Ozymandias” A poem for all seasons
Politicians on both sides seem to be more interested in empire building than in serving the electorate. This was also true in the days when Percy Bysshe Shelly wrote the poem Ozymandius. He posits a traveler who discovered an ancient statue, gone but for the stumps of legs and the pedestal. Nearby, the head lay on the sand. The inscription was still legible. Here are the last five lines of the poem.

My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye mighty and Despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
From Ozymandius – Percy Bysshe Shelly

Pandemic Panic

Poet Paul Richmond teamed up with some musicians to create a statement about the current situation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKrE-hs39YY&feature=

Fred Johnston presented the “Poem of the Day” in the Irish publication RTE
https://www.rte.ie/culture/2020/0407/1129114-poem-of-the-day-1941-by-fred-johnston/

I originally encountered these works on the Facebook page of the Ashville Poetry Review.

Response to “The Revenant” by Billy Collins

I found this poem serious and amusing in the way it presents the Human/Dog relationship from the dog’s perspective. It became one of my favorites on my first reading. Though Collins presents the dog’s opinion as not caring for humans at all, I have known dogs who gave demonstrative love to many humans, including me.

In these days of Pandemic Panic, with its accompanying isolation and fear of contagion, I wish I had a dog. On walks through my neighborhood, I sometimes see my neighbor’s dog, an animal which has come under my care when the neighbor went out of town. He seems to remember this, and when I visit, he comes to me, sits beside me, and leans against my shin.

I have been told that he seems to think he is my dog, recognizing the sound of my car and running to the door to watch it pass. Lately, when I take walks down the street, my neighbor mysteriously knows, and leaves the dog out on his lead. He comes to its full length, just short of the road, and we visit for a while before I proceed with bird watching or photographing roadside flowers.

I have come to a new appreciation of Collins, an esteemed Poet Laureate, and his appreciation of dogs. He has written several poems about them. Hear Collins read this poem and another, “A Dog on his Master.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOvbl3ZPPV4
​

 
Announcements
 
The Chattanooga Audubon Society is offering a photography contest. Find full information here:
https://www.chattanoogaaudubon.org/contest.html
 
Christian Collier has released the third episode in his docuseries, The Plug Poetry Project. The third episode of The Plug Poetry Project includes readings and discussion by the poet known as Moll King, and by me, Ray Zimmerman. Here are links to the three episodes released thus far:
 
Episode 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYTVbKrxv-o
Episode 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixfSMBMB-Wg
Episode 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32hfN7o4zBE&t=130s
 
The Chattanooga Writers Guild has announced their 2020 Annual Spring Writing Contest
Information is available on their web page. http://www.chattanoogawritersguild.org/2019-spring-writing-contest.html
 
They live streamed their April meeting, a conversation about poetry with John Mannone. The video is still available on their Facebook page.
 
The Porch Writer’s Collective up in Nashville presents a weekly set of writing prompts via email. They are also offering several online workshops this spring. To sign up for the free writing prompts or learn more about the fee based workshops, visit http://www.porchtn.org
 
 Pandemic Panic
 
Not happy to be merely living in a Pandemic Panic, I have begun reading about them. I completed The Andromeda Strain, a well-researched science fiction suspense book with a surprise twist at the end.
 
I simultaneously read The Hot Zone (Preston). which is classed as a nonfiction novel. The author based his writing on interviews with several researchers, so the events are factual, but the book is written in the style of a novel. The surprise ending to part three caused me to lose interest in finishing the book.
 
I then picked up David Quammen’s nonfiction book Spillover which includes true stories of the people in the fight against infections diseases. Somehow knowing the science of what is going on is comforting to me.
 
Meanwhile, I am still working on this blog, so send me your announcements.
 
Reviews
 
The Spring of my Life
Kobayashi Issa
Translation by Sam Hamill
Reviewed by Ray Zimmerman
 
The poet Issa is beloved throughout his homeland and Japanese schoolchildren commit his poignant nature poems to memory. Adults appreciate his humor, and scholars decry the self-pity which shows through his work.
 
The winter fly
I caught and finally freed
The cat quickly ate
 
For this reviewer, the poetry of Issa represents a triumph of the human spirit. The events of his life transcend sadness to reach the heights of pathos and tragedy. His mother died when he was but two years old, and his grandmother took over the responsibility of child rearing. She sent him to study poetry with a local scholar at an early age. When he reached age eight; his grandmother died, and his father remarried. His stepmother abused him.
 
Mother I weep
For you as I watch the sea
Each time I watch the sea
 
He left home for Edo (now Tokyo) at age twelve to study poetry and Zen. He became a homeless scholar on the streets. After many years as an itinerant poet, he returned home to nurse his dying father. In his fifties he married a much younger woman, but all their children died at an early age. The final child died due to care by an incompetent nurse, shortly after the death of the mother. He married again in his sixties, but he and his pregnant wife moved into a shed after their house burned. He died there, and shortly after his death the wife gave birth to a daughter who lived to continue his line.
 
The Spring of My Life is haiban, a book of narrative prose with haiku, in the same tradition as Narrow Road to the Interior (Basho). The following passage from chapter fourteen illustrates this point. “Visiting my daughter’s grave on July 25th, one month after her death”
 
The red flower
You always wanted to pick --
Now this autumn wind”
 
The death was due to smallpox, and it is noteworthy that the number fourteen holds a place in Japanese culture much like the number thirteen in our own culture. The placement of this story in chapter fourteen is no accident.
 
Among the sad verses are many hopeful ones, beautiful, like the following:
 
The distant mountains
Are reflected in the eye
Of the dragonfly
 
Issa is rated among the three great masters of haiku, along with Basho and Buson. The book, The Spring of my Life is a classic. Translator Sam Hamill included not only the full text the book, but also 250 haiku selected from the many thousands attributed to Issa. It is well worth the read.
 
 

During the Pandemic, The Academy of American Poets has asked readers to take Shelter in Poems. Read one of the poems on their web site and make a response. Tell us why the poem is meaningful to you.
Learn more about Shelter in Poetry here https://poets.org/shelter-poems

Response to “In April” by Maria Rainer Rilke

“Again the woods are odorous,” just as in the beginning of his poem, but they seem far away in the time of plague and quarantine. Somewhere the bloodroot blooms and somewhere the Lady’s Slipper Orchids grace a landscape in a geography of rebirth. I miss the deeper reaches of the woods, but here in my community, I discover the simplest of pleasures with everyday plants. The garlic and rosemary, potted on my porch, release odors of spring growth good enough to grace the plate of a well-prepared meal. Baby spiderworts cling to flowering stems sent out by tropical parents. The lawns are carpeted with violets and open areas sport columbine in bloom, enough for a hummingbird to gather a snack. Neighbors’ irises, azaleas and rose bushes reach skyward in a rainbow of beauty. The dandelions, wild mustard, and buttercups have always been here, but Rilke’s poem reminded me to look about, As I do my morning stretches on the deck my spirit lifts with sunrise, bird song and colorful wildflowers. 

Read Rilke’s poem here https://poets.org/poem/april-4
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