AlYoung.Org congratulates all of the Commonwealth Club’s 2009 California Book Award poets

View this year’s California Book Award recipients in all categories

_____________________________________

Gold Medal Winner

August Kleinzahler

SLEEPING IT OFF IN RAPID CITY: Poems New & Collected

August Kleinzahler (Farrar Straus Giroux)

_____________________________________

Silver Medal Winner

Dan Bellm

PRACTICE

Dan Bellm (Sixteen Rivers Press)

_____________________________________

Finalist

Victoria Chang

SALVINA MOLESTA

Victoria Chang (University of Georgia Press)

_____________________________________

Finalist

CS Giscombe

PRAIRIE STYLE

C.S. Giscombe (Dalkey Archive Press)

_____________________________________

Finalist

Cecilia Woloch

NARCISSUS

Cecilia Woloch (Tupelo Press)

_____________________________________

___________________________

Election Returns

___________________________

Still confused about the propositions on which Californians voted in the special state election of Tuesday, May 19, 2009?

1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F

In clear, plain language Easy Voter Guide breaks it all down in pro’s and cons — and multilingually, too.

Clickable

The nonpartisan Easy Voter Guide Project is a service of the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund in collaboration with the California State Library and the California Secretary of State’s Office. The James Irvine Foundation provides additional support to the Easy Voter Guide Project.

___________________________

||| Gigging since 1956

Al at 16

Courtesy of The Dan I. Slobin Archives

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

<a href='http://www.spongecell.com/online_calendar_for_website'>Online Calendar by Spongecell</a><a href='http://spongecell.com/boxed_calendar/127336'>Upcoming Events</a>

_______________________________________

Swee: “Rainstorm”  |  © Malaysian Watercolours

_______________________________________

Overhearing her peppery, gray-eyed cry of “Get off my ass!”
– part gringo, part Mexico — you guess she’s undressing,
addressing her boyfriend, her partner, her lover, her spouse;
stranded, winded; all of us hostages to this gangster storm.

Your translation, flawless in any lingo: “Hey, lighten up!”
All space between spaces softens; you clearly hear the fridge,
its on-off friendliness, the binary push-pull of life and lull.
the way the full love-hate, pass-fail, love-leave yin-yang swings.

Parked (maybe arked) till morning in our sudden, rain-bashed
no-star motel — no wireless, no email, no female connection –
alone with ticking blood and heart-swept buds, you flower,
renewing your lifetime membership in Club One Another.

– Al Young
Antioch, CA
May Day 2009

© 2009 by Al Young

__________________________________________________