Poetry Laurels: California poets

Showing posts with label California poets. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

California Poetry in the California Quarterly 44/1 and Joys of Spring

Kathabela Wilson, Maja Trochimczyk, and Marlene Hitt with the California Quarterly 44/1, March 25, 2018

There is so much poetry going on, it is hard to keep track of things. I have been busy editing collections of poetry by others, with some poems of mine as well.

Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

This volume features almost 60 poets, including Village Poets Pam Shea and Marlene Hitt, and poets who featured at Bolton Hall Museum in the past: Kathabela Wilson, Susan Rogers, Margaret Saine, Deborah P. Kolodji and William Scott Galasso. Copies of the CQ may be obtained by ordering online at CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety.org , or by mailing a request for a specific issue together with a check for $10.00 per copy. Do not forget to name the specific issue you are requesting (this one is 44/1) and submit your order to: CSPS VP/Membership 2560 Calabria Ct, Dublin, CA 94568.

Every poet is invited to join the CSP Society, online or by mail. First fill out the form on the website, then print it and send with payments by mail to:

CSPS Vice President - Membership,

2560 Calabria Court, Dublin, California 94568

When editing this volume first I thought I should have a theme of spring, new life, renewal, then i realized that poets submitted mostly about the fall (what was currently written), so I had to revise my theme into the "cycle of life" - in its physical natural beauty and spiritual depth. I'm thrilled to have encountered so many new wonderful poets, and to be able to publish the work of talented friends. I used some haiku, including two of mine, as comments on shorter poems, and wrote a new poem to close the issue.

Here's the table of contents of the California Quarterly, Volume 44, Number 1

Fragments - Jerry Sexton, 7
The Night Sky - Thomas Mitchell, 8
October Yellow Jackets - Mary Lou Wickham, 9
Yellow School Bus (Haiku) - William Scott Galasso, 9
Autumn Song - Thomas Mitchell, 10
Meditation - Pamela Shea, 10
Coming Home - Momoyo Capanna, 11
The Holy - Claire Millikin, 12
Pause at the Long Valley Caldera - Selma Calnan, 13
Autumn of My Life (Tanka) - Kath Abela Wilson, 13
Devore Fire - Dana Stamps, II, 14
Light Shimmers (Haiku) - Maja Trochimczyk 14
Evacuation - Shirley Geok-lin Lim ,15
Unknown Happens - David E. Howerton, 15
Waiting for Santa Claus - Shirley Geok-lin Lim, 16
Japanese Maple (Haiku) - Susan Rogers, 17
Parti juste comme ça - Michael D. Amitin, 18
Gone Like That - Lionel Roudet (Translation of Amitin's poem), 19
Elohim - d.p. houston, 20
Waiting - Marlene Hitt, 20
National Botanical Gardens - Alun Rees, 21
Late October - Thomas Mitchell, 22
Signs of Winter (Tanka) - Kath Abela Wilson, 22
Good Evening - AE Hines, 23
Visión del Vals de La Nieve - Rodolfo Hasler, 24
First Snow - Kath Abela Wilson, 24
A Vision of the Snow Waltz - Margaret Saine (Translation of Hausler's poem) 25
Winter Triangle (Haiku) - Deborah P Kolodji, 25
Christmas Cards - Ken Autrey, 26
Quatre Saisons - Jane Stuart, 27
In the Village of Trélex - Lois P. Jones. 28
Song of the Pear - Lia Brooks, 29
Water from Air - Jane North, 30
Only My (Haiku) - Deborah P Kolodji, 30
Meeting Max on His Zero Birthday - Patricia Hukill, 31
Shining Shoes - Ken Autrey, 32
Wren Song (Haiku) - Deborah P Kolodji ,32
Twone - Alessio Zanelli, 33
Remembering When … New- David E. Howerton , 33
The Wish of Hedera - Kath Abela Wilson, 34
Race to Spring - Alice Pero, 35
When That Radiance Breaks - Stephen Colley, 36
Lucid - d.p. houston, 37
Cerulean Blue - AE Hines, 38
The Veil - Mimi Whittaker, 39
Cutouts - Ken Autrey, 40
Catching Wood - John Schneider, 41
Playing with Shadows - Margaret Saine, 42
Puny Human - Joshua Savage, 43
Response to Mother Earth - Joshua Savage, 44
To Ear by Wing - Kath Abela Wilson, 45
Grass - Susan Rogers, 46
Off the Dock - John Schneider, 47
Can’t Sit Still (Haiku) - William Scott Galasso, 47
Waves Crashing - David E. Howerton , 48
The Sea - Alessio Zanelli, 48
Sandpipers - Jean Esteve, 49
Salt Wind (Haiku) - Deborah P Kolodji, 49
Twin Jellyfish (Haiku) - Maja Trochimczyk, 49
Awakening - Marlene Hitt, 50
An Orchestra of Dreams - Jane Stuart, 50
Trampoline Cleaning - Pamela Shea, 51
Peaceful Journey - Marlene Hitt, 51
Where I Live - Dana Stamps, II, 52
Erin’s Song - Susan Rogers, 53
Visión de Orion - Rodolfo Hasler, 54
Suza - Susan Rogers, 54
Vision of Orion - Margaret Saine (Tr.), 55
I Will Be Burned (Tanka) - William Scott Galasso, 55
To Come - Madeleine S. Butcher, 56
Creation - Jane Stuart, 56
Revel … - Alice Pero, 57
White on Blue - Stephen Colley, 58
Arbor Cosmica - Maja Trochimczyk, 59

Cover Art: Yucca Abby Diamond

Photo of maples in Warsaw by Maja Trochimczyk

ARBOR COSMICA

~ for my children

No fear, no hate, not even a mild dislike*—

we leave our heavy burdens, shards of memories

broken, all too broken, at the bottom of crystal stairs

beneath clouds of white camellias, petals swirling

through air like the snow of forgetfulness

Perfect symmetry of blossoms

points the way — up, up, always up

rainbow crystal stairs, revealed

one by one as we ascend — inwards,

outwards — dancing spirals of our DNA

We get to know this place — these depths,

these heights — for once, for all lifetimes

With each step, pure notes resonate

and expand into clear, spacious chords —

the music of the spheres rings out, wave by wave

expanding from our open hearts

Each chord — harmonious, different —

each melody in this vast symphony

sweetly twines around another, and another

until all are One Song, One Wisdom —

of stem and flower, of leaf and root

in this Cosmic Tree of humanity

Arbor Cosmica —

We have been here

all along without knowing

Photo of a maple in Warsaw by Maja Trochimczyk

There is a correction to be made, though. The famous word "It" - made infamous by Monthy Python, actually - went missing from the penultimate line of the poem by Alun Rees, sent in from Wales. "It" was not found before the journal went to print, so here is his whole poem, with the missing word inserted in the line that "it" so recklessly abandoned. Apologies to the poet!

NATIONAL BOTANICAL GARDENS

Chained are these captives on display:

eagle, buzzard, goshawk, kestrel, kite

in a garden setting excellent with plants.

Plants stay in place, but raptors call for shackles

to deny them flight.

They learn to fly to order, just as Spartacus played

the Roman game, in which he had to fight

his comrade gladiators to please the mob.

He waited, then fought a bloody war with his captors

and he did right.

Look these birds in the eye. You will see

half-hidden flames of a fierce internal light.

They do their tricks but you’ll never make them like it.

Even unto death they’re unconquerable killers —

despite chain-blight.

They’ve known a freedom we can’t understand.

They hunt and kill out of hunger, not of spite.

That’s a way of life we’ve long forgotten, and now

confronted with freedom we chain it and go meekly

into no good night.

Alun Rees

Cardiff, Wales

Photos of autumn in Warsaw by Maja Trochimczyk

Photo by Arturas Morozovas

But this is spring, not autumn, oranges are ripe and blossom at the same time... And Easter just passed.. . I had the pleasure of talking about my immigrant experience, my family war-time traumas, and life in general to two journalists from Europe: Polish-Lithuanian journalist Witold Janczys wrote a story based on my interview for a Lithuanian publication, and Polish music journalist and broadcaster Ewa Szczecinska from the Polish Radio recorded an interview to be broadcast in installments - the series has just began - in Polish Here are the links, and a photo from the Lithuanian publication - translated from Polish into Russian!

https://www.delfi.lt/multimedija/u-nas-i-amerikie/u-nas-v-amerike-ceny-tozhe-rastut-no-i-zarplaty-uvelichivayutsya.d?id=77319547

https://www.polskieradio.pl/8/380/Artykul/2082339,Maja-Trochimczyk-Zycie-pomiedzy-Polska-a-USA

Let me, then, end this post with another image, also in the golden hues by Susan Dobay, with oceans and oceans and oceans of blessings...

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Ambika Talwar's "My Greece" - A Review by Lois P. Jones

My Greece Book - Link to Amazon.com

What do you want from a book? What do you want for the time you invest as a reader? I wish I could give Ambika Talwar's book 100 stars. A star to detail each of the many points of archeological light revealed through the thoughtful and erudite insights from My Greece: Mirrors & Metamorphoses. Every story is a journey but few journeys take the reader through so many passages. Within the passages are microcosms of life at its most intense, culture centric, and epoch-building experiences that move the protagonist through not only Greece’s most spellbinding architecture and landscapes but the innerworld of its inhabitants where cultural rights of passage – funerals, weddings and christenings take on mythological resonance and exposure to the elements (both ecological and human) present ecstatic inspirations and occasional alarming challenges.

This memoir is for everyone because its reflections resonate with existence. You poets, you travelers, you artists, film makers, bakers, merchants, fisherman, politicians, philosophers you. So much here that you will find yourself again and again. Do not let its 270 pages daunt you. Instead, spend delicious moments contemplating Talwar’s inner reflections which will spark your own epiphanies. Here are a few to whet your appetite: “deep inside our psyche, we know archetypes make us cousins.”

Ambika Talwar

“It’s amusing that some Greeks want everyone to have come from them, as though to be the originator of all cultures is an elevation by design. Why do many want to be the first? Others from ancient cultures also expound that the land of their origins is the oldest, the most…! Why not be among those that improve on the existing paradigms, as we so sorely need to do in these contemporary times so that we evolve our human civilizations past the horror that has been done?”

“Someone comes up and asks me where I have come from. They are Greek traveling from Greece and waiting for the wedding party. I say “both India and Los Angeles.” Living as a hybrid, I say I am from both places; both places elicit a warm response from most people—again I hear we are related from a long time ago. The US is not a place culturally appealing to many; they wonder aloud how I can live there coming from an ancient land. I don’t tell them how many Greeks I meet in Los Angeles. About my Greek dentist, about the wild man who jumps into his pool from a rooftop, about the aging dance teacher, about the woman who wooed a man with a red rose in her mouth, about my experience of the Greek Easter and the epitaphios at the local Greek Orthodox church.”

Brava to the sooth sayer, poet and traveler. Follow her journey and you will discover you own.

~ Lois P. Jones
Reprinted by Permission

Maja Trochimczyk and Ambika Talwar at Ambika's art exhibit.

My Greece Book - Link to Amazon.com

From the Introduction by Ambika Talwar:

My visit to Greece was wild, enriching, exhausting, and almost elegant. I traveled with companions and sometimes on my own; I visited many places old and new; I met people of many persuasions; I relished the foods; I felt exalted among ruins and antiquity. At times, I also felt alone and exhausted, and I was not able to write as per my plans. But I loved swimming in the different seas. I would love to return some day to this glorious country, to be again reminded of things both familiar and foreign.

~ I returned home excited about documenting my adventures to extract from them deeper meaning. This process became another journey as I chose to stay with my direct and remembered experience without research.

~ My visit was in 2002, and it is only now that I have been able to complete the process. Diverse challenges over the years, professional and personal, demanded my attention; I could have discarded the project completely. But my tenacity and my love for Greece would not allow me to fail myself. In 2013, I started to edit and rewrite the travelogue. I had started to forget incidents. Somehow, this forgetting, this emotional distance worked out better as I gained a clearer perspective and expression of wonder.

~ I urge you, my reader, to note that if any character bears resemblance to you or someone you know, please remember you are part of the collective and are uniquely singular at the same time. Although you were not in the lived experience of these travels, I wish that you feel moved in your own way to find yourself among these pages and journey along with me and with my co-travelers.

~ During my time in Greece, Athens was being readied for the 2004 Summer Olympics. Roads were broken for months for the restructuring. Too many one-way streets left people frustrated unable to get to their destination on time. Poverty had spread following the change to the Euro. Greece’s downfall had begun and was speeding up. Indeed in the last 9-10 years, Greece has taken a dastardly beating.

~ Perhaps, the repressive economic models, which have led to extreme competition and burdensome scarcity, have stirred in many the awakening of female spirituality. We rediscover that woman-centered systems (buried for eons) were based on our closeness with Nature and the elements, on reverence for the mysteries of cyclic orders, on communal sharing. These ways are in great need for the healing to happen today in our constrained times of endemic violence.

~ Surely, we must seed again our human capacity for love and caring, for kindness and intelligence to keep the world whole again. May we call in Areté, Eirene, Eros, Agape, and Sophia for that balancing virtue to make us whole again!

May we propitiate the Mahavidyas, fierce Mothers of all times who illumine dissolution of demonic forces, both personal and communal, and remind us to honor and embody the harmonics of nature so we may cohere and celebrate our unities. May we indeed awaken to our capacity for love, wherein is illumined the cosmic play of wonder.

~ Ambika Talwar

Maja Trochimczyk and Ambika Talwar

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - AMBIKA TALWAR

AMBIKA TALWAR is an India-born author, wellness consultant, artist, and educator whose vision is to realize her sacred destiny and invite others to find their brilliance. Insights gleaned through life challenges have prompted her to make her poetry a call to action. Composed in the ecstatic tradition, her poetry is a “bridge to other worlds.” She has authored Creative Resonance: Poetry—Elegant Play, Elegant Change and also 4 Stars & 25 Roses (poems for her father). She is published in various journals. She won Best Original Story award for her film “Androgyne” in Belgium. She asserts it is time for creative visionaries to offer narratives that change our worldview, and the big film studios must play a part in this transformation. An English professor, she lives in Los Angeles, Ca and New Delhi, India. For book readings, poetry presentations, healing workshops, and individual or group healing consultations, please contact her at: luminousfields@gmail.com

Web site: http://creativeinfinities.com