The 2009 Old Time Bluegrass Festival logo winner. Courtesy of Anderson Marsh Interpretive Association.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Anderson Marsh Interpretive Association (AMIA) has announced its annual Old Time Bluegrass Festival Logo Contest for high school students in Lake County.

AMIA is offering a $100 prize to the student whose submission is chosen to be the logo for the 2011 Old Time Bluegrass Festival.

The contest is open to all students attending any Lake County High School, as well as Lake County 9-12 graders being home schooled.

The artwork should feature a heron theme with old timey bluegrass instruments such as fiddle, banjo, gut-bucket or mandolin.

Submissions will be judged by the quality of the art work and their suitability for appearing on T-shirts, posters and other promotional materials.

“We would like to involve and support as many Lake County students as possible,” said Bluegrass Festival coordinator Henry Bornstein. “The winner’s art will grace this year’s festival posters, flyers and T-shirts.”

Bornstein said all submissions will be on display with other art at the “Art in the Barn” display during the sixth Annual Old Time Bluegrass Festival, to be held rain or shine from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10, 2011.”

The deadline for entries this year is April 15.

Artwork must be an original, black and white ink drawing, submitted on white 8.5-inch by 11-inch paper. All identifying information must be put on the back of the artwork.

To be considered, entries should be sent so that that they are received no later than April 15 to Gene Vance, Lower Lake High School Art Department, P.O. Box 799, Lower Lake, CA 95457.

Complete contest information should be available from local High School art teachers, or contact AMIA at 707-995-2658 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Find more information about the Bluegrass Festival at www.andersonmarsh.org.

Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. Photo by UNL Publications and Photography.

Peggy Shumaker lives in Alaska, but she gets around the world. Here she takes us with her on a 90-foot dive into colorful mid-Pacific waters.

Night Dive

Plankton rise toward the full moon

spread thin on Wakaya’s surface.

Manta rays’ great curls of jaw

scoop backward somersaults of ocean

in through painted caves of their mouths, out

through sliced gills. Red sea fans

pulse. The leopard shark

lounges on a smooth ramp of sand,

skin jeweled with small hangers-on.

Pyramid fish point the way to the surface.

Ninety feet down, blue ribbon eels cough,

their mouths neon cautions.

Ghost pipefish curl in the divemaster’s palm.

Soft corals unfurl rainbow polyps, thousands

of mouths held open to night.

Currents’ communion—giant clams

slam shut wavy jaws, send

shivers of water. Christmas tree worms

snap back, flat spirals tight,

living petroglyphs against the night.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Peggy Shumaker from her most recent book of poetry, Gnawed Bones, Red Hen Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of Peggy Shumaker and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2011 by The Poetry Foundation.

The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. Photo by UNL Publications and Photography.

Ellery Akers is a California poet who here brings all of us under a banner with one simple word on it.

The Word That Is a Prayer

One thing you know when you say it:

all over the earth people are saying it with you;

a child blurting it out as the seizures take her,

a woman reciting it on a cot in a hospital.

What if you take a cab through the Tenderloin:

at a street light, a man in a wool cap,

yarn unraveling across his face, knocks at the window;

he says, Please.

By the time you hear what he’s saying,

the light changes, the cab pulls away,

and you don’t go back, though you know

someone just prayed to you the way you pray.

Please: a word so short

it could get lost in the air

as it floats up to God like the feather it is,

knocking and knocking, and finally

falling back to earth as rain,

as pellets of ice, soaking a black branch,

collecting in drains, leaching into the ground,

and you walk in that weather every day.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©1997 by Ellery Akers, whose most recent book of poetry is Knocking on the Earth, Wesleyan University Press, 1989. Reprinted from The Place That Inhabits Us, Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010, by permission of Ellery Akers and the publishers. Introduction copyright © 2011 by The Poetry Foundation.

The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Mike Wilhelm & guest Mike Schermer rocking the Blue Wing at a past performance. Photo by Bernie Butcher.

UPPER LAKE, Calif. – Mike Wilhelm and Hired Guns new five-piece lineup will play the Blue Wing on Monday, March 14, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Former Hired Guns bassist Randy Hare has switched to guitar with the addition of veteran bassist Jamie Webber.

An Arkansas native, Webber grew up in Chicago which has infused his playing with a sensibility uniquely suited to Wilhelm's rootsy blues material.

He played the southside Chicago club scene during his teen years and played with the rock and blues guitar virtuoso Lonnie Mack.

The quintet's personnel are Wilhelm and Hare on guitars, Webber on bass with Hired Guns regulars James “Jimmy the Lion” Leonardis on tenor sax and “Slammin'” Scott Slagle on drums.

Part of the historic Tallman Hotel complex, the Blue Wing Saloon & Cafe is located at 9520 Main St., Upper Lake. Reservations are recommended for parties of six or more.

The telephone is 707-275-2233 and the Web site is www.BlueWingSaloon.com. Mike Wilhelm's Web site is www.Mike-Wilhelm.com.