BAY AREA POETS REVIEW 

IN ONE ESOTERIC TRADITION of western spirituality, a blue ray of light is a manifestation of Shekheina--the ancient Hebrew concept of the divine feminine. Associated with this azure radiance are qualities brought into the world through love and unlimited acceptance, nurturance and a sensuality both comforting and erotic. Diane Frank didn’t tell me all this when I asked her how she came to name Blue Light Press. Instead, she offered her poem "Afterimages":

How do I know
if you see green
the way I do?

You talked last night
about ripples
on the cornea--

afterimages,
shadows
around the object.

A musicologist told me
that so-many cycles per second
equals E-flat.

But how does that sound
inside your ear?

And when I touch you
do you see
the blue light
around my heart?
    (from “Afterimages”)

    This svelte and serene San Franciscan--the shaker-and-mover behind Blue Light--juggles many balls: the publishing venture, a teaching and writing schedule, a long-term relationship, as well as many interests ranging from playing cello and contra-dancing to maintaining a spiritual practice.    Although Frank is the first to give credit where it’s due¾pointing out that Blue Light functions through the participation of dedicated fellow poets--we all know what happens to a wheel without a hub, and for Blue Light, Frank is that hub. She finesses the role with generosity and some unseen fount of divine energy.
    Originally from the New York-side of New Jersey, Frank attended Syracuse University where she drew the attention of poet Stephen Dunn who saw something in her work to send it to publishers. After a “reasonable break” from completing her undergraduate degree, she attended San Francisco State University to earn a Master’s Degree, with emphasis in Creative Writing. Most of her teachers were language poets (not her own sensibility or approach) yet she benefited from their encouragement to experiment with language.
    Blue Light Press was founded by a photographer who published Frank’s Rhododendron Shedding Its Skin (1988). Frank, who had long desired to be a publisher, took it over in 1990. At first,  it functioned “something  like a garage band,” involving several poets who contributed time and energy to solicit, select, produce and publish books. By now, it is well organized, meeting a regular publication schedule, running contests, and publicizing and distributing its titles. However, with limits on funds and on what they can accomplish, Blue Light’s poets are asked to “do shameless promotion on their own books.”
    Blue Light publishes imaginative and visionary poetry that “pushes the edge of the language and carries each poem’s vision deep into the light.” Frank looks for poems that  “knock my socks off in line after line.” When she finds them, she wants to bring a book into the world. To date, Blue Light has brought out over 40 titles.
    Frank’s colleagues include Stewart Florsheim (Oakland), Alice Rogoff (San Francisco), Kirston Koths (El Cerrito), Scott Caputo (San Jose), and Lynne Barnes (San Francisco). Each is included in the decision-making process of to publish. Melanie Gendrun of Santa Cruz has designed most of the elegantly produced books.
    A curt reception from a Writer’s Digest columnist, nevertheless, brought national attention, as well as inquiries and manuscripts to Blue Light’s attention. The press launched two poetry contests:
one in spring for chapbooks; the other in the fall for
Early in Blue Light’s existence, Frank sent books to the poetry editor at Writer’s Digest, who quoted from a few of the poems but asked: “Who could possibly understand what these poems are about?”
full-length manuscripts. Aside from the financial boost from entrance fees, the contests allow the collective to discover new poets. Compared to curmudgeonly editors, Frank is optimistic about the state of poetry publishing: “There is always gold in those piles,” she says of the slush pond of the 200 or so manuscripts received for each contest. “We usually find three to five good books.”
    This past spring, Blue Light wanted to publish several titles and named three prize-winners: Sarah McKinstry-Brown (Nebraska), Mary Ellen Brannon (Texas), and Joyce Uhlir (Minnesota and Florida). Although this year’s winners live out-of-state, Blue Light welcomes Bay Area poets. Florsheim (an Oakland poet) won the Blue Light manuscript prize in 2005 for A Short Fall from Grace; he subsequently became active with the press.
    As many poets do, Frank teaches to earn a living; she holds a credential as well as her higher-level degree and has a sense of mission in describing her pedagogy. She works at San Francisco State in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, at Dominican University in San Rafael, and in the Blue Light Press On-Line Poetry Workshops, classes that draw national and international students. In the summer, she coordinates a week-long writing retreat that coincides with the San Francisco Symphony’s concert in Dolores Park. While many of her students are over 50, she also teaches 2nd through 6th graders as poet-in-the-school at Brandeis Hillel in San Francisco.
                  

    In addition to publishing five books of poems, including Isis, Frank recently finished her second novel. The first, Blackberries in the Dream House (2003) received a Chelson Award for Fiction and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. 
    Frank makes her home in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset district with her partner Erik Ievins, a cellist. She reports her partner as being “a multi-talented genius with perfect pitch.” The couple met while working at a dance camp in the Santa Cruz mountains; both perform with the San Francisco Sinfonietta. Blending her life as a poet and musician, Frank recently enjoyed hearing her poem, “The Pool,” set to music by Bay Area composer Jan Pusina. It will be performed at The Workspace Gallery on Folsom Street in San Francisco on February 18, 2011. For more information about Diane Frank and Blue Light Press, visit www.dianefrank.net.

--by Jannie M. Dresser

DANCING AT OLD THRESHERS
by Diane Frank

Tangerine sunset floats low on the horizon.
The moon is orbiting around your hat.

I dance with you between rows
of early September corn,
Your Amish beard a field of uncut hay.

I haven’t memorized the map
of the constellations, but your eyes
are burning. The landscape of your muscles
ripples under your white muslin shirt.

You turn me two hands round
as the Great Bear rises in the sky
above your left shoulder.

There’s a secret beneath my gingham apron,
a shower of falling stars
as we dance around the fire
kicking up the ground made hard
by late summer rain.

We orbit around the shapes
of our forefathers’ stories--
a galaxy of seasons changing,
the stars a blur,
woodsmoke and wisdom whirling.

As we circle around each other,
the bear wakes up from his dreaming,
hears the tinny music
of hammered dulcimer floating south.

He pulls corn out of the husks
and you open your mouth.

The moon cracks like a pumpkin.

The sparks brush your skin
like a woman with turquoise beads,
tan muscular arms
and the secrets of your shoulders.

I am the goose shadow dreaming
of the day the universe began,
singing the music of the next creation.
        

(from The Winter Life of Shooting Stars, by Diane Frank)

 Ken Keegan & Rusty Morrison of Omnidawn

RICHMOND LIT PUBLISHER
SURVIVES 1ST 10 YEARS
OMG Omnidawn!
* In relatively few years of publishing, this forward-thinking Richmond publisher has put out 32 books, including 29 poetry books, 1 fiction anthology, and two books of fiction.
* For two years in a row, Omnidawn’s titles have won the PEN–USA Translation Award.
* In 2005 Omnidawn’s book by Martha Ronk, In a landscape of having to repeat, won the 15th annual PEN–USA Award in Poetry.
* In 2003 Lyn Hejinian’s The Fatalist from Omnidawn, was selected as one of The Village Voice’s 25 favorite books that year.
* Rusty Morrison, Omnidawn co-founder and co-publisher, has received numerous notable awards for her own poetry books.

     When Rusty Morrison married Ken Keegan in 1990, she knew that he had a dream of owning a sailboat. She also knew that neither of them could sail. When he decided instead to pursue his second goal of becoming a small press publisher, she breathed a sigh of relief—this was a dream that not only excited her but that she would enjoy sharing.
    Although he had an art and theater background, Keegan was doing desktop publishing and later computer-systems administration. Morrison was an English instructor at Berkeley High School where she ran the English-as-a-Second-Language program and taught poetry. “I had always told students ‘follow your dream,’ even though I hadn’t yet done it myself.”   

     Initially, Keegan joined a small press publishers’ group to explore launching a press. He wanted to “find a need and fill it” by publishing books of poetry and experimental fiction. He started Omnidawn in 2001; Rusty got involved as the first book went to the printer and eventually retired from teaching to return to school and pursue a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing. She took classes with Poetry Flash critic Richard Silberg at U.C. Extension, Chana Bloch at Mills College in Oakland, and then with Brenda Hillman and Lyn Hejinian at St. Mary’s College in Moraga. As she worked on her poetry, she was also honing her critical, journalistic, and marketing skills, writing articles and reviews for Poetry Flash. Keegan and Morrison were laying the groundwork for what would become one of the most dynamic small presses in the country today.


     The name ‘Omnidawn’ was inspired by Buckminster Fuller. Keegan had attended Fuller’s classes in college, and, following the innovator’s approach to architecture, Keegan designed plans for a geodesic dome theater with a large foyer where other art forms would be displayed and presented. He called it the OmniDome. Obviously, this was an influence on the naming of the press: Omnidawn reflects the publishers’ attraction to experimental work.
    Omnidawn books are published under the “green press initiative” and the enterprise is built on an idea of broadening and strengthening poetry community. In addition to their publishing adventure, the press sponsors contests, facilitates the education of young interns, and hosts a blog where books, readings, and venues are announced and reviewed.
     Omnidawn Publishing’s goal is “to create books
that are most closely aligned with each author's vision, nd to provide an interactive and rewarding publishing experience for poets and writers.”
    They are proud of the fact that authors are included in every stage of the book design and production process. Many authors also participate in designing the interior of their books, something most publishers will shy away from. “We want diversity in what we publish so a reader will not grow tired of an Omnidawn book,” says Morrison, who adds that her own reading tastes range widely. “Mostly, I’m interested in an author’s ability to reach through the language to say something meaningful about the world and the heart, and what evokes the spirit.”
    Responding to a query about why they began Omnidawn in 2001, Morrison wrote: “We see ourselves as one of the presses that fulfill an important need that readers have: Omnidawn is especially interested in works that invigorate the reader, that infuse the reader with new possibility, that leave the reader refreshed, or challenged, or charged with heightened attention.”
    The press takes up much of Morrison’s time (she is, among other things, the main responder to all emails). However, she has been able to write and put out her own books over the past few years, which have won prestigious poetry prizes. Her title the true keeps calm biding its story received the 2008 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, as well as the 2007 Sawtooth Poetry Prize from Ahsahta Press, the Poetry Society of America‘s 2007 Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award, and the Northern California Book Award for Poetry. In 2004, her book, Whethering, was chosen for the Colorado Prize for Poetry.
 
    In its turn, Omnidawn has hosted several of its own writing contests. In 2009, author Paul Legault’s The Madeleine Poems was selected by guest judge Ann Lauterbach, and in 2008, Michelle Taransky’s Barn Burned, selected by Marjorie Welsh, were winners of the Omnidawn Full Book Contest, given to a first or second book by a writer. Omnidawn’s first chapbook contest recently closed its submission period but opened its larger book competition: http://www.omnidawn.com/contest.
    One of Morrison’s responsibilities for Omnidawn is to coordinate volunteers who are extending the audience for the press by maintaining the blog and visiting social networking websites. Morrison emphasizes the importance of growing the press by adding newcomers and younger writers.
    Rebecca Stoddard, a graduate of the University of San Francisco and a reference librarian by profession, has served as Omnidawn’s assistant editor since 2006, and assistant editor Cassandra Smith began as an intern in 2007. Sara Mumolo and Meg Hurtado were also interns who recently became assistant editors. The Omnidawn Blog at http://omnidawn.wordpress.com, designed, managed, and edited by Craig Santos Perez, includes a Poetry Feature highlighting new work by a wide range of national and international poets; a Lit Scene Feature, edited by Meg Hurtado, that reviews local poetry readings and art events; and book reviews, interviews, and videos of readings. (Perez, by the way, has a new book coming out from Omnidawn titled from unincorporated territory [saina].)
    Other staffers include: Rebecca Treadwell, the database manager; Sarah Louise Green, bookstore out-reach manager; and, Gillian Hamel, Facebook and Twitter manager. Morrison commented on how it has given her great pleasure to bring in, and work with, the energetic volunteers and staffers, and the company holds Pizza Fridays to meet with one another.
    “The press has become our child and we want it to be able to stand on its own two legs eventually.” Keegan is the more expansive of the pair while she says that she obsesses over details. “Because we are different, the press is better for it.” Instead of strollers and bassinets, the couple’s living room is dominated by file cabinets and staff parties as Omnidawn braves the future in the challenging world of small press publishing.
                          -- by Jannie M. Dresser

Collective Doesn’t Compromise Quality:
The True Success of Sixteen Rivers Press

WHEN IT IS TIME to take up certain tasks in life, whether baking bread or publishing poetry books, all the difference in the world depends on whom you ask to help. The Little Red Hen only had a lazy dog, a sleepy cat, and a duck, and each time she asked for help, “Not I,” was all her compatriots would reply. Well, she got to keep all the bread for herself, but there’s only so much bread one little red hen can eat. There’s got to be a better way . . . and the Bay Area’s Sixteen Rivers Press figured it out.

   JACKIE KUDLER, an original member of the San Francisco-based publishing group, admits to having a collectivist bent when it comes to bringing projects to fruition. Fortunately, she got with the right group of people to share the burden of work and complete each task. Since its formation in 1999, the collective has published 21 titles and brought in nine new members. And while some poets may question a few of the collective’s founding principles--for instance, authors receive no money from their book sales, rather each book’s sales support future titles--what cannot be denied is that they do excellent work, having set high standards for both the poetry they publish and the production values that carry through in creating beautiful books.
    Named for the sixteen rivers that feed into the San Francisco Bay (Can you name them? See the end of the article to find out!), the press is essentially regional, and collective members are expected to participate in meetings usually held in Marin. One long-time member has taken on a supporting status since moving to Connecticut.
    Each member contributes unique skills to the enterprise; for example, Kudler, a college instructor by profession had also done a lot of public relations work and now serves in that capacity for the press; MARGARET KAUFMAN, a popular poetry teacher, is also a whiz with fundraising; and VALERIE BERRY, a physician, who was also good with math originally took on the group’s treasurer role. (A new member with an accounting background is stepping in to perform this job.)    
    In addition to tackling their specific jobs to keep the press viable, each poet-member of Sixteen Rivers also reads every manuscript that is submitted, attends a monthly decision-making meeting, and works with every other poet to produce the best book possible, critiquing every line of a book if necessary. The group hires out for their graphic-design services and have found in DAVID BULLEN, a Santa Cruz-area artist, an aesthetic sensibility that reflects their own.
     Besides Jackie Kudler, the other founders of Sixteen Rivers are Valerie Berry, Terry Ehret, Margaret Kaufman, Diane Sher Lutovich, Carolyn Miller and Susan Sibbet
     Sixteen Rivers has gained much success in an eleven- year period even as other small presses have come and gone, which Kudler attributes to
the tenacity and energy of the collective itself.
    It was Petaluma poet TERRY EHRET’S “brainchild,” according to Kudler. Ehret’s first full-length collection, Lost Body, won the National Poetry series and was published by Copper Canyon Press, yet even with that honor, she had difficulty finding a publisher for her second book. “It was back to square one,” says Kudler. When it became clear that each publication was going to present an equal challenge --and with escalating contest and reading fees-- Ehret and her poet friends decided “this is for the birds,” and sent out a letter to invite others to help them create a publishing collective. They named the organization Sixteen Rivers in honor of the major freshwater arteries feeding the San Francisco Bay. It has provided a path to publication for each member, but beyond that the collective follows through with marketing, sales, promotion and distribution support.
    The collective modeled itself on the long-standing Massachusetts collective, Alice James Books, then created their own publishing guidelines and rules for sustaining an enduring organization. In the beginning, members invested their own money to launch two titles but by the second round, book sales supported subsequent publications. 
     Kudler points out that few poets generate real income from book sales. Even well-known poets, like Marin’s KAY RYAN, recently a United States poet laureate, sent out poems for years before receiving a book contract. “If you do this long enough,” Kudler (below) points out, “you know you are not in it for the money.” Instead, collective members asked themselves: “Wouldn’t it be lovely to create a beautiful press that published beautiful books?”            
     Sixteen Rivers solicits manuscripts during an open-reading period between November and February. In their guidelines, they advise poets who submit manuscripts to consider a three-year commitment to the collective if their book is chosen. In the first year, the poet participates in meetings and “gets the lay of the land”; the second year is devoted to production of his or her own book; by the third year the older member mentors a new one. The group has been able to print the books of everyone in the collective-- some with more than one title--and all the books have the support of the collective to ensure their success.
    After a manuscript is selected, its author is  queried about particular skills he or she might con-tribute to the press, such as in fundraising, marketing and publicity, financial management, graphic design and production coordination. One person added web-site building skills to the team, while two--SHARON OLSON and NINA LINDSAY--are librarians.
     Working with Olson and Lindsay has made Kudler believe that “if you get a bunch of librarians together, you could run the world!”
    Members reflect a range of personalities and work-styles: “Some people jump right in, while others sit back at first, get the lay of the land, then start moving into an area that needs attention.” MURRAY SILVERSTEIN created Naming the Rivers, a CD of selected poems by members, then spearheaded the collective’s recently published anthology, The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed. Their decision to create and publish an anthology of poems written by non- members of the collective, has nonetheless broadened their readership, and the book has been a great critical and financial success.
    Sixteen Rivers’ secret weapon has been their subscriber list. When they first formed, members were asked to write down the names of anyone and everyone who might have an interest in poetry and poetry publishing. “That list even included sisters and cousins who said they liked poetry,” says Kudler. Several members had been active in the local poetry scene for many years and the group was launched with a contact list of about 1,000 names. Sixteen Rivers is not driven by any particular poetry “aesthetic,“ says Kudler.
     They try to avoid the “workshop syndrome“ that can set in when poets work intensively together and fall under the spell of one particular aesthetic. “There are different ways of writing poems . . . what we are looking for is poetry that jumps off the page, is exciting.” Although the manuscripts are put through a rigorous critique process, “the poet always has the last word.” When Kudler was preparing her book, it was helpful to hear which poems could be dumped or trimmed down. “They helped me do some wonderful things in shaping the manuscript, an art in itself.”
    It’s not always easy working closely with other poets; inevitably, interpersonal issues arise. After one particularly grueling four-hour meeting, one member sent an e-mail, subject-lined  “death-by-poetry.” Nevertheless, working in an intimate consensus process with fellow writers who take every line of a poem seriously and stake their reputations on the outcome and success of each book, has allowed Sixteen Rivers to build trust and a vibrant sense of community. “I have a great deal of faith that a group of people who want to do something can get it done,” says Kudler.

            -- by Jannie M. Dresser

ROSTER OF MEMBERS

Dan Bellm           

Maria M. Benet

Valerie Berry           

Terry Ehret

Gerald Fleming           

Margaret Kaufman

Lynne Knight

Jackie Kudler

Nina Lindsay

Diane Sher Lutovich

Carolyn Miller 

Sharon Olson

Susan Sibbet

Murray Silverstein

Lynn Lyman Trombetta

Gillian Wegener

Helen Wickes

CAN YOU NAME THE 16 RIVERS?
San Joaquin, Fresno, Chowchilla, Merced, Tuolumne, Stanislaus, Calaveras, Bear, Mokelumne, Cosumnes,
American, Yuba, Feather, Sacramento, Napa, Petaluma

BLUE UNICORN
Local Lit Zine prevails with exceptional reputation

by Claire J. Baker (Pinole)

   One bright spring day in 1976, three poets sat under an umbrella in a hillside garden in Kensington, “looking across the shimmering water of San Francisco Bay toward Mount Tamalpais,“ and resolved to launch a magazine. According to co-founder Ruth Iodice, the group “knew quite a bit about the past, about the great tradition flowing in the West from Homer, Dante, Shakespeare and Milton, and wanted to provide a home for the most dedicated and demanding practitioners of an undying art.“ Dr. Joseph Salemi, a past judge of the Poets’ Dinner and Ina Coolbrith Circle poetry contests, calls Blue Unicorn “one of the best damned literary journals in the nation.”
    The name Blue Unicorn was inspired by the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, especially his descriptions of heraldic creatures in great European tapestries. “We had wanted to call the publication The Unicorn," says Iodice, “but found that title already in use.” They added the word blue. (Iodice’s home displays many unique blue glassware pieces.) Since its beginning, Blue Unicorn  has shared the light of several thousand individual poets and places, aiming “to give back that light to our readers."
    This fine journal remains refreshing for its unique “unicorn covers,” the quality of its poetry which includes formal verse and translations as well as strong free verse. The present three editors are John Hart (see article in BAPSR, Spring/Summer 2010), Fred Ostrander, and Iodice.
    Iodice is the first to receive all submissions; they average about 1,000 poems a month. Their criteria for acceptance is “excellence,” no soft-centered poems, and poems that have a distinctive voice. The editors are not impressed by cover letters or long lists of publication credits. They have printed May Sarton and William Safford alongside many lesser-known poets.
    The editing process has remained constant from the start: each editor reads all submissions six or seven times a year. They gather around Iodice’s dining-room table, sitting in the same spot like family. The selection takes a full afternoon of concentrated effort.
    Blue Unicorn runs about 40 pages each issue and includes brief biographies of the poets whose work is represented in its pages. An annual subscription, with issues appearing in October, February and June, is $18, while single issues are $7. You can send a check to Blue Unicorn, 22 Avon Road, Kensington, CA 94707, to start a subscription (a contribution of $25 or $50 makes you a supporting or sustaining member of the publication). The latest issue of Blue Unicorn is Volume XXXIII, Number 3, June 2010. Their email address is staff@blueunicorn.com.

Claire J. Baker’s work regularly appears in Street Sheet and online at www.poetslane.com and elsewhere. She serves on the committee for the annual Poets’ Dinner.