Practical Water

Acknowledgments & Notes

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S & N O T E S —Thanks to editors & sta‡ of periodicals & other venues in which this work has appeared or is forthcoming: alhambrapublishing.com, American Poet, At Length, Back Room Live (Life Long Press), Berkeley Poetry Review, Best American Poetry 2008, Bombay Gin, Bright Wings: An Anthology of Poems About Birds, Burnside Review, Ca‡eine Destiny, Colorado Review, Columbia: A Journal of the Arts, Columbia Poetry Review, Conjunctions, The Contra Costa Times, Crate, Critical Quarterly, Drunken Boat, Earth First!, Electronic Poetry Review, Em Press, Empyrean Press, Freeverse, From the Sky to the Sea: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Area Watershed, Gulf Coast, Hayden’s Ferry Review , HildaMagazine.org, The Journal, Lana Turner, Lumina, Lyric Postmodernisms: An Anthology of Innovative Poetries, Meena, Minuteman Press & Mrs. Dalloway’s, Modern Review, The New Yorker, Northwest Review, Octopus, Old Crow Press, Packingtown Review, Pamirs Poetry, Ploughshares, poemsfortheplanet.org, Poetry Flash, Poetry Northwest, Poltroon Press, Pool, Smartish Pace, Sonora Review, Sous Rature, State of the Union: An Anthology of Political Poetry, Superstition Review, Update, Waterstone Review, VanGogh’s Ear (Paris), Viz Inter-Arts Event: A Trans-genre Anthology, Volt, The Washington Post “Poet’s Choice, ” Wildlife, Women’s Work: Modern Women Poets Writing in English. “To a Desert Poet” was presented to the University of Arizona Poetry Center .Thanks to Andrew Kenower, Quemadura, & Sharon Zetter for help with the manuscript . I am indebted to Frances Lerner & to my family, especially to Bob Hass. —Notes: “Ballad at the State Capitol” intersperses quotes from Hammurabi’s Code of Law, 1750 bce; CodePink’sWorking Group for ajr36, especially Sam Joi, facilitated a resolution to bring home the National Guard from Iraq & Afghanistan; it was defeated in the California State Assembly Veterans’ Committee when three Democrats didn’t show up to vote. “The Eighties” owes a debt to Leonard Michaels’s “In the Fifties ” & is dedicated to js. Ashur Etwebi, Helen Hillman, Dora Malech, Yngvil Molaug Haugen, & Eugene Ostashevsky provided names of blackbirds. “Autumn Fugue” is for dy. Part 2 opener: To the woman at the Heritage Foundation who pushed us out: here you are. The reportorial poems derive from Congressional hearings i attended with CodePink 2005–2008. “Near the Great Arch” is for sjb. “Permission to Be Strange” is for hms. The Heraclitus quote is from Guy Davenport’s translation. The moon poems are dedicated to poets & artists, except for “may moon”—for jp (a 1 0 1 1 0 2 scholar) and “june moon”—for bz (a pitcher). “Anthem for Aquifers” is for cdw. “Berkeley Water” is for jv & aw. “Hydrology of California” is dedicated to the Bateau Group & owes debts to the work of David Carle, David Lucas, Je‡rey F. Mount, Standard Schaefer, Chris Sindt, & Gary Snyder as well as to International Rivers, River of Words, & Watershed. “Neap Tide” is for lam & cl. Photos are my own digital e‡orts except as follows: “Reportorial Poetry”—Scooter Libby sentencing by Liz Hourican. “A Violet in the Crucible”—Liz Hourican & police o·cers by Medea Benjamin. “In a House Committee on Electronic Surveillance ”—Boston Tea Party 1846 lithograph in public domain. Part 3: “october moon” —helmet from a display on body armor in the Rayburn Building by Desiree alFairooz ; Josephine Hass as Pink Vadar by Fiona Hass; “november moon”—Tilden Park newt by Catra Corbett; Desiree al-Fairooz & Condoleezza Rice by Charles Dharapak (Associated Press); “december moon”—lily & Robert Taplin’s “Neptune” by Robert Hass; “january moon”—Pt. Reyes lighthouse by Paul Ebenkamp; Ella Hass by Louisa Michaels; “february moon”—amanita mushroom by Hazel Magoon; action at Berkeley Marine Recruiting Station by Janet Weil; “march moon” cactus by Deb Thompson; “april moon”—Audrey Marrs by anonymous; thrush by Jason R. Finley http://www.birdsofwestwood.com/birdpages/hermitthrush.htm; “may moon”— Berkeley owlets by R. L. Sivaprasad, www.birdsofthebay.com; Cornelia Nixon & her horse Sky by Deb Dawson; “july moon”—Squaw Valley meadow by Brett Hall Jones. Part 4: Tilden Park heron by Ethan Michaels. Some images of aqueducts & dams are from Clyde Johnson, the California State Water Project & U.S. Department of Water Resources websites. A B O U T T H E A U T H O R Brenda Hillman is the author of seven collections of poetry and, with Patricia Dienstfrey, the editor of The Grand Permission: New Writings on Poetics and Motherhood (2003). She is the Olivia Filippi Professor of Poetry at Saint Mary’s College and works with CodePink, a social justice...