Pushcart Prize 2022 Nominations from the California Quarterly vol. 48, No. 1-4

A Question Mark in Flight by Maja Trochimczyk

California State Poetry Society is pleased to announce the following nominations to Pushcart Prize from the California Quarterly, vol. 48, issues no. 1 (edited by Maja Trochimczyk), 2 (guest-edited by Margaret Saine), 3 (edited by Bory Thach) and 4 (guest-edited by Deborah P Kolodji), published by the California State Poetry Society in 2022. Copies of honored poems are posted below.

1. Vol. 48 No. 1. “Waterfall Symphony” by Dana Stamps II

2. Vol. 48 No. 1.  “Light” by Frederick Livingston

3. Vol. 48 No. 2. “The Land I Long For” by Michael Fraley

4. Vol. 48 No. 3. “The Calling” by Ella Czajkowska 

5. Vol. 48 No. 3.  “Tule Elk Preserve in March” by Vivian Underhill

6. Vol. 48. No. 4. “Morning at Moore's Lake, Again” by Kimberly Nunes

Winner of High Honors from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, Pushcart Prize XLVII includes over 60 stories, poems and essays from dozens of small literary presses published in the calendar year 2022. The Pushcart Prize won the NBCC Sandroff Lifetime Achievement award, The Poets & Writers/ Barnes and Noble Writers for Writers citation and was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the seminal publications in American publishing history.

In last year’s Pushcart Prize, editor Bill Henderson noted that the Pushcart Prize, “the small good thing, has evolved into an international prize drawing nominations from small presses around the globe.” As always, the selections are made by a distinguished panel of Guest Editors and hundreds of Contributing Editors. The list of authors selected and encouraged over the decades, is immense. (An index to previous volumes is included in each edition.)

While I do not believe in poetry prizes, as comparing apples to oranges to mountains to seas is a futile operation, our nominations are fantastic, so enjoy reading them

California Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 1, edited by Maja Trochimczyk

Cover Art by Diane Lee Moomey

        WATERFALL SYMPHONY

  

                                           Droplets drum against

             rocks, a blue dragonfly’s 

                                   enchantment dances,

                              lilies perfume the amphitheater sky, 

                                          coconut sun —

                      screen slathered on,

                                   and nude sunbathers splash

               as they surface,

                                 then dive

 

                                        underneath. Echoes  

                   from a chorus of jumpers, 

                                  the jagged cliff’s ledge a stage

                      as summer mist—an ovation 

                                           as happening wetness hits— 

           croons its steamy scores.

 

            Dana Stamps II

  Riverside, California

 

Going Somewhere... by Maja Trochimczyk

LIGHT

Mendocino, California

sunbeam alone

               is a poem

but on this fallen log

              with you

everything is

              tongue tip

fingertip

              heartbeat

who was I?

              sweating brick 

by brick

             in gilded cities

as if 

     to impress 

the heavens

     with my cleverness

as if

     to invent 

anything 

             as alive

as this urgent

             syrup

melting into

             our veins

warming 

             pine-steeped air

Earth was made 

             for breathing

suddenly

     I become

blue

             and cloudless

 

Frederick Livingston

Mendocino, California

California Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 2, edited by Margaret Saine

Cover Art by Michael Kostiuk

 THE LAND I LONG FOR

 

The world I want lies under the waves,

Under many chilling leagues of water,

Beyond the reach of common daylight.

 

Pale stars illuminate its deep blue sky

And trees of giant girth cover the ground

They’ve occupied for countless years.

 

The land I long for is wakened at dawn

By the clear notes of flowing birdsong

From the leafy crowns of the trees.

 

The story was never told to me in school,

I only know it to be true because...

My blood and bones have taught me so.

 

         Somehow I will find a way

              To reach the forest floor

         Through a door I cannot say

              Is made of gravestone or of wood,

         But which is no less real to me

              Than any ordinary day. 

  

Michael Fraley

San Francisco, California

 

California Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 3, Edited by Bory Thach

Cover Art by Ambika Talwar

THE CALLING

  

Take my hand, we shall drink golden starlight

from the brass chalice of curiosity,

adorn our hair with stars' glittering light.

We shall clothe ourselves in silver moonlight

and blush our faces with sunlight’s kiss,

and dance through the dust of time unmeasured,

whirl till we are dizzy with awe

and drunk on the songs of the universe.

 

I have not truly known freedom until

I have shaken off the chains of attachments

to this world, this low-land

—of biological, mechanical, electric—

of static, of moving,

till I felt the seductive

beckoning of the ephemeral,

the limitless melody of cosmos.

 

I measure myself in dawns and twilights,

in inhales and exhales, breathless moments,

in dreams and daydreams and nightmares

as I unravel into blooming.

I am a flower eternal, floating,

drifting soundless in space on the waves

of the darkly enchanting oceans

of nebulae in purples and pinks.

 

And I dare you to not heed my calling,

and I dare you to resist the pulling,

the fire, the resonance in the bones

which leaves the traitorous flesh a-trembling.

And I hail to you: Come! We shall walk down,

down to the center, down to the core,

down to the end of all, down till it’s up,

until it becomes the beginning.

  

                                                                      Ella Czajkowska  

                                                                      Beverly Hills, California

The Spiral by Maja Trochimczyk

TULE ELK PRESERVE IN MARCH

 

Here it is midmorning and the valley is singing to itself.

Listen to the bees

thrumming to the trees in bloom like a hum in the chest

for comfort. The hawk unfolds from the cottonwood

a mosaic of pottery shards and the ravens

croak like stones dropped in water, down the back

of the throat. Feel the earth pulling you close.

 

It is not nostalgia, to cling to the marshy ghosts

of a parched lake, the water snakes who swarmed

through the rattling reeds.

 

The breeze picks up and the hawk returns.

The heat rises and the plains begin to wave.

One shell-white egret sits in the shush

of leaves still translating wind into sound.

 

Someday all this will have silted away, the halo of song

arcing above this small pond, the calf chasing the birds.

The birds translucent below the sun.

Once this was underwater

And is

And will be again.

 

                                                             Vivian Underhill                                                                                                                                            Allston, Massachusetts

Gold Waves by Maja Trochimczyk

California Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 4, edited by Deborah P Kolodji

In Production - Artwork not selected yet

MORNING AT MOORE’S LAKE, AGAIN

 

By eight a.m., the mist, like ghosts exiting, bustles and fades

in every direction, spheres barely there,

until they aren’t.

            Quickly, slowly, the sun casts in.

 

The lake turns dark mirror, speckled with night dust

and featherings—the occasional dragonfly

stringing along morning’s heat. Reflections of trees—

and clumps of trees, borders

            onto other realms, all the same as this one.

 

Sudden sounds—a cormorant propels

the surface like an engine. At the floating dock, hops

to join another, then settles, observes the air, the sky,

            all the nothingness of the world before them.

 

Black from beak to tail, to webbed toe, yellowish dob

on the other one’s head, he has not moved, but to nibble a wing.

The wet one holds her wings aloft, waggles tight,

steady beats in eastern sun, diaphanous, melting to brown,

            she continues, thus—I know so little—

 

have gendered them to my own pleasure.

With pen and notebook, sun hat, and poncho

over my pajamas, shoes

            I slide on and off in cool sand.

 

The birds contemplate—an avian thought matrix, untouched.

            One steps a quarter turn, intent, drying her body.

So much patience here. And time.

 

And yet—I can see the watermark on the shore reeds, the lake

            is lower than last year, that much dangerously

lower. There’s a flash of red

 

on one cormorant’s bill, somewhere, the same bullfrog sounds

at a depth that matters, somewhere out of sight.

Kimberly Nunes

Ross, CA

Autumn Lakeshore by Maja Trochimczyk

 

 

 

 

CSPS Poetry Letter No. 2, 2022, Winners of Monthly Contest, January-April 2022 and Frederick Livingston

Andrena Zawinski, Love Bench, Half Moon Bay 

In the Poetry Letter No. 2 of 2022, the California State Poetry Society is pleased to publish the prize-winning poems from Monthly Poetry Contests held so far in 2022 – from January to April.  Congratulations to the poets and many thanks to Alice Pero, our Monthly Contests Judge. Our Featured Poet this time is Frederick Livingston and our guest artist is poet and photographer Andrena Zawinski.  In the email version later to be posted on our website, we also present three book reviews and a reminder about our Annual Contest with poems due by June 30, 2022. The reviews will be posted on the blog next wee. Meanwhile, enjoy the wonderful poems by inspired poets! 

FEATURED ARTIST - ANDRENA ZAWINSKI

Andrena Zawinski is a poet, fiction writer, and shutterbug whose photos have appeared as covers and on the pages of many print and online literary publications including Copper Nickel, San Francisco Peace & Hope, Caesura, Levure Litteraire, and others.

 WINNERS OF CSPS MONTHLY POETRY CONTESTS IN JANUARY-APRIL, 2022

■ January 2022 - Theme: Nature, Seasons, Landscape. First Prize: □ Pamela Stone Singer,  "Forest Air" □ Second Prize: Jane Stuart, “On the North Side” 

■ February 2022 - Theme: Love. □ First: Jerry Smith “Lovers" Second: Jane Stuart, “Crossing the Moon”

■ March 2022 - Theme: Open, Free Subject. □ First Prize: Jeff Graham, "(A Certain Day’s Every)"

■ April 2022 - Mythology, Dreams, Other Universes. □ First Prize: Debra Darby "Awaken"

Andrena Zawinski, The Nesting Tree

JANUARY 2022 – FIRST PRIZE

FOREST AIR

 

You cannot see 

but know yourself as light.

Wings hoist you to the top of a tree.

You see meadows’ waves 

and luminous wildflowers.

Touch tongues of birds.

Swallow night air.

Cleanse your lungs.

Let forests’ darkness wrap your body.

Open your mouth to stars.             

Geese fly into autumn.

Their flight brings lavender sky

and iridescent feathers.

Soon branches will bend with winter.

Pine and wind-scented air     

remind the forest is near.

Pamela Stone Singer, Occidental, California

JANUARY 2022 – SECOND PRIZE

ON THE NORTH SIDE

 

Walking through darkness

-another sleepless night—

my foot hits a star

But the wind blows shadows

across time…

and in the distance,

the moon sighs

and earth,

a painting,

comes to life—

shells in a bowl

flowers,

still-life fruit

made of wax

The sky quivers.

I reach for

my bow and arrow—

nothing is there,

just the owl

and moss that grows

on the side of trees

Jane Stuart, Flatwoods, Kentucky

 Andrena Zawinski, Coastal Summer

FEBRUARY 2022 - FIRST PRIZE

LOVERS

 

She hikes to the waterfall twice a year

once when new-greens leaf the alders

and again as redbuds flame amber-pink

 

                                                                                       At dusk she lights a candle in the rock

                                                                                                  for wind from the falls to flicker

                                                                                                        She splits dark pools, gliding

 

Somehow together again, they

float the lips of the cataract

tumble down torrents

 

                                                                                  Her breasts engorge at the flood of him      

                                                                                                                      She suspends breath

                                                                                                                            shallow murmurs

 

Lying on black basalt beneath stare of stars

she rubs her skin with sage and slumbers

in the sand to rhythms of the roar

 

                                                                                           At dawn she drops the dying candle

                                                                                             into the dark, murky depths of that

            River-of-Might-Have-Been

                                                                                   Jerry Smith, San Luis Obispo, California

FEBRUARY 2022 - SECOND PRIZE

CROSSING THE MOON

We met on a ship crossing the moon,

a cruise of moments

made of steel and glass

through deep blue seas

and mountains hard as sand

that has been packed

by hands in icy gloves—

Oh love is wild!

and this was our romance,

a foxtrot played and danced to

by the stars.

We moved above earth

in chiffon veils

and vests of champagne corks—

    Our glitter crowns

    shined in the shadows

    of a thousand tears

    because this was pretend

    and love moved on,

    leaving us a world of indigo

    and fading light.

    We don’t know why

    but the ship docked at dawn

    and we became fireflies

    in sudden flight

    on tomorrow’s wings

    that bloomed tonight.

                            Jane Stuart, Flatwoods, Kentucky

Andrena Zawinski - Sands

MARCH 2022 - FIRST PRIZE

(A CERTAIN DAY'S EVERY)

                                                                                                                                             

 

Neither late May rain, nor memory of,                   

nor memory of such scent,

but scent’s cataloging of recollections.           

Rain as timely as late May.   

Late May as sudden as rain at such a time.

*            

Everything has led me yet ill-prepared me for this:                    

the sound of water taking in itself,

hybridized with the sound of the taking in of itself

          of water,

which lands into a backlash of rising,                    

to mix in with its mixed within.   

*

Rain round and about rain,                                         

falling as fallen-upon mid-fall.                               

Drops just amply to hear,                            

scantly such so that impacts dry                    

before spaces between connect.

Not too much, yet just enough                          

to linger with and within                                      

without the want for more,

for more than enough.                                                 

*

Light rain landing on light rain landing.                       

Rain between rain’s between,                                    

forming course mid-fall, fall-formed,                  

following through its follow-through                                        

          on-to-wards                                                                                        

leaf to leaf to loam to the ever silent                             

symphony of the seed, the sweetest

brutalities of the seed’s destitchery.                               

*

Rain and the scent of rain and the taste of rain                              

slides round and down partly parted lips

to fall to, land amid, and settle with(in)                                                                                   

what buried’s soil of making and taking,                                                                   

tilling the grave’s cradle of what was –

          existing as is,

          becoming what come.           

*

Of the hundred things I wanted to say,                                   

nothing came out of my mouth.                                                             

After that came after that, and after that                               

came the day cradled in soft though ceaseless                                 

          rain. 

When the conceptual of what was unutterable 

became such silence said, 

the cosmos collapsed and reconfigured 

into the gloss of a miscellany of intentions.  

Jeff Graham, Walnut Creek, California

Andrena Zawinski, Monterey Morning at Del Monte Beach

APRIL 2022 - FIRST PRIZE

AWAKEN

Find the strings

Ride the gleaming scales of the fish

blazing melon, gold, scarlet

nocturnal sapphire

before vanishing into the ocean at dawn.

Mooring the dreamless

dream remembering in tow

listen to the tides of morning.

The fishtail reveals its secret.

Awake to awaken

In waves of shimmering water,

The mystical call of the whale 

beckons.

Awaken

Find the strings.

Debra Darby, New Hope, Minnesota 

Maja Trochimczyk, Sunset Beach

FEATURED POET - FREDERICK LIVINGSTON

CSPS is pleased to present the Featured Poet for Poetry Letter No. 2 of 2022. Frederick Livingston lives in Mendocino, California and often writes about the natural world that surrounds us. The following poems have been previously published in other journals: “Gnat Creek” – Garfield Lake Review, Spring 2020; “Pear Blossom” – Bacopa Literary Review, October 2021 and "Changing Names" - Writers Resist, March 2022.

PRESENT

three blue jays

take flight from limbs

of red alder

just as my eyes

alight on them

let me never say

I made up a poem

but if I listen

I might catch a few

and write them down

before they elope

with the boundless sky

Maja Trochimczyk, Boundless Sky

CHANGING NAMES / NAMING CHANGE

after how many years

does “drought” erode

into expected weather?

and then what name

when the rains do come

startling the hard earth

the exhausted aquifers?

we’ll sing to the deep wells

the quieted fire and clean sky

“winter” brittle in our mouths

holding vigil for rivers elders

insects lovers lost forever

when will grieving season begin?

what one word could walk

between delight of sun

hungry skin and unease 

in receiving unseasonable gifts?

what of the breath we held 

together as cold certainty melted

whispering “who burns this turn?”

when the broken record

record breaking 

dips into new palettes 

for our purple summers

cycles tighten

into teeth clenched

against unwavering anxiety.

in which season do we open

our jaws lungs ears hearts

speak our fears

how it feels to be alive 

on Earth still 

blooming and unraveling

naming petals 

as the wind claims them?

Maja Trochimczyk, Tree Spring in White

PEAR BLOSSOM

this tree could be dead

or dreaming

dark gnarled bark

ringed in rows

of holes where

long-flown birds

searched for worms

in depths of winter...

until sudden flush

of blooms consume

lichen-crusted branches

with white five-petal

promises of summer

swollen eat-me sweets

well before

glee-green leaves

greet sun

spun into sugar

proving dreams

precede the means

where is fear

of late-season frost

shattering this frail unfurling?

where are the rations

siloed inside against

lingering winter?

here instead is

chirping of birds returning

laughter-yellow daffodils erupting

at the tree’s feet

and a question

whispered low on cold breeze:

what would the world look like

if all of us had such courage

to offer our most tender selves

not only when spring is certain

but when we can no longer bear

our hunger for a more fruitful Earth?

Maja Trochimczyk, Sun Stream

GNAT CREEK

This is no

imperceptible wind showing its course

in shifting smoke rising

from our fire

No this is

plunge into river bringing mountains

down to show us

what cold is

This is no

opalescent dew collecting on

artist conk underbellies

No this is

fistfuls of bright huckleberries

ornamenting the understory

This is no 

subtle poem

No this is 

waking up in your arms

Maja Trochimczyk, Mountain Lake