CSPS Poetry Letter No. 3 of 2025, Part II - Annual Contest Winners and Book Reviews

Rainbow over the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone by Thomas Moran (1837-1926) painted in 1900, the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The first part of the CSPS Poetry Letter No. 3 of 2025, Part I - Free Speech and Elegies - Poems by Whitman, Brosman, Tademar, Accurso and Escoubas has been posted. 

To round up this issue, our faithful book review editor, Michael Escoubas submitted two book reviews and we have some good news. Robert Hammond Dorsett, the Judge of the CSPS Annual Contest 2025, selected three winners and six honorary mentions from among 173 poems submitted to the contest. Congratulations to all the awardees! 

~ Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President

CONGRATULATIONS TO 2025 ANNUAL CONTESTS WINNERS

The Annual Contest Judge, Robert Hammond Dorsett selected the following winners. Congratulations!

• First Prize: “Where Once Was Day” by Tom McFadden
• Second Prize: “Inner Voice (A Pantoum)” by Suzanne Bruce
• Third Prize: “Stinson Beach” by Angelika Quirk

Honorary Mentions (in alphabetic order):

•  “Ave Maria” by Livingston Rossmoor; 
• “Hexagram – 9” by Mary Elliott, 
• “Ho'oponopono” by Martin Wagner; 
• “It Had to Be” by John W. Crawford; 
• “Late May Morning” by Maureen Ellen O'Leary; 
• “The Enemy Has Encircled Us” by Randy K. Schwartz

Michael Escoubas Reviews Prairie Roots by James Lowell Hall

60 Poems ~ 17 B/W Illustrations ~ 133 p. Shanti Arts Publishing. ISBN 978-1-962082-12-9 

Prairie Roots is the story of a town, a home, a family, and a legacy. Told with poetic charm and treasured photographs, the story begins in 1915 in the town of Delavan, Illinois. This was the year Ray and Marguerite Lillibridge, the author's grandparents, got married. From that time forward, joys and trials were lived and shared, then told and retold, until they became the treasured foundations of a family rooted in the prairie soil of central Illinois.

The collection is structured into three divisions: I. Prairie Dawn (28), II. Sun and Air (24), and III. Green Sod Above and Lie Light. The poems are neatly gathered to reflect the historical context of each division: Birth, Maturation, Reflection.

This review seeks to highlight a family whose legacy might best be described as love. James Hall, now a practicing attorney in the Chicago area, writes, as it were, with a fountain pen filled with the “ink” of love. I say this, not because I know the poet personally but because of Hall’s testimony in his “Acknowledgements” page:

“What do you want for Christmas, Jamie?” my mother asked my four-year-old self. “People and books,” I replied. And for sixty years, save one, I have gone to Delevan each Christmas season for the people. The cacophony of aunts, uncles, racing cousins—was joy for an only child.

This same joy, inspired by the Lillibridge tribe, is a hallmark of Hall’s poetry. The first poem is about Hall’s grandmother who, on her birthday, 

My grandmother greeted

family and friends, opened letters

from three US Presidents, quoted poetry,

helped two great-grandchildren

blow out one hundred candles.

Marguerite set a loving tone which came to be foundational:

Happiness in marriage—that’s not something

just happens—it’s being the right partner,

                          not marrying the right partner.

Ray, Marguerite’s husband:

Grew up on the plains, lived through the Children’s Blizzard, prairie fires, tornadoes, the woeful sound of hateful wind, dust storms, droughts, grasshoppers that blotted out the sky, times when all the family had to eat were tomatoes and cabbage. Most of the cattle in the West died during the brutal winter of the Great Die Up. Ray survived.

 

These two hearty people, familiar with suffering, became pillars that inspired and supported a family and a community through the course of generations.

“Hogging Catfish” is about a real life (though the stuff of legend) named William “Hog” Wallace. In brogue typical of the times, Hall tells the tale about Hog: 

Look catfish have their home in sunken holes,

you need to go down into their haunt

and tickle them just right. When they feel

comfortable with you bein’ there,

sneak your left hand up into their mouth

like to kiss ‘em. They’ll wake up in a tizzy

realizin’ you ain’t their mama catfish,

sweating bullets to get out of that hole

they’re in. Expect that fish to reflex

jerk forward and chomp on your hand.

Each poem reflects the way things were at a time and in a place one would like to be. “Main Street Saturday Night” is one such place:

We each were given a dime on Saturday

opening a universe of possibilities.

All the stores stayed open and people

flocked into town. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds

set up a popcorn stand on Reinheimer’s

corner and soon after lighting a little stove,

sounding like small firecrackers, popping began.

Your reviewer grew up in a small town near Delavan. In these, my mature years, I often reflect upon my small-town heritage . . .  Saturday nights in town was one of those gifts.

Titles such as “Chicken Every Sunday,” “First Day of School,” and “Monday Wash Day,” speak into the depths of my heart. They reveal truth about character formation, family fun and family suffering. It was the suffering that caused the most growth.

“Black Thursday” is about the Great Depression setting in. Delavan’s banks fail; dreams and hopes once assumed are dashed. For the Lillibridge family:

Two gardens, a big strawberry bed,

keep our table full:

rows of string beans, beets,

corn, carrots, peas, cucumber hills,

four apple trees, two cherry trees,

two grape arbors, white and red.

The Lillibridge family reached out to the Delavan community at large, helping, giving, sustaining when there was:

No money to build houses.

If barns and silos need repair,

folks try to fix it themselves,

before hiring Dad, then asking

him to put their bills on the books.

Toward the end of the volume, Hall salutes the memory of his father and by extension his family legacy . . . a legacy built on unshakable values of faith, family, and service. “To a Father Dying Young” details a dream in which Hall waits at a restaurant, along with a large party, to be seated. His father appears across the room in conservation with a friend. In a supernatural moment, his father:

Stopping his conversation, he smiles,

sage green eyes penetrate mine,

connect in familiar quiet ease.

A checkered table for two opens.

I think I should grab Dad and take it.

The two of us could sit and reminisce . . .

The dream ends before we get a table.

I wake, pillow damp, spent, longing.

So many questions never answered.

Washing sleep from my eyes,

in the mirror, Dad’s face looks back at me.

It is little wonder that Prairie Roots won Book of the Year, awarded by the Illinois State Poetry Society for 2024. It is rooted in the rich prairie soil of truth and love.

~ Reviewed by Michael Escoubas

 

How to be a Contemplative: Poems and Brief Reflections by Judith Valente

30 Poems ~ 30 Reflections ~ 89 pages. Publisher: Kelsay Books. ISBN; 978-1-63980-725-3

It has been said that one cannot tell a book by its cover. However, this overused cliché does not work for Judith Valente’s new book, How to Be A Contemplative. The image of two figures in a meditative posture is a perfect fit. Valente captures the essence of her collection through two quotations which appear in her epigraph: 

From Mary Oliver: “Sometimes I need only stand where I am to be blessed.”          

 Evidence

From Thomas Merton: “Here is an unspeakable secret: Paradise is all around us and we do not understand.” Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.

In a world too often defined by violence, confusion, crises of identity, lack of trustworthy truth sources, How to Be A Contemplative takes centerstage in the spirit of Mary Oliver’s insightful dictum. With understanding and grace, Judith Valente shows how one may “learn” how to “stand where I am and be blessed.” 

Design

In a simple but effective layout, the book features thirty poems in all. Each poem is complemented by a reflection about each poem. The reflections don’t explain the poems but add “soil” for additional thought. Arranged in three parts, each part contains ten poems that bear a likeness to one another. There is no strict relation between the poems; Valente has nuanced each part into neat units that offer an artistic montage.

Prologue

I found the prologue immensely helpful. Valente connected with me as two companions walking down a path talking about life. We talk about poetry and art and being alone. We talk about the power of words to help us make sense of an “inscrutable” world. I came away from reading the prologue realizing that How to Be A Contemplative is a gift offered by one soul to another. My appreciation for the life I’ve been given increased like the sensation one feels when hit by a spray of sea salt air.

Selections that Spoke to My Heart

From Part One, Valente relates childhood experiences that led to her becoming a poet:

Becoming a Writer 

Picture a wooden seat the size of a suitcase in a backyard in 

     northern New Jersey. 

Above it, the fan-like leaves of a fig tree, their fine hairs.  

Picture the tree’s small fruits dangling like teardrops poised at any 

     moment to drop. 

Then place a ten-year-old child in that spot overlooking the cross-

     stitches of the Jersey Central Railroad flowing on their way to 

   anywhere and nowhere.  

Let the child look up at the neighbor’s clothesline strung like 

     electric wire, at the empty-bodied clothes: 

the work shirts, baby pajamas, stained white socks, woman’s 

     nightgown thinned from too much washing. 

Let her listen for the train’s whistle, the rumbling of cars over a 

     distant bridge, a life beyond.  

Let her fill each piece of clothing with a story. 

This is how it begins. This is how it happens on a summer 

     afternoon. 

She notes the tar scent in the air, the shape of grass beneath the 

     rubber soles of her shoes, and how the children playing in a 

     nearby alley screech like cats in the night. 

She is soaring above the fig tree, writing words with air, tethered to 

     dry ground but walking in space.  

Judith’s commentary resonates as I recall similar experiences:

There comes a moment in every life when we receive an intimation of what we are meant to be and do. As Mary Oliver writes in her poem, “The Journey”: One day you finally knew / what you had to do and began. For some of us, if we are lucky that moment comes at an early age, perhaps as a small child seated on a block of wood beneath a fig tree. Perhaps what sparks it is something as simple as looking up at the neighbors’ clothesline. For others the moment might come later in life. What matters is that when the message comes, we listen.

I found “Super Wolf Moon,” inspired by 8th century Chinese poet Li Po, especially helpful for contemplation on the vastness of the world we live in. The poem and reflection recommends gazing at the firmament at night. I’ve done this and felt blessed by the immensity of it all. I think of Thomas Merton’s insight: To gain a sense of this earthly paradise. It is as if there is a distinctive human element to the natural world. As if the world speaks to hearts which pause, slow down, and hear its voice.

Not only does Valente challenge my intellect, but practical application is also on her mind. I find that I can use these poems to grow into childlike wonder. We poets desire to touch the hearts of our readers. How can we do that without the skills of listening, observing, and translating those skills from pen to page?

Since this is a self-help collection, I would be remiss if I didn’t offer the title poem as exhibit #1:

How to Be a Contemplative

Find a window. Sit by it.

Stare at the flower box of cosmos,

the bees that kiss the blooms and move on.

Sit, not for just two minutes,

but linger there. Waste time.

Forget the laundry, the grocery list,

the buzzing phone, the writing that waits.

Imagine sitting on a shoreline

listening to the endless rumor of the sea.

Imagine rising and falling like the tide.

Our mistakes are doors, our successes

melt quickly on the tongue.

The face you soon will see in the mirror

is the face of every person you’ve ever met.

It opens like a book of singular stories

unfolding, encompassing everything:

the bee stings, birdsong, night sweats,

sunrises, sunsets, discoveries, losses.

All of it good, all of it a placeholder for meaning.

Then listen for the one word you yearn to hear,

the voice that calls you by name, that calls you Beloved.

Throughout my review experience, I felt as if Judy Valente wanted me to appreciate, ever more deeply, Thomas Merton’s unspeakable secret: Paradise is all around us.

This spiritual gem is underpriced at a mere $20.00.

~ Reviewed by Michael Escoubas

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone by Thomas Moran (1837-1926), painted in 1893-1901,| Smithsonian American Art Museum

CALIFORNIA STATE POETRY SOCIETY

Established in 1971, CSPS is the official state organization representing California to the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NFSPS). CSPS was incorporated on August 14th, 1985 as a 501(c)(3) organization, so donations above the membership level are tax deductible. Donor and patron support ensure (1) the quality publications of the CSPS continue and (2) our mission to promote poetry and art in California and around the world continues to grow. Information regarding renewal and patron contributions is on the Membership page.

The CSPS began publication of the California Quarterly in the fall of 1972. The California Quarterly, published four times a year, accepts only unpublished poetry. Foreign language poems with an English translation are also welcome. Submissions may be made through Submittable.com, email, website and mail (for those without access to the internet and email addresses).

CSPS OFFICERS

President – Maja Trochimczyk, Ph.D. 

Vice President/Communications – Richard Modiano

Vice President/Membership – Richard M. Deets

Secretary/Historian – Ambika Talwar

Treasurer – John Forrest Harrell, Ph.D.

California Quarterly (CQ) Board of Editors

Managing Editor: Maja Trochimczyk 

Editors: Nicholas Skaldetvind, Bory Thach, and Konrad Wilk

Monthly Contest Chair – Alice Pero. 

Annual Contest Chair – Maja Trochimczyk

www.californiastatepoetrysociety.org 

www.californiastatepoetrysociety.com

POETRY LETTER

The Poetry Letter (Online ISSN 2836-9394; Print ISSN 2836-9408) is a quarterly electronic publication, issued by the California State Poetry Society. Edited by Maja Trochimczyk since 2020 and by Margaret Saine earlier. The Poetry Letter is emailed and posted on the CSPS website, CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety.org. Sections of the Poetry Letter are also posted separately on the CSPS Blog, CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety.com.

MONTHLY CONTEST SUBMISSONS GUIDELINES

California State Poetry Society encourages poetic creativity by organizing monthly poetry contests. The contests are open to all poets, whether or not they are members of the CSPS. Reading fees are $1.50 per poem with a $3.00 minimum for members and $3.00 per poem with a $6.00 minimum for non-members. Entries must be postmarked during the month of the contest in which they are entered. They must consist of a cover page with all contact information (name, address, telephone number and email address) as well as the month and THEME on cover page, and the titles of the poems being submitted.  

Starting in January 2023, we are accepting previously published poems for our Monthly Contest. Please note the publication where it first appeared on any such poem. There are three ways to submit.

(1) by regular mail (enclosing check) or email (using PayPal CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety@gmail.com):  CSPS Monthly Contest – (Specify Contest Month). Post Office Box 4288, Sunland, CA 91041

(2) online on our website CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety.org (you must register and create a profile with a password first, then the option to submit poems and fees will open), or

(3) by email, using PayPal to pay (CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety@gmail.com) and email to send your poems  (CSPSMonthlyContests@gmail.com (specify the month).

The monthly contest winners are notified the month after they are awarded. All of the winners for the year are listed in the first CSPS Newsbriefs and published in the first Poetry Letter of the following year. Prizewinning poems are also posted on the blog, CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety.com. 

The 1st prize winner receives half of the prize pool for pools less than $100. Please note: Do not send SAEs. We do not return poems. If you win, we will let you know. Otherwise, there are no notifications. 

 CSPS Monthly Contest Themes (Revised): 

① January: Nature, Landscape; 

② February: Love; 

③ March: Open, Free Subject; 

④ April: Mythology, Dreams, Other Universes; 

⑤ May: Personification, Characters, Portraits; 

⑥ June: The Supernatural; 

⑦July: Childhood, Memoirs; 

⑧ August: Places, Poems of Location;

⑨ September: Colors, Music, Dance; 

⑩ October: Humor, Satire; 

⑪ November: Family, Friendship, Relationships; 

⑫ December: Back Down to Earth (Time, Seasons). 

CSPS Poetry Letter No. 3 of 2025, Part I - Free Speech and Elegies - Poems by Whitman, Brosman, Tademar, Accurso and Escoubas

Zoroaster Peak by Thomas Moran (1837-1926), oil on canvas, 1918. Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Whitney Gallery of Western Art Collection, Purchased by the Board of Trustees in honor of Peter H. Hassrick.

FREE SPEECH & ELEGIES – WHITMAN, BROSMAN, TADEMAR, ACCURSO, & ESCOUBAS

 In my youth in the Polish People’s Republic, the 1st of September was the start of the school year, but also the anniversary of Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939. From my parents I knew that the 17th was the date of the invasion from the east, when the Soviet Red Army joined hands with German troops of National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP, or Nazi) to destroy Poland. Meanwhile, the whole month continued commemorations of the Warsaw Uprising (1 August – 2 October 1944), when 18 thousand youth fought against overwhelming forces of Wehrmacht, SS, Police, Waffen SS, & RONA that murdered about 200,000 civilians in two months. On my walk to school every day I saw three cement crosses: “this place is sanctified by the blood of (15, or 23, or 56) Poles murdered by Germans on (5 or 6) of August, 1944.” The end of October brought everyone to cemeteries and monuments, with candles and wreaths, to remember all the dead, especially soldiers and war victims (Zaduszki). 

Emigrating to the U.S. meant learning an entirely new calendar of national sorrows; there were fewer than in Poland, perhaps because of the national focus on success, not martyrdom, perhaps because the U.S. avoids remembering the dead (Halloween!!!) and teaching the tragic war history in the media. Here, I kept reading about the Pearl Harbor attack of 7 December 1941 and deaths of thousands of American soldiers, remembered along with the victims of the Hiroshima atomic bomb atrocity of 6 August 1945 and the atomic annihilation of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. But not much more. Things changed on 11 September 2001 when nearly three thousand people were murdered, and the endless War on Terror began. 

On 10 September 2025, a martyr of free speech was assassinated in front of his wife, young daughter, thousands of students, and bystanders. Charlie Kirk (1993-2025) was viciously shot in a political assassination, that continued an infamous American “tradition.” Let’s recall the assassinations of Presidents Abraham Lincoln (1865), James A. Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901), and John F. Kennedy (1963). If we add to this list the presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy (1968) and the civil right leader Martin Luther King (1968), the image of a deadly political culture is bleak. I’m particularly sensitive to this issue, since my parents were shot by robbers in their summer house in the Polish village on 3 April 2000. This was a robbery, not an assassination, my parents were victims, not martyrs. But I’m “allergic” to anyone claiming that anyone, anywhere, has any “right” to express their opinion by committing murder. That’s the playbook of Nazis and Communists. So, let’s read Walt Whitman, again, shall we?  

One of California Quarterly Editors, Konrad Tademar Wilk, has a custom of commemorating recent passings of important individuals or anniversaries of significant events with sonnets. His sonnet for Charlie Kirk is here. This poem, in a traditional form, points to the “Socratic” dialogue as a civilized way of dealing with discord. Who knows about Socrates and Plato these days? Maybe, we left the roots of our civilization too far behind in the quest for multi-cultural modernity? 

Maybe it is time to look back, and enjoy the skill of a wordsmith, found in Catharine Savage Brosman’s poems?  She graciously allowed us to reprint her verse posted by the Poetry Foundation and the Academy of American Poets, as an introduction to her creative universe. 

The theme of seeking after violence is continuing in verse by two other poets. Serendipitously, John Accurso of the Sierra Nevada, submitted two brief poems for consideration, with visions of peace without violence. "Honoring the fallen" is a theme of two brief contributions by our book review editor, Michael Escoubas.  

        A life ended, yet the words remain. Our poetry also goes on. Ars Longa, Vita Brevis. 

~  Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President

 

Wreath of Flowers, John La Farge (1835-1910), oil on canvas, 1866; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly.

WALT WHITMAN’S ELEGY FOR THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Since a political association ended the life of a young civil rights leader, Christian apologist and conservative activist, Charlie Kirk (1993 – d. 10 Sept. 2025), it is time to re-read a literary classic, a long poem by Walt Whitman (1819–1892), written to honour the memory of President Abraham Lincoln. Even without the name

of the President it is an elegy for President Lincoln, born in 1809, first elected on 4 March 1861, re-elected in March 1865, and assassinated on 14 April 1865.  The poem was written during the period of national mourning in the summer of 1865.

WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOM’D

1

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,

And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,

I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,

Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,

And thought of him I love.

2

O powerful western fallen star!

O shades of night—O moody, tearful night!

O great star disappear’d—O the black murk that hides the star!

O cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me!

O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.

3

In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash’d palings,

Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,

With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,

With every leaf a miracle—and from this bush in the dooryard,

With delicate-color’d blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,

A sprig with its flower I break.

4

In the swamp in secluded recesses,

A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.

Solitary the thrush,

The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,

Sings by himself a song.

Song of the bleeding throat,

Death’s outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know,

If thou wast not granted to sing thou would’st surely die.)

Water Lily In Sunlight, John La Farge (1835-1910), watercolor on paper, 

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly. 

5

Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,

Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep’d from the ground, spotting the gray debris,

Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass,

Passing the yellow-spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen,

Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards,

Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,

Night and day journeys a coffin.

6

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,

Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,

With the pomp of the inloop’d flags with the cities draped in black,

With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil’d women standing,

With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,

With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads,

With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,

With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn,

With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour’d around the coffin,

The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs—where amid these you journey,

With the tolling tolling bells’ perpetual clang,

Here, coffin that slowly passes,

I give you my sprig of lilac. 

7

(Nor for you, for one alone,

Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring,

For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song /

for you O sane and sacred death.

All over bouquets of roses,

O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies,

But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,

Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes,

With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,

For you and the coffins all of you O death.)

8

O western orb sailing the heaven,

Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk’d,

As I walk’d in silence the transparent shadowy night,

As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night,

As you droop’d from the sky low down as if to my side, (while the other stars all look’d on,)

As we wander’d together the solemn night, (for something I know not what kept me from sleep,)

As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you were of woe,

As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool transparent night,

As I watch’d where you pass’d and was lost in the netherward black of the night,

As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb,

Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.

9

Sing on there in the swamp,

O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call, 

I hear, I come presently, I understand you,

But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain’d me,

The star my departing comrade holds and detains me.

 Atamasco Lily (Atamosco atamasco) by Mary Vaux Walcott (1860-1940), 

watercolor on paper, 1925; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist.

10

O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?

And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?

And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?

Sea-winds blown from east and west,

Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till there on the prairies meeting,

These and with these and the breath of my chant,

I’ll perfume the grave of him I love.

11

O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?

And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,

To adorn the burial-house of him I love?

Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,

With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,

With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air,

With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific,

In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there,

With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows,

And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,

And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.

12

Lo, body and soul—this land,

My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships,

The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light, Ohio’s shores and flashing Missouri,

And ever the far-spreading prairies cover’d with grass and corn.

Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty,

The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes, 

The gentle soft-born measureless light,

The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill’d noon,

The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars,

Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.

13

Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird,

Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the bushes,

Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.

Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song,

Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.

O liquid and free and tender!

O wild and loose to my soul—O wondrous singer!

You only I hear—yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart,)

Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.

Washington Lily (Lilium washingtonianum), by Mary Vaux Walcott, watercolor on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist

14

Now while I sat in the day and look’d forth,

In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and the farmers preparing their crops,

In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and forests,

In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb’d winds and the storms,)

Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women,

The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail’d,

And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor,

And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages,

And the streets how their throbbings throbb’d, and the cities pent—lo, then and there,

Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,

Appear’d the cloud, appear’d the long black trail,

And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.

Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,

And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,

And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions,

I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not,

Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,

To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.

And the singer so shy to the rest receiv’d me,

The gray-brown bird I know receiv’d us comrades three, 

And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.

From deep secluded recesses,

From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,

Came the carol of the bird.

And the charm of the carol rapt me,

As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night,

And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.

Come lovely and soothing death,

Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,

In the day, in the night, to all, to each,

Sooner or later delicate death.

Prais’d be the fathomless universe,

For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,

And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise!

For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.

Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,

Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?

Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,

I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.

Approach strong deliveress,

When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,

Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,

Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.

From me to thee glad serenades,

Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee,

And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting,

And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

The night in silence under many a star,

The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,

And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil’d death,

And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,

Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields /

 and the prairies wide,

Over the dense-pack’d cities all and the teeming wharves/

 and ways,

I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death.

California lilac by Mary Vaux Walcott, watercolor on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist

15

To the tally of my soul,

Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,

With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night.

Loud in the pines and cedars dim,

Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume,

And I with my comrades there in the night.

While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,

As to long panoramas of visions.

And I saw askant the armies,

I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags,

Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc’d with missiles I saw them,

And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody,

And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,)

And the staffs all splinter’d and broken.

I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,

And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them,

I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war,

But I saw they were not as was thought,

They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer’d not,

The living remain’d and suffer’d, the mother suffer’d,

And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer’d,

And the armies that remain’d suffer’d.

16

Passing the visions, passing the night,

Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades’ hands,

Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul,

Victorious song, death’s outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song,

As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night,

Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy,

Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven,

As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,

Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,

I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.

I cease from my song for thee,

From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,

O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.

Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,

The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,

And the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my soul,

With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe,

With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,

Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,

For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,

Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,

There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.

~ Walt Whitman (1819-1892, written in 1865)

    

Among the Sierra Nevada by Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), oil on canvas, 1868. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Helen Huntington Hull, granddaughter of William Brown Dinsmore, who acquired the painting in 1873 for "The Locusts," the family estate in Dutchess County, New York. Donated in 1917.

 

THOSE WHO LACK WORDS RESORT TO BULLETS…

Odeum Libertatis Dicendi (Hatred of the Freedom of Speech)

The term martyr derives from the Greek word for witness. In Roman Catholic Doctrine, a murder committed on a Christian in Odeum Fidei (Hatred of the Faith) bestows upon the murdered an automatic recognition of martyrdom.

 

      I can feel the breeze of directed fate, it stings

      My cheeks are burning, my heart is racing, I sit

      A supernatural presence of mind, held me

      To pull over my car to the side of the road

 

      Words… is what these are, speech captured by ink, paper

      But in my hands, there is blood and muscles, sinews

      I write because my heart is beating, my brain lives

      A whole universe is within my thoughts, alive

 

      I turn off the radio, I can listen no more

     “When does the soul obtain truth?” is it at death’s door?

      Socrates speaks no more… I read him blind, I ache

      The cross tastes of steel, salt, vinegar stain my lips

 

      I open the windows, breathe out his name: Charlie…

      …think… what does his last name mean? Oh yes, it means church.

 

 September 15, 2025 – On the assassination of Charlie Kirk, born October 14, 1993 in Arlington Heights, Illinois, murdered on the eve of the 24th anniversary of 9/11/01 – on September 10, 2025 in Orem, Utah at the age of 31 years, 10 months and 27 days, while holding a microphone and engaging in a public debate with Utah Valley University students, in front of an audience of 3000 people, 20 minutes into his event, at 12:23 pm.

 “Up until his dying moment, Charlie was engaging in a practice that goes back to Socrates and that informs the West at its best.” Bishop Robert Barron, September 15, 2025

~  Konrad Tademar

Children of the Mountain by Thomas Moran (1837-1926), oi on canvas, 1867, private collection

 

FEATURED POET – CATHARINE SAVAGE BROSMAN

The majority of poets featured in our Poetry Letters write free verse, perhaps with an exception of haiku poets like Deborah P Kolodji or Naia, or a sonnet-poet, Konrad Tademar Wilk.  It seems to me, an ESL poet, that writing poetry with rhymes and meter, with rhythm and order, is much harder than free verse. 

In this issue of the Poetry Letter we feature a sample of verse by Catharine Savage Brosman (born 1934) who mastered this art. She is a scholar of French literature and a Professor Emerita at Tulane University.  Born in Denver, Colorado, raised in Alpine, Texas, she graduated from Rice university with M.A. in French, followed by Ph.D. in French also from Rice. She taught at Tulane University since 1968, as full professor from 1972-1997. She published many books of poems and essays on French literature in the U.S., U.K., and France.  

Her volumes of poetry include: Aerosols and Other Poems (2023);  Arm in Arm: Poems (2022); Clara's Bees: Poems (2021); Chained Tree, Chained Owls (2020), A Memory of Manaus: Poems (2017); On the Old Plaza (2014); On the North Slope (2012); Under the Pergola (2011); Breakwater (2009); Range of Light (2007); The Muscled Truce (2003); Places in Mind (2000); Passages (2006); Journeying from Canyon de Chelly (1990); and Watering (1972). The poems cited here were previously published or reprinted by the Poetry Foundation. Academy of American Poets, and Academic Questions, the journal of National Association of Scholars. 

CATTLE FORDING TARRYALL CREEK

With measured pace, they move in single file,
dark hides, white faces, plodding through low grass,
then walk into the water, cattle-style,
indifferent to the matter where they pass.

The stream is high, the current swift—good rain,
late snow-melt, cold. Immerging to the flank,
the beasts proceed, a queue, a bovine chain,
impassive, stepping to the farther bank—

continuing their march, as if by word,
down valley to fresh pasture. The elect,
and stragglers, join, and recompose the herd,
both multiple and single, to perfect

impressions of an animated scene,
the creek’s meanders, milling cows, and sun.
Well cooled, the cattle graze knee-deep in green.
We leave them to their feed, this painting done.

~  Catharine Savage Brosman

Poem copyright ©2014 by Catharine Savage Brosman, reprinted by permission of Catharine Savage Brosman.

FOR A CHAMPION

I don’t reply to insults often—not my style,
a waste of time. Besides, I was not reared
for such contentious intercourse. But while
I shall be reticent, a friend has cleared
my name—three missiles, launched in my defense!
King Arthur, were he here, with mighty sword,
would not be needed; courtesy, good sense,
poetic wit suffice. The fellow’s gored.
He called my formal poems “precious,” “prissy,”
ignoring women’s nature, taste, and tone,
and treated me as just a worthless missy.
Had I been vulgar, “woke,” I might have shone.
He thought it must have had to do with race
and bigotry. Tory prejudice, my alibi.
He’s quite mistaken; that is not the case,
except in his strabismic, crooked eye.
as evidence of hopeless obsolescence.
I’ve read his stuff. Banal. To his confusion,
he’ll see it all dissolve into putrescence.
So thank you, Sir, for taking up my cause,
my colors, Nature’s hues, which he disdains.
Your mighty pen will surely get applause;
he’ll get poetic justice for his pains.

~  Catharine Savage Brosman

Published in Academic Questions, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Spring 2021). Reprinted by permission of Catharine Savage Brosman.

CLARA’S BEES

The back garden is arranged for them—path cleared,

a stand assembled for the hive, fresh plantings,

friendly, flourishing. When the bees will come, though,

is uncertain. They were ordered months ago,

for Easter Week, from Italy! They will be driven,

I assume, by the Servizio postale from the campagna

to some ufficio in the city, thence an airport,

flown across the ocean to New York, then find

themselves—to their surprise?—in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

How adaptable are they? Oh, quite, I think.

Moreover, they are guaranteed—by Ebay! Fancy that.

Apis mellifera: a honeyed name. This past season

during long hours of darkness they slept in, Circadian

like us; being shut up a while for shipping

should not damage them. But the times are bad—

the year of pestilence. Italy is devastated, New York,

worse. Will the plane take off? And can it be essential

these days to deliver honeybees? Meanwhile,

Clara has, to occupy her time and thoughts,

her ancient Greek and French, her history, English,

physics, math, and chemistry. We are in suspense,

imagining the garden shortly, all abuzz. What a refuge!

—like the fragrant villa outside Florence

where Boccaccio and his friends escaped the plague.

II

Foretelling mellic words, bees swarmed to land

on tiny Plato’s lips as he lay slumbering in his cradle.

Thenceforth he favored them, in deed,

in metaphor: they were the souls of dead philosophers

perhaps, returned, or represented virtues—

both alike and different. Yet with a warning: dulcitude,

said Socrates, is toxic, dangerous to moderation. Oh,

Clara, shining sweetness does befit you,

but, too, the golden mean of thought.—The bees

have landed, stirring from their drowse a bit, sending

scouts, it would appear, to find the nectar

in the marigolds, and waiting, we suppose, for warmer

weather, while the queen stays in her traveling cage

before her sortie to lay eggs. Her troops

are numerous—ten thousand, so it’s said. Imagine!

Think of future vectors on display—authentic

bee lines, but with variations, deviations, multiplying

as the little darlings flit from flower to flower—

pollen ready, juices nectarous—in all directions,

to their purpose. It’s ballet, but modern

in its choreography. Like Clara, also poised to venture,

all intent, the very image of a body’s rationale:

to be, and be one’s possibilities—the muscles flexing

toward the goal, the pulse of datum turning to idea.

~  Catharine Savage Brosman

Published in Academic Questions, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Spring 2021). Reprinted by permission of Catharine Savage Brosman.

THE BOOKSELLER 

Until I die, I shall abide by books—

feeling the leather and the gilded spine,

running my thumb along the rippled edge,

sensing the musty cloth, the wormy page,

the odor of a chest or rooms untended

where some distant heir one day divined

a windfall for his bank account, and called

on me. Here, watch your step; I cannot

see, but my companion says that books

have almost filled the hallway, overflowed

the bedroom, where I feel their presence

in the night among my dreams,—Will you have

a cup of tea and scones, or else a hot cross

bun, to mark the season? Yes, all London

bustles here near Oxford Street, and I suppose

I need the sense that others are about;

but what we know most keenly is desire,

and in desire I know the darkness, not

the life I hear but that which I Imagine—

the way you, reading of the Trojan War

or the Crusades, perhaps, are startled

by the telephone, thinking of Helen’s face

instead, of Hector’s body pulled behind

the wheels of arrogance. Tamer of horses

I can never be—but rider of another world

informed by paper—and, for me, in tongues

beneath my fingertips. To sell, of course,

is necessary, and I thank you; but I need

to feel behind me, too, this field of words

aflame, where blinded poets make the Sirens

sing, and I can almost glimpse the light,

the dazzling seascape that Odysseus sailed.

~  Catharine Savage Brosman

From Passages, Catharine Savage Brosman, LSU Press © 1996. Used with the permission of the author.

SAND PAINTINGS 

The grains propose the spectrum of the landscape (golden,

ochre, glassy, iron red, black of basalt), sorted, sifted.

In his furrowed palms the artist holds the sunlight’s

glint, admires coolness poured from earthen jars. With

a willow stick, he sketches on the ground until idea takes

shape. A hawk on steady currents circles, dips, and dives;

at play, a boy picks up a pinecone, turns it in his hand,

and casts it lightly, carrying his thought, among the trees.

The underlayer of the painting shaped, compressed,

the man then drips the crystal granules in geometries

of mind’s design, for mind’s enchantment and the eye’s,

yet born in nature: mountains, rivers, mesas, birds,

the sun and stars, changed into lines and circles, triangles,

the z’s of storm—commending by world’s matter

God’s primordial words. The artist pauses, straightens

edges, steps away, seeing his handiwork in its gratuity—

an offering to others, to the day’s divinities: what could be

more sacramental than to borrow the earth, reshape

and order it, returning it to earth as a diurnal sacrifice?

The work, perfected, moves toward its undoing as the sun

above the distant mesa waits immobile, swelling like

a woman’s body and inflamed, then plunges down,

leaving a ruddy afterbirth. In shadow now, the picture

is erased by him who made it, who himself is dust—bound

to heaven’s motions, honoring God’s time by dying in it.

~  Catharine Savage Brosman

From Range of Light, Catharine Savage Brosman,  LSU Press © 2007. Used with the permission of the author. 

Sunset Cloud, Green River, Wyoming by Thomas Moran (1837-1926), oil on canvas, 1917,  Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Bernadette Berger.

TWO POEMS BY JOHN ACCURSO

John Accurso lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California, making art, teaching art, and writing poetry. Both poems were previously published in Spent Redshifts, July 2025, Morrisville. NC: Lulu.com.

WHEN THIS WORLD’S CLOAK OF VIOLENCE IS REMOVED

nothing will be hidden, bitter, or sad

cabals and conspiracies will fall

wormwood will wither and die

and aloneness will have no loneliness

nothing will be baleful, broken, or vague

leaden skies will turn to gold

fault lines handily erased

and nations vexillologically precise

all will gain

a gentle spirit

a fine mien

and a new name

~ John Accurso

WHEN THIS WORLD’S CLOAK OF VIOLENCE IS REMOVED 

(CHILDREN’S VERSION)

you’ll see the rainbow’s seven hues

are reds times greens times multi-blues

you’ll hear the nightingale’s song

as lengthful short and wideful long

you’ll eat in sweetness perfect truths

and never need the dentist’s rules

you’ll kick the rocks and watch them rise

like helium into citrus skies

as all will see, you’ll hold for good

unassailable personhood.

~ John Accurso

HONOR FLIGHT* – A REFLECTION ON PATRIOTISM 

BY MICHAEL ESCOUBAS

A simple thank you seems inadequate, but thank you is all I have . . . that and many tears. I will always remember the Honor Flight arranged and administrated by my wife, Trudy. Our eldest son Travis came home to serve as my Guardian, ensuring that my only job that day was to enjoy visiting the memorials commemorating America’s hard-won freedoms.

My heart is full of gratitude to scores of friends who wrote gracious letters and notes received at mail call on the flight home—so many that they bulged the cloth container nearly to the breaking point. As if that were not enough, many of you were in the throng assembled at Springfield Capitol Airport to welcome all the veterans home. WOW! I was disoriented and completely at a loss. It was late at night; you could have been in bed or enjoying your favorite show . . . but you gave yourselves to others. Thank you, thank you.

Visiting the Vietnam Memorial was a highlight. The “Wall” is sculpted into the earth creating an atmosphere of reality that war happens in the crucible of life. There are 58,000 names; I wanted to find one name. “Tommy” and I were both apprentices at Pantagraph Printing in 1965. He joined the Army; I joined the Navy. Tommy was killed by a sniper on the last day of his deployment. Travis helped me find his name. I lingered for a moment, touched my friend, my memory of him now etched in granite. The Honor Flight was consummated in real time.

A wise man has said, “God’s blessings are new every morning.” This came true for me on August 22, 2023. 

~ Michael Escoubas

*Honor Flights are conducted by non-profit organizations dedicated to bringing as many United States military veterans as possible to see the memorials in Washington, D.C. Veterans visit up to ten memorials in one day. Honor Flights are at no cost to the veterans. The initial Honor Flight occurred in May 2005.

Previously published in the November issue of Limited Magazine, Bloomington, IL, 2023.

VETERAN’S DAY  AT OLYMPIA WEST, 2019 

There’s nothing like the power
of a thing said straight.

As when the grade school student body
stood and cheered for us when we
filed in for the school assembly.

And the patriotic songs sung
by youth choirs, their sweet notes
lingering like scents of roses in spring air.

And the honor bestowed on the flag
and the nation and her freedom
heritage and the high price paid.

And the tears that flowed
from the notes the kids wrote:

Hello, I am in 4th grade and I
want to thank all of you for sacerficing
your life for us. all summer I pray
at the mamorells. dont let anyone
tell you that you are nothing
because you are everything,
you are gods angils.

How precious these tears
that flow and flow and flow.

~ by Michael Escoubas, U.S. Navy, 1966-1970

Grand Canyon of Arizona at Sunset by Thomas Moran (1837-1926), oil on canvas, 1909, 

Paul G. Allen Collection, Seattle Art Museum. Wikimedia Commons.  

NOTE - In addition to poems, this issue of contains two reviews, to be posted in Part II.

Contents of California Quarterly vo. 51 No. 3, Autumn 2025, edited by Maja Trochimczyk

   

California Quarterly, Volume 51, Number 3, Autumn 2025

Cover Art: Pacific Coast Highway by Andrzej Kołodziej (Andy Kolo), oil on canvas.  

          

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Bakersfield  — W. C. Gosnell       —   —    — 7

Alice Keck Park — Paul Willis        —  —    —   8

High Above La Cienega  — Carlo DiOrio      — 9

Blueberry Parade  — Jenny McBride         — 9

Still Life in Red Smoke Light  — David Rosenheim — 10

My Rustic Italian Loaf   — Christine Leistner  —10

 Acreage  —  Sarp Sozdinler           —   —  —    11

Knives and Noodles   — Ellice Jeon       —  — 12

Couple  — Jianqing Zheng           —  —  —   13

Unbecoming   — Daisy Bassen         — —     — 14

Photograph  —  Rustin Larson     — —     — 15

reading    — Gregory Cecil         —       —     — 15

A Special Moment      — James Piatt      —       16

The House      — Jenny McBride     —     —     16

Fossils and Footprints —  Sarp Sozdinler     —     17

Dear Apology,  —    KM Kramer          —     —   —  18

Fragmentationv —    Caroyn Jabs      —     —   —   19 

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle  —    W. C. Gosnell  — 20

Museum of Broken Hearts  — D. A. Hosek     —  20

In That Room, Again   — Peter J. Kahn         —   21

Ave Maria —    Livingston Rossmoor   —   —   —    22

Carmen Philomelaicum  — Eugenius II of Toledo  —    24

Carmen Philomelaicum     — Trans. D. A. Hosek  25

Listening to the Refrigerator    —Kathryn Gessner Calkins 26

Made History —    Daisy Bassen      —     — 27

Spaghetti Western Villanelle  —Deborah H. Doolittle  —28

Jubilate Mammonæ    —   D. A. Hosek      — 29

Ти Знаєш Відповідь     —  Dmitry Blizniuk  — 30

You Know the Answerv  —Trans. Sergey Gerasimov  —31

Survivor’s Guidev  — R Haines    —   —  32

After Diana Der Hovanessianv  —Laura Walter  —34

Crow Dog  — William R. Ford Jr.   —  —   — 35

Manners  — Peter J. Kahn           —     —  — 35

Riding the Big Waves at   Rockaway   — David Rosenheim   —36

Early Morning Thoughts    —   Sarah Baker  — 36

Eclipse  —   KM Kramer      —    —      — 37

Free Man Minus Umbrella  — Ace Boggess  — 38

Wind  —  Deepak Dubey     —        —       — 39

What Is It About   —     Andrena Zawinski      —    40

 The Inconstant Moonv  —   V. P. Loggins      —    41

Paper Mansion  — Ellice Jeon  `      — — 42

Dream  — Sarah Baker          —       —      — 43

Oczy Picassa   — Andrzej Kołodziej      —   — 44

Picasso’s Eyes  —  Tr. Maja Trochimczyk      —      45

Unexplained Journey   — W. C. Gosnell    — 46

The Cherry Treev      — Lenore Myers  — 46

A Tree Speaks:        — Angelika Quirk  — 48

Amidst the Pines   — Kieran Duffy   — —     —   49

Stream of Consciousness  — Carolyn Jabs  — 50

If I Were a Dronev  —Livingston Rossmoor  — 51

With the Eyes of a Falcon  — Angelika Quirk  —    52

One Moment:  — KM Kramer       —  —    —  53

Funambulist   — Carlo DiOrio       —   —    — 54

A Turquoise Story  — Maja Trochimczyk     — 55

Origami: Folded Light  — Shahrzad Taavoni  — 56

When the Prophet Comes Home  — Livingston Rossmoor  — 57

The Splendor of the Ever Gate  — William R. Ford Jr.  — 58

Born Wrong Century   — Michael J. Galko  — 58

Tycho’s Star    — Christine Candland     —   — 59

Contributors in Alphabetical Order      —   — 60

CSPS Contest Opportunities         —   —  —       60

CSPS Newsbriefs 2025, No. 3 by Maja Trochimczyk  — 63

Publishing Opportunities with CSPS  — — 65

2024 CSPS Donors, Patrons, and Membership — 66

Membership Form —   — —      — —      68  

 

Turquoise from Neyshanbur, Iran, The Turquoise Museum, ABQ, NM.

                                                     EDITOR’S NOTE

While visiting the Turquoise Museum in Albuquerque, NM, I found that my turquoise pendant I inherited from my Mom— perfectly smooth, more green than aqua—mostly likely came from a Nishapour mine in Iran. My Dad bought the jewel in Mosul, Iraq, when he, a Polish engineer, was overseeing the construction and operation of a power plant in the Kurdish city of Mosul, Iraq (yes, the same power plant that Americans reduced to rubble during their war of “Weapons of Mass Destruction”). Indeed, I watched the annihilation of his work on American TV; that plant had provided electricity and jobs to Mosul residents… I felt distressed and strangely relieved that my Dad did not live to see the ruins himself…

Turquoise from Neyshanbur, Iran, the Turquoise Museum.

Like my turquoise story, poets featured in the Autumn 2025 issue of the CQ capture a full range of emotions— joy, grief, melancholy, child-like wonder, and serenity found in nature and among people. We start our exploration of everyday delights in Bakersfield (Gosnell), then visit a park (Willis), eat freshly-baked bread (Leistner) and taste some noodles (Jeon). We watch children in real life (Bassen) and in old photographs (Larson). The passing of time attracts the poets’ attention (McBride, Sozdinler, Calkins). Some pry open their broken hearts (Hosek, Kahn), others mourn the dead (Bliziniuk, Haines, Ford, Kramer). Nature, as always, provides solace—via birdsong (Rossmoor), wind (Duvey), or the singsong of trees (Myers, Duffy, Quirk)… No sorrow is eternal: consolation may be found in dreams (Baker), flights of fancy (Rossmoor), humor (Doolittle), stars (Candland), being Irish (Walter), or “folded light” (Taavoni). 

Continuing the tradition initiated by Margaret Saine, this CQ includes three translations along with original poems in Latin (Eugenius II/Hosek), Polish (Kołodziej/Trochimczyk), and Ukrainian (Blizniuk/Gerasimov). It is perhaps the flavor of the times that five poets feel compelled to hide their gender in initials (D. A., KM, V. P., W. C., and R). This reminds me of a certain belief in reincarnation: timeless souls have both feminine and masculine aspects, but become embodied to go through their lessons in the school of the Earth, one trial after another: first a victim, then the abuser, first a woman, then a man…Thus, the circle turns and the spiral ascends, propelled by wisdom and love.   

Maja Trochimczyk, Editor

Los Angeles, California

SAMPLE POEMS

​A TURQUOISE STORY

 

 ~ after visiting the Turquoise Museum,

    Albuquerque, New Mexico

 

A rock. A white rock with a vein of blue.

An axe. A pickaxe. A shovel.

The bulging muscles of the miner,

covered in dust, stained with the earth.

Earth to earth. Dust to dust.

From earth, they dig out the vivid hues

Of aqua – tranquil sea and azure – summer sky.

 

They dig, they polish, they arrange

small pieces into sets. Here – a necklace,

there – a bracelet, belt buckle or brooch.

From chalk-white, to verdant, to ice-blue, to navy,

almost indigo – clear and smooth, or covered with

a spiderweb matrix of gold lines – fool’s gold,

mind you – or black, or white, or sienna.

 

No two pieces of turquoise are the same –

no two persons – unique and so different,

yet connected, with brilliant minds,

flexible bodies, compassionate hearts.

 

Like turquoise, we, too, are from the Earth.

We, too, carry the sky within.

(c) Maja Trochimczyk

ORIGAMI: FOLDED LIGHT

A quaint square paper—
reconstructed
into the limitless space of imagination.

Materializing
volumes of boxes.
Shaped like
curved ships
jagged stars
elongated vases
symmetrical flowers.

A magician puffs air—
a three-dimensional balloon
swells, stretching into existence.

A folded crane sleeps.
The journey of dreams
imbues it with celestial life.
Come dawn, the crane flies—
its skin’s creases shifting and shimmering
with blue-blossomed patterns.

 (c) Shahrzad Taavoni

WIND

Lying I am in a makeshift bed under the stars in the noise of daylight broad, watching the clouds scud across the sky blue and witnessing an emotion whole new in the air this day. I am dumb struck by its expression and wonder why just it breezed into a tapered envelope of gestures windy and fallen with sounds crunchy as if nothing but the solitary, windy, and Earth deserted is there to greet it. What are its intentions—bluff contempt or a reflection good? 

In the blatant silence, it howls in the trees, touching the cheeks of leaves and the spines of crooked branches, embracing their waists. Down the hill, it then blows across grassy meadow pastures, often boggy and near a river, to the village, past oak walkways. In a confused rush along the narrower, winding gravel walks shaded by lindens, it sent up dust clouds and crouched itself in the room's corners while bursting in through the window sashes. It fell for a moment silent as if waiting for a bit of a blow. It shrugged and took a deep breath, expelling air through lips pursed as if by a dreamy languor its whole being was pervaded. With a sigh of boredom in its steps and the heaviness of long-standing existential angst on its chest, it thereupon ran past the puddles, rustling through the low-lying hedge and fallen leaf debris and leaving a moisture-filled trail behind it. Then it blew past in a flurry of activity, fleeting through the ears tiny of seedlings and letting the wildflowers blooming in the herb-rich meadow flutter and dance. Eradicating the long-term layers of musty odour with its freshness, the formless and desireless whispered chanting discreetly, making the welkin blush.

Deepak Dubey

Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

NEWSBRIEFS NO. 3, AUTUMN 2025

This summer, I had an opportunity to attend the annual convention of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was the first appearance of anyone from the California State Poetry Society in the past ten years. The CSPS laboriously pays the NFSPS annual dues of $3 per member, in exchange of lower fees for members who wish to participate in the NFSPS contests. The NFSPS Convention featured two events for State Poetry Societies’ Presidents where I gleaned some new ideas, for instance to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our great country’s by organizing a special anniversary poetry contest – that would focus on “persona” poems written in the voice of any great historical figure from the past.

        It was also interesting to hear about the many ways in which the State Poetry Societies have been managing their poetry readings and in-person meetings. This was interesting that, since becoming the CSPS President in 2019, I had learned that our Society, spread out over the great distances of California, has little to no interest in live readings, neither in person, nor via Zoom. Here, each area has a number of long-standing in-person readings organized by various local groups and there is no reason for CSPS to compete with them. Instead, our focus has always remained on the written word – the excellent California Quarterly, which continues to be enjoyed by its readers and contributors, and the colorful, art-filled Poetry Letter with featured poets, monthly contest winners, and book reviews. In particular, the CSPS Board has confirmed its lack of interest in  getting involved in “slam poetry” – improvised, live events, mostly by young, politicized, and often very aggressive poets. 

        After attending the finals of the Blackberry Peach Slam during the NFSPS Convention, I realized that the CSPS Board’s focus on the “printed word” poetry and contests is contrary to the priorities of the NFSPS and may necessitate departing from this Federation. The NFSPS brings together over 30 State Poetry Societies, publishes a quarterly Newsletter with brief reports from the states, manages a website, organizes numerous poetry contests, and creates a variety of national policies. Alas, their recently promulgated policies are quite divergent from our society’s preferences, and therefore cannot be adhered to. Thus, after seeking approval for the separation of California from NFSPS by the Board of Directors this fall, we will bring this to the vote of the membership via online ballots. Please note that the NFSPS does not group all 50 states, and the membership occasionally fluctuates, for instance the state of Wisconsin (where the NFSPS was incorporated) recently left the Federation. This necessitated changing the NFSPS Bylaws that mentioned the state of incorporation (the change was approved). 

Poets participating in the haiku death contest, where poets "fought" 

with 3 haiku each, to advance to the next stage...

       In other news, we continue to commemorate the great poet and poetry activist Deborah P Kolodji (1959-2024). The CSPS received a $10,000 Anonymous donation in her memory and we are now deliberating about the best way to honor her. Debbie was a CSPS member and served as Guest Editor of one issue – which was completely sold out. We will print additional copies, then.  Since we love books and journals, we may create a memorial anthology of poetry genres she loved – haiku, haiga, haibun, and other Eastern genres, as well as poetry of science-fiction and the fantastic. Currently, due to many CSPS members not renewing their membership on time, the Society is losing about a thousand dollars per year – due to increasing costs of printing and mailing of our journal.  So, we may need to save the bulk of the gift to ensure the future viability of our beloved CQ. 

Acrobats by Andrzej Kołodziej, oil on canvas.

        The cover of this issue is a copy of a painting by Polish-Californian painter and poet Andrzej Kołodziej  (known also as Andrew Kolo; d. 2025). The intense hues imbue the geometric landscape of “Pacific Coast Highway” with unusual vitality. In 1981, Andrzej founded KrakArt Group of Polish-born Californian painters, that have held many joint exhibitions in the U.S. and in Poland.  His own artwork frequently featured stylized puppet-like figures of acrobats, musicians, or sun-bathers on the golden beach. The “Eyes of Picasso” poem reveal his affinity with artists who transform and deform what they see into their unique, original artworks. Among Andrzej’s writings, his play The Trial of Dali was the most popular, as it was performed in Australia, Poland and at the Hollywood Fringe Festival (2019). As a promoter of poetry, Andrzej organized the Krak Poetry Group that held bilingual readings in California and Poland. As one of two surviving Krak Poetry Group’s members, I’m glad to be honoring Andrzej’s memory with  hiscolorful art and words.

Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President

Dance by Andrzej Kołodziej