Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Poetry Letter No. 3 of 2024 - Autumn, Part I, with Monthly Contests Winners Jan-July 2024

Sen (A Dream) by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas

This issue of the Poetry Letter presents prize-winning poems from seven Monthly Contests of 2024, selected by the Monthly Contest Judge, Alice Pero. These poems fill the majority of its pages, complemented with two book reviews by Michael Escoubas including extensive poetry quotations which make the reviews even more enjoyable. I interspersed poetry with illustrations taken from artwork by Polish painter Maria Wollenberg-Kluza (b. 1945) whose paintings feature many literary inspirations and, in turn, have inspired many Polish poets and writers.  I attended her exhibit at the Warsaw Library Gallery in September 2024 and found these paintings to be both inspired and inspiring, so I decided to share this souvenir from my travels with the CSPS poets and poetry lovers. 

The Poetry Letter's book reviews and poems from my book The Rainy Bread in English and Polish will be published in the next part of the blog.

~ Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President

Camino by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas (2013)

Monthly Contest Winners of 2024 

Alice Pero, the CSPS Monthly Contest Judge selected the following poems from submissions received each month. The first prize is a minimum of $10. Congratulations to all the winners!

January (Nature, Landscapes):  

♦ 1st Prize: 1st Prize Colorado Smith, “SkyFire” 

♦ ♦ 2nd Prize: Kathryn Schmeiser “Last One Standing” 

♦ ♦ ♦ 3rd Prize: Paula Appling,  “Cognitive Dissonance" 

February (love): 

♦ 1st Prize: Richard T. Ringley, "The Parts of You I Cannot Name" 

♦ ♦ 2nd Prize: Jeff Graham,   "Nocturne 31" 

March (Open, Free Subject): 

♦   1st Prize: Sean McGrath, "hunger for eternity"

April (Dreams, Mythology, Other Universes):   

♦ 1st Prize:  Lillian Liu, "Sphinx Riddle" 

♦ ♦ 2nd Prize: David Anderson, "The Next Eucatastrophe" 

♦ ♦ ♦ 3rd Prize: Thomas Feeny, "Icarus"   

May (Personification, Characters, Portraits):  

♦   1st Prize: Thomas Feeny, "The Bolder Brother" 

♦ ♦ 2nd Prize:  Paula Appling, "Still Life"

June (The Supernatural):  

♦ 1st Prize: Jane Stuart, “Into the Light” 

July (Childhood, Memoirs): 

♦ 1st Prize: Carla Schick, "On the way to the library" 

♦ ♦  2nd Prize: Susan Florence, "Where Bach Takes Me" 


Ad Infinitum, by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas, 2018


SKYFIRE                               
            

 

Hard by the willows

    over granite sand

     slants a gray rain.

 

Black cumuli part;

    sunburst ricochet off a lower cloud

        onto the gray underbelly of the upper.

             I drop to my knees in the sagebrush:

 

that cloud          

                     in the darkness

                                                   shimmers—  

 

 a thousand

                       tiny rainbows

                                                  pearlesce

 

twenty minutes

                              till thunderheads merge

 

Hat in hand

      I give my face

                 to the rain.

  

Colorado Smith, First Prize in January

              

             LAST ONE STANDING

 

Grass shoots slumber

among weed stalks,

their dried seed

heads bowed

 

But one miracle

Grows

Blooms

Stands tall

 

A daisy, her

white ray florets

embracing

a smiling sun-yellow

disk balanced

atop a slender stem,

 

refuses

to abandon

life

 

Marguerite ~

She loves me

 

Did no one tell 

her

it is

winter?

 

Kathryn Schmeiser, Second Prize in January


COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

       The Grand Canyon

 

Described as a

"big hole,"

the overlook understated

the unimaginable emptiness that confronted me.

I stumbled backwards.

 

Found myself seated,

crying; its borders, its walls,

so illimitable,

my mind could only conjure wallpaper.

 

Irony twisted my gut.

Two dimensions

could never capture

this enormous void or contain

these otherworldly reds and oranges,

this harsh glare.

 

Paula Appling, Third Prize in January


Zagubieni (The Lost Ones) by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, 2018


THE PARTS OF YOU I CANNOT NAME

  

I love the parts of you I cannot name.                           

I seek to find the means; and yet poor words,

I ask too much of you; for I have seen

the unseen light in you that brightens cold

and often haunted nights.  I have no name

for this; it’s you I know, the non de plume

of soft and certain moments that will quell

an uncertain heart; it only beats for you.

 

Be my sunlit heart; shine from grace within.

How dark is life when I am not with you.

How cold, how empty; the light drains from me

as if I were a ghost lost in a ghost’s

unwanted dream; a demon dwells within

a place in Hell for those who love you not.

 

Give me your heart, I’ll add my soul to yours

and thank the gods again for nameless joy.

We’ll grace the world in children named from cats.

We’ll grace the world – unnamed and yet so known.

 

Richard T. Ringley, First Prize in February


NOCTURNE 31                             

 

Patch of red mums  

(which have always been                             

 

your favorite)                                        

that in this night’s lack of light

 

are still white,        

still feel white to the touch.

 

Of the moon’s slow steps.

Of my body tossed along and across Earth’s curve.             

 

Of the chrysanthemum’s faint murmur.                                 

Of my voice’s tinge of blushing and blushing.          

 

 Jeff Graham, Second Prize in February


Zamki z piasku (Sand Castles) by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas

              HUNGER FOR ETERNITY

  

you ever miss something

even when you are beholding it

right there in your dumbstruck eyes?

 

it had been close during

the goldfleeced autumns in Massachusetts,

the sunsets in Redondo,

the winters from a balcony in Palos Verdes

when snow had just started to top the distant Angeles

 

but never so distilled,

not until this little monster

crash landed on my pumping heart

and looked back at me with my own eyes—

 

then, as before, every moment felt worth holding onto forever

then, like never, each moment felt like it was rushing away

 

so this is how you fall out of love with the ordinary,

I thought,

this is how the hunger for eternity grows



Sean McGrath, First Prize in March

Published in “Untitled Baby Project” (2023)


Cisza krajobrazu (Silence of a Landscape) by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas

 

         SPHINX RIDDLE

 

Beaming chariot for the sun,

his laugh prods the sphinx awake.

My four-legged

watchtower completes the acropolis,

carved out of living rock,

her sprawling limbs squeeze the marble, Thebes implausible.

 

Flare and ichor fall!

highlighted golden. Tumbling

gravity reversing for the sky to yellow,

gelatinous blond sprays across his canvas

Midday.

 

Lemon sun shocks

corn fields bake their leaves,

stalks slowly to the gate.

Day or night?

 

Eye of newt, toe of frog?

Tragic hero, tongue of dog.

City had a spill

wronged sun slinks behind the calamitous clouds

evening, Oedipus,

The answer is man.

 

Civilizations for my three epiphanies.

 

 Lilian Liu, First Prize in April 


Tryptyk II. Pokonani - Niepokonani (Triptych II. Defeated - Undefeated)
by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas

THE NEXT EUCATASTROPHE

                                                                               

Causa latet vis est tomissima [While the cause is hidden,  the force is very well known] Ovid, Amores IV, 287


                                                                                             Vires acquivirit emodo [It gains strength as it goes] -- Virgil

 

In    a     cross-step,    slow-step     dance      each      galaxy
calls out to choose a partner

and their pas de deux accelerates

 

through stellar winds and waves of space.

The dances turn in upon themselves.

Inside each universe, the stars increase in mass

 

and inward fly, faster and faster: the dances widen

draw    to    themselves    all    outward     

mass,

recidivate, and would obliterate—

 

but    none    can     cease,     each    arises,
renewed from the swallowed energy,

then outward flies — new stars, new universes, new galaxies ——

 

the    pace    continues    in    and     outside    each    dimension
and    gyrates    as    our    stars    rotate:    the     ox     becomes    an    ass,
the Pleiades, new polar stars,

and the southern cross, a moving mast.

 

Eucatastrophe. Coined by  JRR Tolkien, it refers to the sudden turn of events at the end of a story  which results in the protagonist's well-being. From the Greek prefix eu- (good) and catastrophe, traditionally used in classically-inspired literary criticism to refer to the "unraveling" or conclusion of a drama.

David Anderson, Second Prize in April 


              ICARUS

 

I, a mere boy, yet

so much to keep in mind.

The danger of salt spray

upon my wings. The mist's
obscuring treachery. And above all
the soft kiss of the sun.

 

Now, when I recall your warnings,
Father, as we paced the long beach,
I think: Foot I should have spoken.
But who dare talk of fear

to one whose dreams already draw him
far beyond the stars

 

And in the end, can I deny
ecstasy was worth its price?
The rise, the thrill of flight,

my giant bird-shadow cast
over battered rocks below.
The shrinking coastline, earth's
silvery curve. Then, from

the corner of my eye

a glimpse of pink wax

weeping along my wings.

How I watched in wonder

as the tiny plumes fluttered
down, to fall like snow

upon the out-islands.

 

Truly, Father, the sun's breath
felt every bit as sweet as yours
when, lifting me up in

loving arms, you

dare thrust me skyward. 


Thomas P. Feeny, Third Prize in April


Nokturn (A Nocturne) by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas


           THE BOLDER BROTHER

 

You stand in night, the hard

darkness.  Taking it all in.

With barely a shrug for

the vast drape of constellations.

 

Off on the sidelines,

I finger pocket change

and look on in silence.

 

Small eyes watch as

you turn on your heel,

crunch gravel,

kiss off the stars.

 

Thomas P. Feeny, First Prize in May

published in “Night Into Day” (Canada, 1992)


            STILL LIFE

 

Seven red pears

lined up just so,

atop grey-weathered oak board,

four inches wide.

One stands apart.

Pear-orating?

 

Pontificating.

Three attend,

three scoff.

The artist laughs.

 

Paula Appling, Second Prize in May


Postacie z blekitu (Figures from the Azure) by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas, 2015.


            INTO THE LIGHT

 

As bold as winter but restless as spring

perched on a silver cloud that has no lining

he waves his wand—and the moon climbs higher

lighting a dark moaning night that cries

for its release!  The vault of heaven

unlocks to let him pass, taking old stars

with him down the turning path that sizzles

at sunrise when sudden heat

wraps the universe,

cold fire that sends

Uriel on into the light

making his way from cloud to cloud—

the world above a distant world

floating on into the light,

           into the light.

 

Jane Stuart, First Prize in June 2024


Nihil Novi by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas, 2013


ON THE WAY TO THE LIBRARY

 

I did not collect

dust laden pennies.  I went towards reading

rooms   Sealed fate   Lips glued

to sound storms.    Trans-

formations of body between starched

pages.   A NY City block-long    hard

pavement road to song.   Scrappy

pencils.  A brown paper bag

filled with poetry, tinged with blue

hues of bleeding

pens.   I loved    Nights

Hidden beneath blankets with a flashlight

Stalking sentences

Ignoring TV gloom

cast out from the living room. Specks

of ink.

               The first card with my name

typed out     like a warrior. I pierced

dust clouds with syllables, 

robbed the coffers

of rhythms   reframed syntax

from street fights. A cat clawed

at closed fences. Endless interruptions.

Blasts of sound. 


Tongues tripping over 

each new idea. 


A pile of books 

I learned  


to etch 

my mark in the margins.  

 

 Carla Schick, First Prize in July 2024


WHERE BACH TAKES ME: CONCERTO #5

 

On the strings of the harpsichord

I return and settle in

to the off twang of f minor’s

deliberate and steady sounds.

 

The notes play me back

to the plain convent room

where I practiced Skaters’ Waltz

and found a place for my internal rhythm

and a certain joy.

 

It happened here in my girlhood

of plain wool uniform, white blouse and beeny

that I knew I needed more

than home and school and hopscotch

more than the Virgin Mary.

 

It was not without effort to go the distance

of the keyboard over the black and white

the mesh of major and minor,

it brought an escape

and a return

 

like the music this morning

traveling me back

forty-five years.

 

Susan Florence, Second Prize in July 2024


Maria Wollenberg-Kluza with her paintings, September 2024, Warszawa


ABOUT THE ARTIST - MARIA WOLLENBERG-KLUZA

Maria Wollenberg-Kluza was born in 1945 in Puławy. From 1967 to 1973 she studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. In 1973, she graduated with honors in painting and also received a diploma of textile art. In the years 1973-1975 she was an Assistant Professor at Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. The first individual exhibition of her works was organized in 1967. So far, she organized around 130 individual exhibitions in Poland and abroad: in Spain, Sweden, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, India, Ukraine, Turkey, Russia, Italy, Lithuania, and Georgia.  She also participated in over domestic and international group exhibitions as well as in international presentations of Polish art (e.g., in France, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Sweden, USA). She paints mostly monothematic cycles of 20 - 30 works such as: "People in the City", "Man and machine", "Cathedrals", "Art inspired by music", "Impressions of poetry - Images of Norwid", "Game of imagination" "Impressions from Spain", "Polish landscapes", "Confessions of mother", "SALIGIA - seven cardinal Sins", "He and She", "Ver sacrum", "Images of Turkey", "Notes from Norway", "Meditations and Prayers", "Chopin in Painting and Musical Motifs", "Old Polish Music," etc.  

More information: www.wollenberg.pl
















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