Village Poets Monthly Readings Present California Quarterly Vol. 52 No. 3 at Bolton Hall, October 25, 2026, at 4:30pm

Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga present California Quarterly Vol. 52 No. 3 (Autumn 2026) at its Monthly Poetry Reading on Sunday, October 25, 2026 at 4:30pm. The reading will include a live component and Zoom for presenting poets based outside of Southern California.  The location is Los Angeles's Historic Monument No. 2, built in 1913, Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga (10110 Commerce Ave, Tujunga, CA 91042), with street parking available. Free admission with $5 donation suggested.  Copies of the CQ will be available for purchase at a special discounted price. The reading will be moderated by Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President and editor of the issue, and the Zoom site will be managed by Joe DeCenzo.  To request Zoom link, email CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety@gmail.com.

Established in 1971, and formally incorporated as a nonprofit in 1985, California State Poetry Society is dedicated to its mission of promoting poetry and art in California and around the world through publishing a poetry journal, newsletter, and organizing monthly and annual poetry contests. The CSPS began publication of the California Quarterly in the fall of 1972, with Gordon Curzon of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as Editor. Currently, the journal is edited by Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President and CQ Managing Editor since 2019, with Konrad Tademar Wilk and Bory Thach, serving as Editors. Each editor is responsible for selection and organization of previously unpublished poems and translations (with original versions enclosed) for their specific issue. The editors prefer artwork by Californians for the cover, though art has also been selected from national and international collections. They select six outstanding poems from the California Quarterly issues published each year as nominees for the Pushcart Prize of the following year. 

The third issue of CQ volume 52 was edited by Maja Trochimczyk, who wrote in the introduction: 

Autumn is the time of harvest, time of fruition. In the third issue of the California Quarterly published in the year of the 250^th anniversary of the U.S., readers find a fine crop of verse found on Submittable.com, submitted on our website, and mailed to our P.O. Box. Forty-eight poems have been written in California, six in New York, five in Pennsylvania, four in Massachusetts, three in Oregon, two in Texas, and one each in Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, and on an Air Force Base in Washington, D.C.  Poetry also came to us from friends in distant lands. Among six poems from the U.K, we find a tribute to African Daisies (Beynon), vivid visions of Carcassonne and Cornwall, and the unbearable memory of losing a son (Mickiewicz). From Ghana, we have a pean to Grandma’s raspberry (Abukuri). From Pakistan – an ocean-faring adventure, ending under “a different sky” (Hashmi). From Spain – a night vision with a translation (Lola Andrés and Marta López-Luaces, translator)."  

The Editor selected Dance of Five Elements, a watercolor by poet-artist Diane Lee Moomey for the cover and described her editorial approach as follows: "Since I enjoy classical music’s counterpoint, I wove this CQ issue into a tapestry of words, echoing and resonating in each other. Longer poems are interspersed with haiku by Gregory Cecil and Susan Rogers. In the polyphony of human experience, we overcome grief and become aware of cosmic unity: “streams become rivers / And the river becomes the sea” (Heard). And so, our journey continues, words flourish anew."

 

The event will include in person readings by Bruce Heard, Andrew You and Maja Trochimczyk and zoom readings, projected on the screen by other poets wishing to present their work.  The following poets are featured in this issue: Daniel Abukuri, Lola AndrésSarah Baker, Bill Baynes, Byron Beynon, Michael Breuleux, Gregory Cecil, David Denny, David Dephy, Ziggy Edwards, Ken Fifer, Patty Dickson Pieczka, A. Dearborn Goldsmith, Rebekkah Gomez, W.C. Gosnell, Robert Haas, Alamgir Hashmi, Bruce Heard, Ken Holland, Henry Hughes, Sandra Irwin, Joanne Jagoda, Steven Larry Klein, Marie C. Lecrivain, Marta López-Luaces, tr.  Valerie Martinez, Charlie McCurdy, Anna Maria Mickiewicz, Greg Moglia, Roman Montemorano, Cecil Morris, Pat Owen, Dan Raphael, Andrea Potos, Susan Rogers, David Rosenheim, Dennis Ross, Pamela Singer, Jack Tessoro, Maja Trochimczyk, Rosemary Ybarra-Garcia, and Andrew You. 

Dr. Maja Trochimczyk is a Polish American poet, music historian, and photographer. She  published ten books on music & culture and six volumes of poetry, e.g., Bright Skies. Selected Poems, 2022, and The Rainy Bread: More Poems from Exile (2021), about WWII experiences of Polish civilians. She edited five poetry anthologies: Chopin with Cherries (2010), Meditations on Divine Names (2012), Grateful Conversations (2018), We Are Here. Village Poets Anthology (2020) and Crystal Fire. Poems of Joy and Wisdom (2022). Her research and poems have appeared in numerous volumes of collected works, scholarly journals, and poetry periodicals in eleven countries. Trochimczyk is the founder of Moonrise Press, the sixth Poet-laureate of Sunland-Tujunga (2010-2012) and former Program Director of Village Poets (2010-2022). She has served as President of the California State Poetry Society and Managing Editor of California Quarterly since 2019.  

THE GREAT WHITE EGRET

The silent movement that slips through angel hair

as if it were an illusion or a spirit,

is how the Great White Egret lands on a pond

And the paddles on boats gently moving water 

from east to west, from north to south

are like the yellow, webbed feet keeping it afloat

The pond greets it with a gentle flow of waves,

a veneration of a familiar spirit, while the great

beauty of birds eyes hyacinths for a meal

The pond, like us, is eager to please a majestic visitor,

who gladly accepts all gifts in return for a view of 

its angelic, white feathers, yellow eyes, harpoon-like bill

                                              Rosemary Ybarra-Garcia, Half Moon Day, California

SILENT INTERVALS

    

A Bewick’s wren arrives in the magnolia.

She is hidden between the waxy leaves

and the white flowers. Is her song

one of sorrow or cheer—or do we

merely hear the song we need?

Chuang Tzu describes the beauty

of a bird’s open-beaked melody;

yet in its closed-beak silence, he says,

heaven and earth conjoin. Clouds drift

overhead. A breeze ruffles the leaves.

Change is coming. Perhaps it’s already

here—hidden in the silent intervals

where vanish the world’s sorrow and cheer.

 

                                                      David Denny, Cupertino, California

 

YOU ARE GIVEN WHAT YOU ARE

 

Around me circle wild oaks:                 

like poets they sing in the wind.

Santa Anas may attack--           

pommel, push or bend them aside,        

yet still they softly sing, and                 

thus for centuries survive.         

Around me stand those great ones,        

haughtily whispering while                   

rain floods, hail and icicles slash,          

and massive mud slides slither. 

But I am not a great oak. Gales, 

bugs, droughts and fires rip my limbs,   

eat my leaves, wilt them, scorch them brown.    

Wild oaks sing and survive. But

I am merely a spindly               

Tabebuia, neither songster        

nor muscular, majestic oak.                               

 

I didn't even choose to be a tree. 

 

                                            Sandra Irwin, San Marino, California 

WHO I AM

  

I entered the forest alone,
drawn by something ancient,
a whisper beneath the trees.

 

There, hidden among the roots,
a cave yawned open—
dark, low, and silent.
I crawled forward,
hands on cold stone,
the weight of earth above me
and nothing ahead but mystery.

 

Until light—
a sliver, a scent,
the salt of becoming.

 

I emerged into brightness:
a beach stretched wide,
waves breathing against the shore,
rock formations like sentinels
carved by time and tide.

 

I stepped toward the water,
where the ocean met me slowly—
at my feet,
my ankles,
my legs,
my chest,
my breath—
until I was submerged.

Underwater,
I breathed.

 

I walked the ocean floor
through kelp beds swaying like cathedral curtains,
among sea otters twirling,
fish flickering like thoughts,
crabs scuttling between stones.

 

The sea was alive around me—
and within me.
It flowed through my skin,
my bones,
my being.

 

I did not resist.
I became rhythm.
I became stillness.
I became motion.

 

I became
Ebb & Flow.

                                               

                                         Bruce Heard, Sacramento, California

 

 

      

Contents of California Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Autumn 2026) Edited by Maja Trochimczyk

California Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Autumn 2026)

Edited by Maja Trochimczyk. Cover Art: Dance of Five Elements 

watercolor on paper by Diane Lee Moomey (2012).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• I Could Really Use a Poem  —  Bill Baynes  —  7
• Territories and Field  — David Rosenheim —  8
• My Dog in Heaven  —  Cecil Morris  —  9
• between curtain  —  Gregory Cecil  — 9
• At the Natural History Museum  —   Pat Owen —  10
• Dinosaur Tracks in the Riverbed —  Henry Hughes —  11
• Too Much Time in the City  —  Pamela Singer   —  11
• Green  — Andrew You —  12
• African Daisies —  Byron Beynon —  12
• Canvas in Cornwall  — Anna Maria Mickiewicz   —  13
• Carcassonne  — Byron Beynon  —  13
• High Sierra  —  Michael Breuleux  —  14
• Yellowstone  — Henry Hughes   — 15
• Communion —  Charlie McCurdy  — 16
• Detached Ken Fifer.  — 17
• Narrow Roads Sarah Baker —  18
• laughing on a trail  — Susan Rogers  —  18
• Geography of Daylight  —  W.C. Gosnell —  19
• Hollow Hearts and Thimble Skins  — Daniel N. Abukuri  —  20
• Look  — Greg Moglia  —  21
• Things I Used to Love to Do —  A. Dearborn Goldsmith  —  22
• Mayhaps Bill Baynes  —  22
• On Seeing Hair on X.com  —  Maja Trochimczyk  — 23
• Déjà Vu / Ghosts —  Jack Tessoro.  —  24
• Haunted —  Byron Beynon —  25
• Unlined —  Dan Raphael —  26
• Uneasy Chrysanthemums —  Roman Montemorano  — 27
• Farewell of a Man  —  Anna Maria Mickiewicz —  28
• Zinnia  — Rosemary Ybarra-Garcia  — 28
• No —  Patty Dickson Pieczka  —  29
• Indian Summer Twilight — Joanne Jagoda —  30
• Going There  — Alamgir Hashmi  —  31
• The Depth  — Anna Maria Mickiewicz —  32
• The Truth  — W.C. Gosnell —  32
• It Is Enough  — Valerie Martinez —  34
• Hay Noche Puesta — Lola Andrés —  34
• Night Has Fallen — Marta López-Luaces, tr.— 35
• Borrowed Wings — Robert Haas  — 36
• The Great White Egret — Rosemary Ybarra-Garcia  — 37
• late summer rapture  — Susan Rogers —  37
• 12 Variations on the Moon Maja Trochimczyk 38
• Moon —  Rebekkah Gomez  — 39
• Cell Window —  Robert Haas   —  40
• At the New Moon —  Bruce Heard  —  41
• Renoir’s Apples — Andrea Potos —  41
• Azimuth  — Marie C. Lecrivain —  42
• Silence — Charlie McCurdy —  42
• Silent Intervals  — David Denny —  43
• walking and walking —  Gregory Cecil —  43
• Soft Eyes — Pamela Singer —  44
• Water Drops  —  Bruce Heard  —  44
• Even Now — Ziggy Edwards  — 45
• seaside sensation — Susan Rogers —  45
• Wait a Second — Ken Holland —  46
• Love Your Enemies —  David Dephy —  46
• Music in the Air  —  Steven Larry Klein —  47
• Piano Memories  —  W.C. Gosnell —  48
• Pulsings —  Charlie McCurdy —  49
• Mudras —  Bill Baynes —  50
• Be Yourself  — Dennis Ross  —  51
• Where I Am From —  Cecil Morris —  52
• You Are Given What You Are  — Sandra Irwin — 53
• Who I Am — Bruce Heard 54
• The Given  — Andrea Potos 55

• COVER ART: Dance of Five Elements by Diane Lee  Moomey, watercolor on paper, 2012 
• Contributors in Alphabetical Order   —  56
• CSPS Contest Opportunities —  56
• CSPS Newsbriefs 2026, No.3 by Maja Trochimczyk   —  59
• Publishing Opportunities with CSPS —  61
• 2026 CSPS Donors, Patrons, and Membership — 63
• Membership Form  — 64

Earth Fire Dance, watercolor by Diane Lee Moomey

EDITOR'S NOTE

Autumn is the time of harvest, time of fruition. In the third issue of the California Quarterly published in the year of the 250th anniversary of the U.S., readers find a fine crop of verse found on Submittable.com, submitted on our website, and mailed to our P.O. Box. Forty-eight poems have been written in California, six in New York, five in Pennsylvania, four in Massachusetts, three in Oregon, two in Texas, and one each in Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, and on an Air Force Base in Washington, D.C.  

Poetry also came to us from friends in distant lands. Among six poems from the U.K, we find a tribute to African Daisies (Beynon), vivid visions of Carcassonne and Cornwall, and the unbearable memory of losing a son (Mickiewicz). From Ghana, we have a pean to Grandma’s raspberry (Abukuri). From Pakistan – an ocean-faring adventure, ending under “a different sky” (Hashmi). From Spain – a night vision with a translation (Lola Andrés and Marta López-Luaces, translator). Poems take us on adventures into the High Sierras (Breuleux), the Yellowstone (Hughes), and among dinosaur remains (Owen, Hughes). 

Pamela Singer notices the harm of spending too much time in the city, Gosnell observes how the landscape encompasses its inhabitants. Poets say farewells in shocked disbelief (Pieczka), or melancholy reconciliation (Jagoda). They look at the moon (Gomez, Heard), even from a cell window (Haas). They admire animals soaring in the sky (Morris, Ybarra-Garcia), enjoy making music (Klein), and listening to sound bowls and silence (McCurdy, Denny). Within, they seek and find voices that are uniquely theirs, yet universal (Ross, Morris, Irwin, Heard). At the end, they are grateful for what is given (Potos).

I’m thankful for the inspired Dance of Five Elements that Diane Lee Moomey, a wonderful poet and artist, found for our cover - her second, after Vol. 48, No. 1 of 2022. Since I enjoy classical music’s counterpoint, I wove this CQ issue into a tapestry of words, echoing and resonating in each other. Longer poems are interspersed with haiku by Gregory Cecil and Susan Rogers. In the polyphony of human experience, we overcome grief and become aware of cosmic unity: “streams become rivers / And the river becomes the sea” (Heard). And so, our journey continues, words flourish anew.

Maja Trochimczyk, Editor

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Maja Trochimczyk at Poetry Reading, Booksellers Club, Warsaw, Poland, June 2024

 

Maja Trochimczyk is a Californian poet, scholar, translator, photographer, and non-profit director from Poland. She published six books of poetry: Rose Always - A Love Story, 2008, rev. 2020; Miriam's Iris, or Angels in the Garden, 2008, both from Moonrise Press; Slicing the Bread, Finishing Line Press 2014, Into Light, and The Rainy Bread (Moonrise Press, 2016) and Bright Skies (Moonrise Press, 2022). She also edited five poetry anthologies: Chopin with Cherries: A Tribute in Verse (2010); Meditations on Divine Names (2012), Grateful Conversations (2018, co-edited with Kathi Stafford), We Are Here: Village Poets Anthology (2020, co-edited with Marlene Hitt), and Crystal Fire. Poems of Joy and Wisdom (2022). Her poetry and photographs appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, such as: Clockwise Cat, California Quarterly, Cosmopolitan Review, Magnapoets, Quill and Parchment, Ekphrasis Journal, Edgar Allan Poet Journal, Epiphany Magazine, Hybrydy, Kritya, Lily Literary Review, Loch Raven Review, Lummox Journal, OccuPoetry, Quill and Parchment, Phantom Seed, Pirene's Fountain, poeticdiversity, Poezja Dzisiaj, Pisarze.pl, Poezja Dzisiaj, The Sage Trail, The Scream Online, San Diego Poetry Annual, San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, Spectrum. She was also featured in anthologies by Poets on Site, Southern California Haiku Study Group, and other collections. She edited the following California Quarterly issues in 2018-26: 44:4, 45:3, 46:4, 47:2, 48:1, 49:2, 49:4, 50:3, 51:3, 52:3. 

As a music historian, she published ten books of music and culture studies, most recently Paderewski Essays & Poems (2026). A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she is a recipient of PAHA's Creative Arts Prize (2016) for her two poetry books about WWII experience of Polish civilians, including her family under German and Soviet occupation (Slicing the Bread, 2014 and The Rainy Bread: Poems from Exile, 2016). She was nominated Acting President  of the CSPS in February 2019 and elected President in October 2019. She serves as Managing Editor of the California Quarterly, Editor of the Poetry Letter, and Annual Contest Chair. Her small publishing house, Moonrise Press, issued 36 books since 2008.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

DIANE LEE MOOMEY

After traveling long around the US and Canada making and showing art, composing and reading prose and poetry, Diane settled in Half Moon Bay, California, where she can hear the surf through her bedroom window. Working in clay, watercolor and collage has been an experience that both seeds and is seeded by, her poetic imagery. These do seem to arise from the same place. Sculptures over the years have been of porcelain, earthenware, polymer clay, paper and fiber. The theme that has woven itself throughout all these works has been energy expressed through the feminine form. Lover, mother, daughter, dancer, goddess, dakini, shaman, queen of each of the Five Elements, she-Buddha. Standing, sitting, dancing; with her lover and alone . . .

During the past decade or so, during which she has worked almost exclusively in watercolor, Diane continues to honor the feminine and to further explore the Five Elements and the ways in which they interact with each other. She is particularly intrigued by Portals, those mysterious doorways between dimensions that one encounters from time to time — and by occasional glimpses of the spirit beings that share our world with us. You may see her artwork at www.dianeleemoomeyart.com 

In addition to the themes mentioned above, much of Diane’s poetry focuses on memoir, presenting glimpses of the people and places that have been so important in her life. A regular reader at San Francisco Bay Area poetry venues, her words have appeared in The MacGuffin, Light, THINK, Mezzo Cammin, MacQueen’s Quinterly, PoeTalk, Caesura, Red Wheelbarrow, California Quarterly and others and has been nominated for three Pushcart prizes. She has received awards and honorable mentions for both art and poetry from Soul-Making Keats, the Ina Coolbrith Circle and the Coastal Arts League. She is also the author of four poetry  collections, the third of which, Make For Higher Ground, is available from Barefoot Muse Press. www.barefootmuse.com The newest collection, Sourdough, a poetry memoir, is available from Kelsay Books. www.kelsaybooks.com. 

                Go to www.dianeleemoomeyart/poetry-portal.com to hear Diane read her poetry.  

Diane also co-hosts a Zoom poetry series, “Coastside Poetry” on the second Tuesday evening of each month. (www.coastsidepoetry.org)

Dance of Five Elements by Diane Lee Moomey.

NEWSBRIEFS NO. 3 OF 2026

The great philosopher and scientist Aristotle supposedly said: “Change in all things is sweet”—but can we trust the ever-hallucinating AI that found this quote for me? Let’s call it “bitter-sweet” then, like chocolate. The CSPS Board of Directors and the California Quarterly Editors are in the midst of such “bitter-sweet” changes. 

First, we are going to say our farewells to the pillar of this society, John F. Harrell, who will end his Board tenure of 35 years as CSPS Treasurer at the end of December 2026. He joined the Society in 1988, became its Treasurer in 1991 and served as the twelfth CSPS President (2012-19), concurrently being the Society’s Webmaster. So many hats! 

These just a few of the different “lives” of our great Treasurer: his most important position is that of the Bishop of the Celtic Catholic Church for North America and Pacific Islands. He has been active since 1982 as Deacon, Diocesan Chancellor, Priest, Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of the Isles of Saint Brendan, and Abbot of the Community of the Companions of God. Meanwhile, his engineering career, started in 1969 at Aerojet-General, took him through a variety of positions at Rockwell Collins, Northrop Grumman, and the Aerospace Corporation. How could one person have done so much?

Maybe because he is so well educated: B.Sc. in Mathematics and American Literature from Harvey Mudd College, M.A. in American Literature from Cal State Long Beach; STL, ThM, and DD degrees in Sacred Theology and Divinity from St. Columba School of Theology; and last but not least MBA/MBE, MSMIS, and PhD in Economics, Management and Information Science from Claremont Graduate University. A titan of learning!  

John F. Harrell, Bishop of Celtic Catholic Church.

Photo: Pamela Harrell.

John occupies a unique place among our 13 Presidents (Phillip Padellford, Romayne Dowd, Joyce Odam, Ellis Oveson, John F. Kerr, Gary Lagier, Ward Fulcher, Jack Fulbeck, Helen Shanley, Torre Houlgate-West, Kate Ozbirn, John Forrest Harrell, and Maja Trochimczyk) and 12 Treasurers (Jane Wolgemuth, Piche McBee, Eugene G. E. Botelho, Robert Knighton, Elaine Jenkins, Lawrence Jaffa, Margaret Cortes, Raymond Rose, Helen Shanley, Clara J. Koziolek, Jo-Ann Allee, and John Forrest Harrell). 

Since we are celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the Birth of the U.S., this year, let me end this brief tribute to John with a poem from his book The Hand of the Midnight Moon (2017). Many thanks for your service!!!  

The American Dream

1978

The yellow flame flickers lightly in my Uncle’s tomb

And dances with the sounds of crickets in the night.

In the shadows it throws on the walls of the rotunda

I see the shades of his friends and fellow soldiers.

They were strong, mighty warriors in their own time,

But here they walk only as adjuncts and lieutenants,

Assisting in the power and the presence of my Uncle.

Now, when the lamp lifted by his Lady has not light,

When her lovely, flowing robes are sullied and torn,

When every battle of the war is lost to politicians,

I come into the calming quiet and remember eternity.

In this place the vision of my Uncle is overwhelming

And the certainty and direction of his loving dreams

Are set in nature, to be the future for all mankind.

The shadows move the yellow flame with the whispers:

Let us be free, let us be free, Lord, let us be free.

John Forrest Harrell

Alas, we do not yet have another suitable candidate for the role of the CSPS Treasurer, maybe one of our subscribers would be willing to dedicate their leisure hours to the cause of poetry? Contact me at maja.trochimczyk@gmail.com. 

Our second Board change is the resignation of Nicholas Skaldetvind from the position of  CQ Editor, after editing four issues since 2022 (49/3, 50/2, 51/2, and 52/2 in 2026). His current pursuits, include working on Ph.D. degree at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, teaching, traveling, and publishing poems and book reviews in such venues as Tupelo Quarterly, or Trampolin Poetry. 

Meanwhile, Ambika Talwar published two poems in Echoes of Freedom – A Nation in Many Voices edited by Debdoot Mukherjee and published by CRF, Convergence Research Foundation, Kolkata. This book commemorates India's Independence and was launched on 15 August 2026.

My features with three poems each appeared in Polish (Hybrydy journal in Poland), and English (Kritya journal in India). Six poems appeared in California Poets Part 10, on LAdige website edited by David Garyan. 

In the time of harvest, let’s keep writing and using well our short time here!

Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President

Mother of the World, watercolor by Diane Lee Moomey