999 Reading @ Santa Catalina Library

On Saturday, October 3rd we celebrated the entrants in the 999 Poetry Contest. Here are pictures of some of the poets presented:


CaLokie


Charles Harmon


Nathan Zhao


and the winner Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

This Saturday!

Bloggers,

You are invited to join in the festivities this Saturday afternoon, October 3rd, between 3 and 5pm in the backroom of the Santa Catalina Branch of the Pasadena Public Library on 999 (there's that number again) E. Washington Blvd.

FIRST...

we will spend some time planning events for the 2010 San Gabriel Valley Poetry Festival

...THEN...

participants in the 999 Poetry Contest will each be receiving broadside copies of their poems and a chapbook featuring all the poems entered in the contest:

ANITA HOLZBERG
BARBARA COGSWELL
CALOKIE
G. MURRAY THOMAS
MARVIN DORSEY
ETHEL MAYS
PATRICK THOMAS JEFFRIES
CHRYSTINE JULIAN
BRUCE NIEDT
BARRY SCHWAM
MARCYN CLEMENTS
HELEN GRAZIANO
CORRIE GREATHOUSE
DAVE NORDLING
MICHAEL GONZALEZ
XOCHITL-JULISA BERMEJO (the winner)
CHARLES HARMON
NATHAN ZHAO

Copies of the broadsides and chapbook will be available for 99.9 cents each!

Hope you can join us!
Don the ring master

http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com

Nathan Zhao

9-9-9

My Grandma's birthday is in September, the ninth month.
Daddy hates to work outside when it's ninety-nine degrees.
Old people wouldn't like climbing 9 flights of stairs.
I will be nine years old until April 7th.
Now there aren't nine planets in the Solar System.
Little baby Erick used to be nine months old.
I saw the Dodgers play for nine innings.
I can play part of Beethoven's Ninth on piano.
The number nine in China symbolizes the Chinese dragon.

Charles Harmon

999

First of all, don't read this poem upside down;
Nine is fine, but not mark of the beast.
Pluto was planet number nine, now condemned to Hades.
Nine is a lucky dragon number in Chinese culture.
Nine months after I met my wife we married.
Love Potion Number 9 was in the chemistry lab.
Nine months later we had a nine pound baby.
Nathan, my stepson, is nine years old and nice.
I hope to live to be 99 years old.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT GOD

My brother had me listen to Revolution 9 once.
Man’s voice spouted, number 9 number 9 number 9.
“It’s a world with no God,” he told me.
Number nines floated in air; number nines numbed my
mind. “Without God we’re just a number.” I listened
to conversations, clashing, chaos, and pictured a five-star restaurant
filled with nine-shaped patrons. White linens, candles, roasted garlic
wafting in, and people with featureless circles set atop
sloping shoulders: blank space in the place of tongues.

Michael Gonzalez

4TH WAS THE 9TH…

She was the 9th girl I ever fell for
Long dark curls I wanted to get lost in
Lips so perfect a smile was almost a shame
Almond eyes tore through me to take my words
Olive skin my fingers yearned to know how smooth
Legs long enough to make my thoughts a sin
Friendship so good I didn’t want it to stop
“4th in the Year” was my poem about her
I never told her how she made me feel

Dave Nordling

MY DEAR, FLUORINE

Slippery in Teflon’s bonds, I can scarcely contain you.
The supremely reactive and negative, all things must passivate
for your yellow poison renders all life’s breath toxic.

You refine the fierce power of the Uranian gods.
You devour and consume the organic muck leaving bones.
Less than noble by nine, blinded martyrs paid dearly

to reduce you to the elemental in centuries labor,
our teeth hold strong and worry of our future
with holes in our sky opened by the refrigerator.