After 12 years of service to the Village Poets of Sunland Tujunga, organizing the group's Monthly Poetry Readings at Bolton Hall and on Zoom, publishing anthologies, managing the website and the blog, inviting poets and artists, and preparing the annual Independence Day Parade, it is time to call it quits. I have another organization to manage now, California State Poetry Society that I have been the President of since 2019. I also serve as the Managing Editor of the California Quarterly, editor of the CSPS Poetry Letter appearing quarterly in PDF and online formats, and Chair of the Annual Poetry Contests. Plenty to do in the poetry world!
My last event was the Monthly Reading at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, held on January 29, 2023, with two amazing Featured Poets, Sharmagne Leland St. John and William Scott Galasso. State Senator Anthony Portantino came in person to distribute his Certificates of Appreciation for the two features and my volunteer work, and to read two of his poems, filled with alliteration and wit, present already in their titles: "From Lummis to Hummus." It is always great to have a politician who cares for the arts and supports artistic endeavors, so all poets cherish the talents and support of Senator Portantino. So lovely! And, alas, so rare...
The Senator wrote: "On behalf of the California State Senate, I join the Sunland-Tujunga community in thanking you for your tremendous contributions to the literary arts in the 25th District over more than a decade. Your works in writing, editing and sharing poetry have inspired a new generation of Village Poets. I commend you for your commitment to sharing ideas and building community bonds through the beauty of language. Best wishes on all your future endeavors!"
At the reading, while serving as the MC, I read two of my own poems, "Moving to California" haibun that recently appeared in the Red Paper Parasols, an anthology of Southern California Study Group that I helped publish (cover design and layout). The second poem was "Gifts" from my Bright Skies book of 2022.
I made the cover and layouts for the Southern California Haiku Study Group Anthology for 2022, featuring the lovely photo taken by Maher McArthur in Japan. Since Deborah P Kolodji agreed to edit the California Quarterly Vol. 48, No. 4 for me, I decided to help her out when my assistance was requested. I also have some haiku and one haibun published in that volume. It was a real pleasure to work with Marcyn Clements, the editor of the haibun section, on making sure that my haibun describing my travel from Poland to California, and from imitations and artifice to reality of life. She encouraged me to add onomatophoeia and specific bird names to make the text more lively. What was most important was the last line in the haiku unchanged through these transformation, "a feather-light heart" - an image from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, where the heart is weighted against a feather to see if the person deserved spiritual awards in the afterlife...
Moving to California
Long ago, in a gray cement apartment block in Warsaw, Poland, I collected painted birds, carved in wood by local folk artists. Then, I crossed the ocean with my wooden flock. In Montreal, birds came alive, as I watched red-winged blackbirds singing away on telephone lines outside my 3rd story window. Ca-roooouge - they called out their French name, Carouge à épaulettes.
Now, in my California garden, gold and ruby feathers sparkle in morning sunrays. Fierce hummingbirds bravely guard their cups of sugar water. The mourning dove marks the hours with the insistence of a cuckoo in an old Alpine clock - You go! You - whooo, who. House finches teach their young to sing, but poor babies cannot go past the first ti- ti- ti. Western bluebirds fill the air with breathless chatter: Do you know? Do you know? Yes, yes, yes. We are here, here, here. Shifting phrases of birdsong announce visitors. Ca-rooouge, Ca-rooouge - the winter blackbirds that followed me from Montreal, went home for the summer. A brilliant yellow oriole nibbles on green grapes under the pristine azure dome of the sky.
the flutter of wings
interrupts my thoughts –
a feather-light heart
Bright Skies. Selected Poems is a book of poems written and collected for my two grand-daughters when they grow up, Juniper and Aurelia, both born in September 2021, four days apart. Michael Escoubas recently wrote a very lovely review of this book for Quill and Parchment (February 2023), and I'm grateful for his kindness and praise, and also grateful that he picked one of my favorite poems from the book to include in the review. It was not published yet, when I read it on Sunday, as my poetic "Swan song" for Village Poets activities.
Gifts
…the necklace of songs, that you take as a gift~ Rabindranath Tagore
I gather sunlight
in my palms
to save for later
when it’s dark outside
and hope seems lost.
My hands are full
of brightness.
I gingerly carry
the tangle of sunrays
in a procession of gifts,
down the aisle.I gather sunlight
to
keep close
to
my heart,
and
warm us
through
cold
winter
nights
with
a rich glow
of
sunfire.
At the end of the reading, I was surprised with thanks from other Village Poets. Joe DeCenzo presented a certificate of appreciation from Congressman Adam Schiff, and listed my achievements, that included inviting, scheduling and promoting on the blog events over 12 years with 144 poets and artists, creating and hosting the Zoom event series for the 2.5 years of the pandemic (that as Joe said saved the Village Poets from falling apart), decorating the Poets' Convertible for at least 10 Independence Day Parades, and more. He did not forget to mention that the idea of group photos at the end of each reading was also mine and that getting poets to pose for these was like herding cats...
Of the featured poets who presented their work at our Monthly Readings since 2010, 82 authors submitted their work to We Are Here: Village Poets Anthology that I co-edited with Marlene Hitt in 2020, to celebrate 10 years of VP Monthly Readings. Joe did not forget other anthologies associated with Village Poets that I edited over the years: Chopin with Cherries (with work by Marlene Hitt), and Meditations on Divine Names (with work of his, Elsa Frausto, Dorothy Skiles, and Marlene). Yes, it has been a pleasure publishing poems written by members of the Village Poets group and I hope to continue doing so in the future.
In her presentation, Sunland-Tujunga Poet Laureate, Alice Pero, praised my most recent anthology, Crystal Fire. Poems of Joy and Wisdom, illustrated with beautiful paintings of Ambika Talwar and consisting of work by 12 talented poets who all wrote poems about the good things in life, things to be joyous about and thankful for. She decided to read one poem I wrote after a walk in the Big Tujunga Wash, that her garden overlooks and I see over the fences of my neighbors across the street. Being so close to such a gorgeous tract of wilderness and still being in Los Angeles is one of the delightful secrets of our City of Angels.
Alchemy in the Hills
Rarefied air opens up to revealrocks in the mountain stream,scattered sparks of reflected sunrays,shimmering golden waves of waterspreading in circles from whereI stand on thick grains of sand. I watcha wild sunflower unfurl its petals.I smile at the aerial acrobatics of sparrows,orioles and the small yellow-graybirds of unknown names. The scentsof white sage and sumac fill the valley,ringing with the buzz of a myriad ofbees hovering about cotton-ball arraysof wild buckwheat. It is not much,but it is enough: rock, sand, and leaf enough.
Children’s laughter flows towards mefrom another wading pool, upstream.They splash and laugh, laugh and splash,amused by every droplet. I rest inthe center of my universe, at a still pointof my turning world, where all elements—air, rock, sand, water, sunfire—merge into one blessing of being here,sharing this space, this time withchildren’s laughter, with lily-white yuccablossoms stretching to the sky,and a single blade of grass guardingits spot between stones on the creek shore.
Huge bouquets of flowers followed, presented by Pamela Shea and Marlene Hitt, but I was most delighted with a special gift from Marlene Hitt, our founder and the moving force of poetry in the Foothills. She made a series of posters, using photographs of me reading poems since my "crowning" as Poet Laureate in 2010, of the anthology, and of the Village Poets readings. She also wrote a very touching tribute, which I am delighted to share:
Marlene's set of "thank you, Maja" posters is so cute that I'm including their photos below. She also gave me a costume jewelry set of very gold hue, an inheritance from her mother. I'm sure I'll find a poetry event to wear these to.... These expressions of gratitude from someone who has done so much by herself, was the most touching.
It is nice to be appreciated - I have had quite a nice collection of kind words recently.
My Christmas mail included two very nice cards from my Board members at California State Poetry Society. Maura Harvey (Editor of the California Quarterly) wrote: "Really appreciate your terrific organizational skills, perseverance, and loyalty. CSPS is so fortunate to have you, Maja as prez!" Richard and Susan Deets (Richard is Vice President for Membership): "Thank you for the wonderful job you are doing as President of CSPS. We look forward to many exciting years to come under your leadership." I will have more time for CSPS, its California Quarterly and its Poetry Letter, as well as for publishing books and working on research papers on music history, my original avocation, neglected when I had dedicated so much time to local poetry scene. I already left Poets on Site, Westside Women Writers and now Village Poets groups. The day has 24 hours and there is never enough time to do everything one wants to do.
Second, I selected 12 poets to contribute to a new anthology of positive poetry entitled "Crystal Fire. Poems of Joy and Wisdom" and including 144 poems by 12 poets: Elzbieta Czajkowska, Joe DeCenzo, Mary Elliott, Jeff Graham, Marlene Hitt, Frederick Livingston, Alice Pero, Allegra Silberstein, Jane Stuart, Ambika Talwar, Bory Thach, and my own. The spectacular cover art and paintings to start each section are by poet Ambika Talwar, a talented painter and poet.
https://moonrisepress.com/crystal-fire-anthology.html
Poet Bory Thach, included in the anthology and participating in the readings, shared the following comment about the book and readings: "I really appreciate everything that you do for the arts, especially how you strive to be fair and include everyone through well-deserved recognition. It's great to be surrounded by such positive poets with a wide variety of perspectives and insights that can be shown through their poetry. Being a writer I always try to learn something from every artist that I meet. The best part about our group is that I get to read amazing works by different authors, experience their views as well as fresh images and new ways of looking at the world. As a result, I have the privilege of gaining valuable knowledge and wisdom. All because I encountered so many poetic pieces as your editor. I'm just grateful to be able to take away at least one thing every time I open a book. It is like a step closer to enlightenment!"
Thank you, Bory! It is always good to be appreciated.
Third, Ambika's paintings from "Crystal Fire" and my photographs from Bright Skies gave rise to an exhibition entitled "Sky Garden" and held at the Scenic Drive Gallery in Monrovia in October and November 2022. The exhibition, curated by Susan Dobay, presented just 12 paintings and 12 photographs, but gave rise to a series of events, two poetry readings from the books, on October 16 and November 20, 2022. The exhibition was also visited by singer, guitarist and song-writer Piotr Kajetan Matczuk of Poland, who gave there a mini-concert.
https://moonrisepress.blogspot.com/2022/09/moonrise-press-and-scenic-drive-gallery.html
https://moonrisepress.blogspot.com/2022/11/sky-garden-exhibition-closing-on.html
Fourth, I was commissioned by the National Fryderyk Chopin Institute of Poland to write a scholarly article for publication in the Studia Chopinowskie research journal on the topic related to Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831), an eminent pianist and composer, and an important fore-runner of Chopin. I decided to write about the handwritten patriotic songbooks found in the archives of Museum Adama Mickiewicza in the Polish Library in Paris that were written by two of Szymanowska's children, her daughter Helena Malewska and son Romuald Szymanowski. I had earlier written on Szymanowska's patriotic songs in the collection of Historical Chants (Spiewy Historyczne) by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz and had noticed these small notebooks while reviewing Szymanowska-related documents in the Polish Library in 2015. Since this paper is yet to be published, I will not discuss its content here, except to say it presents an important aspects of preserving Polish culture and traditions in the homes during the partitions and even in the heart of the Russian Empire.
