California Quarterly 45 No. 4, Winter 2019, Edited by Pearl Karrer

 

California Quarterly, Vol. 45, No. 4, Winter 2019

EDITOR'S NOTE

This issue begins on a sad note. Wanting to start with “Leaves of Poems,” I learned the poet died a few days after I received his permission. West’s poem introduces the cycle of life with a leafless/scrub oak waiting for spring and a poet with eight decades...full of poems. His voice anchors this issue with a walk through woods...the anticipation of hope.

Landscapes move from desert to high mountains. Survival is a common thread. In “Crossings,” Some risk everything to cross this sand. To cross the Pyrenees, The first thing we pack is fear, “The Backpack for the Pilgrimage.” Concern for a son prompts, Fifteen is/a surfeit of song/too often silenced...“Canary. Coalmine.” Beech trees find a voice in “Reply to Adrienne,” where roots inter-twine...send extra nutrients/to a tree with weakness or disease.

Confronting death, a couple imagine a lasting embrace—that sure lover//finally taking your breath away, “Evanesce.” Seduction and death fill the sumptuous setting of “Judith and Holofernes;” She had thought he would be ugly...Love resonates in “Design,” where With you every page has turned.

Another walk invites us to carry our stories into the woods...spilling them beneath the tall canopy, “Walking Among Redwoods,” while “Let It Be” advises, Dive into the unknown and let/it be in the country of yourself.

Since winter holds the promise of a coming spring, “Our Silence is in Listening” leads us there: an owl speaks with its silent wings/a language woven from/passing cloud, falling stars,/the Japanese maple in moonlight.

My continued thanks to all who submitted and shared their poetry.

Pearl Karrer                                               

Palo Alto, California 

 

Snow and Palm Trees. Photo: Maja Trochimczyk

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

 

Leaves of Poems  -   Thomas A. West, Jr.   -   7
Hiking Mogollon Rim    -  Jedediah Smith  -  8
Reply to Adrienne  - Allegra Jostad Silberstein  -  9
Giving Way    -    Anne-Marie Cadwallader   - 10
Penumbra    -   James Deahl   - 11
Kaleidoscope   -  Valerie M. Griggs    -   12
Windows    -    Marilyn Robertson   -  12
Brittle as Silica  -   Yixuan Shi    -  13
Desert Dance at Joshus Tree -  Dana Robbins  -  14
Crossings  -    Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong   -   15
The Lucky Ones -   Lucille Lang Day  -  16
Ranas   -  Carla Pravisani     -    17
Frogs   -  Margaret Saine (Tr.)   -   17
The Backpack for the Pilgrimage   -   Martina Nicholson   -   18
Crossing Over   -    Mike Dillon  -  19
Canary. Coalmine.   -  Susan Schaefer Bernardo  - 20
Coming of Age   -   Charles Joseph Albert   -    22
Be Still   -   Jacqueline Henry   -  23
Spin Cycle    -    Susan Schaefer Bernardo   -  24
Dance from Another Continent   -   Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong - 26
Let It Be   -    Allegra Jostad Silberstein -   26
On Losing a Friend to Camouflage  -  Stephanie Pressman  -   27
Love in Autumn  - Laurie Lessen Reiche  - 28
Innisfree  - Marilyn Robertson  -  29
Evanesce   -   Richard Brostoff   -  30
The New Life   -  Steven Gizitsky  -  32
Heat Wave    -    Johanna Ely     -  33
Downward from the Flames -Lucille Lang Day- 34
Where Is Love   -  Barbara Tramonte   -     35
Judith and Holofernes  - Stephanie Pressman -  36
Design   - Valerie M. Griggs  -   38
Intimate Conversation  -  Gary Metheny  -  39
Paint Job  -  Kevin J. McDaniel   -  40
Cerebral Roulette   -   Charles Joseph Albert    -  41 
Her Voice Is a Wing  -  Steven Gizitsky  -    42
Otoño en el pensamiento  - Carla Pravisani   -   43
Autumn in my Thoughts- Margaret Saine (Tr.) - 43
Drake’s Estero   -   Jeffrey L. Taylor  -   44
View from Tam -    Jeffrey L. Taylor   -   44
A Lamp on a Polished Table  -  Katharyn Howd Machan - 45
Self Portrait 1907:…  -    Jeanne Wagner   - 46
White Camellias in November - Jerome Gagnon - 47
Wonder   -  William Synder, Jr.  -   48
Equinox    -    James Deahl     -  49
On Crossing an Alpine Snowfield -  Scott Honeycutt   - 50
When My Neighbor Says the Fence -  Jeanne Wagner - 51
Walking among Redwoods  -   Jerome Gagnon -  52
Our Silence Is in Listening   -  Johanna Ely   -  53
Snowdrop     -   DJ Tyrer  -  53

The 33rd Annual Poetry Contest     -   54
Brief Judge’s Bio (Lisa Rosenberg)  -   54
Judge’s Comments  -   55
Stone, She  -    R. J. Keeler   -    56
Skull of Moon, Fist of Stars  - Claire Scott  -  57
For the Young Man Unimpressed - Kathleen McClung - 58

Cover Art: Ice Cutting                           Pearl Karrer

                                                 ABOUT THE EDITOR 

PEARL KARRER - EDITORIAL CHAIR

After a background/career in microbiology and music, augmented with creative writing and two-dimensional art, Pearl Karrer teaches piano, exhibits art in juried shows and writes poetry. Her poems appear in many journals such as Slant, Visions-International and The Comstock Review. They are featured in many anthologies, most recently the coffee table book, Room to Breathe, The Wild Heart of the San Francisco Peninsula and No, Achilles. Her collections include Weathering, The Thorn Fence and Balanced Between Water and Sky. Joining the editorial board of the CSPS in 2002, Pearl has edited a number of issues of the CQ, as well as serving as a proof reader and maintaining the cover art library for the CQ. As of 2013, Pearl has served with John Harrell as the Managing Editor of the CQ. Most recently, she is the editor of the second issue of the CQ in 2015, Vol. 41, No. 2.

Newsbriefs 45:3 and Pushcart Prize Nominations 2020

NEWSBRIEFS 2019, No. 3 (AUTUMN 2019)

Published  in California Quarterly 45:3

By Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President

In this season of harvest we are gathering the fruit of our work while planning new projects. Poetry is a lonely art; it thrives on being written and read in solitude; we retreat from the world to be alone with words, alone with images, emotions and ideas conjured by these words. Alone but not lonely: in this “Zero Point” of creative writing, the physical world surrounding us disappears into oblivion. The poets’ time stands still, held back by our intense focus on our work. Yet, to crave connection is an essential trait of being human, so poets leave their creative solitude to interact with each other in readings, contests, conferences, workshops, and society memberships. CSPS members mostly interact with each other via the printed word, on the pages of this journal. They may also use electronic media: email, californiastatepoetrysociety.org site, our new blog or Facebook groups. Every two years, CSPS members get a chance to engage with the Society itself more directly, by formally re-electing its Board of Directors.

We are happy to report that we have implemented two changes in our systems. First, we started using Submittable.com for online submissions (with ongoing use of the mail, for those who prefer it). Second, we signed a contract with a direct mail company to process mailings of the California Quarterly, and after two issues, we are interested in what our members think about this service. Are your journals arriving in good shape? In addition to all the editors spending countless hours sifting through submissions to find poetic gems for inclusion in the journal, CSPS member Stephanie Pressman volunteers to create professional layouts, while CSPS Treasurer and Past President, Dr. John Harrell, submits the journal to the printing company and pays the bills. The Editorial Chair, Pearl Karrer, oversees the use of Submittable.com and keeps us on track with the editing schedule. We are all grateful for their service. As the new President, I’m temporarily serving as Managing Editor of CQ, but there is a lot I have yet to learn. In fact, I have had a particularlyintense CSPS summer, as I was reading through almost 300 poems submittedfor this issue of CQ, of which I could pick about 60.

MEMBERS NEWS: 

Our designer, Stephanie Pressman, had two poems appear on the Red Wolf Editions blog with the theme “borrowed” poems: “I Heard a Fly Buzz…” (a Cento composed of single lines from poems in the Debut Collection of The Best American Poetry 1988) and “In the Synagogue after Yizkor.” Her poems “Cookbook,” “During the Butchering” and “Mustard and Cress” are forthcoming in the anthology Heat the Grease, We’re Frying Up Some Poetry.

Nancy C. Dougherty was part of the Marin Poetry Center’s Summer Traveling Show, reading
with fellow poets Donna Emerson, Patricia Nelson, Jeanne Fanning Santangelo, and Susanne West at the Novato Public Library in August. Other news, she has a poem “Old Woman’s Gale” in the 2019 Marin Poetry Center Anthology and will be one of the poets reading at its Launch this October.

Beverly M. Collins, the author of two volumes, Quiet Observations and Mud in Magic, won the 2019 Naji Naaman Literary Prize in Creativity (Lebanon) and was short-listed for the 2018 Pangolin Review Poetry Prize (Mauritius).

I translated my three poems into Polish (“Spacer w kanionie,” “Ciocia Tonia,” and “W sercu…”) for publication in Poland, on “pisarze.pl”—in a newly created section dedicated to Polish émigré poets from around the world. Polish is my first language, but translating my own English poems is a formidable task: I ended up rewriting these poems to keep the original ideas and moods, cast in different language.

While doing so, I thought how grateful I am—and we all should be!—for the efforts and talent of Margaret Saine, PhD, one of our Editors, the Poetry Letter Editor, and our poetry translator from Spanish, Italian, French and German. Brava!

We all speak different languages, even if it is all English—and as poets, we make it our mission to explore the thick forests and abundant jungles of words. Happy exploring!

~ Maja Trochimczyk, Ph.D., President, CSPS

Links:

1. Maja Trochimczyk: "W sercu..." on website about Polish writers, Pisarze.pl, in the second part of a post by Anna Maria Mickiewicz, Polish American poets, in Polish, October 2019. https://pisarze.pl/2019/10/15/poeci-amerykanscy-polskiego-pochodzenia-cz-ii-prezentuja-anna-maria-mickiewicz-i-danuta-blaszak/
2. Maja Trochimczyk: "Spacer w kanionie" "Ciocia Tonia" "Jak przejsc przez Wielka Biel" on website about Polish writers, Pisarze.pl, in the first part of a post by Anna Maria Mickiewicz, anthology of Polish American poets, in Polish, September 2019.  https://pisarze.pl/2019/10/01/anna-maria-mickiewicz-i-danuta-blaszak-prezentuja-amerykanskich-poetow-polskiego-pochodzenia/

 

Trees, watercolor by Debby Beck

CALIFORNIA STATE POETRY SOCIETY 

PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINATIONS BY CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY EDITORS 

It is that time of the  year, again: Pushcart Prize Nominations.  Maura Harvey, one of the editors of the California Quarterly, coordinated the collection and submission of best poems from each issue of the California Quarterly published or scheduled to be published in calendar year 2019. This year we have five issues of the CQ that provided selections of poems for nomination.

The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976, is the most honored literary project in America.Since 1976, hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in their annual collections. The list of nominated poems is below.

“Blue Moon Warning” by Alice Pero 44:4, p. 10, nominated by editor, Margaret Saine

“ Out of the Blind”by Stephen Ajay 45:1, p. 7, nominated by editor, Maura Harvey

Contents and Editor's Note for CQ 45:1:

https://www.californiastatepoetrysociety.com/2019/05/california-quarterly-451-spring-2019.html

“All the Weight” by Holly Day 45:2, p. 14, nominated by editor, Nancy Dougherty

“Cellist, for Nancy” by Margaret Rooney 45:2, p. 52-53, nominated by Nancy Dougherty

Contents and Editor's Note for CQ 45:2:

https://www.californiastatepoetrysociety.com/2019/08/contents-of-california-quarterly-452.html

“Redwood Trees” by Russell Salamon 45:3, p. 8-9, nominated posthumously by editor, Maja  Trochimczyk

Table of contents of the issue, with essay about Russell by Lois P Jones

https://www.californiastatepoetrysociety.com/2019/09/california-quarterly-453-autumn-2019.html

REDWOOD TREES

We see action languages, buds
swell and break open, feel sap flow
in cambium layers, light split green
and orange red—eating white light
of rainbows, weaving light energy
into wood and wood instruments.

It is a civilization of light forces,
heavy thoughts holding up sky
distances, life forces adamant,
insistent, stand straight thoughts
of sinews, white blood of water
and sugar water sap.

If this is a language, it must be
a self-translating silence mass,
coming into being with strength,
time accumulations in growing
layers—tree rings. Statements,
density and luminous sunsets.

Crowns swaying in high winds,
they walk in slow centuries,
eyes sensitive to water and light.
Leaves breathe mist water and
rainwater, roots follow water
runnels, strands of moist wire.

Clouds hang on slopes of hills
and the fingers of rain enter
ancient dance patterns of wind
and standing time. Thousands
of years older than our bodies,
they guide the immortality
of souls into the same future
we never leave.

We meet as forests in silence
of working branches and wind,
air in lungs and sapwood sugar.
We enter cities of silence, star
water and upheld thunder water.

Nor do we leave edges of time
rivers as we replace sea waves
to crash against granite stacks
and chimneys rushing in gales.

The sunlight keeps coming day
in and day eternal as the earth
collects itself into circles, wind
and rain, and trillions of lives.

(C) by Russell Salamon (1941-2018)

“Canary. Coalmine.” by Susan Bernardo 45:4, p. 20-21, Pearl Karrer


The Pushcart Prize Nomination Process:
  
The Pushcart Prizes welcome up to six nominations (print or online) from little magazine and small book press editors throughout the world. They also accept nominations from our staff of distinguished Contributing Editors. The nominations may be any combination of poetry, short stories, essays, memoirs or stand-alone excerpts from novels. They welcome translations, reprints and both traditional and experimental writing. Nominations are accepted between October 1 - December 1 (postmarked) for next year's Pushcart edition.Nominations must have been published (or scheduled to be published) in the current calendar year. Mail to Pushcart Press, P.O. Box 380, Wainscott, NY 11975. Phone: 631.324.9300.  More information: http://www.pushcartprize.com/index.html

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