Sunday, 04 May 2025

Arts & Life

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Local entertainer Andre Williams will perform with his talented Andre Williams Trio at Silk's in Clearlake on Thursday, Nov. 18.


The performance will start at 5 p.m. and continue to as late as 8 p.m. at Williams' Silk's Bar & Grill.


Williams will put his incredible voice to work on old favorites.


Silk's Bar & Grill is located at 14825 Lakeshore Drive, Clearlake.

I’m fond of poems about weather, and I especially like this poem by Todd Davis for the way it looks at how fog affects whatever is within and beneath it.


Veil


In this low place between mountains

fog settles with the dark of evening.

Every year it takes some of those

we love — a car full of teenagers

on the way home from a dance, or

a father on his way to the paper mill,

nightshift the only opening.

Each morning, up on the ridge,

the sun lifts this veil, sees what night

has accomplished. The water on our window-

screens disappears slowly, gradually,

like grief. The heat of the day carries water

from the river back up into the sky,

and where the fog is heaviest and stays

longest, you’ll see the lines it leaves

on trees, the flowers that grow

the fullest.


 

Ted Kooser was US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. He is a professor in the English Department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He lives on an acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska, with his wife Kathleen Rutledge, the editor of the Lincoln Journal Star.


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 ©2007 by Todd Davis from his most recent book of poems, The Least of These, Michigan State University Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of Todd Davis and the publisher. Poem first appeared in Albatross, No. 18, 2007. Introduction copyright ©2010 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.


American Life in Poetry ©2006 The Poetry Foundation

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This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Second Sunday Cinema's free film for Nov. 14 is “Washington You're Fired!”, a well-researched film documenting our losses of Constitutional rights when the Patriot Act was passed following 9/11.


The film will be shown at the Clearlake United Methodist Church at 14521 Pearl Ave in Clearlake, one block from Mullen.


Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the film starts at 6 p.m.

One of the strangest facts in this film is that not one elected representative read the Patriot Act before voting to pass it. Not one.


The reason is even more strange: A “substitute” Patriot Act was printed at 3:45 a.m. on the morning of the scheduled vote, replaced the hundreds-of-pages-long original Patriot Act bill with no notice to our representatives – and was passed in a switcheroo.


Those familiar with Second Sunday Cinema know that we avoid “conspiracy theory” films. There are facts enough to go around – and this alarming film is full of facts, with lawyers and law professors galore supporting the information that we citizens have lost crucial Constitutional rights. (But we're too busy trying to feed our families and save our homes to do much.)


We can be arrested and imprisoned now without cause or warrant, without knowing the accusations, the accuser, and – without a trial – be imprisoned for life. Our rights of Habeus Corpus and Posse Commitatus are suspended. It goes on and on.


To its credit, the film ends by letting us know what we can do to reclaim our country. And if you disagree with the premise of the film, do come anyway. There is always time for civil discourse following the screening.


Second Sunday Cinema shows well-made and important documentaries for free on the second Sunday of every month.


For more information call 707-279-2957.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Celebrate Christmas in song and dance with the Swehla Family at the Soper-Reese Theatre on December 4, 17 and 18.


All shows start at 7 p.m. All seats cost $10.


California’s largest performing family puts on “one heck of a swell-a show,” with a special tribute to all veterans.


Nine performing members of the Swehla family invite you to join them in their on-stage living room for a heartwarming Christmas musical – a show that everyone will enjoy from mom, dad, the kids and grandparents.


Craig (aka “Santa”) and Julie (aka “Frosty the Snowman”) Swehla of Cobb lead their children, Bridget (22), Johnny (20), Mary (18), Clare (16), Joe (14), Christina (12) and Angelina (9) in song and dance.


Get your tickets online at www.SoperReeseTheatre.com or at the Theatre Box Office, 275 Main St., Lakeport.


The box office is open on Thursdays from noon to 5 pm, and on the day of the show for two hours before show time.


Tickets also are on sale at Catfish Books in the Safeway Center, Lakeport; at the Lower Lake Coffee Company on Main St. or by phone at 707-263-0577.


The Soper-Reese Community Theatre is a restored, historic, performing arts venue established in 1949 and seating up to 300 patrons.


Run by an all-volunteer organization, the theatre operates under the guidance of the non-profit Lake County Arts Council.


The Soper-Reese brings dance, music, plays and poetry to all members of the Lake County community and to visiting tourists.


The Soper-Reese Community Theatre can be reached at 707-263-0577.

 

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

 

 

 

It’s a rare occasion when I find dozens of poems by just one poet that I’d like to share with you, but Joyce Sutphen, who lives in Minnesota, is someone who writes that well, with that kind of appeal. Here is just one example. How many of us have marveled at how well our parents have succeeded at a long marriage?



The Exam


It is mid-October. The trees are in

their autumnal glory (red, yellow-green,


orange) outside the classroom where students

take the mid-term, sniffling softly as if


identifying lines from Blake or Keats

was such sweet sorrow, summoned up in words


they never saw before. I am thinking

of my parents, of the six decades they’ve


been together, of the thirty thousand

meals they’ve eaten in the kitchen, of the


more than twenty thousand nights they’ve slept

under the same roof. I am wondering


who could have fashioned the test that would have

predicted this success? Who could have known?



Ted Kooser was US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. He is a professor in the English Department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He lives on an acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska, with his wife Kathleen Rutledge, the editor of the Lincoln Journal Star.


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 Joyce Sutphen, whose most recent book of poetry is First Words, Red Dragonfly Press, 2010. Poem reprinted by permission of Joyce Sutphen. Introduction copyright ©2010 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.

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