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 Each editor is responsible for selection and organization of previously unpublished poems and translations (with original versions enclosed) for their specific issue.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 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.  

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