Congratulations to CSPS's own, Suzanne Lummis and Richard Modiano

As President of California State Poetry Society, Maja Trochimczyk was delighted to present the Honorary Membership in the Society to the extra-ordinary poet Suzanne Lummis. The presentation took place at Bolton Hall Museum on October 27, 2019. The Village Poets of Sunland Tujunga hosted  the event that included also a featured reading by Ms. Lummis, a presentation of a Certificate of Appreciation by State Senator Anthony Portantino and one from Village Poets, an open mike reading by local poets, and a reception. 

Maja Trochimczyk, Senator Portantino, Suzanne Lummis

Sen. Portantino is a poet and a great friend of poetry; he came in person to our event because he owes a huge debt to Ms. Lummis, who encouraged him to read his own poetry at public literary events. We are all so grateful to Suzanne for all she does for poetry and for her insights and talent!     

  

Maja Trochimczyk, Senator Portantino, Suzanne Lummis

Suzanne Lummis

Village Poets with Ms. Lummis: Trochimczyk, Lummis, Skiles, Shea, DeCenzo, Hitt

Suzanne Lummis with her Peacock Feather Rose Bouquet, and Maja Trochimczyk

Suzanne Lummis with Maja Trochimczyk and Ed Rosenthal "Poet Broker" holding bronze peacocks. 

Standing L to R: Marlene Hitt, Cile Borman, Joe DeCenzo, Ed Rosenthal, Peter Larsen, Gene Schutz, 

Dr. Mira Mataric, Dr. Rick Wilson, Kathabela Wilson, Taura Scott. Seated L to R: Maja Trochimczyk, 

Pamela Shea, Suzanne Lummis, and Dorothy Skiles

Lummis’ poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, Antioch Review, Ploughshares, New Ohio Review, Plume, The American Journal of Poetry and The New Yorker.  Her most recent collection, Open 24 Hours, won the Blue Poetry Prize (Lynx House Press, 2014). Previous full-length collections include In Danger (Roundhouse Press/Heyday Books) and Idiosyncrasies (Illuminati).  Suzanne edited Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Pacific Coast Poetry Series, Beyond Baroque Books), noted in The Los Angeles Times as one of The Ten Best Books of 2015. She also was principal editor of the anthology, Grand Passion: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond. An influential teacher in Los Angeles, she leads private workshops and has taught for many years at  UCLA. 

Suzanne Lummis, Photo by Joe DeCenzo

The director of The Los Angeles Poetry Festival, she has been associated with the following poetry schools and poetic sensibilities: The Fresno School (students of Philip Levine); Stand-Up Poetry that aspires to combine the dynamism and bracing irreverence of performance poetry with the skill and attention to detail found in literary poetry (term by Charles Webb);  The Poem Noir (named by Lummis herself), with dark themes, atmosphere, and voice of cool detachment that are inspired by the low budget black-and-white crime movies of the 40s and 50s; and, last but not least, Los Angeles Poetry. 

In addition to the  certificates from Sen. Portantino and Village Poets, congratulations were offered to Ms. Lummis by CSPS members who attended the ceremony: Kathabela Wilson, Pamela Shea, and Ed Rosenthal.

Taura Scott, Kathabela Wilson, Rick Wilson perform at the event, sponsored in part by the Moonrise Press.

__________________________________________________

Maja Trochimczyk, Suzanne Lummis and Richard Modiano at 9th Annual Awards of Beyond Baroque

Congratulations to Richard Modiano, CSPS Vice President for Communications, for his Special Award from Beyond Baroque, for years of dedicated service as Executive Director of this amazing cultural institution. We are lucky to have Mr. Modiano join us at CSPS. At Beyond Baroque's 9th Annual Awards Dinner,  held on November 10, 2019 at Santa Monica Bay Women's Club, Richard Modiano was introduced by poet David St. John and read a poetic statement reminiscing about his years of work for Beyond Baroque as well as poems. 

Also honored were poet Harryette Mullen with the George Drury Smith Award for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry (introduced by Stephen Yenser; Diane Luby Lane - with the Distinguished Service Award, introduced by her first student Jazzmine Williams; and Johanna Drucker, recipient of the Alexandra Garrett Award for Service to Beyond Barque, introduced by Danny Snelson and Karen Kevorkian. In addition to dinner and drinks, attendees enjoyed rare performances by maestro David Amram, singer/songwriter/poet Vince Bell, and punk press impresario V. Vale.

Richard Modiano with Maja Trochimczyk

Suzanne Lummis' Receives CSPS Honorary Membership on October 27, 2019

California State Poetry Society is proud to collaborate with Village Poets of Sunland Tujunga in presenting the Honorary Membership in CSPS to Ms. Suzanne Lummis, poet extraordinaire. During the celebration, Ms. Lummis will also give a reading of her work. 

The reading and celebration will take place on October 27, 2019 at 4:30 pm at Village Poets Monthly Reading at Bolton Hall Museum (10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042). Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS Acting President, will make the presentation. After the featured reading, there will be some time for open mike readers and refreshments will be served during the break.  All members of CSPS living in Los Angeles area are invited to attend. 

Bolton Hall Museum, the second historical landmark in the City of Los Angeles, celebrated its centennial in 2013.  It previously served as community hall for the Little Landers who settled the area, each on their own "little land." The Museum presents regular exhibitions and lectures about local history and is managed by the Little Landers Historical Society. Village Poets of Sunland Tujunga, established in 2010, is a group of former Poets Laureate of Sunland Tujunga who organize poetry readings in their community, write poetry, and publish books, making sure that poetry life is rich and vibrant in the foothills. http://villagepoets.blogspot.com/p/about-us.html

Suzanne Lummis Portrait by Alexis Rhone-Fancher

Suzanne Lummis’ poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, Antioch Review, Ploughshares, New Ohio Review, Plume, The American Journal of Poetry and The New Yorker.  Her most recent collection, Open 24 Hours, won the Blue Poetry Prize and was published by Lynx House Press in 2014. Previous full-length collections include In Danger (Roundhouse Press/Heyday Books) and Idiosyncrasies (Illuminati).  Suzanne edited Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Pacific Coast Poetry Series/Beyond Baroque Books), noted in The Los Angeles Times as one of The Ten Best Books of 2015.

She is the recipient of Beyond Baroque’s fifth George Drury Smith Outstanding Achievement in Poetry Award. An influential teacher in Los Angeles, she leads private workshops and has taught for many years through the UCLA Extension Writers’ program where she evolved courses in poetic craft, the persona poem, and the poem noir (“Poetry Goes to the Movies”).  She is 2018/19 COLA fellow, an award from the Cultural Affairs Department to outstanding mid-career artists and poets. It comes with an endowment to create a new body of work.

Lummis is the director of The Los Angeles Poetry Festival, which she founded with poet Sherman Pearl, and through which she produced nine citywide multi-literary events between 1989 and 2011. In the 70s, during CSU Fresno’s now legendary era, Suzanne studied with Philip Levine, Peter Everwine and Charles Hanzlicek, and received an MA in English with a Creative Writing focus.

     

Suzanne Lummis has at various times, on different occasions, been associated with the following schools and poetic sensibilities:

THE FRESNO SCHOOL.  This is the designation for those graduates of a golden era, late 60s and 70s, at CSU Fresno, which gave rise to several of the nation’s most distinctive poets, all of whom studied with Philip Levine. The “Fresno” poets are often characterized by a direct personal voice, a language both lyrical and colloquial, and an image-based fidelity to the tangible world, whether rural or urban. Lummis received her M.A. in English with Creative Writing focus in 1978, before CSU Fresno established its MFA program. She is included in the definitive anthology edited by Christopher Buckley, Jackson Wheeler and David Oliviera, How Much Earth: The Fresno Poets.

STAND-UP POETRY. It aspires to combine the dynamism and bracing irreverence of performance poetry with the skill and attention to detail found in literary poetry. Charles Webb coined the term in the 80s then he and Lummis worked together refining the definition and assembling poems for the initial small press anthology that introduced this sensibility, which they associated with a group of Los Angeles poets. Lummis is cited as a seminal avatar of the style in the one-thousand word entry on Stand-Up Poetry in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poets and Poetry, and in the March/April 2004 Poets & Writers Magazine article on the subject.

THE POEM NOIR. Lummis’ essay in New Mexico’s Malpais Review, “The Poem Noir — Too Dark to Be Depressed” — describes the defining characteristics of this poetry, whose dark themes, atmosphere, and voice of cool detachment are inspired by the low budget black-and-white crime movies of the 40s and 50s. For the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program she teaches a course she designed, “Poetry Goes to the Movies: The Poem Noir”. She has been an advisor for Philadelphia’s NoirCon. In the fall of 2011, she instigated and produced, through her organization The Los Angeles Poetry Festival, and with valuable support from Beyond Baroque, a citywide, 25-event series, “Night and the City: L.A. Noir in Poetry, Fiction and Film” Her poems are included in the Knopf “Everyman’s Pocket Poets” anthology, Killer Verse: Poems of Murder and Mayhem, edited by Kurt Brown, and in other anthologies of detective fiction and poems noir.

LOS ANGELES POETRY.  Discussions of her poetry and influence on the Los Angeles literary world appear in Bill Mohr’s meticulous history, Holdouts, in the book-length exploration by Lawrence Goldstein—longtime editor of The Michigan Quarterly Review—Poetry Los Angeles: Reading the Essential Poems of the City, and in Jack Foley’s Visions and Affiliations, A California Literary Timeline: Poets and Poetry 1940-2005. She was principal editor of the anthology, Grand Passion: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, which The Los Angeles  Times named one of The 100 Best Books of the Year in 1997. In 2015, She is co-editor of The Pacific Coast Poetry Series/Beyond Baroque Books, and the anthology she edited, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2015 by the Los Angeles Times.

“Open 24 Hours has the intensity and edgy threat found in the best traditions of L.A. Noir. But Suzanne Lummis also has the gifts of a comedic writer: a finely-honed ear for the way people talk, an eye for the often quirky but right-on image, and that balancing act of timing that belongs to the dramatic performer.  Moreover, she’s dead-pan funny…As in all serious comedy, however, the undercurrents of her book have an unsentimental sadness and tht close-to-the-bottom wreckage a city like L.a. seems to draw.”

– Peter Everwine

“Suzanne Lummis’ Open 24 Hours is a glittering, mordant, ravishingly clever book. It bristles with energy and biting wit and is as much about the life of writing as it is about the shifting lives of those who live just on the edge in L.A.”

– Lynn Emanuel

California Quarterly 45:3, Autumn 2019, Edited by Maja Trochimczyk

California Quarterly, Vol. 45, No. 3, Fall 2019, 

EDITOR’S NOTE

Some people say California has no seasons, only an endless summer. When envisioning this Fall 2019 issue of the California Quarterly, I sought out poems about autumn: harvest, Thanksgiving, fruit, and, by extension, fruition, bearing gifts at the end of life when all we worked for is done… This was not an “official” call for submissions, though, as we are open to all themes and genres. Still, remarkable synchronicities emerged.

Poetry evolves with the poets, as they grow and mature: from the delights of travel and discoveries in Delphi or Cambria, oceans, deserts or forests, the nostalgic end of the summer, folding “the tempest of ripples” of a lake into a suitcase (Rosenheim). Poets explore “the mystery of time” (Mickiewicz) where “raindrops glisten” (Schick), “Casals plays” (Schmidt), and birds “scold us” (Shea) “beneath the long sigh of sky” (Zawinski). They may watch bobcats from a kitchen window (Friend),  encounter a coyote in the desert (Rosenthal), discover islands (Jean), or enjoy domestic pursuits of canning apricots (Bachels Schmidt) and making dill pickles (Potts).

There is lots of fruit in here, fragrant and flavorful: figs (Zheng), peaches and pears (Zaro), summer apples (JonesDavies), and the exotic sapote (Wilson). We are thankful for this feast of sweetness, but even more so for the people we remember through things – father’s lemons (Olivi), mother’s blanket (Samkow-Frausto), or the friends’ “house of air” (Rogers). Strengthened by the “density of yesses…greening the earth, greening us” (Moorehead), we grow in the awareness that loss is inevitable; still, we know that what we have “is enough for now” (Zawinski) as “we live suspended in our bestiary of souls” (Saine), able to climb mountains (Bowman, Zheng), or listen to ocean waves (Galasso, Zanelli). We admire cathedrals (Musser) or the mystic lives of trees (Schick, Dinges, Salamon, Turner). While “folding laundry” we make a “satchet of memories” (Martin).

Poets share free verse, haiku and haibun (Martin, Schick, Stuart, Zheng), tanka (Wilson), pantoum and villanelle (Zawinski). Their vibrant imagery brings to life the abundance of vivid, experiential language in the verse by Russell Salamon, a long-time CQ Editor, who died in 2018. We honor  Russell with our words.

Maja Trochimczyk, Editor
CSPS Acting President

REMEMBERING RUSSELL SALAMON

Russell Yaroslav Salamon served on the board of the California Quarterly for many years. He worked closely with then President, Kate Ozbirn, as a fund-raiser, CQ champion and dedicated associate editor. If you met Russell, you would never forget him. He was tall like the redwoods he loved—quick to laugh and as quick to love. Perpetually inspired, he wrote daily. Russell was born on December 6, 1941, in Berkasovo, Yugoslavia, as it was then, about sixty miles west of Belgrade in a hamlet of about 200 people near the Orient Express Line. As he tells it, huge steam locomotives thundered through without stopping at Sid (pronounced, Sheed), a town of about 2,000. This life up to age twelve is recounted in Breakfast in the Twelfth Century, a book of poems.

In October, 1953, he migrated to Kent, Ohio, and soon after moved to Cleveland. This part of his life is summarized in Descent into Cleveland, a poetic novel about events in the 1960s. Part memoir, part prose poem, it’s an epic journey through the deep Cleveland movement and his relationship with D. A. Levy.

Russell studied under Lewis Turco, the formalist and self-ascribed form collector whose invented forms are part of textbooks all over the world. Russell invented a form under his tutelage, and his work can be found in many university libraries. To say that he loved nature and especially the great redwoods of Northern California would be like saying Shakespeare liked words. His book Redwoods in the Rain is a collection of love poems to those great giants of the natural world.

Though we lost Russell on December 21, 2018, I know he would have much to say on the theme of Thanksgiving. His work was an homage to man’s endless abilities and spiritual elan, and, though he was sometimes angry with our constant wars, he never lost faith in man’s essential goodness and immortality. A prolific writer with over 18 collections published over his lifetime, he featured at many venues in California and New York.

The great Ray Bradbury said it best. “Russell Salamon... your poetic images float above the earth without touching; you are a poet from the marrow out.”
__________________________
 Lois P. Jones
 South Pasadena, California

Painting by Debby Beck

LAMENT FLIGHT

Strands of air and sun water
and lines of pelicans pull evening
out of rain clouds. Mirrors tremble
on sea winds. But this is not a sea
but a mind placing statements
out of old starlight and forests
looking from time.

A heartbreak listens for the touch
of eyes. Large mountains block
the southern passes. If you are
still there, if you feel with skin
cherry petals falling in minds,
if you hear the eyes of rivers
opening curves of land—step
here in the taste of wind and
sway in unfolding light air.

Do not touch me now, I am
the voice of complete silence
descending on lost lands, my
hands among stars, by touch
feeling for silences of lost eyes.

It was before the beginning,
the look of simple knowing
shut distances between us
and left us awake in moon’s
thoughts rooted in trees.

Russell Salamon
http://www.moondaypoetry.com/russell-salamon-2008.html

Painting by Debby Beck

TABLE OF CONTENTS
California Quarterly, Volume 45, Number 2

Remembering Russell Salamon - Lois P. Jones 7
Redwood Trees - Russell Salamon 8
Lament Flight - Russell Salamon 9
Nocturne 8 - Russell Salamon 10
Nocturne 16 - Russell Salamon 11
Serenity at Dawn - Jianquing Zheng 12
folding laundry - Willitts Jr. Martin 12
Context and the Seasons - Sandra Kolankiewicz 13
Near Delphi - Jane Stuart 13
Roman Holiday - Leslie Hendrickson-Baral 14
On the Capitoline -  Ruth Holzer 14
Kuramathi Dawn - Alessio Zanelli 15
Lake Willoughby - David Rosenheim 16
Wash Wonderland - Pamela Shea 17
Seeing - Jianquing Zheng 18
Cambria - William Scott Galasso 19
Patience after Basho - Carla Schick 20
The Breath - Maggie Hawthorne 21
The Mystery of Time - Anna Maria Mickiewicz 21
Casals Plays the Cello Suites - Deborah Bachels Schmidt 22
Sapote - Kath Abela Wilson 23
Summer Apple - Georgia Jones-Davis 24
Canning Apricots - Deborah Bachels Schmidt 25
Three Deliveries and a Room... Mariano Zaro 26
Mama - Susan Keyes Morrison 28
Today - I Put Up Dill Pickles Lynne Potts 29
Eri un maestro potatore - Terry Olivi 30
Il primo fiore di limone - Terry Olivi 30
You were a master at pruning - Margaret Saine, tr. 31
The first lemon blossom - Margaret Saine, tr. 31
At the Funeral - C. Dodds Musser 32
Anatomy of a Blanket - Elsa Samkow-Frausto 33
Ardoch Homestead - Susan Keyes Morrison 34
I know the figs are ripe - Kath Abela Wilson 34
La fin du monde - Mick Kennedy 35
Mom’s Word - L. Hendrickson-Baral 36
The German Chancellor... Sharon Chmielarz 37
Sserenity in Bend - Mary Jo West 38
Moving through the Lawn - Joel Fry 38
We Exist - Margaret Saine 39
It is Enough for Now - Andrena Zawinski 40
Cosi esisti - Paolo Staglianò 41
This is how you exist - Margaret Saine, tr. 41
One - Jane Rosenberg LaForge 42
End of the Line - Mark Belair 43
Fox in the Woods - Brendan O’Tuathalain 44
Eyes of Love - Emory D. Jones 44
Tree Rings - Richard Dinges, Jr. 45
The Cathedral at Chartres - C. Dodds Musser 46
Patchwork Dream Pantoum ... Andrena Zawinski 47
(Abecederian) Bird Feeder - Guinotte Wise 48
Bobcat and Two Cubs - Annette Friend 49
Partons à la découverte des îles - Éliphen Jean 50
Let’s Go & Discover the Islands - Margaret Saine, tr. 51
Coyote - Ed Rosenthal 52
Mountains - Clint Bowman 53
in this windfallen - Kath Abela Wilson 53
Carving the Mystic Wood - Brian K. Turner 54
Unbroken Circle - P.V. Beck 55
A House of Air - Susan Rogers 56
Greening - P.C. Moorehead 57
After Climbing - Jianquing Zheng 58
a guttural cry of geese - Willitts Jr. Martin 59
The Day after Thanksgiving - Jessica Day 60

Cover Art: Fruit and Teacups by Debby Beck

Maja Trochimczyk, photo by Susan Rogers

ABOUT THE EDITOR 

Maja Trochimczyk is a Californian poet, scholar, translator, photographer, and non-profit director from Poland. She studied musicology at the University of Warsaw, and sound engineering at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, leaving  Poland in 1988 with two M.A. degrees. In 1994, she earned her Ph.D. in musicology from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Dr. Trochimczyk published five books of poetry (incl. Slicing the Bread,  2014; Into Light, and The Rainy Bread, 2016). She also edited three poetry anthologies: Chopin with Cherries (2010); Meditations on Divine Names (2012), and Grateful Conversations (2018, co-edited with Kathi Stafford).  Her poetry and photographs appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in English and Polish: California Quarterly, Cosmopolitan Review, Magnapoets, Quill and Parchment, Ekphrasis Journal, Edgar Allan Poet Journal, Epiphany Magazine, Lily Literary Review, Loch Raven Review, Lummox Journal, Quill and Parchment, Phantom Seed, Pirene's Fountain, poeticdiversity, Poezja Dzisiaj, The Sage Trail, The Scream Online, Spectrum and many anthologies. She also published seven books of music studies and hundreds of articles on music, immigration, and Polish culture. Dr. Trochimczyk is a recipient of PAHA's Creative Arts Prize (2016) for her two poetry books about WWII experience of civilians. She has served as Acting President of CSPS since February 2019 and edited volumes 44:1 and 45:3 of the California Quarterly.

More information: https://www.californiastatepoetrysociety.com/p/president.html

Fruit by Krystyna Urbanellis, Chicago, Illinois (Oil on Canvas, 16X16)

Photo by Anna C.  Harley-Trochimczyk

Winners of Our Monthly Contests, March to July 2019

The California State Poetry Society supports poetry and poets by organizing Monthly Poetry Contests
on a rotating series of topics, open to all poets, not just CSPS members. All poems must be the original work of the poet, in English and, except for the December contest, previously unpublished.There is no limit to the number of poems one can submit, but each poem must be less than 80 lines (two pages).

Contest rules, submission information and full list of topics are posted on our official website:
https://californiastatepoetrysociety.org/our-contests

The CSPS Vice President for Communications, Richard Modiano selected the following winners of contests for the months March through July 2019.

March 2019: Open Topic. 
First Place Winner: Greg Gregory for "Mojave"

April 2019: Travel, History, Mythology, Other Cultures (other times, places, alternate worlds)
First Place Winner: David Anderson for "Returning to Ruins"

May 2019: Portraits, Persons, Characters (with portraits of animals, objects, places with character)
First Place Winner: Jane Stuart for "Italian Memories"

June 2019: Open Topic. 
First Place Winner: Hanh Chau for "Refugee"

July 2019: Childhood, Memoir, Lessons of the Past. 
First Place Winner: Tanya Whitney for "Pages of Life"

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE WINNERS!

MOJAVE

The sun is sinking over this expanse of undulating desert.
We pull into a familiar motel near Barstow for the night,
driving to visit my wife's sister & brother in Arizona.
We have done it for years, before her parents died.

The sun stretches our clay-colored building
into shadows on empty sand as it finally sets,
then erases them as well. We are here, but invisible.
Death Valley waits just to the north of us.

I once visited there, stunned by my first sign
of the dunes as the sun lowered. They crept diaphanous
in the fading light, in sage-laden breezes, intricately
winding into each other into the twilight.

The bedside alarm clock ticks.
A little fine sand sifts in from the window's edges.
It forms small dunes on the sill. I brush them away
and crack open the window to let in the cool night air.

The alarm clock glows and I drift off. The dunes
drift back, beautiful. They persist, tangible souls
still wandering the desert. They travel, ephemeral
winding into each other.

Half asleep
she folds her arm around me.
A scent of sage drifts in from the open window.


By Greg Gregory (March 2019 Contest Winner)

RETURNING TO THE RUINS
A contrapuntal poem for two voices

                   includes phrases found in Caelinn Hogan's "Life Among the Ruins,"
                   National Geographic Magazine, 2018 Mar: 233(3): 60-67.

             tall buildings fallen, toilets and kitchens buried inside
the bride lays her hands on the groom's shoulders

            a grenade launcher sits on a casing-strewn schoolroom floor
his arms on her waist, he dances in the folds of her floor length dress

             laundry hangs from a few apartment balconies
their dance is slow, the music a love song in Arabic

             in not-quite ruined buildings, store fronts wield fresh paint
her bridesmaids circle them, aglow in petticoat netting

            one light in one room's broken chandelier works an hour a day
the strobe light spreads colors across their faces and the floor

            first thing mornings, children stand to sing in new classrooms
every day Citadel Square fills with chatter from sellers and barterers

           the sky fills and lightens with broken clouds
children return from school on streets between collapsed and still-standing buildings

            in the outskirts, returnees shelter in warehouses
daily, people in twos and threes fill all the benches in the public park

            and come night, with no water or electricity
mosques are being rebuilt in neighborhoods of rubble and debris

            they clamber in their dreams over the tourist attraction
and surveyors from Damascus traverse the city with maps to chart a future

             the giant letters that spell out I 💛 ALEPPO.


By David Anderson (April 2019 Contest Winner)

ITALIAN MEMORIES (SAN LEO)

The wind blows through time
sticking under chilly rocks
where the ginestra bloom

Wooden fortress walls,
painted windows, heavy doors
golden winter light

Frozen mountains soar,
splintered ice slides over trees -
the moon closes her eye

Shortly after dawn
starlit shadows cross the sky...

A fiery red sun
rises over yesterday

...tomorrow brings new dreams


By Jane Stuart (May 2019 Contest Winner)

REFUGEE

When is asked what is your name?
 
                                              I reply it is refugee.

And oh why is that?      The reason is I am a man that lost his homeland to war

To escape away from a thousand miles

                   To find a secure place with a sense of belongingness and acceptance

      Even in the cold stormy weather, sickness, vomiting and hunger I endured

My strong-willed and determination pursue me to carry on to hope for a 

                              brighter future and promises

You see I came across to the land of Great America . . . that it embraced me with

humility to open a new door with a greater opportunity to rebuild a prosperity life
 
                            in which I called my second home

Only to know that I must start from a scratch with a bare hand and feet

That was my goal and inspiration to witness for my children to live

surpass me.

            It has given me the voice to speak, the freedom to express, opportunity to look

                           How can I not be grateful, indeed I am

                   So when you see other refugee out there

                             DO NOT JUDGE ME as I plead

                            I have learned to be on my thick skin

                        to stand high and seize with every second chance

                            never to take anything for granted

                       When life is tough and knock me down

                I carry myself back up and stand tall and be tougher than life itself

                         I am humble to call myself an American

                    to learn the true value of freedom and its meaning

In a place that filled with a melting-pot and multi-cultural diversity

                                For that I salute to you

                            the Great America you are,

                                 in all we stand together


By Hanh Chau (June 2019 Contest Winner)

PAGES OF LIFE

As a child I traveled alone
To faraway places and times
From the heaven of my bedroom.

The descriptive words drew pictures
Of the many lands and oceans
Detailed in their written pages.

I was immersed in the stories,
Becoming anyone I wished
To be in my lonely childhood.

I rode once with crusading knights,
Sat in King Arthur's knightly court
With those gallant and noble men.

I piloted an aero plane
Over the Pharaoh's pyramids
Awestruck by the Egyptian tombs.

The wonders of Rome and Athens
Ancient  temples of marble stones
Built in my imagination.

I served Alexander the Great
Stood on the deck of the Pinta
And fought with valor in the war.

I was an Indian princess
Helping settlers in the New World
And searched for clues with Nancy Drew.

On safari in Africa
Hunting for lions and tigers or
Looking for Doctor Livingstone

My reading adventures took me
Whitewater rafting down rivers,
Passing steamboats on a log raft.


By Tanya Whitney (July 2019 Contest Winner)

Photos of Yucca in Big Tujunga Wash by Maja Trochimczyk

CSPS Newsbriefs 45:2 (Summer 2019)

The Spring 2019 has been very busy for California State Poetry Society and we are so much better for it. I’m delighted to announce the decision of the Board of Directors of the California State Poetry Society to award Honorary Membership in the Society to Suzanne Lummis, an eminent poet, teacher, writer, editor, and impresario. The decision was made unanimously during the CSPS Board meeting on May 18, 2019 in Yorba Linda. The presentation of the Honorary Membership Certificate and a Featured Poetry Reading by Ms. Lummis will take place on October 27, 2019 at 4:30 pm at Village Poets Monthly Reading at Bolton Hall Museum (10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042).

Suzanne Lummis’ poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, Antioch Review, Ploughshares, New Ohio Review, Plume, The American Journal of Poetry and The New Yorker.  Her most recent collection, Open 24 Hours, won the Blue Poetry Prize and was published by Lynx House Press in 2014. Previous full-length collections include In Danger (Roundhouse Press/Heyday Books) and Idiosyncrasies (Illuminati).  She edited Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Pacific Coast Poetry Series/Beyond Baroque Books), noted in The Los Angeles Times as one of The Ten Best Books of 2015. An influential teacher in Los Angeles, she leads private workshops and has taught for many years through the UCLA Extension Writers’ program where she evolved courses in poetic craft, the persona poem, and the poem noir.  She is 2018/19 COLA fellow, an award from the Cultural Affairs Department to outstanding mid-career artists and poets. More information is posted on our new blog: https://www.californiastatepoetrysociety.com/2019/06/suzanne-lummis-new-honorary-member-of.html.

The CSPS poetry submissions are in the process of moving to a new platform, Submittable.com on a trial basis for one year:  https://californiastatepoetrysociety.submittable.com/submit.  Please, do not forget to entitle your Word file that you will upload using the following format: poet’s last name, first name, number of poems, date submitted.   Also, please include the poet’s name, mailing address, and email address on each page of the submission. The CQ only accepts unpublished poetry and prefers shorter, one-page poems (a maximum of five poems submitted in a single document). These instructions are posted on Submittable.com site, but from my experience as a CQ editor, opening the first batch of 42 submissions to CQ 45:3 (up to five poems in each, i.e., over 200 poems to select from!), our talented and absent-minded poets do not read the guidelines! The CSPS Submittable site contains the basic submission instructions, but will soon include images, links and additional information. However, if you cannot use the computer to submit, please mail your printed poems with the required information on each page (name, address, email) to CSPS Editors, PO Box 4288, Sunland CA 91041-4288.

Huntington Lake, photo by Maja Trochimczyk

The poets who entered the 2019 Annual Contest will find out who wins in October 2019; the winning poems will be included in the CQ 45:4 this winter.  The Monthly Poetry Contests are administered now by Richard Modiano, Vice President for Communications.

The winning poems for March 2019 are: 
1. “Mojave” by Greg Gregory
2. “Blue, Blue Skies” by Jane Stuart
3. “Your Song” by Amanullah Khan.

The winning poems for April 2019 are: 
1. “Returning to the Ruins” by David Anderson
2. “Dark Days of the Rebellion” by Jerry Douglas Smith
3. “Haiku” by Lillian M. Fisher.

The winning poems for May 2019 are: 
1. “Italian Memories” by Jane Stuart
2. “Water Color Artist” by Kathleen Howd Machan
3. “My Jewels” by Lilian M. Fisher.

These poems will be posted on our website and included in the Poetry Letter by Margaret Saine.

Arizona State Poetry Society is seeking jurors for their Annual Poetry Contest (deadline in September) which is adjudicated by a committee, unlike ours that has one Judge (Lisa Rosenberg this year). If you want to volunteer to serve as an Annual Contest Judge in Arizona email azpoetryorg@gmail.com.

Big Tujunga Wash, Angeles National Forest, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

CSPS MEMBER NEWS: 

We are mourning the loss of a wonderful poet and friend, a former editor of the California Quarterly, Russell Salamon who died recently in Florida.  A tribute by Lois P. Jones will be published in CQ 45:3 along with her selection of his unpublished poems.

The CQ 45:1 was so inspirational for the artist Marion Wong (whose work graced its cover) that she became a member of the CSPS! Welcome, Marion, and thank you ever so much for your wonderful art!

Nancy Dougherty, the editor of the current issue reports that her poem, "Inversion" will appear in the next West Marin Review, Volume 9.

Kath Abela  Wilson’s whimsical photos of found objects and poems inspired by them, entitled Figures of Humor and Strange Beauty was published in December 2018 by Glass Lyre Press of Chicago.

In 2019, Margaret Saine, CSPS Secretary/Historian, published her fourth book of German poems, Ein Lied Davon (Wiesenburg, Schweinfurt).  She published the German translation of Lebanese poet Anwar Salman’s collected poems (Wiesenburg Verlag, Schweinfurt, Germany, 2019), which she based on their English version by Nizar Sartawi (Inner Child Press, Waterford Works, New Jersey, 2018).  Subterranean Blue Press published Saine’s fifth book of poems in English, A Book of Travel (editor Rebecca Anne Banks, Montreal, Canada). Saine translated Khedija Gadhoum’s book of poems Bibénes—Doors from Spanish to English, for publication in the US. Gadhoum was born in Tunisia, but writes in Spanish, she is a Spanish professor at the University of Georgia, Athens, USA.

Saine also edited an anthology of twelve Italian poets, whom she translated into English for the Nepalese poetry journal Pratik, edited by poet Yuyutsu Sharma, currently a guest professor at Columbia University.  Our hard-working Secretary was also invited to the Festival Internacional de Poesía Los Confines 2019, at Gracia near San Pedro Sula, Honduras, from July 24-28.

My two haibun about trains, “Parallel Tracks” and “Home No More” have been accepted for The Train Anthology edited by Jacquie Pearce; “The Skylark’s Lesson” will appear in Lummox Poetry Anthology, vol. 8, edited by RD Armstrong. I have been invited to give a lecture on Polish émigré composers in America at a conference by the Institute of the Arts, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland, October 15-16, 2019. My new poems and poetry reflections are posted on my blog, poetrylaurels.blogspot.com.

Send us your news – publications, conferences – etc. and let us know how you like submitting via the Submittable.com, and do not forget to follow the guidelines about titles and names on each page of each poem. You would not want to have your poem published with someone else listed as its author, right?  Please email your comments to me at maja@moonrisepress.com.

All the best wishes for a wonderful, peaceful and poetic summer! Happy writing!

Maja Trochimczyk, Ph.D.
Acting President, California State Poetry Society

Home after the Fourth of July Parade, July 2019

California Quarterly, 45:2, Summer 2019, Edited by Nancy Cavers Dougherty

The second issue of the California Quarterly vol. 45  in 2019 (Summer) was edited by poet Nancy Cavers Dougherty and is now being mailed to members and authors. The issue is free to members and authors of poems, who receive one free copy, while the Editor has five copies at his/her disposal for promotional purposes.


EDITOR’S NOTE

What I love about poetry is its variety of voice, of ideas, its sheer range of form, and ever-fresh use of language. The poems in this issue well display this! Here are poems about destiny, free will, nature, faith, longing, remembrances, and from as far away as Kosovo to home state California. Nature features in many of the poems. It is clear that nature involves us, humankind, as part of the equation. There is exuberance of Earth’s belly first cries spring in “Unlikely and Least” (Raphael Block), and the wonder of gardening in “The Art of Transformation” (Charlene Langfur). Solace is found in companionship “By the River” (Milly Brown). In “Faded,” Raleigh Scott Wood addresses what is lost by ceaseless building, soon the sycamores will have no sky. And Fred Yannantuono asks what’s ahead in “Unsure of What the Sea’s Insurgence Plans.”

Taking to the sky, the bird of “American Kestrel” (Joyce Snyder) reminds us of the utter/balance with the world/around him. John Forrest Harrell writes, The moon drips eerie, wistful loneliness in ”Karmic Strings.” I can’t help but relate to the beautiful sounds that Margaret Rooney evokes in “Cellist,” my thanks! In “Amelia Earhart,” Reza Ghahremanzadeh finds inspiration and hope.
Interesting word choices abound: milkened sky of “Out Park Presidio” (John Briscoe), shrug-hop of “Feeding Time in the Valley” (Arlene Downing-Yaconelli), leaf-hood of “Vine in Leaf” (Doreen Stock) and others to discover.

Thank you, talented poets, for your magnificent poems! And a heartfelt thanks to all our readers! I wish to especially thank poet and longtime California Quarterly President, Editor and Treasurer, John Forrest Harrell, for his many years of devoted service to this journal. We wish him well with more time for his writing and more years as our Treasurer.

Nancy Cavers Dougherty
Sebastopol, California
Editor of CQ Volume 45, Number 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Unlikely and Least - Raphael Block 7
Moon Music - Mark J. Mitchell 8
Out Park Presidio - John Briscoe  9
Crepuscular - Reza Ghahremanzadeh 10
I’m Only Thinking... - David James 11
Instinctual - Amy Trussell 12
After Sorrows - Jackie Huss Hallerberg 13
All the Weight - Holly Day 14
Venice - Ken Autrey 15
Aftershock - Michael Cadnum 16
Unsure of What the Sea’s... - Fred Yannantuono 17
My Husband Is a Gypsy - Marcia B. Loughran 18
Vine in Leaf - Doreen Stock 19
Bear Lake, Idaho - Ana Manwaring 20
American Kestrel - Joyce Snyder 21
Afterwards - John Terenzi 22
Karmic Strings - John Forrest Harrell 23
Faded - Raleigh Scott Wood 23
We Were Speaking of Picasso - Doreen Stock 24
By the River - Milly Brown 25
Grand Canyon Treasure - John Forrest Harrell 26
Travel Time - C. Fausto Cabrera 27
Stealing Fire - Raphael Block 28
News - Andrew Vogel 29
Prayer Rug - Fahredin Shehu 29
Le Onde - Paolo Staglianò 30
The Waves - Margaret Saine (tr.)  31
Interlude - John Forrest Harrell 32
The Parade - Gregory Natt 33
Without Device - Margaret Rooney 34
The Dilemma of the Quercus - Ana Manwaring 35
Faith - Jackie Huss Hallerberg 36
Invisible Silence - Linda Ibbotson 37
Something Cold Hit the Window - Pamela Stone Singer 38
The Art of Transforming... - Charlene Langfur 39
Image of our Winterreise - Fahredin Shehu 40
Veteran’s Day, 2018 - Thomas A. West, Jr. 41
Scent - Laura Blatt 42
Votive - Andrew Vogel 43
Out of the Loop - Kate McNairy 44
Amelia Earhart - Reza Ghahremanzadeh 45
Folk Song - Mark J. Mitchell 45
How to Live - Marilyn Robertson 46
Television - Kate McNairy 47
The Player King and His Troupe...- Robert Cooperman 48
Free Will - d.p. houston 49
Beachcomber - Bray McDonald 50
Feeding Time in the Valley - Arlene Downing-Yaconelli 51
Cellist - Margaret Rooney 52
Sky Burial - Pamela Stone Singer 53
History - Gregory Natt 54
Momentary Sighting - Marcia B. Loughran 55
The Rain in Santa Clarita - Michael P. Montgomery 56
Common Prayer, Sutro Heights - John Briscoe 57
 Ramble in a Coastal Wood - Deborah Taylor-French 58

Cover Art: Lettuce Christine Walker


THE EDITOR

NANCY CAVERS DOUGHERTY

Nancy Cavers Dougherty recently joined the CSPS Editorial Board; she is the editor of the second issue of 2014. Originally from Massachusetts, her interest in the arts has led her to watercolors, ceramics, snow sculptures, and most recently poetry and collage. She is the author of three chapbooks; Tape Recorder On, Memory In Salt, Levee Town and a collaborative work, Silk. Her poetry has appeared in descant, Language and Culture, Compass Rose, Westview, Big Scream, The Pinch and other journals as well as several anthologies. She has served on the Sonoma County Poet Laureate Committee as the 5th District representative. She holds a Masters Degree in Public Administration from Sonoma State University and works as an advocate and supporter of several local organizations, with a focus on mental health and art therapy programs. Most recently, she has edited the fourth issue of the CQ for 2017 (Vol. 43, No. 4).

Poetry News and Contests from State Poetry Societies

Poets Joe DeCenzo, Marlene Hitt, Maja Trochimczyk and Josephine 

at the Independence Day Parade in Sunland Tujunga, 2019. 

Poets enjoy sharing their poetry and listening to others. Probably that's why every week there are more open mike readings in town.  With one of my poetry groups, Village Poets of Sunland Tujunga, I organize monthly readings - held for the past 10 years on the fourth Sunday, mostly at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, sometimes in the former residence of California Poet Laureate John Steven McGroarty - McGroarty Arts Center. We also love participating in the Independence Day Parade, each year we have a banner and a decorated convertible. I enjoy giving out poems to the audience, lining the Foothill Blvd in Sunland on the 4th of July 2019. 

Here's our crew dressed up for the theme "Out of This World" with the Village Poets banner that was carried this year by poet Joe DeCenzo. Joe dressed up as a spaceman, while Marlene Hitt's slogan was "From Outer Space to Inner Space" as she presented the multitude of her poetry books. Susan Rogers rode in the convertible and I gave away postcards with America the Beautiful and my Independence-themed poems, such as the one below. I gave out over 500 poems, run out of postcards two-thirds of the way, so next year we'll print 800! We had 250 last year so we thought 500 would be enough... We  had so much fun in the most overdecorated convertible we ever rode in. Poets definitely know how to have fun! Maybe we should have CSPS participate in Independence Day Parades around the state next year? 

It is the summer, time to travel, enjoy nature. Poets travel far and wide, so we will be pleased to post here some of your wonderful travel photos with the California Quarterly!  Let's see the places that the CQ visited with you! 

NATIONAL FEDERATION NEWS

  

The California State Poetry Society is a member of National Federation of State Poetry Societies that recently had its annual convention in New Mexico.  The NFSPS now publishes its newsletter online, so you can find more information about the Federation's activities on its website: nfsps.com/Strophes.htm

THE POETRY SOCIETY OF TENNESSEE - DEADLINE AUGUST 20

Annual Poetry Festival will take place on October 18-19. The 63nd Annual Poetry Festival will take place on October 18-19, 2019 at the Southwest Tennessee Community College, Macon Cove Campus

Room 141, Macon Academic Building B, 5983 Macon Cove, Memphis, Tennessee, 38134. Budd Mahan will be the  workshop leader on October 19, 2019.

There are many Contests for you to submit to.  The deadline is August 20 and there are 26 contests some of which are open to anyone, as listed below. 

DEADLINE AND ENTRY FEES:

• Postmarked by Tuesday, August 20, 2019. Please do not call or email to verify receipt. NO E-MAIL ENTRIES. • Members $10, Non-members $15. Contests #1 and #2 have additional fees per entry. Send check made payable to PST to: Lori Goetz, Contest Coordinator, 2153 Wood Creek Drive, Germantown, TN 38138. • Questions: JoAn Howerton, Festival Director, (901) 361-0077; E-mail: joan0620@att.net or Lori Goetz, Festival Coordinator, (901)-753-4385, poetrytennessee@gmail.com.

ELIGIBILITY

1. All categories are open to all poets except as otherwise indicated.

2. Your contest entries must be original and unpublished poems (except those entered in contest #2); the poem may not have won a cash prize in any poetry contest prior to the PST’s October 2019 Festival.

3. The same poem may not be entered in more than one category.

4. A poet cannot enter more than one poem in a single category (except for contests #1 and #2).

5. Contests #1 and #2 are open only to members of the Poetry Society of Tennessee; any number of poems can be submitted for $2/poem.

6. Contest #2 is the only contest which will accept previously published poems.

7. Entries which do not conform to these rules will be disqualified from this and future contests.

8. A poet may not send more than one envelope with entries; submittal of multiple envelopes will result in disqualification from this and future contests.

FORM

9. Type poems on standard, 8 ½” x 11” white paper; no handwritten poems will be accepted. Submit in 8 ½ x 11 or 9x12 envelopes; folded submissions will not be accepted.

10. Entries must be single spaced, in a readable font style and point size (11 or 12 point). Excessively large or small font will be disqualified. Staple two-page poems on upper left.

11. Submit two copies of every poem.

a. Show title and number of contest on the first copy, in the upper left.

b. On the second copy, show title and number of contest in the upper left. In the upper right, show the poet’s name, mailing address, e-mail address (if available), and PST Member or Non-Member.

12. If submitting a multi-page poem, staple both pages together. Do not use paperclips. Please put poet’s ID on both pages of the ID-ed copy.

13. Separate originals from duplicates and stack in numerical order (1-21) with originals on top; no paperclips. 

14. Honorable mentions are given as merited by the number of entries in each individual contest and the quality of the material submitted.

15. First place winners (except #2, which allows published poems) will be published in the PST yearbook, Tennessee Voices. All rights revert back to the poet following publication of Tennessee Voices. Purchase a copy: https://www.poetrytennessee.org/publications.html

WINNERS

All winners will be announced at PST’s 63rd Annual Poetry Festival, October 19, 2019. Winners will be posted on our webpage, https://www.poetrytennessee.org/annual-festival-and-contest.html, after the Festival. If you want to receive a copy of the winner’s list, enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope with your entry.

LIST OF CONTESTS

1 and 2 for Tennessee members only

3) Dr. Wanda Rider Memorial Award Sponsor: Marilyn Denington Form: Free Verse, 20-30 lines Subject: International Travel Prizes: $50/$35/$15 Instructions: None. 

4) Unrequited Contest Sponsor: Bill Howerton Form: Free Verse, 8-32 lines Subject: Love Unrequited Prizes: $50/$30/$20

5) PST-NE Chapter Prize Sponsor: PST-NE Form: Any, 50 lines max Subject: Any Prizes: $50/$35/$15 

6) On a Deceased Favorite Poet Sponsor: W. L. Huettel Form: Any, 20-40 lines Subject: A Deceased Poet Prizes: $50/$25/$25 Instructions: No current, live poets.

7) Rose Klix Award Sponsor: Howard S. Carman, Jr. Form: Any, 40 lines max Subject: Faith. Prizes: $65/$40/$25 

8) Connections Award Sponsor: Bill Howerton Form: Any, 5-25 lines Subject: Connections. Prizes: $50/$30/$20 

9) Citizens’ Climate Lobby Challenge Sponsor: Citizens’ Climate Lobby of Northeast Tennessee. Form: Any, 12-40 lines Subject: Climate change Prizes: $40/$20/$10 + 2 HM 

10) John R. Benish Memorial Award Sponsor: Dr. Diane M. Clark Form: Any, 20-40 lines. Subject: gloves (singular or plural) Prizes: $30/$20/$10 

11) Winklebleck Challenge Award Sponsor: Barbara Blanks Form: Sonnet (14-15 lines). Subject: Any Prizes: $30/$15/$10 + 1-3 HM if merited Instructions: Any sonnet form, but it must be in correct iambic pentameter. A two to 3 line epigraph is allowed and will not be included in line count.

12) In Honor of My 11 Grandchildren, Whose Love is Unconditional Sponsor: JoAn Howerton. Form: Any, 40 lines max Subject: Generation to Generation Prizes: $25/$15$/10. 

13) Letting Go Award Sponsor: Von Bourland Form: Any, 16-32 lines Subject: Letting Go

Prizes: $25/$15/$10 

14) The Undercover Contest Sponsor: Anonymous Form: Any, 40 lines max Subject: Any. Prizes: $25/$15/$10 

15) Try Something New Award Sponsor: Lori Goetz Form: Haibun or Tanka Prose, 30 line max Subject: Any Prizes: $25/$15/$10 

16) The Pat Smith Memorial Award Sponsor: Florence Bruce Form: Blank Verse, 20-40 lines Subject: Any Prizes: $20 + 1 HM Instructions: Unrhymed iambic pentameter.

17) Bobbie Drobeck Award Sponsor: Russell Strauss Form: Narrative Poem, 10-40 lines Subject: Your story must contain a reference to one of these popular drinks: beer, wine, coffee, tea, or

carbonated beverages. Prizes: $15/$10/$5
18) Family Ties Award Sponsor: Anna’s Pet Sitting Form: Any, 4-20 lines Subject: Family Prizes: $20/$15/$10 Instructions: None.

19) In Memory of Jo Elliott Sponsor: Pete Harris Form: Limerick, 5 lines Subject: Any Prizes: $25/$15/$10 Instructions: See Florence Bruce’s Blogspot for examples, http://poemsamples.blogspot.com/2014/08/limerick.html.

20) PST-Knoxville Award Sponsor: PST-Knoxville Form: Any, 25-40 lines Subject: Bridges (any interpretation) Prizes: $25/$15/$10 + HM as merited Instructions: Please specify form.

21) Dorsimbra Contest Sponsor: JoAn Howerton Form: Dorsimbra, 12 lines Subject: Family traditions Prizes: $25/$15/$10 Instructions: A dorsimbra is a 12-line poem consisting of (1) a quatrain of iambic pentameter rhyming abab; (2) a quatrain of “short and snappy” free verse, and (3) a

quatrain of blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter). The final (12th) verse is the same as the first line. See Florence Bruce’s Blogspot for examples: https://poemsamples.blogspot.com/search?q=dorsimbra. 

22) Joan T. and Sheron B. Strauss Award Sponsor: Russell Strauss Form/Subject: A classic Burma Shave Poem, rhymed, metered, and suitable for a series of road signs. Last line should read “Burma Shave”. Prizes: $15/$10/$5 Instructions: See Florence Bruce’s Blogspot for examples,

http://poemsamples.blogspot.com/2015/06/burmashave.html. 

23) Fibonacci Poem Award Sponsor: Gail Denham Form: Fibonacci Poem, 6 lines Subject: Any (humorous) Prizes: $20/$10/$5 Instructions: This form is divided into 6 lines, 20 syllables 

in total. 1-1-2-3-5-8, like the mathematical sequence from which it takes its name. Punctuation is optional. 

24) Time to Reflect Award Sponsor: Lori Goetz Form: Free Verse, 10-20 lines Subject: Divisions

Prizes: $25/$15/$10 

25) Personification Contest Sponsor: Florence Bruce Form: Any, 40 lines max Subject: Any — see requirement below Prizes: $20 + 1 HM Instructions: Must use personification wholly or in part.

More information is provided on Florence’s Blogspot, http://poemsamples.blogspot.com/2019/03/personification.html.

26) In Memory of Dotty Katz Sponsor: Lynnie Mirvis Form: Any, 20 lines max Subject: The Color Purple Prizes: $15/$10/$5 

ILLINOIS STATE POETRY SOCIETY - DEADLINES SEPTEMBER 1, NOVEMBER 1

• 2019 ISPS Poetry Contest Announcement (deadline November 1, 2019)
• 
  
• 2019 Poets and Patrons Chicagoland Poetry Contest (deadline September 1, 2019)
• 
  
• 2019 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest (deadline September 1, 2019)

ARIZONA STATE POETRY SOCIETY ANNUAL CONTEST 

DEADLINE SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

  

1. ASPS AWARD Any subject, Any form - 60 line limit.  Sponsor: Arizona State Poetry Society. Prize:  1st - $50, 2nd - $30, 3rd - $20

2.  LEGACY AWARD In honor of Priscilla White, former ASPS president. Form: Cinquain, Any subject conforming to 2-4-6-8-2. Sponsor:  Christy White. Prizes: 1st - $50, 2nd - $30, 3rd - $20

3.  LONG FREE VERSE Any Subject, Maximum 2 typewritten pages. Sponsor:  Molly Saty. 

Prizes: 1st - $50, 2nd - $30, 3rd - $20.

4.  SHORT FREE VERSE Theme: Desert Tracks. Any form – 32 line limit. Sponsor: Tucson Poetry Society. Prizes: 1st - $50, 2nd - $30, 3rd - $20

5.  NATURE ON THE EDGE. Any form – 32 line limit. Sponsor:  Scottsdale Mustang Poets. 

Prizes: 1st - $50, 2nd - $30, 3rd - $20

6.  TRADITIONAL RHYMING POETRY. Any subject – 32 line limit. Sponsor: Sun Cities Poetry Society. Prizes: 1st - $50, 2nd - $30, 3rd - $20

7.  SHAKESPEARE MATTERS.  Use two lines from any two of Shakespeare's work Any form – 14 lines or less. Sponsor:  Jeanne & Christopher Osgood. Prizes: 1st - $50, 2nd - $30, 3rd - $20

8. HUMOR Any form – 32 line limit Sponsor:  East Valley Poetry Society Prizes: 1st - $50, 2nd - $30, 3rd - $20 

9.  HAIKU ROUNDUP Any subject as long as it conforms to 5-7-5! Sponsor:  Stuart Watkins

Prizes: 1st - $50, 2nd - $30, 3rd - $20

 0. YOUNG POETS AWARD For 13 - 18 years old, original unpublished work Any form, Any subject. Sponsors: Walter & Regina Ralston. Prizes: 1st - $50, 2nd - $30, 3rd - $20

CONTEST GUIDELINES & RULES

• ELIGIBILITY:  Open to all
• QUALIFICATIONS: Original, unpublished poems not currently submitted to other contest(s). Any number of poems may be entered in each category, but each individual poem may be submitted only once per entire contest. All entries need not be sent in at one time. Submissions without fees will be disqualified.
• MAILED ENTRIES:  Each poem must have the following information in the Upper Right Corner: Category  #  and Title of Category. DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME OR ANY IDENTIFYING INFORMATION ON YOUR POEM! INCLUDE A PAGE LISTING POEM NAMES WITH THE FIRST LINE (We insist on the first line! Please!) AND YOUR NAME, ADDRESS, EMAIL, & PHONE NUMBER
• FORMAT: Submit one clearly typed copy of each poem (in English only), on 8-1/2"x11" white paper, without lines/ no illustrations. Submit each poem on a separate page; no staples, unless an individual poem exceeds one page. Spaces or breaks between stanzas will not count as a line. Spaces or breaks for effect only will be counted as lines. Introductory or editorial remarks, quotations, dedications, etc. will be included in the total line count. For consistency poems should be submitted in Times New Roman 12.
• Carefully read AND FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS IN INDIVIDUAL CATEGORIES AS WELL AS THESE GUIDELINES. POEMS NOT ADHERING TO THE STATED RULES WILL BE DISQUALIFIED.
• ENTRY FEES: Category 1 thru 9 -- $3.00 US  per poem; Category 10 -- $1.00 US per poem, 13 - 18 years old
•  DEADLINE: September 30, 2019, received by 11:59 pm. If mailing, send First Class or Priority Mail only (Not Registered or any form of delivery requiring signature). Mail entries and #10 (business) self-addressed stamped envelope to: Christy White, ASPS President 1145 E. Kaler Dr. Phoenix, AZ 85020
• JUDGES: Qualified non-ASPS members. Decisions are final. List of judges to accompany results sent via SASE provided by contestant, at completion of competition, or posted online.
• PRIZE WINNERS: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd winning poems will be published in the ASPS journal, Sandcutters. Winners receive ONE copy and award certificate. Sandcutters claims first publication rights. Honorable Mentions will be listed in Sandcutters. ASPS members receive Sandcutters as a benefit of membership.
• ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS - SEND YOUR ENTRIES VIA EMAIL TO  AZPoetryorg@gmail.com. Send entries as Word Doc attachments. PUT ONLY THE CATEGORY ON THE POEM. EMAIL SUBJECT LINE: 2019 CONTEST ENTRY. BODY OF EMAIL:  Include your mailing address (if you win--we send a check! J ) Your phone number (so you can be reached, if needed, when we print your poem)  LIST POEM TITLES, FIRST LINE OF POEM, CATEGORIES, AND FEES SENT.  PAY YOUR FEES using PayPal on our website, http://azpoetry.webs.com/apps/webstore/ Use 2019 CONTEST FEES. We will send a confirmation of poems received and fees paid.