California Quarterly on ZOOM - 46:1 Spring 2020 Edited by Margaret Saine, Oct 4 at 4:30 pm

 

Topic: CSPS Reading from California Quarterly 46:1, Ed. Margaret Saine

Time: Oct 4, 2020 04:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Manoscritto di una vita 2018 (Manuscript of a Lifetime) by Enzo Patti

With a beautiful cover featuring Manoscritto di una vita 2018 (Manuscript of a Lifetime) by Enzo Patti, this issue is a joy to behold. Congratulations to all the poets. And thanks to Margaret Saine for tirelessly translating poems from so many languages and connecting the California Quarterly to the whole world of poetry and poets.

EDITOR’S NOTE

Ah, the good news, in the plural! David Sapp, 2018 grant recipient of the Ohio Arts Council,
writes: “Thank you so much for publishing ‘Tree Frog’ in the California Quarterly. I am enjoying other portions of your wonderful publication. What a handsome issue!”

Hey, and which is David Sapp’s praised issue? I search high and low, because we don’t have a
cumulative alphabetical CQ poetry index yet, alas. It was my last issue, 44:4, he praised! And did not complain one peep about the translations, which I love doing. So I am doubly proud.

And here is a comment from another contributor: Terrence Sykes: ”Ute Margaret Saine, many thanx to you again for both my appear- ances in this little gem of a journal... I open the pages and read words of my friends from across the USA and around the world and many I don’t know, yet we are poetically kin.”

Yes, poetry’s long, embracing arms reach around the world, like a huge, loving octopus; poets talk to each other, no longer just whis- tling via Paris and New York, but across the globe. That’s what we want, don’t we?

Love and thanks to all the lovers of poetry!

Margaret

Don’t hesitate to email me, at umsaine@gmail.com, about anything.

Margaret Saine                                              
Irvine, California                                        

Nascita del Due del Libro e della Poesia, by Enzo Patti

TABLE OF CONTENTS

California Quarterly, Volume 46, Number 1, Spring 2020

1. de Agua Salada - Mario Zúñiga Núñez 7
2. from Salt Water - Margaret Saine,Tr. 7
3. Italy Meets Ivory Coast - Kalyna Temertey-Canta 8
4. Dejaste un papel amarillo... - Javier Campos 9
5. You left a yellow paper... - Margaret Saine,Tr. 9
6. Love in a Field of Miners’ Lettuce - Susan E. Gunter 10
7. Fata Morgana in a Field of Tarweed - Dave Seter 11
8. Dusk - Aidan Coleman 12
9. World of Dreams - Alessio Zanelli 13
10. View from the Ranch - Alice Pero 14
11. “golden leaves fluttering birds...” - Rebecca Anne Banks 14
12. Not Mine to Shape -  David Anderson 15
13. Interlude in the Trader Joe’s... -  Joanne Jagoda 16
14. Hiking After the Dinner Party - Chris Foster 17
15. Milton’s Fluid - d.p. houston 17
16. Мигът - Alexander Shurbanov 19
17. Moment - Alexander Shurbanov, Tr. 19
18. What’s Inside - Beth S. Pollak 20
19. I Was Wild Once - Gwynn O’Gara 21
20. Elevator -  Cathy Porter 22
21. Men at Work - Tasha Cotter 23
22. Kite  - Clarke Andros 24
23. Recuerdo - Alejandra Castellanos 25
24. Memory - Margaret Saine, Tr. 25
25. The Moon Is an Egret - Michael Montgomery 26
26. Melancholie - Karl Greisinger 27
27. Melancholy - Margaret Saine, Tr. 27
28. Committees - David Pratt 28
29. Home Front: A Remembrance - Jean Esteve 29
30. Politicians - Pande Manoylov 30
31. Del Origen - Otoniel Guevara 31
32. About the Origin - Margaret Saine, Tr. 31
33. No Cure - Claire Scott 32
34. The Road of Love - Timothy Fab-Eme 33
35. Armonia - Rita Stanzione 34
36. Harmony - Margaret Saine, Tr. 34
37. Stars Behind Your Eyes - Susan Richardson 35
38. Impara la tua arte... Claudia Russo 36
39. Learn your art... Margaret Saine, Tr. 37
40. Alertos emergen los verdes - Jeanie R. C. Toscano 38
41. Alert the greens emerge - Margaret Saine, Tr. 39
42. Epithalamion - John Blair 40
43. definitorio - Elizabeth Soto 41
44. in lieu of a definition - Margaret Saine, Tr. 41
45. Snowmelt - Marianne Karplus 42
46. A Second Look - John Schneider 42
47. Do the Garden Snails Know? - Lane Larson 43
48. de la utilidad de la poesía II - Eliécer Almaguer 44
49. on the usefulness of poetry II - Margaret Saine, Tr. 45
50. Sculpture - Lisa Shirley 46
51. Vision - Matthew J. Spireng 47
52. The Dame Who Marks Time - Marie Lecrivain 48
53. My Hollow Window - Marilynn Talal 49
54. Paying the Ferryman - Ruth Holzer 50
55. Door - Benjamin Nash 51
56. Mom & the Bridge - Kristin Lawrence 52
57. Wish - Patricia Nelson 53
58. When... Donald Fisher 54
59. Last Pomegranate - Maja Trochimczyk 55
60. Hai bevuto una spremuta - Terry Olivi 56
61. You drank a freshly squeezed - Margaret Saine, Tr. 57
62. Agonies of Sand - Savita Singh 58

Appunti di viaggio, by Enzo Patti (2018)

ABOUT THE EDITOR

CSPS SECRETARY  - MARGARET SAINE, Ph.D.

Ute Margaret Saine was born in Germany. After a Yale Ph.D. in French and Spanish, she taught languages, literature, and culture in California and Arizona, as well as writing and translating poetry in five languages. Since 1991, she has been a board member of the CSPS and a CQ editor since 1994. She also edits the CSPS Poetry Letter, now on the CSPS website, and formerly served twice as the CQ Annual Contest Chair. For ten years, until June 2019, she gathered all submissions from the Orange PO Box, distributing them to editors. 

Her poems have appeared in many journals here and abroad. She has published five books of poetry in English – Bodyscapes, Words of Art, Lit Angels, Gardens of the World  and A Book of Travel– as well as six haiku chapbooks in five languages. Four books of poems and a postwar childhood memoir have been published in Germany – Das Flüchtige bleibt (The Ephemeral Remains); Das Weite suchen (A Yen to Travel); Atem der Stille (The Breath of Silence); Ein Lied davon (Same Old Song); and Ungeschicktes Kind (Awkward Child). Searching for Bridges is a bilingual English-Arabic book of her poems edited by Palestinian poet and critic Nizar Sartawi. Saine’s poems in Italian are to be published in 2020. She has edited many CQ issues, most recently vol. 44, No. 4. 

http://moonrisepress.com/lit-angels-by-margaret-saine.html
http://moonrisepress.com/gardens-of-the-earth---saine.html

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.

CSPS President's NewsBriefs 46:2, Summer 2020

NEWSBRIEFS 2020, NO. 2 (SUMMER 2020)

The year 2020 is filled with such momentous events, that we will be in an entirely different space by the time our readers hold this issue of the California Quarterly in their hands. Concerns with public health have been replaced by urgent calls for justice and the creation of a more equitable society. On such occasions, I like re-reading a Native-American book of wisdom, The Four Agreements and reflect on its tenets: “1. Be Impeccable with Your Word. 2. Don’t Take Anything Personally. 3. Don’t Make Assumptions. 4. Always Do Your Best.” Strangely, when I try to recall these rules for good life to share with someone else, I keep forgetting one tenet or another, depending on what is not going well in my own life.

As President of the California State Poetry Society, I’m always doing my best to serve our cause of promoting poetry worldwide. I work to ensure the high quality of our publications and activities and the diversity of our team. Therefore, I am delighted that as of May 2020 our Board of Directors has two more Directors at Large, Ambika Talwar and Konrad Tademar Wilk, who will assist us in our various projects. They have joined the first Director at Large, Alice Pero, who now serves as Monthly Contest Chair.

Ambika Talwar is an India-born author, wellness consultant, artist, & educator whose vision is to realize her sacred destiny and invite others to find their brilliance. Composed in the ecstatic tradition, her poetry is a “bridge to other worlds.” A Pushcart Prize nominee, she has authored several volumes of poetry and a poetic-spiritual travelogue, My Greece: Mirrors & Metamorphoses (2016). Her work has appeared in Kyoto Journal; Inkwater Ink; Chopin with Cherries; Grateful Conversations; St. Julian Press; Tower Journal; Enchanting Verses; Quill & Parchment; California Quarterly; Life & Legends; Pratik; Aatish 2 and others. An English professor at Cypress College, California, Ambika makes her home in Los Angeles and in New Delhi, India.

An American poet living in Los Angeles, Konrad Tademar Wilk spent his childhood in Poland, where his maternal grandparents,  Dr. Alicja Burakowska and Mr. Marian Burakowski,  shared  with   him   their patriotism, faith, and high moral standards. They had been honored as The Righteous of the Nations by the Yad Vashem Institute for saving 36 Jews during WWII. Following his return to the U.S., Konrad studied philosophy and literature at Los Angeles City College and later graduated from UCLA. His works range from single sonnets to epic poems on themes including current events, myth, and philosophy. In addition to American subjects, his work is strongly informed by international events and history, especially those of freedom and oppression. In 1991, he founded the Witching Hour Poetry Gathering which has met continuously for over 20 years.

We welcome our new colleagues; their insights and creativity will be an asset tor CSPS. At the same time, we say farewell to two distinguished, long-time Board Members and CQ Editors, Pearl Karrer (Editorial Chair) and Nancy Cavers Dougherty who resigned in April. Stephanie Pressman, graphic designer, has also left the organization. We thank the outgoing Board members for their years of dedicated service to the CSPS, working to make sure that the CQ only contains the highest-quality poems and that it is impeccably produced, with beautiful artistic covers.

       

Alice Pero completed selecting winners of Monthly Poetry Contests, November 2019 to May 2020. The full titles for all selected poems and the texts of poems awarded first prizes are posted on our Blog.

 

The Contest winners are as follows: November 2019 –. Winner: Jane Stuart, “October’s Wind Brings War;” with Jane Stuart and David Anderson in the second and third places. December 2019 – Winner: David Anderson, “Windstruck” with Kathy Lundy Derengowski and David Anderson. January 2020 –. Winner: Jane Stuart, “Our Winter Garden,” with Jane Stuart and David Anderson. February 2020 – Winner: Pamela Shea, “Rosebuds and Lovers,” with Jane Stuart in the second place. March 2020 – Winner. Dorothy Skies, “The Coyote’s Howl.” April 2020 – No Winners. May 2020 – Winner: Marlene Hitt, “Enlightenment.” Congratulations to all the winners and many thanks to Alice Pero!

https://www.californiastatepoetrysociety.com/2020/06/winners-of-csps-monthly-contests.html.

We would like to see more submissions to the Monthly Contests that currently have only a few dedicated aficionados. Please consider participating in the contests and submit your poems, while using Submittable for the California Quarterly. Just one more step: CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety.org has all the details. Submissions can be made by mail to our P. O. Box, or via the website, with the contest reading fees enclosed: $1.50 per poem for members and $3 per poem for non-members.

 

The cover of the first issue of the California Quarterly in 2020, 46:1, edited by Margaret Saine, features artwork by an eminent Italian artist, Enzo Patti. This issue is a tribute to the diversity of world-wide poetic talent. Margaret received several comments written “to express thanks and gratitude” for this wonderful issue: “Thank you so much for choosing my poem ‘Mom & The Bridge’ for the latest issue of California Quarterly. What a pleasant surprise! I look forward to reading the whole thing.” (Kristin Lawrence). “I gave an audible gasp when I opened the mail to find my name in this amazing publication. I feel honored to be included with so much outstanding work… So thank you again and thank you for doing such great work!” (Clarke Andros). “What a delightful set of poems this issue is! and a great deal of variety of forms and word dexterity. And such a surprise for me, my poem ‘Not Mine to Shape’ among them.” (David Anderson). “Your work as translator cannot be esteemed too highly. Wonderful Italian and Spanish poems! You are a true femme de lettres!” ([Karl Greisinger).

 

CSPS Members News: CQ editor Terry Ehret has published  translations of the poems of Mexican poet Ulalume Gonzalez de Leon. The collection is called Plagios/Plagiarisms. She and her translation partners, John Johnson and Nancy J. Morales, have been working on this project for six years, partially funded by a translation grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. This is the first of three dual-language volumes of Gonzalez de Leon's work, published by Sixteen Rivers Press.

Margaret Saine’s book is coming out in Spain: Respirando bajo el agua. Translated by Khedija Gadhoum. Madrid: Cuadernos del laberinto, 2020. Her work also appeared in Global Poetry, (“Today I Ate My Muse”), Subterranean Blue Poetry Journal (“Three Haiku Cycles about Winter” and an essay on “Classical Modern American Poetry: The Haiku”); and Setu (“Nymphomania”).

 Thelma T. Reyna's eighth book, Dearest Papa: A Memoir in Poems (2020, Golden Foothills Press), was selected as the "June Book of the Month" by the Latina Book Club. Reyna will issue another new book this year, as Editor, an anthology about the invasion of COVID-19 in the U.S. Featuring 42 poets and prose writers, the book is scheduled for publication in September. As a survivor of a desert ordeal, Ed Rosenthal has been featured on “Fight to Survive” on The Outdoor Channel, and several Weather Channel presentations, LA Magazine, and “The Story” on National Public Radio. His volume of poems inspired by this experience, The Desert Hat, was released by Moonrise Press in 2015. His long-awaited memoirs, Salvation Canyon - A True Story of Desert Survival in Joshua Tree, have been published in June 2020.

 Your President’s poems in English and Polish appeared in Lummox vol. 9,  I am currently finishing the proofs for We Are Here: Village Poets Anthology, co-edited with Marlene Hitt to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Village Poets Monthly Readings at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, CA. The anthology includes poems by CSPS first Honorary Member, Suzanne Lummis, as well as outstanding work by other CSPS members, talented poets, writers, and artists: Cile Borman, Beverly M. Collins, Thelma T. Reyna, Ed Rosenthal, Pamela Shea, Dorothy Skiles, Konrad Tademar Wilk, Ambika Talwar, and Kath Abela Wilson.

 
Grateful for the gifts of languages and words that enlighten the world, we wish everyone an inspired and transformative, poetic summer! 

 

Maja Trochimczyk

CSPS President

 

photos from CA beaches by Maja Trochimczyk

 

California Quarterly 46:2, Summer 2020, Edited by Maura Harvey

The California Quarterly issue for the summer 2020 has been edited by Maura Harvey.

EDITOR’S NOTE

This issue reflects how poets react to changes brought about by the global pandemic.

The California Quarterly is also experiencing changes. Pearl Karrer has retired after 19 years of service, including Membership Chair, Editorial Chair & Managing Editor. In 2019 she set up our Submittable website for submissions and then edited CQ 45:4, her final issue, which presaged her retirement with the themes of winter (an ending) and spring (a beginning). We wish her well as she finds more time for music, gardening and writing. She leaves many friends and fellow poets who will miss her cheerful support and enthusiasm for poetry.

Stephanie Pressman, who volunteered her InDesign formatting skills to CQ, is also stepping down this spring and will be missed.

I had difficulty choosing poems this round. Editor's block? Maura's block? Weltschmerz? Maybe this challenge is due to the plethora of fine pieces sent this spring. Many poems talk about the pandemic. In “Quarantine” Nicola Waldron personalizes the global crisis in the person of her own mother in England., while Torrey Ogilvie honestly shares her Brooklyn reality in “Isolating Guilt.” Jane Ann Flint writes of timelessness as we wait for what is happening/to happen. The themes of time, love, and family occur in many pieces and humor happily serves as a balm for the poets.

In this brave new world, poetry will grow stronger and more relevant.  I am personally strengthened by working with you, the poets and the friends of the California State Poetry Society.  May this volume serve you well as you find your path during the summer of 2020.  I quote here the words of Spanish poet, Antonio Machado:

Caminante, no hay camino,                  Traveler, there is no road,
se hace camino al andar.                       you make your own path as you walk.

I wish you a smooth path forward.

Maura Harvey
San Rafael, California


TABLE OF CONTENTS
California Quarterly, Volume 46, Number 2

Sailing - Mark Belair 7
fragile is the rose - Peter S. Hein 7
Carpe, Fool - David Denny 8
Zarathustra Abecedarius - Fred Yannantuono 9
Nuggets from Namibia - Elizabeth Yahn Williams 9
Quarantine - Nicola Waldron 10
Five-Year Old - Roy Mash 10
The Williams Triad - Judith Saunders 11
Arbol a Uno Mirlo en … - Marisa Martínez Pérsico 12
A Tree for a Blackbird in … - Jeanie R.C. Toscano, tr. 13
Look, Stop and Listen - Milton P. Ehrlich 14
Nature’s Retreat - Tomas Gayton 15
Panic Pandemic - Tomas Gayton 15
Free - Esther L. Palmer 16
New Place - Bibhu, Pabhi 17
Obsession’s Motivated Solution - Jerry Sexton 18
Jose Feliciano in Concert - Edwin Romond 19
When the Last Piece of Clothing - Roy Mash 19
Flamingo Dawn - Mary Wilix 20
That Awkward Journey… - Evalyn Lee 21
blowing bubbles... - Deborah P. Kolodji 21
The Pier in Santiago Bay - Joseph D. Milosch 22
Find Me - a.Lynn Brown 23
Sparrow, Reversed - Cathryn Hankla 24
Freud’s Nudes - Ben Nice 24
Not Worth Reading  - Luis Gallo 25
The Carpenter Bee - Joel Savishinsky 26
Set at Oman - Elizabeth Yahn Williams 27
Cold as ICE - Anna Nicolas 28
Cowabunga! The Jam Jar is… - Kit Kennedy 29
Hoarder’s Excuse - Dana Stamps II 30
Cross-polination - Brian Kirven 31
Assessment - David C. Rice 32
It’s News to Me - Elizabeth Yahn Williams 33
Cities of this world… - ayaz daryl nielsen 33
Night Life - Brian Kirven 34
Vida Nocturna - Brian Kirven, tr. 35
Roxy’s Gift - Pearl Karrer 36
Like a Rush of Blackbirds - Pearl Karrer 36
Reading the Romantics - Roy Mash 37
we imagined we were men… - Robert Paul Cesaretti 38
Sage Advice - Jeffrey L. Taylor 38
Ice Walking - Jeeni Criscenzo 39
Suicidal Eagles - Kelly Talbot 40
Awake - Jane Ann Flint 41
Kandi - Marganne Glasser 42
partisan politics… - Deborah P Kolodji 42
A Long Way Away - Christopher Kuhl 43
Benumbed - Douglas Nordfors 44
That Day in Hades - Claire Scott 45
Strange Antlers  - Richard Jarrette 46
Clair de lune - Doreen Stock 48
Message Threads - Maura Harvey 49
Yeats and Lost Love  - Mai-Lon Gittelsohn 50
Sequester - Jane Ann Flint 51
Keeping in Touch - Mo Lynn Stoycoff 52
after our house fire - ayaz daryl nielsen 52
Isolating Guilt  - Terrie Ogilvie 53
Measure Twice, Cut Once- Todd Capeland 53
Warmth - Liz Dossa 54
Coyote Song - A.Downing-Yaconelli 55
Renewal - Lea Aschkenas 56
From A Window - Nicola Waldron 57
Summer Garden Ball - Jeeni Criscenzo 57
Extinctions - Joanne Sharp 58
spring rain - ayaz daryl nielsen 58

MAURA HARVEY, EDITOR

Maura Harvey is a bilingual poet, author and artist who has lived in California since 1950. She holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Literature from UC Irvine. Her poetry in both Spanish and English has appeared widely. Dr. Harvey is a founder of Taller del mar, a monthly poetry workshop with members from Tijuana and San Diego. She feels very proud to have published a poetry anthology in Barinas, Venezuela, in 1993 and to have been able to meet Venezuelan and Cuban poets personally while travelling in those countries. She has exhibited her art in many venues in California and had a show in Instanbul, Turkey, in 2006. She joined the editorial board of the California Quarterly in 1999, editing many issues and serving for years also as Secretary of the CSPS and as the CSPS Annual Contest Chair. 

COVER ART: “This Wave” by Kathryn de Laszlo

March 2020, Point Reyes, California, Oil Pastel on Paper

Winners of CSPS Monthly Contests, November 2019 to May 2020

Alice Pero, the new Chair of Monthly Contests has selected the following poems for recognition as winners of the California State Poetry Society's Contests in the past six months.

November 2019
1. Jane Stuart - "October’s Wind Brings War"
2. Jane Stuart - "When All Was Mystery"
3. David Anderson - "The Moving Spray Rig"

December 2019
1. David Anderson - "Windstruck"
2. Kathy Lundy Derengowski - "A Marriage of Poets"
3. David Anderson - "When Cezanne Painted Mont Sainte Victoire"

January 2020
1. Jane Stuart - "Our Winter Garden"
2. Jane Stuart - "Early on a Winter Morning"
3. David Anderson - "The Apple Spy"

February 2020
1. Pamela Shea - "Rosebuds and Lovers"
2. Jane Stuart - "Dancing Into Love Again"

March 2020
1. Dorothy Skies - "The Coyote’s Howl"

April 2020
No Winners

May 2020
1. Marlene Hitt - "Enlightenment"

Congratulations to all the winners! Well done! 

The First Prize Poems are reproduced below.

November 2019 Winner:
Jane Stuart's "October's Wind Brings War"

October's Wind Brings War

Autumn's sun is hot, as red as a persimmon leaf on a dying tree. It warms the sand
but cools the sea and hard rain blows away our treasures, all the dreams and pretty
things we left behind-but life is cold. The street is mud, your eyes are blistered
diamonds and every book we read .. blew away. Who are we then? If not tired rocks
and broken branches, summer's end rekindled for an hour and then gone-gone
away to sleep like children in a fern patch on a hidden hill. You remind me of an
aging Venus stepping from her shell and I am Vergil dancing star-to-star,
climbing higher, farther from the fire that lingers in Vesuvius's hole.

A swag of evergreen
tied to every door
a sign that signals
the moon sighs
and lonely houses weep

When everything
is gone, gone
and lightning strikes
another cold fire
but the Phoenix sleeps

War
leaves nothing
time is fatal--
your jeans are torn

my dress is old

December 2019 Winner:
David Anderson's "Windstruck"

Windstruck

In the spring winds, you carried the freshly washed clothes
out to hang dry on clotheslines. You hung shirts by their tails
and let the sleeves dangle. You hung pants upside down,
shook the fabric, pulled the pockets out and let any coins fall free

for us to find. Sheets you hung by center-lines and the folds
swung open and closed in the flapping breeze. One by one,
out of the basket, you hung towels, corner after corner,
a varicolored string of rectangles, and shorts, handkerchiefs, socks—

You walked one line to the end and returned on the next, measuring
out briefs and lingerie against the breeze, still cold from winter.

We ran between the sheets and towels and let the yet wet
cloth slap our faces and the sunstruck sheets blind us.

How could we not praise the winds that sucked our laundry dry
and left behind sheets and clothing stiff with sky?


"Windstruck." Originally published in Time of Singing. 2015 Spring; 41(1). First Place, July 2014 CSPS Contest. It also appears on Anderson's personal website and was emailed in his Poetry Letter, no.2, June 2015 and no.8, Dec 2015.

January 2020 Winner:
Jane Stuart's "In a Winter Garden"

Our Winter Garden 


Our winter garden greens under dark snow
that fell upon the terrace in our sleep--
the moon's shadows glisten and glow,
the wind makes footprints that are deep
beside the garden wall that is so tall
it almost reaches the winter sky--
and now, the lightest morning snowflakes fall
from greyest clouds stuck to the sky.
Snow falls where flowers bloomed and young trees grew
up, up, to blossom on a summer day.
The garden was a green place where birds flew
 in flocks to find their nests; time blew away
 these months then winter raindrops fell with snow
over dark earth under the full moon's glow.

February 2020 Winner:
Pamela Shea's "Rosebuds and Lovers"

Rosebuds and Lovers

The bud of a rose,
Layer on layer of petals,
Held tightly, perfectly,
Unfolding when the time has come,
Bursts open and a flower is born,
Releasing sweet perfume.

The heart of a lover,
Layer on layer of emotions,
Trembling, hidden, waiting,
When touched by the beloved,
Bursts open and a poem is born;
Sweet music fills the air.

March 2020 Winner: 
Dorothy Skiles's "The Coyote's Howl"

The Coyote’s Howl

January’s draught
portent of a scorching
summer to come…

The San Gabriel Mountains
and Verdugo Woodland’s
are but a tinder box-
terrain covered with
chaparral, a dry dense
stubborn thicket -
fuel for wildfires.
On summer nights beneath
the full moon’s light, coyote’s
coat the color of nickel.
Her features gaunt, gait less
confident, yet her sense
of smell remains keen.

From dusk to dawn
she traverses the ridges,
the low-lying hillsides
hunting rodents and rabbits.
She often treks into
neighborhoods, climbing
fences as swift as a thief.
The coyote is not too proud
 to forage for plums,
berries or pears.

This fall as the Santa Ana
winds rage, I’ll listen
for the coyote’s howl,
wondering if she’ll
make it through
the threat of famine,
the peril of wildfires,

sure, to come!

May 2020 Winner:

Marlene Hitt's "Enlightenment"

Enlightenment

A dust devil blew in

from my childhood.

Dead leaves whirled up

from summer’s hot soil

while a jay feather flew birdless

swirling into midsummer sky

up to the puffs of white cloud

as on the day when I was ten,

when I ran into the vortex

trying to find a secret

in the center of the whirlwind

only to rush away

with sand in my eye.

Why does that thrill return

as the wind whirls in?

And why, now, do I run away?

Alice Pero, the judge of the Monthly Poetry Contests, joined the CSPS Board as a Director at Large  in May 2019. She has published poetry in many magazines and anthologies, including Nimrod, National Poetry Review, River Oak Review, Poet Lore, The Alembic, North Dakota Quarterly, The Distillery, Fox Cry Review, The Griffin, and G.W. Review, and others. Her book of poetry, Thawed Stars, was praised by Kenneth Koch as having “clarity and surprises.” She also published a chapbook Sunland Park Poems, written as a dialogue with Elsa Frausto.

Pero teaches poetry and is a member of California Poets in the Schools, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering students to express their uniqueness through writing, performing and publishing their own poetry. She is also the founder of Moonday, a reading series that has been on-going in the Los Angeles area for upwards of sixteen years. Ms Pero has created dialogue poems with more than twenty poets. She also created the performing group, Windsong Players Chamber Ensemble and performs with them as a flutist.

Nature photos from Big Tujunga Wash and Southern California gardens

by Maja Trochimczyk

Welcome to New Board Members, Ambika Talwar and Konrad Tademar Wilk

On May 2, 2020, the Board of Directors of the California State Poetry Society voted to approve the addition of two new Directors at Large to our team, poets Ambika Talwar and Konrad Tademar Wilk. We welcome our new colleagues; their insights and creativity will be an asset for CSPS.

At the same time, the Board acknowledged receiving resignations from long-time Board Members and Editors of the California Quarterly, Pearl Karrer who served as Editor and Editorial Chair, and Nancy Cavers Dougherty who was one of the Editors. We thank the outgoing Board members for their years of dedicated service to the CSPS, working as Editors to make sure the California Quarterly contains only high quality poems and that it is produced without errors. We wish you all possible success in your future poetry endeavors.

AMBIKA TALWAR

Ambika Talwar is an India-born author, wellness consultant, artist, & educator whose vision is to realize her sacred destiny and invite others to find their brilliance.  Insights gleaned through life challenges have prompted her to make her poetry a call to action. Composed in the ecstatic tradition, her poetry is a “bridge to other worlds.” She has authored Creative Resonance: Poetry—Elegant Play, Elegant Change and also 4 Stars & 25 Roses (poems for her father).  She is published in various journals and anthologies including Kyoto Journal, Inkwater Ink - vol. 3; Chopin with Cherries; Meditations On Divine Names; VIA-Vision in Action; in Poets on Site collections; St. Julian Press; Tower Journal; Enchanting Verses; Quill & Parchment; California Quarterly; Life & Legends, and others. She has also interviewed with KPFK and Human Frequency Radio, and recorded poems for the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California.

Ambika's works also appear in Grateful Conversations (2018), a collection of poems, photos and essays by Westside Women Writers based in Southern California. Her poem Sweet Fire Dance of Dissent (for Rilke's Spanish Dancer) was nominated for the Pushcart Prize by the editors. In 2018, she was one of 10 to earn Commendable Mention in The Great India Poetry Contest spearheaded by On Fire Cultural Movement, and, has since been a judge for their weekly poetry contest in 2019.

In 2016, Ambika published My Greece: Mirrors & Metamorphoses about her travels through Greece in 2002. It is a poetic-spiritual travelogue that seeks to discover our collective human purpose. She asserts it is time for creatives to offer a new narrative to change our worldview, which has led to destructive ways to one that arises harmony.  A grateful and willing performer, she has read at various venues in Southern California and also at the Eden Hall, Chatham University, Pittsburgh. Ambika also made a short film titled Androgyne in 2000 for which she earned the Best Original Story Award at a festival in Belgium. She wrote, produced, and directed this film. She has also written two original feature-length screenplays.

Also a wellness, practitioner, Ambika practices IE:Intuition-Energetics™, a powerful fusion of modalities and creativity principles for speedy recovery from ailments and practice being whole again. “Both poetry and holistic practices work beautifully together, for language is intricately coded in us. And we must be free of false beliefs and confusions,” she notes.  This process achieves speedy and efficient results. An English professor at Cypress College, California, Ambika makes her home in Los Angeles and in New Delhi, India.

Sites: http://creativeinfinities.com * http://goldenmatrixvisions.com
Interviews: https://www.loispjones.com/taoli-ambika-talwar/
Human Frequency Radio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn8w5Tg2yVQ
Poetry Offerings: http://www.patreon.com/goldenmatrixvisions  

KONRAD TADEMAR WILK

Konrad Tademar Wilk is an American poet living in Los Angeles. His works range from single sonnets to epic poems on themes including current events, myth, and philosophy. In addition to American subjects, his work is strongly informed by international events and history, especially those of freedom and oppression. Tademar's early childhood was spent in Poland where he was particularly influenced by the rise of the anti-communist Solidarity labor union.

Following his return to the U.S., he studied philosophy and literature at Los Angeles City College where he was president of the Poet's Platform. He then went on to graduate from UCLA. His poetry book Fifty Sonnets, titles like labels only get in the way... is available for purchase on-line.  Other poetry chapbooks are out of print. He is currently working on two epic poems "Prometheus" and "Trafficking In Time" - scheduled for release in the near future. He has appeared in Los Angeles venues such as the Onyx, Ground's Zero, Magicopolis Theater, Wilshire Art Gallery, Bolton Hall Museum, and Pig and Whistle. In 1991, he founded the Witching Hour Poetry Gathering which has met continuously for over 20 years. 

Additionally, he is a founding member of the Pecan Pie Organization, dedicated to artistic promotion and stage performances.  Mr. Tademar recently served as the artistic director for Warsaw 80/75 performance of poetry, dance and music, celebrating the 80^th anniversary of the outbreak of WWII (German attack on Poland), and the 75^th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.  The event was held at the Santa Monica Playhouse in September 2019.

 Some of his stories and poems are available on the internet. https://angiesdiary.com/author/konradtademar/ - 138 poems posted since 2010
https://angiesdiary.com/stories/romantic-story/angel/
https://angiesdiary.com/stories/miranda-eithn/ http://www.scribd.com/doc/139129443/The-Lady-and-Her-Man-With-Images http://www.scribd.com/doc/139399595/Qi-a-poem

Montreal Poetry Prize Submissions Due by 1 June 2020

The Montreal International Poetry Prize is committed to encouraging the creation of original works of poetry, to building international readership, and to exploring the world’s Englishes.
The Montreal International Poetry Prize awards one prize of $20,000 CAD to one poet for a single poem of 40 or fewer lines. A jury of internationally reputed poets and critics select a shortlist of 50 poems, from which a judge chooses one winning poem. The shortlist of 50 poems is published in The Global Poetry Anthology. The prize is run by the Department of English at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Note on the 2020 competition: The usual deadline of 15 May has been extended to 1 June 2020 in response to COVID-19. Submit your poems and pay fees on the website: https://www.montrealpoetryprize.com/

HISTORY

The Montreal International Poetry Prize was founded and incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in 2010 by the poet and critic Asa Boxer, with the help of Peter Abramowicz and Len Epp. It sponsors a crowd-funded biennial competition, awarding one prize of $20,000 to one poet for a single poem. The Prize has been awarded four times since 2011.

The Montreal International Poetry Prize has become a truly global competition, supported by its international jury of award-winning poets from North America, the Caribbean, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, Nigeria, and Uganda, and with participants from more than 70 countries. The management of the Prize has recently been transferred to the Department of English at McGill University.

An exceptional history distinguishes Montreal as a centre of poetry. Some of the first anthologies of Canadian poetry were produced in Montreal, including E.H. Dewart’s Selections from Canadian Poets (1864) and W.D. Lighthall’s Songs of the Great Dominion (1889). At the beginning of the twentieth century, Sir Andrew Macphail of McGill University played a key role in the careers of a number of poets, foremost among them Marjorie Pickthall, through his editing of the University Magazine (1907–20) from his home on Peel Street. An important new phase began in the late 1920s with the Montreal Group, a circle of poets including A.J.M. Smith, A.M. Klein, and F.R. Scott. They and their followers helped to inspire the development of modernist poetry in Canada through the McGill Fortnightly Review in the 1920s, the 1936 anthology New Provinces, and the 1940s magazines, Preview, First Statement, and Northern Review.

McGill’s Department of English has enjoyed a long, sustained tradition of work in poetry, through the expertise of many faculty members over time. In the 1950s, Louis Dudek established himself as one of Canada’s leading poets and critics. He mentored Leonard Cohen and exerted an influential presence in the department until the 1970s, both in the classroom and beyond, through publications such as Scrivener Creative Review. The Faculty of Arts now boasts a robust faculty complement in poetry, reflective of the department’s commitment over time to cultivating creative work in and critical work responsive to poetry.

PAST WINNERS

2017:  Erin Rodoni https://www.montrealpoetryprize.com/2017-competition
2015: Eva H.D. https://www.montrealpoetryprize.com/2015-competition
2013: Mia Anderson https://www.montrealpoetryprize.com/2013-competition
2011: Mark Tredinnick https://www.montrealpoetryprize.com/2011-competition