New Poetry Writing Class forming

Finding the Poet Within at the Santa Cruz Art League, 526 Broadway, Santa Cruz. Six Thursday evenings, January 5, 12, 19, 26, and February 2 and 9, 2012 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm.

Appropriate for all levels. In this class the emphasis will be on writing new poems in a supportive workshop format. Reading a variety of published poets, we’ll explore the writing craft and generate new writing strategies. Participants will build skills to create a writing practice, uncover their unique voice, and own their story. We'll also work on revision and performance; and we'll make space for any ongoing writing projects. By focusing on what’s true in our poems, we will push past our perceived limits and achieve new dimensions within our work.

Cost: $145/125 for members of the Art League.

Place, by Sheila Siegel

Place, by Sheila Siegel

Youth and young womanhood
Spent in sunny Southern California
Lazy days, warm caressing air
Strolling, jogging on soft sand beaches
Jumping into the warm sea with
Joy and abandon to cool off
Hot skin turned a dark shade of brown every summer
Lithe, healthy body in a small bikini

This is the idealized pictures I remember
Forgetting the terrible traffic nightmares
The orange/brown smog so thick I cried for the need to inhale

Love prompted a move to the
Redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains
Surrounded by a tall wall of green
Mornings sending thin tendrils of fog
Reaching in through the trees
Dappled sunlight, horses, goats
Wonderful bird song – is it a nightingale?
Wind sending a shower of yellow leaves
Flying across the yard in the fall

So beautiful and peaceful but disorienting
This was someone else’s life, or, perhaps, summer camp
All my friends and family still back in L.A.
I was lonely
Even with my new love to keep me warm on those cold nights

Then rain and more rain in the winters
Feeling cold and damp, mold growing in my shoes
Car drowned in a bottomless puddle
Prompting yet another move
Out of the mountains, down to the ocean

Back to the seashore
The waves crashing
The sun sparkling diamonds on the water
Pelicans, otters, seals, surfers
A new community


Water not as warm for splashing in
Body not as lithe and healthy
As in my Southern California days
But familiar and comfortable surroundings
That feel like home to me

Easy Answer by Jerilyn Kass

Easy Answer, by Jerilyn Kass


On those mornings when knowing what to wear to school seemed a problem too hard to conquer
I’d call down to my mother,
“What should I wear?”
“Pants and a shirt” was her inevitable reply.
I am a child of the easy answer.

On Sunday mornings, my sister and I piled on my parents’ bed,
Dad testing us on definitions of words in the newspaper.
I am a child of literacy.

My sister and I spent what seemed like hours
Nominating and voting and analyzing names for our stuffed animals and dolls
I am a child of process.

I spent hours putting together jigsaw puzzles
Like San Francisco at night
All bridges and lights
I am a child of synthesis.

I said my first curse at eight years old
And still haven’t stopped and
Irreverent religious jokes still make me laugh.
I am a child of frustration.

I came home after getting fired from my job
To find Dad carrying Mom down the stairs
After she overdosed- she didn’t die like her father did.
I am a child of suicide.

I frustrate at the easy answer
Synthesize broken pieces
Adore just the right words
Make room for the process
And kill the dove of peace in my heart