CSPS Newsbriefs Vol. 46, No. 4 by Maja Trochimczyk (Winter 2020)

NEWSBRIEFS 2020, No. 4 (Winter 2020)

The end of an era. That’s how we can describe this year 2020, that instead of the perfect 2020 vision gave us crisis, turmoil and plenty of departures. 

After the resignation of Pearl Karrer and Nancy Cavers Dougherty from the California Quarterly’s Editorial Board in the spring, we now face the departures of Terry Ehret from her role as Editor (she will stay on as a Board Director) and Margaret Saine from her role as Secretary and Editor. 

Distinguished poets and dedicated CSPS Board Members, Terry and Margaret have spent years serving the Society with their insights, expertise, and tireless efforts. 

They perfected the CQ, safeguarding the quality of poems and the publication itself, selecting crème de la crème from submissions and exceptional cover art by an international array of artists. Poets and volunteers of this caliber cannot be easily replaced and both Terry and Margaret will be sorely missed.

Meanwhile, Ambika Talwar has graciously agreed to become the Acting Secretary and we now have a new Editor, Bory Thach, whose first issue will be CQ 47:1. We are searching for more talented and hard-working poets to join our Editorial Board.  

The 2020 nominations from the CQ for The Pushcart Prize XLVI, were collected and submitted by Maura Harvey: 

• “The Moon is an Egret” by Michael Montgomery, CQ 46:1, p. 26; 
• “Not Mine to Shape” by David Anderson, CQ 46:1, p.14
• “Ice Walking” by Jeeni Criscenzo, CQ 46:2, p. 39
• “Like a Rush of Blackbirds” by Pearl Karrer, CQ 46:2, p.37
• “America” by Dane Cervine, CQ 46:3, p. 18-19
• “Sunlight Smiling – Three Sedoka” by Margaret Saine, CQ 46:4

Kaecey McCormick, Poet Laureate of the City of Cupertino, CA, selected the 2020 Annual Contest Winners: 

• 1st Prize — “Respite” by Anara Guard of Sacramento, CA; 
• 2nd Prize — “Low Sun Angle” by Susan E. Gunter of Santa Rosa, CA; 
• 3rd Prize — “Boundaries” by Barbara Allen of Palo Alto, CA. 

The award- winning poets receive small cash prizes, and their poems are published in this issue of the California Quarterly vol. 46 no. 4 (pp. 58-60).

The CSPS Monthly Contest Judge, Alice Pero selected winners for August (Joan Gerstein’s “Self-Portrait as Clark Gable One Liner”) and for September (“Empty Chairs” by Louise Moises). These poems will appear on our blog, along with the winners for June (Joyce Futa’s “Kumquat Marmalade”) and July (Jackie Chou’s “Cerulean”). 

The former CSPS Vice-President for Communications, CQ Editor, and hard-working Chair of Monthly Poetry Contests, Keith Van Vliet died at the age of 93 on the 29th of July, 2019. A retired builder/developer and an active Rotarian, Van Vliet published two poetry books, Amber Eyeshades (2004), and Painted Edges (2008), a collection of poems and photographs, Perception’s Journey: A Visual Adventure (2006), research studies in Art Psychotherapy, and many poems in the CQ and various anthologies. 

Among other achievements, he established the San Gabriel Valley Poets that met continually since 1983, published chapbooks and gave many poetry readings. In an online tribute, SG Valley Poets wrote: “Loved and appreciated by friends and family Eldon Keith Van Vliet will long be remembered as a builder of buildings and of dreams, a writer of legendary works and an ever-constant student of the mysteries of life and the wonderment of exploration both scientifically and poetically.” 

As Margaret Saine recalls, “Keith Van Vliet was always gracious and conscientious. He was one of the early editors of the CQ. Although he was very modest and preferred to work in the background, he was quite active and highly esteemed by Julian Palley, John Harrell, and Russell Salamon. For the last six years, he received the submissions to the CSPS Monthly Contest, mailing the winners' poems to me each month, for inclusion in the former Poetry Letter.” In this issue of the CQ, we reprint Keith van Vliet’s Initial Tack from coloradoboulevard.net/mapping-the-artist-keith-van-vliet.

Since we present our Annual Contest Winners in this issue of the CQ, I cut the Newsbriefs to two pages, allowing for the inclusion of more poems. After all, our focus is poetry. Enjoy! May the New Year 2021 be peaceful, creative, and inspiring! 

Maja Trochimczyk

CSPS President

P.S. 

Note that the newsletter from the National Federation of State Poetry Societies is available online on the NFSPS website, in PDF format: http://www.nfsps.com/Strophes2021-Jan.pdf

P.S.S.

And all's well that ends well - our troublesome year has ended with a monumental astronomical event that is certain to bring peace and prosperity to all in the future. The great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21, 2020, the Winter Solstice, marked the end of The Age of Pisces and the commencement of the Age of Aquarius. In another calendar, it was also the end of the Kali Yuga and the beginning of the Golden Age.  Or so they say... While it may not be true, it is quite useful to shift your perspective to one of Love and Light... So let's look to the future with confidence and focus on creativity and poetic connections... http://poetrylaurels.blogspot.com/2020/12/christmas-and-new-year-after-winter.html

The CSPS Editors and Board wish our readers 

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays 

and the Best New Year Ever! 

Constant Return by Julian Stanczak, painting on the cover of CQ 46:4

Courtesy of the Stanczak Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio

julianstanczak.com

President's Newsbriefs from California Quarterly 46:3, Fall 2020

NEWSBRIEFS 2020, No. 3 (Fall 2020)

Some say: we live in the times of Armageddon. The Last Battle has begun. Some say: it is a Great Awakening and the New Earth will be born from these pangs of pain after enough people dissolve dense, stagnant pools of ancestral trauma. Some say: we are the ones we have been waiting for. Some say: ACAB. Some say: WW1WGA. Some say: transhumanism. AI technology conquers the Universe. Some say: Shirin-Yoku, Forest Healing… Humans thrive close to the Earth. How do you find your path to truth through this thicket of words? A fortune cookie told me: “Follow your heart. It will never be wrong.” Again: “Let your boundless heart explore.”

So, I do. This summer, I discovered that I could wade in “my” stream. I share it with the whole community, of course. Someone built low rocky dams across the flow, and the water, surprisingly abundant in July, creates small pools, knee-deep at best, with sand, or gravel, or rocks on the bottom. Green algae and moss are gone, either torn away by rushing stream, or cleared by those anonymous magicians that made this summer gifts for all of us. There is a family with kids splashing and playing with a colorful plastic ball. Cheerful music becomes barely a whisper as I walk to the next mini pool: this one is deeper, with more soft sand on the bottom. Here, a pudgy boy is learning to swim, so I wade downstream along a narrow “trickle” in my old shoes, protecting my skin from cuts. I learned this trick from an ancient Tibetan folktale about a wise princess, who thought that shoes could be thrown out, but wounded feet were hard to mend. 

After braving some narrow straits and thicker bushes, I come across the third rocky dam that blocks enough water for a pleasant respite from the summer heat. I see small fish darting this way and that; shifting patterns of sunlight ripples intersect on the sand. Mountain sunflowers, called “black-eyed Susans,” lean over, greeted by mirror images on the gleaming surface of water. Perfection of a moment. 

These wild pools will disappear when the stream dries out. It was dry for so long, I stopped going there. Now, it is alive with visitors – five horse-riders go by and three dog walkers. Their happy pets greet me in the stream, splashing in shallow current, with tails wagging. The “owners” of this place are here, too – a rabbit with a white spot of a tail hops away from the trail. A duck family floats by; the watchful mom guards her brood of five, half her size, voraciously devouring green plants on the edge of the stream. 

Thus, I found my antidote to the pandemic of fear and hate in a mountain stream in the Los Angeles National Forest, on the outskirts of L.A. You could find it in the waves of the Pacific, refreshing like champagne, covering you with sea foam and scratching your toes with small rocks rolling up and down, with each wave closer to becoming sand. In time, these rocks will become sand. In time, the year 2020 will be remembered by something other than the virus, peaceful protests, riots, and… murder hornets. This year, we celebrate the 500th anniversary of the death of Italian painter Raphael, the 250th anniversaries of the birth of poet William Wordsworth and composer Ludwig van Beethoven. British-French poet Hilaire Belloc and Italian physician and teacher Maria Montessori were both born 150 years ago. Jazz legends Dave Brubeck and Charlie Parker, sitar-virtuoso Ravi Shankar and vagabond poet Charles Bukowski all celebrate their centennials this year. 

John Keats, Photogravure after J. Severn, Wellcome Library, London

The last volume of poems by John Keats appeared 200 years ago. He was only 25 years old when he died in 1821, leaving masterpieces unfinished. I started writing poetry after I turned 35, in Canada, to perfect my grasp of English (Polish is my native tongue) and bury my émigré sorrows in a deluge of words. These poems are destined to remain unpublished. I started publicly presenting my work when I decided I was no longer a victim…. Embracing victimhood is among the most toxic and deadly vices, widespread among displaced persons and émigrés.

Bory Thach

I am pleased to welcome to our Editorial Board another émigré who refuses to be a victim. Bory Thach was born in a refugee camp located on the border between Thailand and Cambodia. His family immigrated to the United States when he was four years old. He served in the U.S. Army and deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He has an MFA from California State University San Bernardino. Fiction and creative nonfiction fall under the art of storytelling, while poetry for him is more of a study of language, an art form in itself. His work appeared or is forthcoming in: Pacific Review, Urban Ivy, Arteidolia, Sand Canyon Review and We Are Here: Village Poets Anthology. His recently completed book of poetry dialogues with Cindy Rinne, Letters under Rock (2019), has been presented as a quasi-theatrical performance in art galleries and museums in Southern California. Thach joined the Editorial Board in July 2020 and will start his duties from the CQ vol. 47, no. 1.

Our Monthly Contest Judge, Alice Pero, selected the winners of two CSPS Monthly Poetry Contests: Joyce Futa’s “Kumquat Marmalade” was selected as the best poem in the month of June and Jackie Chou’s “Cerulean” was honored in July. The winners receive a small cash prize and their poems, both published in We Are Here: Village Poets Anthology (edited by yours truly and Marlene Hitt). They are also posted on our blog: CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety.com.

California Quarterly 46:2 (Summer 2020) edited by Maura Harvey received lots of praise. “Congratulations on the selection of poems for the new CQ volume. I’m enjoying the wide variety. Some are lyrical and lovely, others are thought-provoking, revealing (eg. “Hoarder’s Excuse”) or inspirational and a few I found simply puzzling. I like your poem “Message Threads” very much. The imagery is so clear, Cassandra is a strong name, and you take us brilliantly from the everyday, neighborhood sounds she listens to as she embroiders to that powerful ending when she sews in her warning, listening to the sounds of the dying universe. Stunning final lines. I also admire your well-crafted introductory Editor’s Note, as I admire your talent and skills with poetry.” (Mary Willix). “I enjoyed the poems and the playfulness of many.  The one about Hoarding Books. Pearl Karrer's poems are delightful! The sense of movement runs through both - from the granddaughter's ballet to the image of the blackbirds. Congratulations on the issue.” (Nancy Cavers Dougherty).  “Thank you so much for putting together this new collection of poetry. I love it and the cover is beautiful! I especially enjoyed your poem—’Embroidery sharpens her hearing.’” (Mai-Lon Gittelsohn). 

 “It is not often that the world shares a simultaneous cataclysm.  This is not, of course, the comet that killed the dinosaurs.  But it seems close. Even when momentous events are happening, there is usually a variety of things going on to attract the attention of poets.  This year the poetry that is being written for this volume, though perhaps not intended as such, provides a marvelous snapshot of different voices caught in the same moment of shock, but each reacting in a unique way.  Some poets, like Joe Milosch, are drawn to a timeless scene, the wait of a ship for a voyage that might not come.  Elizabeth Yahn Williams focuses on recent travel, interrupted when the world was called to a halt, writing about the last few days before we were pulled up short.  Tomas Gayton comes to terms with the frustrations of epidemiology. Deborah P Kolodji beautifully high-lights social strains with just a single flower. And then there is Deborah again, reminding us that behind it all, we are all still children blowing bubbles.” (Robert Thomas Lundy).

CSPS Member News. Maura Harvey’s poem ‘Waiting” was chosen as part of a display of ekphrastic poems by the Creative Happiness Institute and Florida State Poets Association. It will be displayed alongside the artwork which inspired it in an exhibit at the DeLand Museum of Art. Ambika Talwar published a sestina titled “The Silver River Canticle” in the August 2020 issue of Quill & Parchment. She gave a presentation titled Memory: Longing & Nostalgia to the Gaia Storytelling & Media Hub on Aug.12, 2020. Ambika participated in the Silent River Film Festival by composing four poems based on four different films. She also published a sestina titled "Svarna: Envoy to the New World" in Narrow Road Journal. 

Maja Trochimczyk with Cile Borman and "We Are Here" Anthology

In August 2020, I finished editing We Are Here: Village Poets Anthology (with Marlene Hitt), published to celebrate the 10th anniversary of monthly readings. Many CSPS poets appear in this volume, to mention only Margaret Saine, Ambika Talwar, Pamela Shea, Konrad Wilk and Kath Abela Wilson. I had two poems published in Polish on Pisarze.pl portal, selected to represent Polish-American émigré voices by Anna Maria Mickiewicz and Dorota Blaszak. My poem “Crystal Light of Crystal Mornings” is included in When the Virus Came Calling: COVID19 Strikes America anthology edited by Thelma T. Reyna. “A Breakup Story” appears in Spectrum No. 24 edited by Don Kingfisher Campbell. 

Thus, we all find our own ways of being of service to others, of service to the poetry world, and to the world at large that does not yet know the value of poetry in times of trouble.

By Maja Trochimczyk Ph.D.

CSPS President

NOTE: Photos of Big Tujunga stream and mountain sunflowers by Maja Trochimczyk

California Quarterly 46:3, Fall 2020, Edited by Terry Ehret

                                     

The fall 2020 issue of the California Quarterly was edited by Terry Ehret and published in September 2020. The cover is graced by a beautiful artwork sent in from Prague, Czech Republic: Mléčná dráha/Milky Way by Andrea Smišková Ehret. The previous issue of the CQ was edited by Maura Harvey and the next one will be edited by Maja Trochimczyk.

Editor’s Note

In these difficult and uncertain times, poetry can be healing and comforting. It can also encourage us to acknowledge our fears and isolation. This issue of California Quarterly has many poems that do just that, from capturing the everyday anxiety of shopping in Shawna Swetech’s “A Trip to Costco,” the disorientation of mandatory face coverings in James Piatts’s “Those Odd Masks,” and our conversations with the dead in Cathy Porter’s “To a Halt.” 

These last few months have also challenged us to re-examine racism and our nation’s violent history. Eliot Schain’s “Young Americans,” Andrew Miller’s “Letter in a Mine Field,” and Dane Cervine’s “America” turn spotlights on the questions of who we are and who we imagine we can be.  

There are poems of personal, excruciating loss, poems of tender intimacy, and poems about the generosity of the natural world. And, of course, there are poems about language itself, such as Gursahiba Gill’s “Panacea,” blending childhood memories with lessons in penmanship; and Ruth Holzer’s “Greek Glamour,” relishing a language in which “cold marble rhymes with rose.”  

I’ve also featured “The Circled Years,” by CQ Editor Nancy Cavers Dougherty, who stepped down this spring. For her years of dedicated service to the California State Poetry Society and her brilliant touch in shaping many issues of the California Quarterly, we thank her deeply.

The voices in this issue come to us from across the U.S. and around the world: Nigeria, Denmark, India, the UK, and Brazil. Among them you’ll discover intimations of hope that help us see our way through this time with faith in the human capacity to change. 

The cover art is Mléčná dráha/Milky Way, by Slovakian artist and art therapist Andrea Smišková Ehret, who lives and works in Prague. 

Terry Ehret, Editor

Petaluma, California 

Mléčná dráha/Milky Way   by Andrea Smišková Ehret, Prague, Czech Republic

Table of Contents

California Quarterly, Volume 46, Number 3

As Long as You - Sandra Kolankiewicz  7

Chaparral Diane Lee Moomey  8

Crossing Over Carla Schick  8

Truth — Camille Kantor  9

Insatiably Satiated — Sean MicKael Wilson  9

Icarus, My Child  — Basha Hirschfeld  10

After Waking — Leslie Hendrickson-Baral  11                                                             

words said at a crossroads —  Mayowa Oyewale  12

Co-Existence — Carla Schick  12

A Trip to Costco — Shawna L. Swetech  13

Kintsugi — D.K. Borowitz   14

The Turning — Ken Autrey 15

Letter in a Mine Field — Andrew Miller 16

Exile — Claire Drucker 17

America — Dane Cervine  18

On the Anniversary of the LA Riots — Philip Asaph  19

Young Americans — Eliot Schain 20

Oh, Sloping Land — Carol Griffin 21

I Had Chosen — Amy Moore  22

Samson — Iain Twiddy 23

Panacea — Gursahiba Gill  24

Negotiations with a Gorgon — Dovilè Meliauskaitè  25

I Invited a Rock, When I Should … — Abigail Selby 26

Summer Trip to Death Valley — Jianqing Zheng 27

Just Cold — Selina Whiteley 28

Is About — Jenny Kempf 29

When Matryoshka Dolls Take … — Rikki Santer 30

Mother Says I Have to Suffer … — Joan Gerstein 31

Those Odd Masks — James Piatt 32

Lyngby Sø  — Michael Pearce 33

Big River  — Joseph Murphy            34

A Kings River Scene at Laton — Bill Simmons 35

New Home — Raphael Block 35

River Road — Penel Alden 36

The Pink — Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue 37

If I were a poet, I would have known — Mariana Kovalic Silva 38

Meditation — Thomas Dorsett 39

the sound  —  Renée Owen 39

Schenectady — John Hazard 40

A Bird Sings — Susan Coronel 41

Cypress  — William Snyder Jr. 42

Ben Brown Answers the Fatalists  —  Michael Spence 43

Playing from Memory   — Frederick Wilbur 44

νησί των γατών (Isle of Cats)  —  Mark Osaki 45

pulse of cricket song —  Renée Owen 45

Greek Glamour — Ruth Holzer 46

Analog — Raynald Nayler 47

Dear Grandfathers — Matthew Williams  48

I Can See It in My Daughters’ Eyes — Livingston Rossmoor  49

Pharaoh’s Boat — Jane Stuart  50

Garden — Warren Slesinger 51

The Tomato Cage — John P. Kristofco 52

After Eons — Amy Trussell 53

To a Halt  — Cathy Porter  54

Thoughts from a Moving Train  — Marilyn Robertson 55

Days of Consequence   — Jean Esteve 56

The Circled Years — Nancy C. Dougherty 57

Permission — Sandra Anfang  58

Contributors in Alphabetical Order  59

CSPS Contest Opportunities 60

Newsbriefs 2020, No. 3 61

Publishing Opportunities with CSPS 65

2020 CSPS Donors and Patrons 66

CSPS Membership and Patron Information 67

CSPS Membership Form  68

The Editor - Terry Ehret

Terry Ehret is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Night Sky Journey. Her poems and poetry books have won a number of literary awards over the past several decades, including the National Poetry Series and the California Commonwealth Club Book Award, and four Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. With a BA from Stanford and an MA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State, she has taught college and private seminars on poetry and writing for many years and presently offers workshops at the Sitting Room, a community library in Penngrove, California. Terry is one of the founders of the Sixteen Rivers poetry publishing collective in the San Francisco Bay Area; from 2004-2006 she served as Poet Laureate of Sonoma County, where she teaches writing. In the summers she leads writing-travel programs in Ireland, Wales, and Tuscany. In 2018, she received an NEA translation fellowship and is working on a project with John Johnson and Nancy Morales to translate the collected poems of Mexican writer Ulalume Gonzalez de Leon. The first volume of Plagios/Plagiarisms was released this year, with volumes 3 and 4 due out in 2022 and 2024.