California
State Poetry Society is pleased to announce the winners of its 37th Annual Poetry
Contest selected by Judge Marlene Hitt of Sunland, California. We are grateful to all poets who submitted a
total of 214 poems this year. Due to the high quality of this year’s
submissions, some of the submitted, but not awarded poems, are included in the California
Quarterly,
• First
Prize: Gurupreet K. Khalsa, “Polymorphic: Tumbled Stuff”
•
Second Prize: Louise Moises, “Lighthouse”
• Third
Prize, ex aequo: Deborah Bachels Schmidt, “In the Season of the Crows”
• Third
Prize, ex aequo: Joel Savishinsky, “An Archeology of Ignorance”
• No.
1: r.g. cantalupo, “A Noiseless Spider (Revisited)”
• No.
2: Carolyn Jabs, “Puzzled”
• No.
3: Deborah Bachels Schmidt, “Of Singing Mice”
• No.
4: Rosemary Ybarra-Garcia, “The Heat of the San Joaquin”
• No.
5: Brian Cronwall, “In Dreams”
• No.
6: Jonathan Bennett, “Resignation”
• No.
7: Carla S. Schick, “A Candle, April 2020”
• No.
8: Rosemary Ybarra-Garcia, “Metal Ladies”
• No.
9: Joe DeCenzo, “All Hallow’s Warning”
• No.
10: Claire Scott, “Without Hope”
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THE JUDGE’S COMMENTS
First Prize. With skillfully crafted language, the poet compares two worlds of words: those as lined-up boxy, dreary apartment buildings and those other ones that the poet sees as much freer, simpler, colorful. This poem is an homage to untroubled passion, feverish intent, a thirst for freedom and the beauty of creation.
Second Prize. I chose to identify with the hopelessness of the narrator as “Without sails or oars or compass, unable to read the stars, I drift through the fog of uncertainty.” There is hope, though. I see this vivid and imaginative poem as a metaphor for all life.
Third Prize (Savishinsky). Do we know what we are saying? Do we perceive correctly? Will the shards of floppy discs be understood after thousands of years? I was drawn to discover the meaning of the poem which ends with the words, “we mouth the sounds but miss their meaning” as in lost languages. Much is said here. We speak well now but does anyone listen?
Third Prize (Schmidt). The black, inky crows enter the lively moment of an evolving and colorful scene, with their blackness forming a crowd of their own, the elite. I see this beautifully rendered work as a metaphor for the contrasts in life, even for that of good and evil.
Honorary Mention No. 1. I was captivated by the image of a spider, “a fuzzed blur of legs fleeing across the rim of my eyes.” This picture of a spider, written in simple words, is appealing in
its way
of drawing the reader into this poet’s experience. It is also an erudite
reflection of Walt Whitman’s famous verse and a reflection on alienation and
solitude.
Honorary Mention No. 2. Joseph Campbell once remarked that if we look back on our lives, we would finally see the puzzle pieces fall together. I am impressed with the careful building of a puzzle whose pieces are arranged into a completed whole. In this poem the poet tells a valuable truth: “Day after day, we struggled to find the big picture until, one afternoon it found us.”
Honorary Mention No. 3. Beginning with imagination, the carefully structured poem examines artfully our myths and legends and that we need them. Something list-like has become a cultural lesson.
Honorary Mention No. 4. Magically worded, we see a dream within a dream. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” said Shakespeare, The poem carries a message of “these blessings of awakening, alive, again.”
Honorary Mention No. 5. In the silence only, the invisible crickets sang from the dry grass. Last Thursday in Death Valley the temperature was 130 degrees F. Would that day of the poet be the beginning of a California Sahara?
Honorary Mention No. 6. A thoughtful piece about mice who can sing but we can’t hear them and how we all love our myths, fairy tales and folktales. How we wish they were true and maybe they are. We need them. If we lose them, we will make more.
MARENE HITT (1936-2024)
A native Californian, poet and community activist, Marlene Hitt was the first Poet Laureate of Sunland Tujunga (1999-2001). She has been a member of the Chupa Rosa Writers of Sunland Tujunga and the Foothills since the group’s inception in 1985. Her critically-acclaimed first poetry collection Clocks and Water Drops was published by Moonrise Press in 2015. Her second collection, Yellow Tree Alone appeared in 2022. In addition to publishing numerous poetry chapbooks, she authored a non-fiction book Sunland-Tujunga, from Village to City and two books of stories for children.. Her poems appeared in Psychopoetica (UK), Chupa Rosa Diaries (2001-2003), Glendale College’s Eclipse anthologies, CSPS California Quarterly and Poetry Letter. Atadena Poetry Review; and poetry anthologies (Chopin with Cherries, Meditations on Divine Names, and We Are Here:Village Poets Anthology that she co-edited in 2020 with Maja Trochimczyk). Recently, Hitt was one of 12 poets invited to contribute to Crystal Fire. Poems of Joy and Wisdom (2022). Her work also appears in Sometimes in the Open, a collection of verse by California Poets Laureate, and The Coiled Serpent, of verse by Los Angeles poets, ed. Luis Rodriguez (2016).
Marlene Hitt served at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga as Museum Director and docent for many years. She was the history writer for the Foothill Leader, Glendale News Press, North Valley Reporter, and Voice of the Village newspapers. She has been honored as the Woman of Achievement by the Business and Professional Women's Club, as the Woman of the Year by the U.S. Congress, and received many congratulatory scrolls from the City and County of Los Angeles, and the State of California. In 2019, Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga presented to Marlene and her husband Lloyd, a Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing the significance of their support of poetry in the Foothills.
The anniversary year of the California State Poetry Society has
come to its end, but the celebrations continue in 2025, with the publication of
our 50th Anniversary Anthology edited by r.g. cantalupo. He
will select four poems per CQ volume, one per issue. So far I have driven
around to pick up boxes of old issues of the CQ from Richard Deets in Dublin
and John F. Harrell in Yorba Linda. Established
in 1972, our Society should have held its 50th anniversary in
2022, but the Board decided to move the celebrations to 2024.
Pushcart Prize
Nominations. The
following six poems were nominated to the Annua Pushcart Prizes for best poems published
by small presses. From CQ 50/1 (guest-edited by Beverly M. Collins), “Begin to
Heal” by Charles Harmon. From CQ 50/2 (ed. Nicholas Skaldetvind), “A Poem for
Portraits” by Anselm Berrigan. From CQ 50/3 (ed. Maja Trochimczyk), “Allegiance”
by Carolyn Chilton Casas, and from CQ
50/4, “Polymorphic Tumbled Stuff, by Gurupreet K. Khalsa, “The Lighthouse,” by Louise
Moises, and “An Archaeology of Ignorance” by Joel Savishinsky. Congratulations!
The California Quarterly 50/4 has an unusual content, in that it contains quite a few submissions to the 37th Annua Poetry Contest, in addition to the four award winners, Gurupreet K. Khalsa, Louise Moises, Deborah Bachels Schmidt, and Joel Savishinsky and ten honorary mentions. Per the request of the Contest Judge, Marlene Hitt, these poems were published in a different order than usual (when we would add a contest section after other poems). In this issue, the awarded and honored poems are placed first, followed by a selection from other submissions (to the Annual Contest and the CQ directly via Submittable, email and mail), and ending with the judge’s comments. Ms. Hitt died in December 2024 and was not able to complete all sections of this journal. I’m grateful to Konrad Tademar Wilk who stepped in and finished the work.
The CQ cover is graced with my photo of a hybrid-tea “Compassion” rose from my garden, selected as a tribute to Marlene Hitt and Margaret Saine, another influential CSPS poet who left us this year. Both poets were fond of my rose photographs and attended my exhibitions held in Sunland and Monrovia. We shared a passion for beautiful blossoms and enjoyed the serenity of gardens. I published two poetry volumes each from these great friends and fantastic poets—Clocks and Water Drops (2015) and Yellow Tree Alone (2023) by Hitt followed by Lit Angels Literature Angels ~ Angels of Light (2017) and Gardens of the Earth. According to Nature (2018) by Saine. The cover of Marlene’s first book featured a photos of California poppies and sweet alyssum from her garden—I am grateful for receiving some of these pants as farewell gifts, so her irises and baby’s breath will grace my garden, too.
My three-year od granddaughter Juniper, once asked me about my parents, and when I said they were no longer with us, she told me sternly: “Babcia, you must remember them, they live on when they are remembered.” I wondered who taught her that, maybe the film Coco, but the sentiment is right. We must remember those who were with us and left a huge void after their departure, even if that process of leaving was slow and extended—as was the case of both Hitt and Saine, who gradually gave up their volunteer duties.
In 2021, after 18 years of service to CSPS as California Quarterly Editor, Secretary/Historian and Poetry Letter Editor, Margaret Saine decided to step down. A brief tribute was published at that time and my comments below are a paraphrase of that. I was and am especially grateful that she introduced me to the CSPS and greatly value her contributions to our Society. Her expert knowledge of poetry, literature, painting, sculpture, and architecture was coupled with fluency in many languages—she published translations from French, German, Italian and Spanish. She wrote and published poetry in English, her native German, as well as French, Italian and Spanish. She translated an international group of poets, giving them a space to share their insights and talents. After her death, many poets expressed their gratitude in numerous posts on her Facebook page. Her network of poetic friendships was truly global! I first heard about her passing from an Italian poet, Alessio Zanelli who wrote “We were good friends and met her numerous times here and there in Italy, during her many trips in Europe. She was a good poet and a fantastic woman, as well as one of the first editors to ever accept my work.”
As a photographer, she depicted the world in motion— blurry, misty, ambiguous, yet enticing with mysterious patterns. Her erudite, thoughtful and passionate poems reflect her keen attention to detail, ability to see the large picture, find wisdom in nature and art.). I am profoundly grateful for all the gifts Margaret brought to my life – richness of vivid language, sharp focus on quality of words expressing a thought or impression clearly and succinctly.
Gardens
of the Earth: According to Nature is a poetic exploration of nature tamed
and shaped by humans, nature that in turn shapes the gardeners and gives them a
purpose, a cause for action, and a reason for reflection. Saine shared her
delight in gardens and gardening with a host of contemporary poets and friends
and the renowned gardeners of the past. Lit Angels (Literature Angels ~
Angels of Light) is a collection of poetry inspired by literature and the arts.
Written in English, the volume includes several translations into German,
Arabic, French and Italian. As Saine wrote in the introduction: “Lit, past
participle of ‘to light’, and Lit, abbreviation for literature? Lit used by
people who love it so much they breathlessly shorten it to one syllable? Light
and Literature, the mainstays of human lives, wherever we are, whenever we are
so privileged. Literature and Light are best friends.” Her life was a light to many. Nizar Sartawi,
poet/translator from Amman, Jordan, wrote: “In Margaret’s poetry we listen to
the inner voice of a poet who is committed to building bridges. Beyond the
versatility of her topics, the vividness of her images, and the richness of her
style, almost every poem she writes is an expression of this quest – building
bridges of peace between people, nations, and, in a very intricate way, between
the individual and his or her inner self.”
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