Poetry Letter No. 3 of 2024 - Autumn, Part I, with Monthly Contests Winners Jan-July 2024

Sen (A Dream) by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas

This issue of the Poetry Letter presents prize-winning poems from seven Monthly Contests of 2024, selected by the Monthly Contest Judge, Alice Pero. These poems fill the majority of its pages, complemented with two book reviews by Michael Escoubas including extensive poetry quotations which make the reviews even more enjoyable. I interspersed poetry with illustrations taken from artwork by Polish painter Maria Wollenberg-Kluza (b. 1945) whose paintings feature many literary inspirations and, in turn, have inspired many Polish poets and writers.  I attended her exhibit at the Warsaw Library Gallery in September 2024 and found these paintings to be both inspired and inspiring, so I decided to share this souvenir from my travels with the CSPS poets and poetry lovers. 

The Poetry Letter's book reviews and poems from my book The Rainy Bread in English and Polish will be published in the next part of the blog.

~ Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President

Camino by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas (2013)

Monthly Contest Winners of 2024 

Alice Pero, the CSPS Monthly Contest Judge selected the following poems from submissions received each month. The first prize is a minimum of $10. Congratulations to all the winners!

January (Nature, Landscapes):  

♦ 1st Prize: 1st Prize Colorado Smith, “SkyFire” 

♦ ♦ 2nd Prize: Kathryn Schmeiser “Last One Standing” 

♦ ♦ ♦ 3rd Prize: Paula Appling,  “Cognitive Dissonance" 

February (love): 

♦ 1st Prize: Richard T. Ringley, "The Parts of You I Cannot Name" 

♦ ♦ 2nd Prize: Jeff Graham,   "Nocturne 31" 

March (Open, Free Subject): 

♦   1st Prize: Sean McGrath, "hunger for eternity"

April (Dreams, Mythology, Other Universes):   

♦ 1st Prize:  Lillian Liu, "Sphinx Riddle" 

♦ ♦ 2nd Prize: David Anderson, "The Next Eucatastrophe" 

♦ ♦ ♦ 3rd Prize: Thomas Feeny, "Icarus"   

May (Personification, Characters, Portraits):  

♦   1st Prize: Thomas Feeny, "The Bolder Brother" 

♦ ♦ 2nd Prize:  Paula Appling, "Still Life"

June (The Supernatural):  

♦ 1st Prize: Jane Stuart, “Into the Light” 

July (Childhood, Memoirs): 

♦ 1st Prize: Carla Schick, "On the way to the library" 

♦ ♦  2nd Prize: Susan Florence, "Where Bach Takes Me" 

Ad Infinitum, by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas, 2018

SKYFIRE                               
            

 

Hard by the willows

    over granite sand

     slants a gray rain.

 

Black cumuli part;

    sunburst ricochet off a lower cloud

        onto the gray underbelly of the upper.

             I drop to my knees in the sagebrush:

 

that cloud          

                     in the darkness

                                                   shimmers—  

 

 a thousand

                       tiny rainbows

                                                  pearlesce

 

twenty minutes

                              till thunderheads merge

 

Hat in hand

      I give my face

                 to the rain.

  

Colorado Smith, First Prize in January

              

             LAST ONE STANDING

 

Grass shoots slumber

among weed stalks,

their dried seed

heads bowed

 

But one miracle

Grows

Blooms

Stands tall

 

A daisy, her

white ray florets

embracing

a smiling sun-yellow

disk balanced

atop a slender stem,

 

refuses

to abandon

life

 

Marguerite ~

She loves me

 

Did no one tell 

her

it is

winter?

 

Kathryn Schmeiser, Second Prize in January

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

       The Grand Canyon

 

Described as a

"big hole,"

the overlook understated

the unimaginable emptiness that confronted me.

I stumbled backwards.

 

Found myself seated,

crying; its borders, its walls,

so illimitable,

my mind could only conjure wallpaper.

 

Irony twisted my gut.

Two dimensions

could never capture

this enormous void or contain

these otherworldly reds and oranges,

this harsh glare.

 

Paula Appling, Third Prize in January

Zagubieni (The Lost Ones) by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, 2018

THE PARTS OF YOU I CANNOT NAME

  

I love the parts of you I cannot name.                           

I seek to find the means; and yet poor words,

I ask too much of you; for I have seen

the unseen light in you that brightens cold

and often haunted nights.  I have no name

for this; it’s you I know, the non de plume

of soft and certain moments that will quell

an uncertain heart; it only beats for you.

 

Be my sunlit heart; shine from grace within.

How dark is life when I am not with you.

How cold, how empty; the light drains from me

as if I were a ghost lost in a ghost’s

unwanted dream; a demon dwells within

a place in Hell for those who love you not.

 

Give me your heart, I’ll add my soul to yours

and thank the gods again for nameless joy.

We’ll grace the world in children named from cats.

We’ll grace the world – unnamed and yet so known.

 

Richard T. Ringley, First Prize in February

NOCTURNE 31                             

 

Patch of red mums  

(which have always been                             

 

your favorite)                                        

that in this night’s lack of light

 

are still white,        

still feel white to the touch.

 

Of the moon’s slow steps.

Of my body tossed along and across Earth’s curve.             

 

Of the chrysanthemum’s faint murmur.                                 

Of my voice’s tinge of blushing and blushing.          

 

 Jeff Graham, Second Prize in February

Zamki z piasku (Sand Castles) by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas

              HUNGER FOR ETERNITY

  

you ever miss something

even when you are beholding it

right there in your dumbstruck eyes?

 

it had been close during

the goldfleeced autumns in Massachusetts,

the sunsets in Redondo,

the winters from a balcony in Palos Verdes

when snow had just started to top the distant Angeles

 

but never so distilled,

not until this little monster

crash landed on my pumping heart

and looked back at me with my own eyes—

 

then, as before, every moment felt worth holding onto forever

then, like never, each moment felt like it was rushing away

 

so this is how you fall out of love with the ordinary,

I thought,

this is how the hunger for eternity grows

Sean McGrath, First Prize in March

Published in “Untitled Baby Project” (2023)

Cisza krajobrazu (Silence of a Landscape) by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas

 

         SPHINX RIDDLE

 

Beaming chariot for the sun,

his laugh prods the sphinx awake.

My four-legged

watchtower completes the acropolis,

carved out of living rock,

her sprawling limbs squeeze the marble, Thebes implausible.

 

Flare and ichor fall!

highlighted golden. Tumbling

gravity reversing for the sky to yellow,

gelatinous blond sprays across his canvas

Midday.

 

Lemon sun shocks

corn fields bake their leaves,

stalks slowly to the gate.

Day or night?

 

Eye of newt, toe of frog?

Tragic hero, tongue of dog.

City had a spill

wronged sun slinks behind the calamitous clouds

evening, Oedipus,

The answer is man.

 

Civilizations for my three epiphanies.

 

 Lilian Liu, First Prize in April 

Tryptyk II. Pokonani - Niepokonani (Triptych II. Defeated - Undefeated)

by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas

THE NEXT EUCATASTROPHE

                                                                               

Causa latet vis est tomissima [While the cause is hidden,  the force is very well known] – Ovid, Amores IV, 287

                                                                                             Vires acquivirit emodo [It gains strength as it goes] -- Virgil

 

In    a     cross-step,    slow-step     dance      each      galaxy
calls out to choose a partner

and their pas de deux accelerates

 

through stellar winds and waves of space.

The dances turn in upon themselves.

Inside each universe, the stars increase in mass

 

and inward fly, faster and faster: the dances widen

draw    to    themselves    all    outward     

mass,

recidivate, and would obliterate—

 

but    none    can     cease,     each    arises,
renewed from the swallowed energy,

then outward flies — new stars, new universes, new galaxies ——

 

the    pace    continues    in    and     outside    each    dimension
and    gyrates    as    our    stars    rotate:    the     ox     becomes    an    ass,
the Pleiades, new polar stars,

and the southern cross, a moving mast.

 

Eucatastrophe. Coined by  JRR Tolkien, it refers to the sudden turn of events at the end of a story  which results in the protagonist's well-being. From the Greek prefix eu- (good) and catastrophe, traditionally used in classically-inspired literary criticism to refer to the "unraveling" or conclusion of a drama.

David Anderson, Second Prize in April 

              ICARUS

 

I, a mere boy, yet

so much to keep in mind.

The danger of salt spray

upon my wings. The mist's
obscuring treachery. And above all
the soft kiss of the sun.

 

Now, when I recall your warnings,
Father, as we paced the long beach,
I think: Foot I should have spoken.
But who dare talk of fear

to one whose dreams already draw him
far beyond the stars

 

And in the end, can I deny
ecstasy was worth its price?
The rise, the thrill of flight,

my giant bird-shadow cast
over battered rocks below.
The shrinking coastline, earth's
silvery curve. Then, from

the corner of my eye

a glimpse of pink wax

weeping along my wings.

How I watched in wonder

as the tiny plumes fluttered
down, to fall like snow

upon the out-islands.

 

Truly, Father, the sun's breath
felt every bit as sweet as yours
when, lifting me up in

loving arms, you

dare thrust me skyward. 

Thomas P. Feeny, Third Prize in April

Nokturn (A Nocturne) by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas

           THE BOLDER BROTHER

 

You stand in night, the hard

darkness.  Taking it all in.

With barely a shrug for

the vast drape of constellations.

 

Off on the sidelines,

I finger pocket change

and look on in silence.

 

Small eyes watch as

you turn on your heel,

crunch gravel,

kiss off the stars.

 

Thomas P. Feeny, First Prize in May

published in “Night Into Day” (Canada, 1992)

            STILL LIFE

 

Seven red pears

lined up just so,

atop grey-weathered oak board,

four inches wide.

One stands apart.

Pear-orating?

 

Pontificating.

Three attend,

three scoff.

The artist laughs.

 

Paula Appling, Second Prize in May

Postacie z blekitu (Figures from the Azure) by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas, 2015.

            INTO THE LIGHT

 

As bold as winter but restless as spring

perched on a silver cloud that has no lining

he waves his wand—and the moon climbs higher

lighting a dark moaning night that cries

for its release!  The vault of heaven

unlocks to let him pass, taking old stars

with him down the turning path that sizzles

at sunrise when sudden heat

wraps the universe,

cold fire that sends

Uriel on into the light

making his way from cloud to cloud—

the world above a distant world

floating on into the light,

           into the light.

 

Jane Stuart, First Prize in June 2024

Nihil Novi by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas, 2013

ON THE WAY TO THE LIBRARY

 

I did not collect

dust laden pennies.  I went towards reading

rooms   Sealed fate   Lips glued

to sound storms.    Trans-

formations of body between starched

pages.   A NY City block-long    hard

pavement road to song.   Scrappy

pencils.  A brown paper bag

filled with poetry, tinged with blue

hues of bleeding

pens.   I loved    Nights

Hidden beneath blankets with a flashlight

Stalking sentences

Ignoring TV gloom

cast out from the living room. Specks

of ink.

               The first card with my name

typed out     like a warrior. I pierced

dust clouds with syllables, 

robbed the coffers

of rhythms   reframed syntax

from street fights. A cat clawed

at closed fences. Endless interruptions.

Blasts of sound. 

Tongues tripping over 

each new idea. 

A pile of books 

I learned  

to etch 

my mark in the margins.  

 

 Carla Schick, First Prize in July 2024

WHERE BACH TAKES ME: CONCERTO #5

 

On the strings of the harpsichord

I return and settle in

to the off twang of f minor’s

deliberate and steady sounds.

 

The notes play me back

to the plain convent room

where I practiced Skaters’ Waltz

and found a place for my internal rhythm

and a certain joy.

 

It happened here in my girlhood

of plain wool uniform, white blouse and beeny

that I knew I needed more

than home and school and hopscotch

more than the Virgin Mary.

 

It was not without effort to go the distance

of the keyboard over the black and white

the mesh of major and minor,

it brought an escape

and a return

 

like the music this morning

traveling me back

forty-five years.

 

Susan Florence, Second Prize in July 2024

Maria Wollenberg-Kluza with her paintings, September 2024, Warszawa

ABOUT THE ARTIST - MARIA WOLLENBERG-KLUZA

Maria Wollenberg-Kluza was born in 1945 in Puławy. From 1967 to 1973 she studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. In 1973, she graduated with honors in painting and also received a diploma of textile art. In the years 1973-1975 she was an Assistant Professor at Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. The first individual exhibition of her works was organized in 1967. So far, she organized around 130 individual exhibitions in Poland and abroad: in Spain, Sweden, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, India, Ukraine, Turkey, Russia, Italy, Lithuania, and Georgia.  She also participated in over domestic and international group exhibitions as well as in international presentations of Polish art (e.g., in France, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Sweden, USA). She paints mostly monothematic cycles of 20 - 30 works such as: "People in the City", "Man and machine", "Cathedrals", "Art inspired by music", "Impressions of poetry - Images of Norwid", "Game of imagination" "Impressions from Spain", "Polish landscapes", "Confessions of mother", "SALIGIA - seven cardinal Sins", "He and She", "Ver sacrum", "Images of Turkey", "Notes from Norway", "Meditations and Prayers", "Chopin in Painting and Musical Motifs", "Old Polish Music," etc.  

More information: www.wollenberg.pl

Contents of California Quarterly Vol. 50, No. 3 (Autumn 2024) Edited by Maja Trochimczyk

California Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Autumn 2024) Edited by Maja Trochimczyk. With A History of CSPS by John F. Harrell. Cover Art: Photo by Peter D. Tillman of Navajo Third Phase Blanket, ca 1890-95. Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, New Mexico (Wikimedia Commons) 

California Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• The Saffron Gatherers — Ruth Holzer 7
• to sunset a dream — Deborah P Kolodji 7
• Passenger — Kareem Tayyar 8
• A Note on Pronunciation — Craig Harris 9
• Moss — Peter Hamlin 9
• Writing Longhand Feels Strange — Hedy Habra 10
• Fine Print — Erin Lee Brown 11
• Money for Soul — Darragh Coady 12
• Carolina Girlhood —  Cheryl Black 13
• Spark in the Static —  Kelly Talbot 14
• Shipwreck   —  Joe Bisicchia 15
• lego blocks — Deborah P Kolodji 15
• Going Nowhere  — Shanta Acharya 16
• The Gift of Emptiness — W. C. Gosnell 17
• The Last Photograph of Chopin — Matthew J. Spireng 18
• Her Favorite Chair is Covered with Thread  — James Morehead 19
• Y Fargen Newydd (in Welsh) — Byron Beynon 20
• The New Deal  — Byron Beynon, tr. 21
• # 1092 —  Greg Schwartz 21
• Crescendo  —  Darragh Coady 22
• Time into Night  — Mary Elliott 24
• Vino Verde  — Deborah Paes de Barros 25
• Evergreen — Niyah Dahl 26
• Ambiguity — Michael Fraley 27
• I Wish — Cami Rumble 28
• Our Shared Impressions — Mark Belair 29
• Sweet Iced Tea  — Danny Barbare 29
• Lullaby —  Don Palmer 30
• The Moon Falls  — Dan Potter 31
• What Does Size Have to Do with It?  —  Cecil Morris 32
• Dandelions  —  Danny Barbare 33
• Soft Breaths of Pear and Blackberry Currents  — Allie Schleifer 34
• Question —  Lorraine Jeffery 34
• After Rain  — Selen Ozturk 35
•  Mountains  —   Peter Hamlin 36
• The Weight of Winter  —  Gavin Kayner 36
• Allegiance  — Carolyn Chilton Casas 37
• Twin Trees  —  Michael Fraley 38
• June   —  Michael Blackman 39
• Thoreau’s Concert —  Livingston Rossmoor 40
• Birdsong —  Mary Elliott 41
• Hike at Sea Ranch —  Selen Ozturk 42
• sunset peer   —  Deborah P Kolodji 42
•  On Some Days  —   Hillary Langford Taylor 43
• Counting Tomatoes  — David Starkey 44 
• Being Bent Flower   —  Daniel H.R. Fishman 45
• Once   —  Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue 46
• eucalyptus boughs  —  Deborah P Kolodji 46
• If I Have Wings   —  Livingston Rossmoor 47
• Wings   —  Stewart Breier   48
• Sunshine Girl — Steward Breier 48
• City Sunset  —  Mark Belair 49
• straining sunlight  — Deborah P Kolodji 49
• All There Is  — Allie Schleifer 50
• Watching the River  — Byron Beynon 51
•  #1128  —  Greg Schwartz 51
• Moose Licking Tire  —  David Starkey 52
• Persimmon Cookies  —  Michael Blackman 53
• 음양 Yin & Yang —  Jey Ley 54
• Vessels (Arabic with tr.)  — Abū Bakr ash-Shiblī, trans. Will Pewitt 55
• Piety, Piercing (Arabic, with tr.)  —  Abū Bakr ash-Shiblī, trans. Will Pewitt 56
• Om Mani Padme Hum  — Jey Ley   57

 

 Cover Art: Photo by Peter D. Tillman of Navajo Third Phase Blanket, ca 1890-95. 

Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, New Mexico (Wikimedia Commons). 

With five cross-patterns, universal symbols of the Sun. 

 EDITOR’S NOTE

I’ve been reading Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) in English translation recently. He was a heretic burned on the stake for not believing that the Earth is at the center of the Universe. A discoverer of the infinity of multiverses, he understood that a multitude of planets hides in the shadows, and that time is relative, measured by an observer only in reference to that observer’s own location. He wrote about so much more, including ingenious ways of memorizing, and mentally organizing information. And there was plenty of magic in his works, of course. But even in the 20th century, the Catholic Church, though apologizing for its past violence, did not reverse its dogmatic stance against the genius philosopher and thinker.

Yet, 424 years after Bruno’s death, we still remember his name. Perhaps, due to his courage. Courage to explore, think and write. Civil courage to say openly what he knew, regardless of consequences. How many have this kind of courage today? And how many names of poets published in the present issue of the California Quarterly will remain in the world’s memory for 424 years? 

I do not know, but I hope that at least one will still be cherished for her enormous contributions to the poetry scene in California. Deborah P Kolodji left this world recently after a prolonged battle with cancer. She was active in the science-fiction poetry community and was a major figure in haiku societies. She had a gift of seeing and a gift of naming her diverse experiences of the world, helping us to see what she saw. She was a CSPS member and CQ contributor. She also edited CQ 48/4 and selected a vibrant artwork for the cover. In a memorial tribute, this issue of the CQ breaks its rules of no more than three poems per poet and includes five of her haiku, intermittently dispersed as comments to other poems throughout the pages of the journal.

Most of the poems featured in the current issue were found among hundreds sent to us via Submittable.com. It is a journey of discovery to wade through a sea of words and find gems among the sand. What joy! Remember: poets who do not provide their address, email, and city/state cannot be published in our beautiful journal.

Simultaneous submissions are also not considered. Our journal changed over 50+ years of CSPS history, reaching its 50th volume this year. But one thing remained the same: we cherish quality!

                                                           —Maja Trochimczyk, Editor, CQ 50:3, Los Angeles, California

Deborah P Kolodji and Maja Trochimczyk after a featured reading organized by Trochimczyk and Village Poets, at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, 2018.

NEWSBRIEFS NO. 3, 2024

California State Poetry Society is thriving in its middle age. Established in 1972, it passed its 50th anniversary mark in 2022, but the Board decided to move the celebrations to 2024, marking the 50th volume of the California Quarterly. The journal started to appear in 1972; since two of its four-issue volumes were divided between two years each, we reached the 50th only this year. How to celebrate? In this issue, I looked for something “ancient” for the cover, and found a Navajo wool blanket with five crosses, with equal arms, the kind that symbolize the Sun in many ancient cultures. This artwork is from 1890s and not from California, either, but, for me, it fits our anniversary theme since it reflects the general idea of celebrating five decades under the Sun… At CSPS, our focus is on the printed word, so we decided to publish the best poems of the past 50 years in a 50th Anniversary Anthology. I am happy to report that r.g. cantalupo agreed to edit this anthology and select four poems per CQ volume to form a total of 200 most impressive poems published in our journal. He does not have all the past issues yet, so it will take a while to gather the materials. Therefore, the book will appear in 2025.

Since human memory is fickle and the internet unreliable, I decided to remind our readers about the history of the organization using an essay written about CSPS by John Forrest Harrell, a former President and a long-time Treasurer of the Society. If anyone knows what was going on with CSPS over the years, he does for sure! I added the lists of names of CSPS’s presidents, treasurers, and editors that he compiled (the list of editors is slightly expanded to bring it to the present). They all spent years as volunteers, selflessly working to promote poetry in California. It is good for us to remember their efforts. Thanks, everyone! I would also like to express my gratitude to all other volunteers, board members, chairs and judges of monthly and annual contests whose names are not listed here, but who also deserve our gratitude. Because so many people believe that poetry is important, that words can change the world for the better, we have succeeded in publishing the California Quarterly since 1972. We have also published the Newsbriefs and Poetry Letter, organized monthly and annual contests, maintained the website and the blog… 

Happy Anniversary, CSPS!

—Maja Trochimczyk, President

Los Angeles, California

 

Ye'ii tapestry, Navajo, Native American, ca. 1920-1930, wool, dyed and natural color yarns. 61 x 92 in (154.9 x 233.7 cm), McNay Art Museum (Wikimedia Commons).

CSPS’s 50th ANNIVERSARY & 50th VOLUME OF THE CQ

What follows has been constructed from records provided by Keith Van Vliet (notes from the late Anna Mae Johnson Terrell and the late James MacWhinney) and information in the various issues of the California Quarterly (CQ), the journal of the California State Poetry Society (CSPS) —John Forrest Harrell, May 2017

The group of thirty or forty poets that would later form the California State Poetry Society first gathered for roasted hotdogs and marshmallows on the beach near the San Luis Obispo campus of the California State Polytechnic University (Cal Poly SLO) in 1972. Both students and faculty from the University and many from the California Federation of Chaparral Poets (CFCP) in southern California (the oldest organization of poets in the state) had responded to Gordon Curzon’s invitation to meet for fellowship and poetry readings. The meeting lasted throughout the day and, with the aid of a flashlight passed from reader to reader, well into the night!

The members of the CFCP contingent in particular were interested in supporting an effort to form a larger California State Society Association (CSPA). Two of them—Nelle Fertig, their leader, a teacher and prize-winning poet, and Vivian Bonine, another poet and educator—were also members of the Poetry Society of Texas, which was a member society of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NFSPS). They urged all present to establish a new state- wide organization that would be eligible for membership in the NFSPS, with all the benefits and privileges the larger group could provide. By the time the beach picnic ended, plans had been made to meet again and to set up the CSPA. With the publication of Volume 1 Number 1 of the CQ later in 1972, the name of the group was changed from the CSPA to the California State Poetry Society (CSPS), which moniker it has retained thenceforth. On November 20th, 1976, the Constitution Study Committee (Sally Herres, Lorrie Hodges, Ruth Iodice, Robert Knighton, Miriam Maloy, Jerry Rose, Anna Mae Johnson Terrell, Dorothy Tournour, and chair Nelle Fertig) submitted its findings for consideration by the general membership. Their recommendations were approved and the formal organization was established that would later be incorporated as a 501(c)(3) California nonprofit corporation on August 14th, 1985.

A poetry magazine with the title California Quarterly had already been (or was intended to be—remember, this was 45 years ago and this is all at least second-hand information) published by the University of California at Davis (UCD). The original name for our journal was therefore shortened to CQ with the subtitle California State Poetry Quarterly. The name stayed the same from 1972 until 1999, when UCD ceased publication of its journal. In any case, Dr. Curzon was fond of pointing out that CQ also meant query, calling you or seeking you in Morse Code, or canto quest (bird song)—a veritable menagerie of meanings. The magazine, frankly, has lived up to all of them! The masthead of the journal has been California Quarterly since 1999.

The objective first stated by the CSPS was to produce a journal “reflecting the highest quality of poetry, editing and publishing” and it has remained the mission of the CQ Editorial Board ever since. The original concept was to have a single CQ Editor overall, and generally an Associate Editor in northern California and another in southern California to cull the many hundreds of submissions down to a more manageable number for the Editor’s final review. The editorial operation was changed in 1991 to establish an Editorial Board with at least six members and a Chair to coordinate the selection of rotating Editors for each issue of the CQ. The Chairs of the Editorial Board over the decades since 1991 have been Julian Palley, Kate Ozbirn, John Forrest Harrell, and Pearl Karrer. Since 1972, the Managing Editors of the CQ have been Gordon Curzon, Torre Houlgate-West, Kate Ozbirn, John Forrest Harrell, Pearl Karrer, and Maja Trochimczyk.

It was originally the intention of the CQ editors to publish only California poets, but the ranks from which submissions were accepted grew by 1976 to include a few from other states, as well. Over the decades, high-quality submissions from other countries have increased to the point where there is usually at least one foreign poem (and a translation if it is not in English). Membership was originally only from California residents, but this too has changed to include poets in other states and in other countries.

—John Forrest Harrell 

Yorba Linda, California

CSPS Presidents: Phillip Padellford 1972-1973, Ventura; Romayne Dowd 1973-1974, Los Angeles; Joyce Odam 1974-1975, Sacramento; Ellis Oveson 1975-1976, Los Altos Hills; John F. Kerr 1976-1977, Grover City; Gary Lagier 1977-1980, Sunnyvale; Ward Fulcher 1980-1982, Bakersfield; Jack Fulbeck 1982-1983, Covina; Helen Shanley 1983-1991, Bakersfield; Torre Houlgate-West 1991- 2000, San Luis Obispo; Kate Ozbirn 2000-2012, Orange; John Forrest Harrell 2012-2019, Yorba Linda; Maja Trochimczyk 2019 - Present, Los Angeles.

CSPS Treasurers: Jane Wolgemuth 1972-1973, Ventura; Piche McBee 1973-1973, Ventura; Eugene G. E. Botelho; Robert Knighton 1973-1975, Stockton; Elaine Jenkins 1975-1976, Pasadena; Lawrence Jaffa 1976-1977, Modesto; Margaret Cortes 1977-1978, Berkeley; Lawrence Jaffa 1978-1978, Modesto; Raymond Rose 1978-1985, Santa Cruz; Helen Shanley 1983-1991, Bakersfield; Clara J. Koziolek 1987-1989, Long Beach; Jo-Ann Allee 1989-1991, Fullerton; John Forrest Harrell 1991-Present, Yorba Linda.

Managing Editors of the California Quarterly 1972-1991: Gordon Curzon, 1972-1992; Torre Houlgate-West, 1992-2000; Kate Ozbirn, 2000-2012; Pearl Karrer, 2013-2017; John Forrest Harrell, 2012- 2019; Maja Trochimczyk, 2019-Present.

CQ Associate Editors, 1972-1991: Kenneth John Atchity, Mary Ellen Barnes, Eugene G. E. Botelho, Norma Calderone, Louise Derby, David Doorn, Ernestine Hoff Emrick, Esther Erford, Nelle Fertig, Ward Fulcher, Lois Atchley Hyatt, Terri Brint Joseph, John Kerr, B. Jo Kinnick, Clara J. Koziolek, Howard Lachtman, Arthur Lane, Tom Massey, Martin Nakell, Julian Palley, Thomas Piekarski, Ben Pleasants, Sylvia Rosen, Marcia Van Wyck, Marine Robert Warden, Charles Webb, Gardner Wheeler, Harold Witt, and Heidi Ziolkowski.

Guest Editors & Members of CQ Editorial Board since 1991: Kenneth John Atchity, Claire J. Baker, John Morran Brander, Beverly M. Collins, Gordon Curzon, Nancy Cavers Dougherty, Jack Fulbeck, Ward Fulcher, William Scott Galasso, John Forrest Harrell, Maura Harvey, Marlene Hitt, Torre Houlgate-West, Lois Atchley Hyatt, Ruth Iodice, Terri Brint Joseph, Pearl Karrer, Deborah P Kolodji, Howard Lachtman, Elaine Lazzeroni, Mona Locke, James MacWhinney, Maggi H. Meyer, Joyce Odam, Kate Ozbirn, Sherman Pearl, Tom Piekarski, Dianne Riffle, Margaret Saine, Russell Salamon, Nicholas Skaldetvind, Lani Steele, Bory Thach, Maja Trochimczyk, Keith Van Vliet, Jeanne Wagner, Marine Robert Warden, and Konrad Tademar Wilk.

Native North American Art from the Southwest: Navajo, Post-Contact, Early Peri - Fourth-Phase Chief Blanket Style Rug - 1937.903 - Cleveland Museum of Art (Wikimedia Commons)

Poetry Letter No. 2, Summer 2024 - Part 2 - Review of Books by Lohrum Cotton, Chandonnet, Mickiewicz, and Kolodji

Hanna Kulenty – “Muzyka Grawitacyjna Nr 24 -  acrylic on canvas, 2023.

The CSPS Poetry Letter No. 2 of 2024 presented featured Poets Sharmagne Leland-St. John and Mary Torregrossa (published last week on this blog) as well as four book reviews reproduced below. The issue is illustrated with paintings by Polish composer, Hanna Kulenty (www.hannakulenty.com).  More information is in the previous part of the Poetry Letter. 

https://www.californiastatepoetrysociety.com/2024/07/poetry-letter-no-2-of-2024-summer-part.html

MICHAEL ESCOUBAS REVIEWS

ALIGNED WITH THE SKY BY KATHY LOHRUM COTTON

Aligned with the Sky: Poems by Kathy Lohrum Cotton. 77 Poems ~ 4 Illustrations ~ 99 pages poetry.deepwellbooks@gmail.com | ISBN 9798866560677

Recently, I called a plumber to the house to inspect a clogged basement drain. The technician explained to me that my basement drainage system was broken due to age. The couplings holding the pipes together had broken, and consequently, the pipes were out of alignment. After extensive excavation and great expense, I was assured that all the pipes were back in alignment, and henceforth, would be “clog-free.” This incident came to mind, as if on cue, the moment I retrieved Kathy Lohrum Cotton’s latest project from the mailbox. Your reviewer, like the clogged  drain, finds himself in occasional need of a “life-inspection.” A revisiting of priorities, a spiritual “sit-down” to take stock of life and life’s priorities. Aligned with the Sky, arrived at just such a moment.

The work is organized into four interrelated sections: “Aligned with the Sky” (20 poems), “Aligned with Each Other” (18 poems), “Aligned Within” (18 poems),” and “Aligned with Nature” (21 poems). Cotton’s original collage art, which introduces each major division, exercised my mind as I entered each new phase. By “interrelated” I mean that Cotton is not a slave to categories. There is an ease about her work. Subjects and emphases overlap, integrate, touch and go, then return.

Cotton’s cover art depicts, in miniature, the collection’s theme. A girl about 6 years of age is perched on the top step of a ladder. She wears a pilot’s leather headgear, holds a toy airplane as she embraces the vast blue sky. The girl (perhaps the poet herself) isn’t looking for some deep theological or scientific explanation about why things are the way they are. She inhabits a world, her world. She IS the sky. She IS the wind. She IS the billowing clouds and swaying grass.

Titles such as “Where Will You Take Me Now?” “The Heavens,” “Eclipse,” “Night Song,” and “Leaving Like a Star,” spoke to my inner-child:

Hands flung wide, I whirl and twirl,

a six-year-old toppling into

the green margin between

our Lithuanian neighbor’s fence

and Audubon Avenue. Dizzy drunk

on school vacation freedom,

I like sprawled face-up in wild grass,

aligned with a wide blue expanse

crowded with cumulus clouds.

I don’t yet know cumulus

from cirrus or stratus,

but find shifting face-shapes

in the billowy clouds,

give them sky-people names,

and compose little rhymes

metered like Sunday School songs.

 

Such is the beginning

of my life as a poet

The best poets retain vestiges of childlike wonder. “The Heavens” reflects upon Sunday School lessons which depicted heaven in terms of “its mansions and gold-paved streets, / an ever-listening ear to every prayer, / the reunion of departed loved ones.” With that said, an adult Cotton avers, “a poet can still fall speechless / at the sight of / sunrise, sunset, starlight.”

In other poems such as “Rainclouds Over the City,” she shifts from “Today’s leaden sky is heavy / as Monday-morning traffic— / snarled and clogged”  . . . to the rain beckoning “peach blossoms, open petals / of forsythia and blue violets.”

She prays:

So bless this weighted-blanket        

 

drowse of grays and this

sleepy Earth who will awaken

to the music of falling rain,

the percussion of thunder.

“Aligned with Each Other,” flows seamlessly into more complex personal relationships. “Connected” is Cotton’s welcoming poem:

Stars buttoned

to galaxies

 

Sky hinged

to Earth

 

Rivers looped

on mountain hooks

Sunlight braided

with clouds and wind

 

The thread of you

in the fabric of me

 

Everything

connected.

Emotional and spiritual maturity are hallmarks for this poet. To write poetry, poets must protect their quiet time. They must love solitude. Some poets take this too far. For Cotton, however, I sense an down-to-earth life-balance. In “Frayed Edges,” Cotton touches on the complexities of marriage: “No page-turn / heralds a thirty-first night / of one month passing into / the first morning of the next.// And no gap / lies between my frayed seams / and yours. Our edges / are forever tangled together, / beyond unraveling.”

She is sensitive to moments spent with good friends. Such moments are indispensable, as attested to by the sonnet “Fragrant Day”:

From scent to heady scent, we three friends walk

together through a little candle shop,

inhaling tiny samples as we talk

of soy and beeswax, drip and jar. We stop

to breathe-in deeply old familiar scents.

Patchouli, cedar, lilac. Lemongrass,

verbena, lavender. Each represents

a time, a place: the stories we will pass

along while strolling to another store.

We breathe each other in—the fragrant blends

that we had barely recognized before:

bouquet of sisters, confidants, close friends.

 

The mingled scent of us now fills each room

and turns our simple day to sweet perfume.

Your reviewer has only superficially touched upon the treasures contained in Aligned with the Sky. The other sections: “Aligned Within” and “Aligned with Nature,” produced within me equal portions of inspirational wisdom and delight at Kathy Cotton’s mastery of poetic-craft. “Just Because” reveals the spirit of the whole:

Just because it’s today.

Just because a sun

I never touched

touched me

 

and a sky I couldn’t hold

held me

and a love I didn’t understand

understood me.

 

Just because

the sun

and sky

and love

are free

 

I rejoice

Little wonder that Aligned with the Sky won second place in the Illinois State Poetry Society’s prestigious Book of the Year competition, for 2023.

~ Michael Escoubas

MICHAEL ESCOUBASE REVIEWS 

THE SHAPE OF WIND ON WATER BY ANN FOX CHANDONNET

The Shape of Wind on Water: New and Selected Poems by Ann Fox Chandonnet.73 Poems ~ 1 Essay ~ 204 pages | Loom Press | ISBN 978-0-931507-52-6

I remember with great fondness going on fishing trips with my Dad and brothers to Minnesota. (We flatlanders from Illinois have nowhere near the lake selections offered by our neighbor to the north.) Much to the consternation of my Dad, I was less concerned with catching fish than with the remarkable acrobatics of the natural world . . . the way the wind did magical things with water. I was enchanted by waves and whitecaps, swirls and curls, dips and dives that captured my fancy more than landing a three-pound walleye ever could.

I thought about such things as I wrapped my mind around Ann Fox Chandonnet’s The Shape of Wind on Water: New and Selected Poems. An intriguing question began to form as I sat and as I thought: “Is the shape of wind on water to be taken literally or spiritually? Or perhaps a little of both? More on this later.

Structure: “New” poems are gathered under four headings: People, Places, Correspondence and Harvest. “Selected Poems,” are drawn from six of Chandonnet’s previous collections: The Wife & Other Poems (1976), The Wife: Part 2 (1979), Ptarmigan Valley: Poems of Alaska (1980), At the Fruit-Tree’s Mossy Root (1980), Auras, Tendrils (1984), and Canoeing in the Rain (1990).

A Word about The Octopus, An Essay.  Reviewers seldom advise their readers about how to read the books they review. Notwithstanding this cardinal rule, I offer a rare recommendation: Begin at the back of the book. In this captivating essay Chandonnet describes the people, places and experiences that, in her words, “made me, me.” You won’t want to miss the very last entry which explains the octopus.

At the risk of seeming to “run the poet into a corner,” I perceive Chandonnet’s work as being born out of the crucible of the natural world, maturing and evolving into the world of the human spirit. She looks for and finds correspondence between the visible outer world and the inner, invisible world of human experiences. One of her poems, “The Poet as the Letter P: Stevens Requests More Prunes,” sounds like the man himself, writing in tedious detail about prunes: the time of year for them, how much they weigh, how they should look, their numerous uses, and how Elsie, in her peignoir, will enjoy them on Sunday morning. Wallace Stevens excelled at writing poems which merge Nature and Spirit. So does Ann Fox Chandonnet.

Chandonnet is a poet of “people, as well as a poet of “place.” Her fascinating life with roots in Massachusetts (on a dairy farm), Alaska’s rich landscape (34 years), and Wisconsin (where she published her first book), provide a deep well from which she draws her lyrics.

Her lead poem, “Snow Water Under Culverts,” is perfect given the foundation laid above. “Snow Water,” is about her father and begins:

Everything is hard, gray, frozen here,

but in his country snow water trickles in culverts,

caching bits of bone swept from fields,

nutrients hard won—

the first scent of spring (wet dirt),

and the tooth-numbing, palm-tingling ditch draught,

spicules of ice in it still,

refreshing as a McIntosh.

It is as if Chandonnet devotes her opening octave to contours which shape the fascinating man she loves. But he is something of a mystery to the young girl who marvels at what she sees. This poem of 109 lines never flags as the poet merges elements of “her world,” into a profile of devoted love. In poignant lines she pays tribute to a man of few words:

​Deeds were Dad’s speech:
his sixteen hours of sweat a day,

his neck eroded into arroyos by weather,

his shoes like Leninist bronzes of shoes,

his shins knobby from cows’ kicks,
the trim body he weighed every morning,

he handsome hands tough as the emery wheel

that honed axes and scythes,

the sound of that wheel,

and the hard water dripping onto it

from a rusty can.

A workman and his tools—

a diligent cathedral mason.

Get a Kleenex ready for Chandonnet’s gentle closure on this one. Moving into “Selected Poems,” a different tone greets me. Drawing from works going back to 1976, we experience the poet as a young wife and mother. These poems resonate in memories of where my wife and I were in the mid-70s. For example, from, “The Wife”:

Sitting on her desire,

which throbbed like an alarm clock,

the wife tried to concentrate on Time.

Or standing on it,

a white square in a ring of black ones

dappling the supermarket produce sale,

artichokes and Muzak tugging at her panties,

she tried to decipher a suddenly meaningless list:

squash,

ammonia,

tuna fish,

nutmeg.

Throughout “Selected Poems,” Ann Chandonnet weaves a fascinating web of life, “as it is,” when Nature and Spirit merge and converge. In “Peas” I hear the pings as they hit the bottom of the bucket:

Sitting on the screened porch,

cane seat cool against the backs

of hot knees,

the crisp crack of green dorsal lines

under thumb,

and the low spreading thunder

of peas

into big aluminum pans.

Is The Shape of Wind on Water to be taken literally or spiritually, or perhaps a little of both? This reviewer trusts his readers to decide. As for your reviewer, his life will never be quite the same again.

~ Michael Escoubas

ZBIGNIEW MIROSŁAWSKI REVIEWS 

SHADES OF EARTH BY ANNA MARIA MICKIEWICZ 

Shades of Earth by Anna Maria Mickiewicz, Great Britain 2024, ISBN:1915819830, 48  pp.

The review of Anna Maria Mickiewicz’s collection of poems is above all, a great pleasure. Shades of Earth contain very delicate poems. As if we entered a shady garden, a garden enchanted by the words of poetry. Dedicating the entire book to the memory of Staś Stan Mickiewicz (the author’s son, who died last year) deepens the mood of silence and careful observation of the existing world, which is difficult to understand and even harder to describe.

A mother struck by this death is always accompanied by reflection. Her world gains another dimension. Desert rain in London, evokes associations not so much with crying but with longing for the rain of salvation, washing the spruces with the wet morning light. It is a reference to the rhythm of nature. Rain is disorienting. So, the question is asked “is it spring or summer?” the answer is simple – “…the desert air blurs my vision.”

Admiring the manuscript from Oxford, we are in old courtyards, among fountains with lavender roses. We see blue mosaics. We read that she stumbles over the voices of angelic Gothic creators, opens deafened spaces, and rises dressed in clouds. The blooming of forsythia is the essence of elasticity, sparkling purple, rustling, and gentle fragrance. The scent of lilac will appear in another text. Camellias are lost in thought... The growth of flowers from bulbs is their birth.

In addition to the changes in nature, the mystery of time is also a motif. There is “alliance with eternity.” A lid is “framed with spider’s threads” and secrets are enchanted in the songs of the blackbird.

Does crying Socrates symbolize the lack of philosophical explanation? In the next poem he is “buried in anxiety.” Are his thoughts hiding in the clouds? Was he afraid of his own investigations? He was in hospital and returned after his heart rhythm was restored. And he has “...a time of sunny space” ahead of him. A reference to the theme of passing of time comes back in the poem entitled The Cedar of Lebanon. The tree provides shelter as it has been spreading out its branches for 250 years. We don’t know who brought and planted it, maybe it was motivated by love and memory?

The idea of shading recurs in several poems in this collection. For example, the barely visible clouds over Regent’s Park, and in Summer in Seaford. Twilight is the trembling of darkness and loneliness of dreams, the gravity of the night causing Icarus to fall.

Fragments of poetic prose about the London rainbow, about the purring of a cat, and a story of the broken heart of the Little Prince offer a different proposition. Likewise, the text entitled “Low pressure in the land of rain lovers.”  The themes already familiar return in a new configuration, bringing out the practical matter-of-factness of the English, and confronting it with the belief in rampaging witches and creatures with huge mouths. The cherry story shows a parallel between the nature and the human emotions. The street of old trees is the subject of granddaughter’s admiration and of grandmother’s anxiety. Cutting down the cherry tree threatens destruction of the beginning of summer.

Poems about Cornwall are pure lyric. Penzance is a port seen at night, drowning in pirate songs and waves of trembling sparks. The Ballad of Penzance describes fringes of the waves that search for survivors and for Tristan and Isolde. Similarly, a poem inspired by a stay in Devon. The waves reflect the silver sky and open the lids of old trunks.

“Still in love with the sun...” reflects author’s own state of mind. There are contrasts between being sealed in the London fog and getting used to breakups. It ends with a doubt, “...do you still love the sun?” The poem “In English Rhythm” has a similar atmosphere. In it, lazy clouds are looking over a rainy country. This is England letting it rain. It is a country of returns, farewells, and of  freedom.

 Finally, there are two poems, about thistle and London jasmine. In the thistle “...We rise, immersed in dew and light...” As the thorn is yesterday’s moan, we run into the abyss of oblivion. Jasmine’s kisses are rough, its flowers are drops of forgotten letters.

P.S. Some poems were translated by Tom Wachtel.     The author is also grateful to two British poets, Steve Rushton and David Clark… 

~ Zbigniew Mirosławski

DEBORAH FIEDLER APRAKU REVIEWS 

VITAL SIGNS BY DEBORAH  P KOLODJI

Vital Signs by Deborah P Kolodji (Cuttlefish Books, 2024), 85 pages.

Vital Signs, by Deborah P Kolodji is a profound and exquisite collection of haiku that chronicles her recent experience with cancer and cancer’s medical treatments. “Profound” seems a big concept that goes against the haiku zeitgeist. An elemental feature of haiku is the way it preserves a fleeting moment in time. I think it is the arc of the series of poems that at its closure leaves the reader with a profound sense of intimacy. Kolodji is a master at capturing the moment. She opens with this tender scrim that welcomes the reader to enter the portal of the haiku zone and signals the start of her journey, and so too our journey herein:

the blush of dawn

through a hospital window

vital signs

The juxtaposition of the beauty of life, which is the essence of the word vital, contrasted with the technology and sometimes poisonous treatment of the disease is at the heart of this book. Each vignette, each look through the window, provides us hope through the pain. As for many cancer patients, this journey is not solitary, though it is lonely. The poems are peopled with doctors and nurses and family members. The hearing loss expressed in one haiku, “my daughter’s voice/turns into ocean” is juxtaposed with another family poem:

wildflowers in bloom

when your children

take care of you

These images of people, being themselves vital, alive with their humanity and vital to the care of the patient, are beautiful miniature portraits. The constant thread in this peregrination are the references to the natural world because, haiku, of course! Kolodji has made it her mission to name the tree, name the flower, name the bird, name the insect, and takes inventory of the medical technologies that are required to test her vital signs. She writes:

rapid growth

of bougainvillea

thorns in my life

I will leave the reader to discover her humorous poems that made me laugh out loud. Like Matsuo Basho, a 17th century Japanese haiku master known for his travel essays, Kolodji documents this long cancer journey, however short the poems are. It’s not just the images but the minimalist wording that gives the whole of the book, and the whole of the poet, strength for the journey. If you can believe that “unresolved issues are the black hole in the center of our galaxy,” you can believe that all these finely crafted haiku are vital signs to all of us. We, like the Condor on the cover of the book, are “not yet extinct.” `

~ Deborah Fiedler Apraku

 

The Poetry Letter ((Online ISSN 2836-9394; Print ISSN 2836-9408) is a quarterly electronic publication, issued by the California State Poetry Society. Edited by Maja Trochimczyk since 2020 and by Margaret Saine earlier.  The Poetry Letter is emailed and posted on the CSPS website, CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety.org. Sections of the Poetry Letter are also posted separately on the CSPS Blog, CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety.com.

Hanna Kulenty, Muzyka Grawitacyjna Nr. 6 - Acrylic on canvas, 2023.

MONTHLY  CONTEST SUBMISSONS GUIDELINES

California State Poetry Society encourages poetic creativity by organizing monthly poetry contests. The contests are open to all poets, whether or not they are members of the CSPS. Reading fees are $1.50 per poem with a $3.00 minimum for members and $3.00 per poem with a $6.00 minimum for non-members. Entries must be postmarked during the month of the contest in which they are entered. They must consist of a cover page with all contact information (name, address, phone number & email address) as well as the month and THEME on cover page, and the titles of the poems being submitted.  For pools of $100 or more, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners receive $50, $10 and $5, respectively. If there are insufficient fees submitted, the minimum prize is $10.

Starting in January 2023, we are accepting previously published poems for our Monthly Contest. Please note the publication where it first appeared on any such poem. There are two ways to submit fees, by regular mail (enclosing check) or email (using Paypal): 1) by mail to CSPS Monthly Contest – (specify month), Post Office Box 4288 Sunland, California 91041, with a check made to CSPS; and 2) by email to: CSPSMonthlyContests@gmail.com (specify month), with fees paid by Paypal to the following account – CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety@gmail.com.

The monthly contest winners are notified the month after they are awarded. All of the winners for the year are listed in the first CSPS Newsbriefs and published in the first Poetry Letter of the following year. Prize-winning poems are also posted on the blog, CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety.com. The 1st prize winner receives half of the prize pool for pools less than $100. Please note: Do not send SAEs. We do not return poems. If you win, we will let you know. Otherwise, there are no notifications.

CSPS Monthly Contest Themes (Revised): 

① January: Nature, Landscape; 

② February: Love; 

③ March: Open, Free Subject;

④ April: Mythology, Dreams, Other Universes; 

⑤ May: Personification, Characters, Portraits;

⑥ June: The Supernatural; 

⑦ July: Childhood, Memoirs; 

⑧ August: Places, Poems of Location; 

⑨ September: Colors, Music, Dance; 

⑩ October: Humor, Satire; 

⑪ November: Family, Friendship, Relationships; 

⑫ December: Back Down to Earth (Time, Seasons).

Hanna Kulenty - Muzyka Grawitacyjna Nr 8 - acrylic on canvas, 2023