Altadena Poetry Review Presents
SIX POET LAUREATES: SPREADING POETRY LOVE
Poet Laureates from the 2016 and 2017 Altadena Anthologies will be the Featured Poets on our Pas LitFest panel at the Zona Rosa Alley, next to the Pasadena Playouse, in Pasadena on SUNDAY, MAY 21, 2017, from 3:30pm-4:45pm. Five Laureates will present their work:
-- Elsa Frausto
-- Marlene Hitt
--Mary Langer Thompson
--Radomir Vojtech Luza
--Maja Trochimczyk
--Thelma Reyna
Pasadena LitFest will be on May 20 and 21, with multiple venues and lots of great poets and writers to hear. Visit the website of the LitFest 2017 for details, check out the schedule, or read the bios of the poets and writers.
ELSA S. FRAUSTO
MARLENE HITT
Elsa Frausto passes the Poet Laureate's Laurels to Pam Shea, April 2017
Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Elsa is a bilingual
poet. She has been active in local poetry events as coordinator and host, most
recently with “Wide Open Readings” at the Sunland-Tujunga Library. Her book of
poems--Sunland Park Poems (Shabda Press), which she co-wrote
with Alice Pero--was recently published. Elsa was Poet Laureate of
Sunland-Tujunga in 2014-2017.
MARLENE HITT
Marlene Hitt is a Los Angeles poet, writer and retired educator with local history
as an avocation. She has served for many years as Archivist, Museum Director
and Historian at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga. She is a native Californian
and a graduate of Occidental College. She also studied at CSUN, USC, UCLA, Glendale
College and Trinity College, Ireland. Her work appeared in Psychopoetica (UK), Chupa
Rosa Diaries of the Chupa Rosa Writers, Sunland (2001-2003), Glendale College’s
Eclipseanthologies, two Moonrise Press anthologies, Chopin with Cherries (2010),
Meditations on Divine Names (2012), and Sometimes in the Open, a collection of verse
by California Poets Laureate. She published Sad with Cinnamon, Mint Leaves,and
Bent Grass (all in 2001), as well as Riddle in the Rain with Dorothy Skiles, and a stack
of chapbooks for friends and family.
The first Poet Laureate of Sunland Tujunga (1999-2001), Marlene Hitt was honored as the 2016 Woman of the Year by the Congressman Adam Schiff and her name was entered into a congressional record.
Clocks and Water Drops - Poetry Collection by Marlene Hitt
Published in May 2015. 118 pages. ISBN 978-0-9819693-5-0, $15.00
This collection of poetry includes 73 poems divided into sections on: Children, Marriages, Portraits, Neighbors, Seasons, Small Things, Passages, and Farewells. The title captures the poet's fascination with the flow of time, as relentless and powerful as drops of water that can shape rocks and move mountains.
RADOMIR LUZA
Poet
Laureate of North Hollywood, CA, Radomir is a Pushcart Prize Nominee and author
of 30 books. His poetry has been published in over 80 anthologies,
literary journals, blogs, websites, newspapers, magazines and other media.
The SAG/AFTRA/AEA actor is also a stand-up comedian, theatre critic and host/curator
of reading events around the country. He edits and publishes the literary
magazine, VOICES IN THE LIBRARY, through Red Doubloon Publishing.
THELMA T. REYNA, Ph.D.
Thelma T. Reyna’s books have collectively won eight national literary awards. She has written four books: a short story collection, two poetry chapbooks, and a full-length poetry collection, Rising, Falling, All of Us. Her fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in literary journals, anthologies, textbooks, and regional media for over 25 years. As Poet Laureate in Altadena, 2014-2016, she edited the Altadena Poetry Review Anthology: 2015, as well as the 2016 anthology, which was the Winner in two national book competitions in 2016 (Anthology category). She was selected as a “Top 10 San Gabriel Valley Poet, 2016” by Spectrum Publications. She is also chief editor/publisher at Golden Foothills Press, based in Pasadena. Visit her site at www.GoldenFoothillsPress.com .
MARY LANGER THOMPSON, Ed.D.
Mary Langer Thompson’s poems, short stories, and essays appear in various journals and anthologies. She is a contributor to two poetry writing texts, The Working Poet (Autumn Press, 2009) and Women and Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching (McFarland, 2012), and was the 2012 Senior Poet Laureate of California. Her first collection of poems, Poems in Water, was published by Green Fuse Poetic Arts of Loveland, Colorado in 2014, and she is working on a second collection entitled “It’s a School Night.” Her children’s book How the Blue-Tongued Skink got his Blue Tongue was recently released by Another Think Coming Press. A retired school principal and former secondary English teacher, Langer Thompson received her Ed.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. She continues to enjoy conducting writing workshops for schools, prisons, and in her community of the high desert of California.
MAJA TROCHIMCZYK, Ph.D.
Maja Trochimczyk, Ph.D. (McGill’94), is a poet, music historian, and photographer born in Poland and living in California. She published six books on music (After Chopin, The Music of Louis Andriessen, Polish Dance in Southern California, A Romantic Century in Polish Music, Frederic Chopin: A Research and Information Guide, and Lutoslawski Legacy), six books of poetry (Miriam’s Iris, 2008; Rose Always, 2011; Slicing the Bread, 2014; The Rainy Bread,2016; and Into Light, 2016) as well as two anthologies, Chopin with Cherries (2010), andMeditations on Divine Names (2012). She also published 17 book chapters, 26 peer-reviewed articles, and hundreds of essays and poems that appeared in English, Polish, German, French, Chinese, Spanish and Serbian translations. A recipient of ACLS and SSRCC post-doctoral grants, and many honors for the promotion of Polish culture, she taught music history at the University of Southern California and ethics in jail. She recently received the 2016 Creative Arts Prize from the Polish American Historical Association. She serves as Secretary and Communications Director for Polish American Historical Association and was the Sixth Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga in 2010-2012. In 2008, she founded Moonrise Press. More... or visit the website: www.trochimczyk.net
Into Light: Poems and Incantations
This poetry and prayer collection presents 35 poems and 12 "incantations" that focus on the intertwined spiritual concepts of Light and Love. The poems, initially written within the Catholic mystical tradition of contemplation and adoration of the Divine presence, gradually evolved to encompass a broader scope of spiritual insights, without losing the main focus: reaching out in Love to the One Light, the Source of All. The simple and repetitive meditations and incantations are meant to inspire, uplift, and fill the heart with Light and Love.
Available as a Paperback with 82 pages in a standard trade size 6' by 9' (ISBN 978-0-9963981-8-3, $10.00), Full Color Paperback, in the same size, ISBN9781945938030 ($30.00) and as E-Book in the EPUB Format, ISBN 978-0-9963981-9-0, $8.00).
The Rainy Bread: Poems from Exile by Maja Trochimczyk
This volume includes 30 poems about forgotten stories of Poles living in the Eastern Borderlands of Kresy, who were killed, deported, imprisoned, or oppressed after the invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union on September 17, 1939. These are depictions of survival of other Poles deported to Siberia, the Arctic Circle, or Kazakhstan; who left the Soviet Union with the Second Corps of the Polish Army under General Władysław Anders; were transported to refugee camps in India or Africa; and ended up in Argentina, Canada, Australia or the U.S. The book is a companion to “Slicing the Bread: Children’s Survival Manual in 25 Poems” (Finishing Line Press, 2014), with which it shares some poems, including vignettes from the author’s childhood in Warsaw, permeated by the strange rhetoric of the Polish People’s Republic, yet still overshadowed by the war.
ISBN 9781945938009, paperback, 64 pages, $10.00
ISBN 9781945938016, eBook, $8.00
