This year’s Eureka Street Art Festival (Aug. 10-15), which will include a virtual component due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will feature 12 new murals and eight sidewalk poetry installations in the Henderson Center neighborhood (E and F Streets between Henderson and Harris) by Humboldt County and California artists alike. According to a release, four of the […]
poetry
Posted inArts + Scene
We’re All Land Artists Now
Moon-shaped pools, underground flows and springs long-buried by sand inspired the poems, paintings and vessels in Jerry Martien and Becky Evans’ new exhibition at Piante Gallery (and the gallery’s final show before closing), Water and Power. Evans explained that she and Martien both grew up in Southern California near Los Angeles, where water and power […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Eureka’s Poet Laureate David Holper
Congratulations, Eureka, you have your first poet laureate. David Holper, a 61-year-old professor of English at College of the Redwoods and brave judge of the NCJ annual Flash Fiction Contest, got word of his selection this week and a press release from the city is expected soon. Holper is a graduate of the University of […]
Posted inArts + Scene
The Aftermath of Wars
The Vietnam War shaped Eric Hollenbeck. American “missions” in Iraq, Afghanistan and countless others since have shaped generations of veterans who struggle to function in a world that has little or no understanding of their experiences. Radioman, currently playing at Dell’Arte’s Carlo Theatre in Blue Lake, is a powerful tribute to those veterans that will […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Street Poetry
If not from spotting him around Old Town, you may recognize Bob Hager from his Oct. 26, 2017, Journal cover story “Homeless Survival Guide.” Hager is a veteran and he and his late wife, Kathleen, had been homeless off and on for decades and were evicted after a long-term stay at the Budget Inn in […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The 4/20 That Wasn’t
Did you hear the crickets on Sunday? Downtown Arcata was slightly more populated with skunky tourists, and one lonely celebrator traversed H Street, tinny whoops and slides of electronic music belching from his waist-clipped radio. But overall, it was a doobie-day downer. Redwood Park was all but empty, reported HumRights executive director (and NCJ Media […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Predawn
in the grey moonless predawn on the coal asphalt soundless but a mutter of motor and tires you, silent as a black cat jaywalk in front of my alpine white BMW I see you, too late grey on black, hoodie on jeans swaddled in that black blanket flashes of a ghost white face and tube […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Ghosts
Your voice is solid silver and it shines and draws me in. I remember numb toes wood stove crackling logs canvas tent hot dogs in tortillas home-brewed beer frozen night with a storm outside. We kept ourselves alive telling stories, poems, fighting off the cold and the dark with our light, as if by casting […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Poem Store Goes Hollywood
Frequenters of the Arcata Farmers’ Market may have noticed something missing this year: No, the strawberries, quail eggs and mushrooms are still in abundance — but versification while you wait has gone onto that ethereal plain. Well, not quite. Jacqueline Suskin, the oft-bespectacled proprietor of the Poem Store, took her lap-sized typewriter and lyrical mind […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Come and Play
Hope arose from marsh paths egret-eyed and scraggly — stilt runs. Whistle stops, parcel drops, destination bugged. Prime that ordinary ooze, American coot. Oh, see? Can you say? I try evolution, airy terns in revolving dour mood indigo waiting until some marbled God-wit kites my cin- namon(g) teal […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Hopland
Her smiling face Framed by wisteria, Promises made That now surface, As my life slows And hers quickens. 30 minutes, 6 bottles of wine, Hugs and smiles Wedged between Clients and drives North and South. I try to hold it under 70 As I head towards home.