Karen Klingman In Memoriam

Karen Klingman at Susan Dobay's Scenic Drive Gallery in Monrovia, 2011

between 

warmth of lit candles

an uninvited guest 

whispers to the host

is no one else coming

Tanka by Karen Klingman inspired by a painting by Susan Dobay, 2012

published in Poets on Site anthology, On Awakening: The Art of Susan Dobay 

(Kathabela Wilson, ed., Poets on Site, Pasadena, 2012, printed by APC Gallery)

Poets on Site said their farewells to Karen Klingman (1942-2012), a delightful, witty, brilliant poet whose presence will be sorely missed. On Saturday, January 19, 2013, her friends - Sharon Rizk, Mina Kirby, Erika Wilk and Kathabela Wilson - organized a memorial gathering dedicated to Karen's art at Sharon's home. 

Rick Wilson played a specially selected set of melodies, including traditional hymns, pieces by J.S. Bach, Amazing Grace, etc. Karen's poems were printed on different colors of paper (green, blue, purple, pink, yellow and white). The poems were posted on the wall and poets picked the ones they liked to read. The printed program listed colors of Karen's poems and poets shared them in-between flute melodies. Poems were previously published in anthologies by Poets on Site (edited by Kathabela Wilson) dedicated to the art of Susan Dobay, Manzanar Plein Air Workshops, Poetry and Cookies (Edited by Pauli Dutton, Altadena Public Library), San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, and collections by Emerging Urban Poets (edited by Don Kingfisher Campbell).

Of my choices on yellow and white paper, I'd like to copy two poems here, as they resonate with some of my most favorite moods and poems.  

Poets on Site in the park,with Rick and Kathabela Wilson, Just Kibbe, 

Cindy Rinne, Sharon Rizk and Karen Klingman

Afternoon Delight

by Karen Klingman

orange blossoms burst

spray the yard with fragrance

insect voices hum

salute the afternoon

I sip my chamomile

watch a red winged blackbird

bathe in warm slats of sunshine

trellised on the lawn

rare the moment do I spend like this

just breathing

gazing at nothing special

yet brilliant in its everything

(c) 2008 by Karen Klingman

Karen Klingman reads her poem at APC Gallery in Torrance, 2010

Thoughts on Manzanar, Apple Orchard, Pine Trees by Henry Fukuhara

Sunshine melts purpled blue scars

along the western slope 

silencing the pain

patches of emerald foliage

crown the white turbulence

offering up a bouquet of hope

(C) 2010 by Karen Klingman. Published by Poets on Site, Pasadena, in Kathabela Wilson, ed. "On the 12th Annual Henry Fukuhara Workshop "Observations & Interpretations" (2010)

I wrote about the same painting, also noting the two colors, yellow and purple that predominate in this surreal landscape seen by a blind painter (assisted by Chiz de Queiroz).

Entropy

By Maja Trochimczyk

                              for Henry Fukuhara in memoriam

everything falls apart

in the last hour – shapes,

colors reduced to primal hues

of coagulated blood

and sunlight – everything

memories cleansed of pain

by art, carefully crafting

each painted detail

until it stops being seen

contours no longer matter

when the final surge of energy

erases words of praise

for the unjust world that promises

not to deliver eternal happiness

and keeps its promise

wanly smiling over

vanities of vanities

everything disintegrates

even the sweetness

of the mango juice

dripping down the chin,

the tongue and fingertips

already stained by blueberries,

on the first day of the summer

after the war ended

and all was supposed

to be well but was not

Karen participated in many poetry workshops with me and wrote witty, insightful comments on my pages, sometimes praising the beauty of the idea, at other times taking apart the weak, disordered words that captured it.  When I think of her, these workshops first come to mind, so my farewell to Karen Klingman is a poem about them.

Maja Trochimczyk, Erika Wilk and Karen Klingman at APC Gallery in Torrance, 2009

Henry Fukuhara Workshop Poetry Reading by Poets on Site. Photo by Kathabela Wilson

The Poet of Lost Cats

~ Karen Klingman in memoriam

She of the red head

Like her tabby cat, tiger in disguise

Witty claws waiting

To be drawn across

Thin skin of your poems

Leaving gold behind

The chaff is burning

Carmine flames ablaze

In the cobalt sky

The chaff is burning 

Her words fierce and fiercer

Brilliance sparks up

The fabric of hours 

Swirls with specks of ashes

Incinerated verse

Shredded thoughts fall

With the grace of minutes

On my tawny hair

Dressing me in orange

Hue of her good humor - 

Karen's soul ascends

(c) 2013 by Maja Trochimczyk

What we need is more poetry by Karen Klingman. While she will not write anything new, we can gather and publish in one book what she has written. Poets collecting her verse for the memorial gathering have noted that they did not know many of her poems that were scattered in publications in Southern California and beyond. Editing such a book would be a wonderful tribute of love from her poet friends who greatly appreciated Karen's multiple talents. 

_____________________________

Photos of Karen Klingman from Kathabela Wilson's gallery on Facebook. Poetry selected by Erika Wilk, Mina Kirby, and Kathabela Wilson.

The New Year with a Sunbloom and a Mystic Rose

Camellia blossom, Descanso Gardens, December 2012

The Year 2013 will be very unusual. It is going to be the Year of the Snake, apparently filled with good luck, material blessings, but also with deception and interpersonal problems.  What it willl be depends on us, and we can make it a beautiful, blessed year, if we property focus our attention on things that matter.

Haiga "The Gift" (c) 2012 by Maja Trochimczyk

In response to an invitation by Susan Rogers, I created a little reminder of this focus on what really mattters as a bas-relief collage haiga, that is a paper and fabric image with a haiku-like comment.  The invitation was to create a poem or an art-work on the theme of the Snake or Target on a rectangular board.  The results in the form of calligraphy, artwork, photos will be displayed at the Japanese American Cultural Center in Los Angeles.  

My choice to make a surreal flower with petals from a white poinsetta, daisy, and a photo of matilla poppy, with a double eye in the middle reflected the choice of the theme - the Target. The eye is copied from another collage of mine, created for the Beatrix Project of Kathi Stafford for my poem "Rosa Mystica" and published in her chapbook (and reprinted below). 

Here, the double eye of the rose here becomes the eye of the Mystical Sunbloom. I entitled my little art-piece for the New Year 2013 - "The Gift" - and I think a lot of people, especially Christians and those following mystical traditions know the answer to this riddle. If not, reading the anthology Meditations on Divine Names is highly recommended. The answer to every question about the meaning of life and everything is "42" as we know from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  The trouble is we do not know what is the question...

Ever calling - Never heard

Ever seeking - Never seen

Revealed

Detail from "The Gift" (c) 2012 by Maja Trochimczyk

Happy New Year 2013!

________________________________________________________________________

The original version of the eye appeared in a digital collage for "Rosa Mystica"  - a poem about Mother Mary and Dante's Paradiso.

Rosa Mystica

The love that calms this heaven always offers welcome

 with such greetings to make the candle ready for its flame 

 ~ Dante, Il Paradiso, Canto XXX: 52-54 

I knew it all along

(at least, suspected)

Beatrice’s swimming cap

betrays Heaven as nothing 

but an oversized pool

where saints swim like fish

in the river of light 

and God-Mother rests 

on white lounge petals 

of a Mystic Rose 

Giovanni di Paolo’s

illumined pages of Il Paradiso  

unveil creature comforts 

beyond the sapphire glow

of Dante’s Empyrean 

Angels curl in their pods

like babies asleep 

on metallic wings 

with round pillow halos 

of shimmering gold 

Multi-hued gowns of cobalt, 

salmon, palm green, and sienna 

reveal the childish joy 

 of heavenly hosts

adoring the Trinity 

Cherubs play hopscotch 

dance the Sarabande

twirl like a swarm of bees 

among light-bursts that do not 

 sear their eyes with pain 

Rushing waterfalls of laughter 

sparkle in diamond waves

of the robes of our Mother 

Daughter of her Son 

figlia del tuo figlio 

She gave Him a kiss 

on the way to Rose Garden 

serene Love’s Greeting

beneath seraphic wings 

rainbows that cut our darkness

 NOTES:

The digital art collage includes my photographs and Beatrix from Giovanni di Paolo’s illustrations for Il Paradiso. These images are a part of the British Library's Yates Thompson 36 Codex made in Sienna in the 15th century. Rosetti’s drawing of the Rose Garden is in the collection of the Museum of the Fine Arts in Boston and his painting of Love’s Greeting is in the Isabella Stewart Garner Museum in Boston.

The reference to the Virgin Mother, “figlia der tuo figlio” (daughter of your son), is from Dante, Il Paradiso, Canto XXXIII: 1.

 The ephigraph is cited from the Princeton Dante Project (http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/index.html): “Sempre l'amor che queta questo cielo / accoglie in sé con sì fatta salute / per far disposto a sua fiamma il candela.” Il Paradiso, Canto XXX: 52-54.

Christmas Wishes 2012: Make Your Own Holidays!

The sunlight in California is so different from that of northern areas of Canada, or Poland. There, the light is pale, often grayish, frail. Here, it brings a rainbow of colors to everything it touches. Everything is more vivid, more intense, under the bright rays, in summer or winter...

I came to Los Angeles in 1996 ... I made Sunland my home, with a garden of roses and pomegranates overlooking the magical golden, bronze, purple mountains. I love writing and taking pictures of flowers, leaves and the sky. Like my roses, I’ve flourished in sunlight – there is a lot to be thankful for! First and foremost my three children, Marcin - born in Poland, Ania and Ian - born in Montreal, Canada.

With a blended, multicultural family, we had to become creative. We have had a real Christmas every second year, starting on Christmas Eve with the Polish Wigilia dinner of traditional dishes (of beets, mushrooms, and fish). The dinner included best wishes shared by breaking a white square wafer, called oplatek. On Christmas Eve, there was also time for the midnight Mass and carols, but no gifts - that were shared at the Wigilia table back in Poland. We had our pile of gifts on Christmas mornings. In this, we followed North American customs. Instead of a large family brunch and dinner parties (hard to do without family here), we gathered around the Christmas tree, opened our gifts, mostly books and videos, and lounged around in our new pajamas, listening to carols and snacking on chocolate and cakes. We created our own traditions.

What about the years without Christmas? We did exactly the same thing, but a week earlier. This year, our Christmas will be on December 22!  It was (and is) quite amusing to go out for an afternoon walk, dazed by all the Christmas charm of gifts and affection, to see everyone else rushing around, frazzled and busy, still days before the holidays… For years, we have lived in our own time zone, created our own traditions, our own happiness…

A Christmas Engagement

(for Vivien)

The tree has its ornaments

Cinnamon its green apples

Gold paper waits for the gifts

Gingerbread pairs up with chocolate

Dried figs waltz with the pecans

Paper angel spreads yellowed wings

Clementines fill Christmas stockings

The first star peeks in the window

The Wigilia dinner is served

He takes her hand with affection

The holly dances with ivy

She laughs at her sparkling ring

(c) 2012 by Maja Trochimczyk

Christmas in the Bandito Park, Tujunga Canyon Road

Richard Stewart, an artist and community activist, did exactly the same - created his own holidays! For Christmas, he dresses up the rock sculptures in his Bandito Park on Tujunga Canyon Road in Santa Hats.  This year, on December 15, 2012, the sculptures were visited by poets and dancers from Alethea Dance Group and the performances were recorded for a documentary film.  I read one poem and gave the dancers some chocolate-covered gingerbread. My poem, along those by other poets, is to be published in a coffee-table book of photos of the rock sculptures and poetry "Rock of Rancho Tujunga." What a wonderful idea! Thank you, Richard!

The Place of Stones

Here before us

Here around us

Here after us

Stone people

Solid - silent - still

Galaxies collide

Stars explode

Nebulae form

Incandescent

Stellar dust drifts

Swirls across the ocean

Tides rise and recede

Waves spill over the desert

Plankton becomes plants

Shells merge into rocks

Layered - heated - pressed

Hold on! Hold on! Do not go!

Stone people outlive us

Stellar dust and sunshine

We age

Petrified - fractured - stressed

Sink into the earth

Blend with the elements

Grow roots until

We can breathe out free

Serene - silent - still

Stone people

(c) 2012 by Maja Trochimczyk

My poem is not very Christmasy, it is a reflection on our mortality and the fact that rocks, indeed, do outlive us. This does not bother me. Actually, what's really annoying is that our own clothes outlive us. I was struck with this surreal thought, that mere fabric with buttons and sweaty seams has more life in it than we,  the transient dwellers of this planet. Of course, we have the secret of immortal life that our clothes or rocks do not know... 

But today, the thought about not being here, or rather leaving suddenly after a very short visit, is made all the more real by the recent death of Frank Pastore, killed in a motorcycle accident on the 210 freeway. The beloved KKLA religious talk show host did a lot to make each holiday season special...and was, like me, just 55 years old. Rest in peace...

Poets on Site at Beyond Baroque, December 14 at 7:30 p.m.

On behalf of Kathabela Wilson who is traveling in India, I will host the reading of Poets on Site at

Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice
(681 Venice Bl. Venice, CA 90291),

on Friday, December 14, 2012 at 7: 30 p.m.

Admission: $7.00 adults, $5.00 students.

http://www.beyondbaroque.org/events.html

The reading will include poetry by Kathabela Wilson, Chris Wesley, Just Kibbe, Kathi Stafford, Millicent Borges Accardi, Alice Pero, Susan Rogers, Taoli-Ambika Talwar and Maja Trochimczyk. The presentation will include slides with the work of Susan Rogers and photos from past Poets on Site Events.

The following Poets on Site books will be represented:
1. Tour of the Arlington Gardens
2. Susan Dobay - Awakening
3. Pacific Asia Museum - Two Tours
4. Henry Fukuhara Plein Air Workshops Poetry Tours (Manzanar books)

POETS ON SITE (Notes by Kathabela Wilson)

Poet Kathabela Wilson created Poets on Site five years ago and since then it has grown to produce over 30 anthologies and performances edited and led by her which have included over 200 poets and artists as well as dancers and musicians. Poets on Site created the MUSE award winning audio tour of Pacific Asia Museum, 2010. Poets are inspired by interesting places and events, which include museums, galleries, gardens, concerts and lectures. They return to the sites of inspiration to perform multi-media programs.

Kathabela and Rick Wilson, who accompanies the poets on flutes from his collection of traditional world flutes will be in India for the month of December. It is a pleasure to introduce Poets on Site to Beyond Baroque in their absence. Maja Trochimczyk, who has been a part of Poets on Site from its inception will host the program and several longtime members, along with a few newer members of the group, will give a sampling of their work, accompanied by poet Chris Wesley on guitar. They group has eight new programs in development and is an organizational member of the Pasadena Arts Council. For history and bibliography of Poets on Site see www.oldflutes.com/poetsonsite which also includes links to their audio tours of the Pacific Asia Museum and many photos.

POETS BIOGRAPHIES

 Maja Trochimczyk, Ph.D. is a poet, music historian and photographer, born in Poland and living in California. She has been an active member of Poets on Site since the group's inception and has published and in all 30 anthologies and all performances by Poets on Site. She published four books of music studies, two books of poetry and two anthologies,Chopin with Cherries (2010) and Meditations on Divine Names (2012). Her poems appeared in Ekphrasis Journal, Epiphany Magazine, Quill and Parchment, Loch Raven Review, poeticdiversity, Phantom Seed, Van Gogh's Ear, San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, as well as many other journals. www.trochimczyk.net

 Justin Kibbe is the Associate Publisher and Managing Editor for THE Pasadena Foothills Magazine in Pasadena, California. Justin has been a member of Poets on Site since its conception in 2007. His poetry, essays, short fiction, cartoons and visual art have been published internationally in a plethora of mediums, including many Poets on Site anthologies. He received his MFA from Saint Mary’s College of California, and has taught in California, Colorado and Texas. Justin is a founding board member of Indelible Ink: a literary performance series and one of three founding co-captains of Pirate Pig Press.

Chris Wesley has been a long time participant in Poets On Site. He and 30 other poets contributed to Poets on Site’s MUSE award winning Pacific Asia Museum's Poetry Audio Tour in 2010. Chris Wesley plays guitar, bass and keyboards while writing and records music as the one man rock band, Teragin Mist. He is recipient of a 2012 Global Ebook Award for “Regret In Triptych” and creates multidisciplinary spoken word performances. He will accompany Poets on Site with his sensitive guitar improvisations. Go to www.chriswesley.com 

Susan Rogers has been a longtime Poet on Site and has participated in many of their performances and anthologies. Her work can be found in numerous books, journals and compilations including the San Diego Annual:The Best Poems of San Diego 2011-2012. Her work currently appears online at Saint Julian Press and Pirene’s Fountain. Her poetry is also part of the audio tour for the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California. She has also been interviewed by Lois P. Jones for KPFK’s Poets Café. She considers poetry a vehicle for light and a tool for the exchange of positive energy.She is a practitioner of Sukyo Mahikari— a spiritual practice that promotes positive thoughts, words and action. www.sukyomahikari.org 

Alice Pero’s book of poetry, Thawed Stars was praised by Kenneth Koch as having “clarity and surprises.” An accomplished flutist and former dancer, she is also the founder and host of the reading series, “Moonday, ” in Pacific Palisades and La Cañada, CA. Pero has created dialogue poems with over 20 poets and teaches poetry to children in public and private schools. Alice is currently in poetic dialogue with Kathabela. India, Kathabela’s current site (for the month of Dec 2012) has crept into their poems. Alice has performed with Poets on Site several times over the years, especially in our book and performance for the Arlington Garden, an in the 2011 celebration of Pacific Asia Museum’s 40th anniversary.

 Millicent Borges Accardi is the author of three poetry books: Injuring Eternity, Woman on a Shaky Bridge andOnly More So (forthcoming). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, and Los Angeles Cultural Affairs. She's been a participant in Poets on Site for several years and is inspired newly by each intersection between visual art and the written word.

Kathi Stafford is a new member of Poets on Site whose work was recently included in the anthology, On Awakening, celebrating the paintings and creative imagination of Hungarian painter, Susan Dobay. She is a member of the Westside Women Writers group and a contributor to the Portuguese-American Journal. She has previously acted as poetry editor and senior editor for Southern California Review. Her poetry, interviews, and book reviews have appeared in literary journals such as Rattle, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Connecticut River Review, Southern California Review, and Hiram Poetry Review. Her poetry has been anthologized in Chopin and Cherries, as well as Sea of Change: Poems for Hitchcock. Born and raised in Texas, Stafford has lived in India and contrasting the memories of her childhood with the exotic impressions from her Indian sojourn is a frequent theme in her poetry.

Taoli-Ambika Talwar is an educator, published author and artist, who has written poetry since her teen years. She has authored Creative Resonance: Poetry—Elegant Play, Elegant Change, 4 Stars & 25 Roses (poems for her father) as well as some chapbooks. Her style is largely ecstatic, making her poetry a “bridge to other worlds.” She is published in Kyoto Journal, Inkwater Ink, vol. 3, Chopin with Cherries, among others. She is also published in VIA, in Poets on Site chapbooks, and several other journals; and has won an award for a short film at a festival in Belgium. As a wellness consultant, she practices IE:Intuition-Energetics™, a fusion of the Yuen Method, goddess studies, sacred geometry and creative/energetic principles for wellness. She has taught English at Cypress College, Cypress, California, for several years. Thus far, she has taught about 6,500 students. Sites: goldenmatrixvisions.com; intuition2wellness.com. Twitter: @Luminous Fields.

Exhibit on Immigrants at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga

An exhibition about notable immigrants to our corner of California is currently on display at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga (10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042). The Bolton Hall Museum celebrates its Centennial in 2013, and the exhibition is one of the many that have been held there. Fellow poet and exhibition organizer, Marlene Hitt, invited me to send in a photo and a quote and thus, I found my way to a Museum display!  It has been a wonderful adventure, coming to and settling in Sunland.  I love this place, luxuriating in the sun!

For my reflection, I presented the following mini-essay, ending with a quote from "The Music Box" (published in Rose Always: A Court Love Story, 2nd rev. ed., Moonrise Press, 2011).

Why California?
The sunlight in California is so different from northern areas of Canada, or Poland. There it is pale, often grayish, frail. Here it brings a rainbow of colors to everything it touches. Everything is more vivid, more intense, under the bright rays, in summer or winter... 

I came to Los Angeles in 1996, with three advanced degrees and three children, for a job at USC that has since ended, with a husband who has since returned to Canada. Two of my children, Marcin and Anna, moved away, but I’m still here with the youngest, Ian. I made Sunland my home, with a garden of roses and pomegranates overlooking the magical grass-covered mountains. I became the Sixth Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga. 

A citizen since 2009, I rode in three 4^th of July parades, published four books of poetry, organized countless events… A music historian, poet, and nonprofit director, I love writing and taking pictures of flowers, leaves and the sky. 

Like my roses, I’ve flourished in sunlight – I started a small press that issued five books, I published about 200 poems in various journals. I have also created and  maintained blogs for various organizations, such as Village Poets, Moonrise Press, the Modjeska Art and Culture Club (of which I’m president), and the Polish American Historical Association. 

As Sr. Director of Planning at Phoenix House, I love helping people in trouble, because I’ve been there, too, overcoming PTSD and depression. Not having an extended family here means that I have time to write a lot, to share with and inspire my readers.
What else? . . . "My music box plays on. I make up the words/just as I made up this love of clay and gold,/the dust of the earth and starlight –/partly fragile and partly eternal."

_________________________

The Music Box

What the world needs now
 is love, sweet love…

My china music box plays a song
from your childhood.
Under the lid with one pink rose
I keep my sentimental treasures –
the miniature portrait
in a grey enamel frame echoing
the color of your tank top
worn in defiance 
of my sophistication.

The white tulle ribbon – a memento 
from my wedding gown?
It held the ornament up 
on the bough of the Christmas tree 
after that second, numinous summer.

My broken ring, bent not to be worn again,
 with a deep scar from your blunt saw, 
a shape marked by the strength of your fingers. 

It was a moment of liberation –
I don’t have to – anything – any more.

The three little diamonds – 
faith, hope and love – embedded 
in the scratched gold, still shine,
though not as brightly as the forty three 
specks of light surrounding your face.

The missing ring piece hit the ceiling
when it broke off with the pent-up energy 
of unwanted love – the marriage that wasn’t.  
It is still somewhere in the corner
of the coldest room in my house.

What else? 
Three brown leaves from the ash tree 
that grew by itself and died, 
unwelcome.  The Cross of Malta 
waiting to shine on your chest.

*  *  * 

What the world needs now
is light, God’s light. . . 

My music box plays on. I make up the words
just as I made up this love of clay and gold, 
the dust of the earth and starlight –
partly fragile and partly eternal.

www.moonrisepress.com/rosealways.html