The CSPS Poetry letter No. 4/2024 included poems, published in the previous blog, as we as book reviews posted below. https://www.californiastatepoetrysociety.com/2025/01/csps-poetry-etter-no-4-of-2024-winter.html
ANDRZEJ TARGOWSKI REVIEWS ALCHEMY OF WORDS BY ELLA CZAJKOWSKA
Alchemy of Words by Ella Czajkowska. Moonrise Press, 2024. 70 poems, 98 pages.
ISBN 978-1-945938-80-1 https://moonrisepress.com/czajkowska---alchemy-of-words.html#/
Alchemy of Words by Ella Czajkowska is a poetic exploration of self, love, nature, and the philosophical intricacies of existence. This collection, created by a young poet from Los Angeles, unfolds with an intensity that mirrors a journey of self-discovery, vulnerability, and resilience.
Ella's writing shines with vivid imagery and lyrical language, which transforms abstract concepts into striking mental landscapes. The collection opens with the poem "He, Who Watches," a piece rich in Gothic sensibilities, where the poet’s introspective lens reflects themes of darkness and revelation. This introspective style continues throughout, as in "The Balance," where Ella navigates the delicate equilibrium of life’s opposing forces, offering reflections that are poignant and contemplative.
One of the most compelling aspects of this collection is Ella’s use of nature as both a metaphor and a muse. Poems like "Beauty" and "Lady of the Gardens" breathe life into familiar natural imagery, which she renders as both delicate and fiercely resilient. Her keen observation and introspection in these works echoed an almost meditative engagement with the world around her.
In addition to the richness of her themes, Czajkowska’s style is versatile, shifting seamlessly from haunting, mystical verses to sharply introspective reflections. Her language is direct yet lush, demanding the reader’s attention and pulling them into each emotional landscape. The recurring imagery of shadows, silence, and distant dreams lends a cohesive, almost hypnotic quality to her work, revealing her fascination with what lies beneath the surface.
Alchemy of Words is a testament to the author’s profound understanding of the nuances of human experience, capturing the ephemeral and eternal aspects of existence in a way that resonates deeply. This collection not only introduces Ella Czajkowska as a promising young poet but also as a voice capable of articulating the often-unspoken complexities of the human soul.
~ Andrew Targowski
Professor Emeritus, Western Michigan University
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THE SUBLIME SENSES
Until the heart stops
it desires;
until the mind stills
it aspires;
until the senses
take their leave
they deceive
such dreams they weave…
~ Ella Czajkowska
ALCHEMY OF WORDS
Precarious road ahead, a path through forest old and dark,
Of hands made, reaching, grasping, painted both in shade and light.
Earth frostbitten deeply so—to bone, to ash, core, and soul—
Where empty glade in center lies concealed by dust of time,
There buried gently shall be all the hopes in barren soil,
And by loving hand’s caress nourished, songs of grief, of joy,
And stories told—true, untrue—of nation’s birth, life, and death;
Unknown remain to unknowing, who sleep beyond iron walls.
An Alchemy of Words, arcane, a secret and a spell,
That transform would hearts to stone, to liquid gold speech distill,
And as a feast above all feasts present on gilt platters,
Unreachable, untouchable, for none can hope to be
Fed on diet of empty vows and lukewarm, idle smiles.
At table high a stranger sits, silent, full and drunken
On devoured words from gifted mouths, taken sip by sip,
Till the brilliance fades and, for their lack, of thirst comes to die.
This blood a river is, that boils in hearts made marble hard,
This spirit a memory of light to shadow-self dimmed,
By centuries of history untold, destroyed or shamed;
By whispers of ancestors gone, unknown, unnamed, unmourned;
By those who chose a mask to wear in colors of deceit,
And peddle lies and name them truth, and silence all who speak,
In defiance stand against all those who violence love and preach,
And mockery would carry as a weapon of their choice.
(At home, that is no home at all, a memory prevails:
“This will shatter, this will perish, this will hold, this will keep”.)
Have you mouth? Then sigh.
Have you words? Then cry,
to heavens scream:
“I mustn’t stop, I must see, in this universe of you
And me, this shall hold, this I keep, I must see, I must see!
And where I stand there I live; and where I stand there I die,
And buried in one grave with truth as friend I wish to lie.
And I would pry my eyes wide open, by force if so must be,
Witness more of human nature, and the marching time observe:
Yesterday, today, tomorrow, in a single line aligned.”
~ Ella Czajkowska
MICHAEL ESCOUBAS REVIEWS HOW I WENT INTO THE WOODS BY LENNART LUNDH
How I Went into the Woods: Poems by Lennart Lundh. Kelsay Books, 70 Poems ~ 89 pages.
ISBN #: 978-1-63980-485-6. https://kelsaybooks.com/products/how-i-went-into-the-woods
As if the title of Lennart Lundh’s ekphrastic collection isn’t enough to capture one’s attention, consider the cover image: it is John Bauer’s Princess Tuvstarr Gazing Down into the Dark Waters of the Forest Tarn (1913). Bauer’s painting is “evocative,” “mysterious,” and open to immense “speculation.” Each of these elements provides a creative banquet for Lundh in his latest collection How I Went into the Woods.
Layout and Style
There are no images in the book. Most poems reside on a single page with the artist’s accreditation placed at the bottom of the page. Lundh draws inspiration from diverse sources: I counted thirty paintings, over twenty photographs, and a variety of drawings, posters, film shorts, a statue by Franco Vianello, even fragments of newspaper articles from 1971 editions of the Chicago Tribune. All of these find their way into a collection that offers something new with every turn of the page. Googling the referenced art, lingering with it, then returning to its corresponding poem gave me a satisfying read.
Stylistically, Lundh is a free verse poet. His eye for details and his skill at arranging them into tight narrative flows is superior.
Exhibits
The digital work Summer Day, by Christian Schloe, a study in surreal art, led to this poem by the same name:
Garbed in gentle shades
of beech bark and lilac,
she sits on sturdy privets.
Her cheeks are sun-kissed.
Breezes weave dark hair.
The clouds hold no rain.
A curious bird observes
the platter’s rotation
on the old gramophone.
The sound they hear
is the ancient song
of flowers praising light.
Note how scene and word become a unified whole. Who would think that an old scrap of newspaper could lead to poetry? It does. “More Mysterious,” gives the fragment a human voice:
Being a scrap of newspaper found in a library book.
Will anyone knowing the full story please get in touch.
The poem depicts the impossible-to-determine meaning from the fragment. Indeed, I was left wondering about the fragment’s flesh-and-blood people. Who were they? What became of them? Were they mere fragments, too?
“The Bride,” based on a painting by abstract pioneer Wassily Kandinsky, begins:
She sits alone in her wedding gown.
Through the device of irony, the poem, in successive stanzas of couplet, tercet, and quatrain describes the bride, who now sits alone, unsure of where her husband is, or if or how he will return. Nevertheless,
She sits alone with all the possibilities.
Thinking about Subjects and Titles
Lennart Lundh’s subject range is of special interest to me, as is his choice of title. In preparing this review, I spent hours scratching my head, trying to figure out what is meant by How I Went into the Woods. Authors frequently offer a “title poem” which serves as an umbrella for the whole collection. Nothing here. About his cosmopolitan range of interests: I am thinking that this is a poet’s work that shows a heart for people, for their sufferings, their backstories.
Just as the bride in Wassily Kandinsky’s abstract painting, “sits alone with all the possibilities,” so, I conjure Lennart Lundh exploring, through his poetry, the “woods” that represent the full range of life experiences. These weigh heavy on his heart.
In “Lady in the White Business Suit,” the poet draws from a broadside poster seen in a post office at Long Beach. The poster lays bare attitudes often held by professing Christians:
Listen, Christian: I was homeless,
and you preached to me about the
Spiritual Shelter of the love of God.
The poem is in the voice of the coffee shop owner:
She was a lovely woman, not just in body
but in spirit. One of my favorites, each day
stopping for the Journal and a coffee, black,
please. How’s your day? Thanks. See you tomorrow.
Happy, successful. Well dressed and light perfume.
And then she was wearing the same outfit two,
three days in a week, with shoes looking worn and
a whiff of alcohol instead of Parisian citrus.
Passing on the Journal, spending hours at a time
in a chair in the café, drinking water, staring far,
far outside the window at her old skyline. Finally,
blushing when I brought her coffee, Lost my damned job.
After that, she came by once or twice more. Stayed out
on the sidewalk, caging money and cigarettes. Sleeping
in the park with one eye open through the summer, on
into winter, when they found her asleep forever.
How I Went into the Woods will stand the test of time because it is about life . . . life, with all its possibilities.
~ Michael Escoubas
MICHAEL ESCOUBAS REVIEWS THE SEVEN STREAMS: AN IRISH CYCLE BY DAVID WHYTE
The Seven Streams: An Irish Cycle by David Whyte. Many Rivers Press, 59 poems ~ 167 pages.
ISBN #: 978-1-932887-57-0. davidwhyte.com/collections/books/products/the-seven-streams
In commenting on David Whyte’s The Steven Streams: An Irish Cycle, Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides, writes: “In this collection, David Whyte’s poetry becomes a hand held out as if to say, ‘Life is a path we both can share; let’s take a walk beside the sea.’ Note to the intrepid reader: If you walk with David Whyte, you risk changing your life; you risk becoming more than you might imagine.”
The Seven Streams is portioned out in eight headings: I. Return, II. Griefs, III. Pilgrim, IV. Islands, V. Thresholds, VI. Mother, VII. Mythic, and VIII. John. Each has its own unique emphasis; each contributes to Whyte’s cycle of life.
Among the many poems that spoke to my inner-spirit, “Coleman’s Bed” (III. Pilgrim), swept me into a Stream of Contemplation:
Find that far inward symmetry
to all outward appearances, apprentice
yourself to yourself, begin to welcome back
all you sent away, be a new annunciation,
make yourself a door through which
to be hospitable, even to the stranger in you.
The poem continues with gentle language about giving oneself over to becoming a child again, to listening with attuned attention to rain falling, to birds singing, being conscious of “each falling leaf.” The world, within its natural tendencies, became for me, unspoken prayers:
Above all, be alone with it all,
a hiving off, a corner of silence
amidst the noise, refuse to talk,
even to yourself, and stay in this place
until the current of the story
is strong enough to float you out.
By the end of the poem’s 70 lines, I felt reborn. I felt empowered to: “walk on, broader and cleansed / for having imagined.”
While the poet has assembled an Irish Cycle, I found myself
challenged to apply the collection’s emphasis on streams
and cycles to my personal context.
In RETURN, I am on a plane and catch a vision of “an old man walking on the wet road.” Whyte’s detailed description, “He has a stick, a hat, old shoes, / a gait that says he will walk forever.” The poem “What it means to be Free,” captures freedom, in such simple things. I want to reexamine my priorities in view of Whyte’s Stream of Simplicity.
From GRIEF, Whyte’s Elegy for the late Mícháel Ó Súilleabháin, I found a Stream of Appreciation for a dear friend. In a touching retrospective, the poet sees and hears Michael’s music . . . the music of his life. It visits him in “The Music of the Morning Sun.”
The set of four poems from ISLANDS calls forth, in me, a Stream of Self-Renewal. Where “ you realized—part of you / had already dropped to its knees, / to pray, to sing, to look—to fall in love with everything / and everyone again, . . .” These poems have the “feel” of journey, of hard-fought victory, a return from exile. I emerge knowing where I need to be.
In her book, Open House for Butterflies, Ruth Krauss writes, "Everybody should be quiet near a little stream and listen." This wise saying seems a perfect fit. David Whyte writes about “streams” that flow, meet, and cleanse, baptizing one into the recovery of life.
At the outset, this reviewer cautioned the “intrepid” reader that there are risks involved. Taste and see, perhaps, you too, will pray:
I thank you light, for the subtle way
your merest touch gives shape
to such things I could
only learn to love . . .
~ Michael Escoubas
The Origin of the Planet by Anna Maria Mickiewicz. 64 pages. Kelsay Books, (2024), ISBN-13: 978-1639806515
The Origin of the Planet is a vibrant collection of poems by Polish writer Anna Maria Mickiewicz, recently published in 2024 by Kelsay Books. It consists of 51 masterful poems, with a foreword from Anthony Smith.
Apart from being a poet, Anna Maria Mickiewicz is a London-based narrator, correspondent and editor, who writes in both Polish and English. Carrying the surname of the most prestigious Romantic Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz, it seems that Anna Maria was somehow predestined to write. n particular, she has the following books to her credit: Okruchy z Okrągłego Stołu (Breadcrumbs from the Round Table, 2000), verse collection Proscenium, published by Poetry Space after the Polish edition in 2014, and The Mystery of Time (Flutter Press, 2019). Anna Maria has also published an anthology with Danuta Błaszak, Flying Between Words, devoted to Polish contemporary writers (Florida: 2015).
The author first moved to California, and then to London, where she has been living for very many years. Mickiewicz edits the annual literary magazine Pamiętnik Literacki (“The Literary Memoir”) in London, as well as the American journal Contemporary Writers of Poland, and is a member of both the English and the Polish PEN Clubs.
Among other recognitions, the poet won theMiasto Literatów (The City of Writers) Author of the Year award in 2013. In addition, she has been honored with the Polish Gloria Artis medal for Merit to Culture, and with the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity.
One of the virtues of this collection of poems is its ability to reflect both sides of reality. Thus, the poem that opens and titles the anthology, “The Origin of the Planet,” speaks fundamentally of a dystopian future, which clashes head-on with the genesis of our planet. However, these are not alarmist verses, but rather subtly vindictive and stoic, with a hopeful ending.
In fact, one of the unmistakable traits of good poetry is that there is no room for the author's victimhood. Otherwise, the verses would lack the richness conferred by polysemy and would lose scope and intensity.
This is not the case with Anna Maria Mickiewicz, who in this book quickly transports us to California, one of her places of residence. With the force of nature as a link between her opening poems, the poet now intones a song of hope, about a couple starting a new life.
The journey continues, both in time and space. The next destination is Cornwall, where the roar of the ocean brings reminiscences of the myth of Tristan and Isolde, echoes of the old Portuguese galleons that give the poem a romantic dimension which, surprisingly, combines magnificently with lightness and lipstick.
In the Polish author's poetry, there is room for mythological, literary references (e.g. to her compatriot, the brilliant writer Joseph Conrad, who not surprisingly also wrote in English) and philosophical reflections. Through wit and humour, the poet achieves a wonderful balance between transcendence and quotidianity.
Mickiewicz integrates poems of classical inspiration (Socrates is the great reference point for the poet), with more mundane and contemporary themes, such as the pandemic or the rush that prevails in our society. The Origin of the Planet combines transversality with a taste for detail, philosophy with poetry, the eternal with the mundane. This difficult balance evokes the wake of the poetic saga Pan Cogito by the Polish master Zbigniew Herbert. There is a touch of classicism in both authors that translates into great harmony and cohesion between all their poems. The book in question also shows an incipient taste for visual poetry from Anna Maria Mickiewicz.
In short, these are poems in free verse with a cadence generated from enumerations, parallelisms and anaphoras, direct verses that grow like the rising tide and then gather in an essential idea as the poem closes.
~ Amelia Serraller Calvo
Associate Professor at the Francisco de Vitoria University, Spain
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