%20(1).jpg)
California Quarterly, Vol. 49, Number 2, Spring 2023
The Smallest is the Bridge ― Charlene Langfur ― 7
When the Desert Blooms ― Sarah Baker ― 8
Totem ― Carlo DiOrio ― 9
Wild Cherry ― Erin Thomas ― 10
My Daughter is Pregnant ― Daniel Thomas ― 11
A Thousand and One ― Sarah Baker ― 12
Soft Blankets Make the Stars Shine Brighter ― Daniel Wroten ― 12
Dimensions ― Mark Belair ― 13
maybe I’m only ― Margaret Saine ― 13
My Relationship to the Universe ― David Woodward ― 14
Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe ― Jim Tilley ― 15
Space ― Bart Edelman ― 16
Scrimmage ― Jane Stuart ― 17
Canyon Creek Bioswalk, Ascott Hills ― Gregory Cecil ― 17
Afflatus ― Livingston Rossmoor ― 18
You Are on the River, Drifting ― M. C. Rush ― 19
She Is Just Saying, Not That I Asked ― Jeanne Holdridge ― 20
Morning Songs ― Gary Metheny ― 21
Obeyance, Obeisance ― Carlo DiOrio ― 21
When I’m Eighty-Four ― Wyatt Underhill ― 22
At His Father’s Bedside ― Daniel Thomas ― 23
all of them, fallen ― ayaz daryl nielsen ― 23
Visiting Hours ― Michael Meyerhofer ― 24
Saying Goodbye ― Jane Stuart ― 25
Measures of Empathy, of Grief ― Diane DeCillis ― 25
King for a Day ― Andy Roberts ― 26
The Bantam Hours 41 ― Jeff Graham ― 26
The Song ― Bart Edelman ― 27
To Ludwig, Oh Friend, Not These Sounds ― Marc Janssen ― 28
Ode to an Unnamed Greek Slave ― Michael Meyerhofer ― 29
One Sunny Afternoon ― Jeanne Holdridge ― 31
Whale Watching ― E. Martin Pedersen ― 32
Tomorrow I Will Be Another I ― Alex Przybyla ― 33
The Beach Goes On ― Jim Stewart ― 33
Basterà l’Oceano ― Antonio Blunda ― 34
Will the Ocean Be Enough ― Margaret Saine, tr. ― 35
Lines Composed Above Cabrillo Beach ― Giovanni Boskovich ― 36
The Silence of the Common Nighthawk ― John Schneider ― 37
Moonlight ― Kevin Thornburgh ― 38
A New Moon ― Erin Garstka ― 38
This Quarter Moon ― Erin Garstka ― 39
A Full Moon ― Claire J. Baker ― 40
Memory Moon ― Brian James Stone ― 41
Aynar Means Moonlight ― Diane DeCillis ― 42
I Rediscover My Childhood Microscope ― Henry Stimpson ― 43
Daily Bread of Words ― Margaret Saine ― 43
Silence Caught in Time ― Joseph Galasso ― 44
After 2 ― M. C. Rush ― 45
I Was Awakened at Midnight ― Jiang Pu ― 46
Alchemy for Want of a Kiss ― Cordelia Hanemann ― 46
Absence ― Hedy Habra ― 48
What Else Is There ― Jeanne Holdridge ― 49
A Te Poggiata ― Rita Stanzione ― 50
Begonia ― Paul Willis ― 50
Leaning Against You ― Margaret Saine, tr. ― 51
the world ends ― ayaz daryl nielsen ― 51
I Fell in Love with Luo Jin ― Maja Trochimczyk ― 52
When I Was in Istanbul ― Linda Hughes ― 53
An Impossible Canvas ― John Schneider ― 54
Confession ― Kevin Thornburgh ― 55
Avoid Dance ― Marc Janssen ― 56
Mad Apples ― Kit Kennedy ― 57
Tremulous ― Paul Willis ― 57
Just Thinking ― Leslie Hendrickson- Baral ― 58
Less Prepared ― Lee Clark Zumpe ― 58
A Place for the Luminous ― Charlene Langfur ― 59
Cover Art: Soap Bubbles in Encinitas, color photo by Chris Hannemann
Contributors in Alphabetical Order ― 60
CSPS Contest Opportunities ― 60
CSPS Newsbriefs 2023, No. 2 by Maja Trochimczyk ― 62
Publishing Opportunities with CSPS ― 65
2022 CSPS Donors, Patrons, and Membership CSPS ― 66
Membership Form ― 68
EDITOR’S NOTE
Poetry is “a place for the luminous,” observes Charlene Langfur of Palm Springs, California, in a poem I selected to close this summer volume of the California Quarterly, celebrating light and all that emits light – the sun, stars, and poets’ minds…, “Luminous,” from Latin “luminosus” or full of light (that is “lumen”) is what shines and makes this world more vivid, brighter. Langfur’s poems provide this CQ with its opening and closing; she finds inspiration during walks in the desert, in her garden, in daily life full of wonders and surprises. She joins several frequent contributors to the CQ with poems in this issue: Jane Stuart, Diane DeCillis, Jeanne Holdridge, Leslie Henrickson-Baral, Kit Kennedy, ayaz daryl nielsen, Margaret Saine, John Schneider, Kevin Thornburgh, and Paul Willis. There are also newcomers like Alex Przybyla and Lee Clark Zumpe.
When selecting poems, I felt a bit like a magpie, attracted to all that shines – jewels, pennies, bottle caps... From bird of paradise (Carlo diOrio) and blooming desert (Sarah Baker) to mad apples (Kit Kennedy), poets find inspiration in nature that seems tamed by people. Yet, the grand, ageless themes of the ocean, universe, sunlight or moonlight keep attracting their attention, so much so that I was able to assemble a section about the moon (new, quarter, full) and the meaning of moonlight (poems by Thornburg, Garstka, C. Baker, Stone, & DeCillis). The word “moon” appears in six titles and 34 other places; sun – 18, day – 17, sky – 14, star – 13, ocean and universe – 10 each, night – 9, time – 7...
What are the most obscure words and topics that caught the poets’ attention? Livingston Rossmoor dedicates his poem to “Afflatus” or “inspiration” – with operas by Bellini and birdsong. Ludwig van Beethoven hides among instruments (Marc Janssen). Phoebes, roadrunners, hummingbirds, bees, dragonflies, dogs, coyotes, and whales are among the lively menagerie that inspires poets, mostly based in California. I take readers to movies in China; Linda Hughes to Istanbul. Poets reflect about human relationships, with an array of emotions, joy to grief: a daughter’s pregnancy (Daniel Thomas), absence (Hedy Habra) and saying goodbye (Jane Stuart). They know, as Leslie Hendrickson-Baral notices: “within the universe of the heart space lies the Secret.”
Maja Trochimczyk
Los Angeles, California
NEWSBRIEFS 2023, NO. 2, SUMMER 2023
By the time readers receive this issue of the California Quarterly, the submission period for the 2023 Annual Contest will have been closed and the judge Anna Maria Mickiewicz will be selecting the best poems from the batch of anonymous submissions forwarded to her without any identifying information. The three prize-winners will then be published in the last CQ of 2023 while the Honorary Mentions will be considered for publication.
Since I decided to feature all Honorary Mentions from the 2022 Annual Contest in the first Poetry Letter of 2023, the Winners of the 2022 Monthly Contests will appear together in the second issue of our newsletter. The winners of the 2022 Monthly Contests, adjudicated by Alice Pero, are:
• January (Nature, Landscape):
1st Prize: Pamela Stone Singer,“Forest Air”;
2nd Prize: Jane Stuart, “On the North Side”;
3rd Prize: Gwen Monohan, “Focal Points”
• February (Love):
1st Prize: Jerry Smith “Lovers”;
2nd Prize: Jane Stuart “Crossing the Moon”
• March (Open, Free Subject):
1st Prize: Jeff Graham, “A Certain Day's Every,”
• April (Mythology, Dreams, Other Universes):
1st Prize: Debra Darby, “Awaken.”
• May (Personifications, Characters, Portraits):
1st Prize: Carol L.Hatfield “Cloud on the Ground”;
2nd Prize: Joan Gerstein “White on White”
• June (The Supernatural):
1st Prize: Pamela Stone Singer,“Buffaloes Escape”
• July (Childhood, Memoirs):
1st Prize: Anna J. Jasinska “My chicken egg apron”;
2nd Prize: Lynn Axelrod “Fenestra”
• August (Places, Poems of Location):
1st Prize: Sean McGrath “10/21: At Sea, After Light”;
2nd Prize: Colorado Smith “Tigers of the Tsangpo”;
3rd Prize: Teresa Bullock “Born Again”
• September (Colors, Music, Dance):
1st Prize: Jane Stuart, “Watching Time Go By”
• October (Humor, Satire): No award
• November (Family, Friendship, Relationships):
1st Prize: Richard L. Matta, “Shucking Shells”
• December (Best of Your Best (awarded or published poems):
1st Prize: David Anderson “Where Plovers Complain”;
2nd Prize: Carla Schick “She Painted”
MEMBER NEWS
CSPS Monthly Contest Chair, Alice Pero who is also Sunland/Tujunga Poet Laureate, had a six- page feature in Cholla Needles 76 and a feature with Brendan Constantine at Village Poets in Bolton Hall Museum in April 2023. She also received a commendation for her work with students at Fair Oaks School in Altadena.
Former CSPS Secretary, CQ Editor, and CSPS Life Member, Margaret Saine had one poem and two haiku sequences published by David John Tyrer of Atlantean Publishing in his monthly broadside Bard. Margaret was also recently featured as “Bard #36” (6 pages of poems) published in Southend-on-Sea, Essex.
CSPS VP for Communications, Richard Modiano received the Joe Hill Prize for labor poetry from the Los Angeles-Long Beach Harbor Labor Coalition, published The Forbidden Lunch Box poetry collection and serves among rotating hosts of The Poets Cafe on KPFK 90.7 FM.
CSPS Secretary Ambika Talwar won 9th place in the Bharat Award for Literature (2022) for a short story titled, Big, Blue & Beautiful. She published haiku and haibun in Red Paper Parasols: 2022 Anthology of Southern California Haiku Study Group. With cover design and haiku by Maja Trochimczyk and poems by William Scott Galasso , Deborah P Kolodji and other CSPS members; this anthology received a Honorary Mention at the 2023 Los Angeles Festival of Books.
Talwar was also published in Crystal Fire. Poems of Joy and Wisdom (Moonrise Press, 2022) with 11 other poets (including CSPS’s members Ella Czajkowska, Mary Elliot, Alice Pero, Allegra Silberstein, Jane Stuart, & Bory Thach). Talwar’s paintings were used to design the cover and begin each poet’s set of remarkable poems. The anthology was edited by Maja Trochimczyk, and recently praised by Michael Escoubas in Quill & Parchment vol. 262.
We are grateful that our list of generous benefactors, that is members of Gold Circle, Silver Circle, Patrons and Donors (names listed in each CQ) has increased this year. Thanks to your donations, our wonderful group of volunteers can publish an excellent poetry journal, organize contests, and keep promoting poetry.
~ Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President
