Poetry Letter No. 2, 2023 - Part I. Poems - Monthly Contest Winners for 2022

Janusz Maszkiewicz, oil on canvas, 150 cm X 150 cm

The Poetry Letter No. 2 of 2023 (Online ISSN 2836-9394; Print ISSN 2836-9408) included the Monthly Contests' Winners for 2022 and four book reviews. In the first part, we reproduce the poems.

The winners of the 2022 Monthly Contests, adjudicated by Alice Pero, are:

• January (Nature, Landscape):

1st Prize: Pamela Stone Singer, “Forest Air”

2nd Prize: Jane Stuart, “On the North Side”

3rd Prize: Gwen Monohan, “Focal Points”

• February (Love):

1st Prize: Jerry Smith “Lovers”

2nd Prize: Jane Stuart “Crossing the Moon”

• March (Open, Free Subject):

1st Prize: Jeff Graham, “A Certain Day's Every,”

• April (Mythology, Dreams, Other Universes):

1st Prize: Debra Darby, “Awaken.”

• May (Personifications, Characters, Portraits):

1st Prize: Carol L. Hatfield “Cloud on the Ground”

2nd Prize: Joan Gerstein “White on White”

• June (The Supernatural):

1st Prize: Pamela Stone Singer,“Buffaloes Escape”

• July (Childhood, Memoirs):

1st Prize: Anna J. Jasinska “My chicken egg apron”

2nd Prize: Lynn Axelrod “Fenestra”

• August (Places, Poems of Location):

1st Prize: Sean McGrath “10/21: At Sea, After Light”

2nd Prize: Colorado Smith “Tigers of the Tsangpo”

3rd Prize: Teresa Bullock “Born Again”

• September (Colors, Music, Dance):

1st Prize: Jane Stuart, “Watching Time Go By”

• October (Humor, Satire): No award

• November (Family, Friendship, Relationships): 

1st Prize: Richard L. Matta, “Shucking Shells”

• December (Best of Your Best, awarded or published poems):

1st Prize: David Anderson “Where Plovers Complain”

2nd Prize: Carla Schick “She Painted”

The Monthly Contests' Chair and Judge, ALICE PERO, joined the CSPS Board as a Director at Large in May 2019 and became the Chair of Monthly Poetry Contests in January 2020. She was elected the 10th Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga in April 2020. She has published poetry in many magazines and anthologies, including Nimrod, National Poetry Review, River Oak Review, Poet Lore, The Alembic, North Dakota Quarterly, The Distillery, Fox Cry Review, The Griffin, and G.W. Review, and others. Her book of poetry, Thawed Stars, was praised by Kenneth Koch as having “clarity and surprises.” She also published a chapbook Sunland Park Poems, written as a dialogue with Elsa Frausto. Pero teaches poetry and is a member of California Poets in the  Schools, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering students to express their uniqueness through writing, performing and publishing their own poetry. She is also the founder of Moonday, a reading series that has been on-going in the Los Angeles area for upwards of sixteen years. Ms Pero has created dialogue poems with more than twenty poets. She also created the performing group, Windsong Players Chamber Ensemble and performs with them as a flutist.

Janusz Maszkiewicz, "Super Blume" 

JANUARY 2022

FOREST AIR

You cannot see 

but know yourself as light.

Wings hoist you to the top of a tree.

You see meadows’ waves 

and luminous wildflowers.

Touch tongues of birds.

Swallow night air.

Cleanse your lungs.

Let forests’ darkness wrap your body.

Open your mouth to stars.             

Geese fly into autumn.

Their flight brings lavender sky

and iridescent feathers.

Soon branches will bend with winter.

Pine and wind-scented air     

remind the forest is near.

Pamela Stone Singer, First Prize, January 2022

ON THE NORTH SIDE

Walking through darkness

-another sleepless night—

my foot hits a star

But the wind blows shadows

across time…

and in the distance,

the moon sighs

and earth,

a painting,

comes to life—

shells in a bowl

flowers,

still-life fruit

made of wax

The sky quivers.

I reach for

my bow and arrow—

nothing is there,

just the owl

and moss that grows

on the side of trees

 

Jane Stuart, Second Prize, January 2022  

              

 FOCAL POINTS

Vision strays to flowers

color-stripping newer fields.

Focusing our winter minds

on this warm rebirth

with spring-like zeal.

In weeks bright hues conceal

and blot now wider bands

of the thickest green.

Till we whimsically retrieve

many lodestar strands.   

Holding in both hands

pale asters or daisy arrays.

Radiating spokes near

where petals appear torn

from thunderstorms.

Leaving small gold centers,

found round as magnet eyes.

Attracted towards one’s

soul-searching for what

possibly may bloom beyond.

Gwen Monohan, Third Prize, January 2022 

     

Janusz Maszkiewicz, "Conditionibus"

FEBRUARY 2022

LOVERS 

She hikes to the waterfall twice a year

once when new-greens leaf the alders

and again as redbuds flame amber-pink

       At dusk she lights a candle in the rock

        for wind from the falls to flicker

             She splits dark pools, gliding

Somehow together again, they

float the lips of the cataract

tumble down torrents

       Her breasts engorge at the flood of him

                             She suspends breath

                       shallow murmurs

Lying on black basalt beneath stare of stars

she rubs her skin with sage and slumbers

in the sand to rhythms of the roar

At dawn she drops the dying candle

  into the dark, murky depths of that

              River-of-Might-Have-Been

Jerry Smith, First Prize, February 2022

 

CROSSING THE MOON

We met on a ship crossing the moon,

a cruise of moments

made of steel and glass

through deep blue seas

and mountains hard as sand

that has been packed

by hands in icy gloves—

Oh love is wild!

and this was our romance,

a foxtrot played and danced to

by the stars.

We moved above earth

in chiffon veils

and vests of champagne corks—

Our glitter crowns

shined in the shadows

of a thousand tears

because this was pretend

and love oved on,

leaving us a world of indigo

and fading light.

We don’t know why

but the ship docked at dawn

and we became fireflies

in sudden flight

on tomorrow’s wings

that bloomed tonight.

Jane Stuart, Second Prize, February 2022

Janusz Maszkiewicz, "Trans Fretum"

MARCH 2023

A CERTAIN DAY’S EVERY

Neither late May rain, nor memory of,

nor memory of such scent,

but scent’s cataloguing of recollections.

Rain as timely as late May.

Late May as sudden as rain at such a time.

*

Everything has led me yet ill-prepared me for this:

the sound of water taking in itself,

hybridized with the sound of the taking in of itself

     of water,

which lands into a backlash of rising,

to mix in with its mixed within.

*

Rain round and about rain,

falling as fallen-upon mid-fall.

Drops just amply to hear,

scantly such so that impacts dry

before spaces between connect.

Not too much, yet just enough

to linger with and within

without the want for more,

for more than enough.

*

Light rain landing on light rain landing.

Rain between rain’s between,

forming course mid-fall, fall-formed,

following through its follow-through

    on-to-wards

leaf to leaf to loam to the eversilent

symphony of the seed, the sweetest

brutalities of the seed’s destitchery.

*

Rain and the scent of rain and the taste of rain

slides round and down partly parted lips

to fall to, land amid, and settle with(in)

what buried’s soil of making and taking,

tilling the grave’s cradle of what was—

   existing as is,             becoming what come.

*

Of the hundred things I wanted to say,

nothing came out of my mouth.

After that came after that, and after that

came the day cradled in soft though ceaseless

    rain.

When the conceptual of what was unutterable

became such silence said,

the cosmos collapsed and reconfigured 

into the gloss of a miscellany of intentions.                                                                 

Jeff Graham, First Prize, March 2022

APRIL 2023 

AWAKEN

Find the strings

Ride the gleaming scales of the fish

blazing melon, gold, scarlet

nocturnal sapphire

before vanishing into the ocean at dawn.

Mooring the dreamless

dream remembering in tow

listen to the tides of morning.

The fishtail reveals its secret.

Awake to awaken

In waves of shimmering water,

The mystical call of the whale 

beckons.

Awaken

Find the strings.

                                      Debra Darby, First Prize, April 2022  

Janusz Maszkiewicz,  Untitled.

MAY 2023

              CLOUD ON THE GROUND   

                          (for my mule, Andromeda)

Never one to be

lost

in fog - 

she calls

it

to her. 

She shines

white    as any opal -

     with a quiet

     fire

     in the belly.

The fog holds

the four-beat

    drum

of her pearl

hooves

and keeps it all

to itself.

The sky recognizes

her

molds and

forms

soft cotton

sculptures 

in her honor.

Cloud

on the ground

she is - 

with one flick

of her tail

the rain

obeys

and we ride

the afternoon

on a veil

of grey….

iridescent 

at the core….

Carol L Hatfield, First Prize, May 2022

WHITE ON WHITE

 

I am asphyxiated color

The empty page

Hair as you age

Chalk popcorn mayonnaise

Seashells the foam on waves

Teeth nails Beluga whales

Dental floss and kidney stones

Dover's Cliffs Rover's bones

Baby powder a Princess phone

Icicles Polar bears and clouds

Baking soda cauliflower shrouds

Marshmallow rice baked potatoes

The Pope's robes wherever it snows

Jasmine egrets angel-food cake

A dove a swan a whooping crane

Bras and briefs pills cocaine

Coconut cottage cheese for brains

Piano keys dandelion seeds mozzarella 

Girls like Snow White or Cinderella

Noise knights and virginal brides

Collars crimes white-knuckled rides

Elephant sales and Siamese cats

Jack Sprat's wife's fat lab rats

White House peace dove surrender flag 

Honking geese and their oval eggs

Wedding dresses White wine dregs

Calla Lily whipping cream ivory lace 

White bread white trash Caucasian race 

Pure as driven snow Good Humor man 

Robes worn by the Ku Klux Klan

Adorn me at an Asian funeral

And I will deliver death's benediction

Joan Gerstein, Second Prize, May 2022

Janusz Maszkiewicz, "Sunrise"

JUNE 2022

BUFFALOES ESCAPE

Wrapped in cloaks of snow, buffaloes

live in Moon’s lightning-green eye.

Embedded in their bones

palimpsests reveal eternal life.

Etched with star drawings, stick figures and shapes

from outer space, their horns speak stories of worlds 

where they travel calm plains.

Water songs and ceremonies, their messages.

Wander hills and valleys: cone flowers, golden rod, milkweed.

Speak the holiness of earth.

Pamela Stone Singer, First Prize, June 2022

JULY 2022

 MY CHICKEN EGG APRON 

My grandmother said I must sleep two times—once under the pear tree,

once under the attic skylight, before can come to the kitchen and put on my eight-

pocketed chicken egg apron and run among purple heads of burdock

to the nests hidden in the thicket near the chicken coop. Then, I comb the bush 

till I hold in my hands and shine with straw an alabaster egg. I return to the beginning

and must wait. Again, I am a day and two sleeps away, trusting

that next morning, if I follow the plan, I will find my treasures. Meanwhile,

I collect odd symmetries, study luster and trace veins growing through the forms.

I fill the hours putting opal coils of snail and dry poppy heads spilling black seeds 

in my pockets, until I am certain I slept two times. I have dreamt in the storm

of pear blossom. I have dreamt under the starry attic window

of finding the ideal oval forms. But if I cannot get any, I pick pieces 

of tree bark and collect pinecones, and stash them in my apron pockets

as if they were what I wanted. They are not, yet they gleam warmly

of still-sticky droplets of resin, I cannot resist. My fingertips curiously

dip into the liquid amber— it is unexpectedly warm and bitter-sweet.    

Anna J. Jasinska, First Prize, July 2022

FENESTRA

Papermill Creek flows in wide

–our own Missouri. Midmorning 

jacks snap at mayflies.  

Sunlight transluces 

through their wing fenestra,

splays in dapples of gleam. 

Air almost visible like gnat-buzz. 

Pickle weed greens out wide

to greet them all like a mother 

holds a family together.

You break the mesmer, 

elusive beneath a splash. 

Nothing solid, not mud-swirl 

curled against the current,

not the embankment crumbled

one dirt speck at a time 

–granular drownings, 

nearly unnoticed. 

Then LOL up you pop, 

whip water from your hair,

bobbing cork, glistening grin.

If only Father were as buoyant 

when he dived in the Sound,

––not wading, not scanning.

Quick bottom spun him silent 

on the ghostline 

of his infant fontanelles. 

Gleaned from the sea, shut 

until his lungs heaved 

a bolus of saltgrass onto sand.

Beach heat unwaxed pores, 

plasma bathed his heart, and

our breath mingled in the light,

resumed its daily circuit 

in the dark of our bodies.  

Lynn Axelrod, Second Prize, July 2022

Janusz Maszkiewicz, Untitled

           AUGUST 2022                        

10/21: AT SEA, AFTER LIGHT

The marine wall poured onto the coastline,

  this evening’s moving mountains—

went the sailboats, went the doves,

  lines of sunset streaked through

like tunnel paths for the seagone.

  More boats, droves of pelican and cranes

fleeting from sight, making their winged exit;

  the air was wet with longing.

I shivered on the shore

  underdressed, ill-equipped to harness

all the heaven before me,

  so much of it leaking out,

coming in at once.

I can’t have a cold room when it knocks—

  I should have fire in my lungs

and only a little fear in my heart,

I should learn to warm myself

  amid the wavery sea,

to be still in the absence of light.

Sean McGrath, First Prize, August 2022

BORN AGAIN

Flying low, skimming insect-like

above the water

I surrender myself mute

to the sea plane's droning.

I am fit tight into its small body,

trapped, strapped in, no time for fear,

no place else to go

except maybe Africa

where Beryl Markham floated like this

above giraffe-groomed acacia,

savannas worn by wildebeest,

and dusty trails shuffled by

lines of leathery elephants.

Looking down, I think I see

through ocean's ancient skin

a silvery pod of porpoise,

great blotches of whale

lumbering south the way they do

for warmth and food and sex.

From here nothing is hidden from me.

From this gull’s view, I see it all.

Smoke clutches a cabin in a wood

all shades of green;

cotton ball sheep hurry

toward their heaps of hay.

But too soon,

I am delivered gently

onto ocean's face. I am born again

on her wrinkled skin.

Theresa Bullock, Second Prize, August 2022

 

TIGERS OF THE TSANGPO

 

Three Asian rivers. the Sutleg, the Karnali, and the Indus flow 

in the three cardinal directions from the sacred Mt. Kailash. 

The Yarlung-Tsangpo flows a thousand miles east 

across the Tibetan plateau, then splits the Himalayan massif

before becoming the Brahmaputra in India. 

Within the Tsangpo's great bend south 

lived two tribes of Buddhist hunters.

The Bön people were prey

here before them.

 

The few trails in this Great Bend are trod by hunters 

or Buddhist pilgrims who pray at remote shrines

as river rhythms reverb among yak-butter lamps, 

cranium-cups, tsampa barley cones in stone bowls 

and prayer flags in caves where no breeze blows.

 

The celadon glacial melt of the Tsangpo is kayaked

only during midwinter low-water, when kayaks  painfully 

are portaged around waterfalls and Class VI maelstroms.

The Tsangpo compresses to ninety feet in its narrowest gorge.

Five hundred feet above, its sheer wall displays 

highwater marks scoured out in June, 2000.

 

Clarified air and tumultuous rapids drown sound: 

freight trains of water, standing-wave haystacks, 

bus-sized boulder mazes, ten-foot rooster tails.

River-wide ledges with torrential tow-backs 

can spin a body for hours.

 

Underwater tongues and flumes 

squeeze light into bubble vortices;

whitewater cyclones swirl eddy lines. 

                                                                                                                                  •

Below blood-red rhododendrons,

a snow leopard sprints across a vertical avalanche chute 

forcing a golden takin to bolt straight down to the Tsangpo, 

snapping pine downfall like twigs.

A ten-foot tiger lunges onto the back of the eight-hundred-pound 

takin and severs its spinal cord with three-inch canines.

The cheated leopard retreats, slinking back up the chute.

 

The Tsangpo chisels down through the collision of continents, 

becoming the Brahmaputra, then into Mother Ganges,

and finally the Bay of Bengal.

Colorado Smith, Second Prize, August 2022

Janusz Maszkiewicz, "Nocturne"

SEPTEMBER 2022

ON WATCHING TIME GO BY

The dance!

The dance you say

is everything time gives

earth-people waiting to be born

again

Stage left

stage right-tutto

va'ben' -you say-red shoes 

cross the stage in leaps and endless 

bounds

Night brings

another flight

through triangles and squares. 

The passing moment turns itself 

again

Planets

vanish, dancers

follow-shadows fall in

empty holes. All motion is

mystery

Lines of

sudden white light ...

your feet find yesterday

and then fall into tomorrow.

No change

Jane Stuart, First Prize, September 2022    

            

OCTOBER 2022 - NO PRIZES

NOVEMBER 2022

 

SHUCKING SHELLS

We met and moved like a breeze from bar to beach, the moon witness 

to her unveiled dress. Her pearlescent dress button lost in abandoned restraint,

hidden in the sand. Symbols simplify explanation. But in time, more missing buttons, 

my unbridled imagination, and the possession monster roiled and churned inside me. 

raspberry moon

a dark cloud 

on a patch of sweetness

On my face and lips, moonlit bubbles break like little hearts compressing and filling 

with the tide. Sand string undertows pull at my feet, anniversary tears in my eyes. 

My son’s small voice calls me back to the beach, says “mom pulled her favorite 

dress out of storage and asked me to ask you can we find some oysters, 

a missing button?” We start looking. 

sharp beach glass

the slow path

to forgiveness                                                                           

 Richard L. Matta, First Prize, November 2022

Janusz Maszkiewicz, Untitled

DECEMBER 2022

WHERE PLOVERS COMPLAIN

When my body rouses at the slightest

and I fear you will not return and our lives

shrivel from the world’s trumpeting,

I go in silence, to rest where your spirit speaks,

where plovers’ complaints precede the dawn,

in a cove where waves continually crest and crush.

I come into the resonance of music

not mediated by voice or strings.

David Anderson, First Prize, December 2022

Medusa’s Kitchen, http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com, 16 Feb 2009

Second place, August 2009 contest, California Federation of Chaparral Poets

What Was Within: Poems, Christian Faith Publishing Co.

SHE PAINTED…

She painted portraits,

walking through dark alleys.

And as she watched

the moon vanish

behind the rooftops,

she caught glimpses

of her eyes

peering through dark windows

waiting for her hands

to take the brush

and cast a shadow on the wall.

Looking into mirrors

she painted sunsets.

And as she watched

her face vanish

with the fading light,

she caught glimpses

of the moon

peering through her windows,

waiting for her hands

to take the brush

and cat the final stroke.

Carla Schick, Second Prize, December 2022

Published in Primavera, Vol 4, 1978    

 

Paintings by Janusz Maszkiewicz, Used by Permission.

ViennaWoodsLa.com

Janusz Maszkiewicz is a Polish-born American painter, sculptor and furniture-maker, and a preeminent artist in the field of marquetry veneer inlays. He is also a gallery owner and member of the Polish Art Group KRAK, frequently hosting art exhibitions at his gallery.

______________________

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

Contents of California Quarterly Vol. 49, No. 2 (Summer 2023) Edited by Maja Trochimczyk

California Quarterly, vol. 49, No. 2, Summer 2023, Edited by Maja Trochimczyk

Cover Image: Digital Photo "Soap Bubbles in Encinitas" by Chris Hannemann

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

California Quarterly, Vol. 49, Number 2, Spring 2023

The Smallest is the Bridge  ―  Charlene Langfur   ―  7

When the Desert Blooms   ―  Sarah Baker   ―  8

Totem   ―  Carlo DiOrio   ―  9

Wild Cherry   ―  Erin Thomas   ―  10

My Daughter is Pregnant   ―  Daniel Thomas   ―  11

A Thousand and One   ―  Sarah Baker  ―   12

Soft Blankets Make the Stars Shine Brighter   ―  Daniel Wroten  ―   12

Dimensions   ―  Mark Belair  ―   13

maybe I’m only   ―  Margaret Saine   ―  13

My Relationship to the Universe   ―  David Woodward   ―  14

Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe   ―  Jim Tilley  ―   15

Space   ―  Bart Edelman   ―  16

Scrimmage   ―  Jane Stuart   ―  17

Canyon Creek Bioswalk, Ascott Hills   ―  Gregory Cecil   ―  17

Afflatus  ―   Livingston Rossmoor  ―   18

You Are on the River, Drifting   ―  M. C. Rush   ―  19

She Is Just Saying, Not That I Asked  ―   Jeanne Holdridge   ―  20

Morning Songs   ―  Gary Metheny   ―  21

Obeyance, Obeisance   ―  Carlo DiOrio   ―  21

When I’m Eighty-Four   ―  Wyatt Underhill   ―  22

At His Father’s Bedside   ―  Daniel Thomas   ―  23

all of them, fallen  ―   ayaz daryl nielsen   ―  23

Visiting Hours   ―  Michael Meyerhofer   ―  24

Saying Goodbye   ―  Jane Stuart  ―   25

Measures of Empathy, of Grief   ―  Diane DeCillis   ―  25

King for a Day   ―  Andy Roberts  ―   26

The Bantam Hours 41 ―  Jeff Graham  ―  26

The Song   ―  Bart Edelman   ―  27

To Ludwig, Oh Friend, Not These Sounds   ―  Marc Janssen   ―  28

Ode to an Unnamed Greek Slave   ―  Michael Meyerhofer  ―   29

One Sunny Afternoon   ―  Jeanne Holdridge   ―  31

Whale Watching   ―  E. Martin Pedersen  ―   32

Tomorrow I Will Be Another I   ―  Alex Przybyla   ―  33

The Beach Goes On  ―   Jim Stewart   ―  33

Basterà l’Oceano   ― Antonio Blunda   ―  34

Will the Ocean Be Enough   ―  Margaret Saine, tr.   ―  35

Lines Composed Above Cabrillo  Beach   ―   Giovanni Boskovich  ―   36

The Silence of the Common  Nighthawk   ―   John Schneider   ―  37

Moonlight   ―   Kevin Thornburgh   ―  38

A New Moon   ―   Erin Garstka   ―  38

This Quarter Moon   ―   Erin Garstka   ―  39

A Full Moon   ―   Claire J. Baker   ―  40

Memory Moon   ―   Brian James Stone  ―   41

Aynar Means Moonlight   ―   Diane DeCillis  ―   42

I Rediscover My Childhood  Microscope   ―   Henry Stimpson   ―  43

Daily Bread of Words   ―   Margaret Saine  ―   43

Silence Caught in Time   ―   Joseph Galasso  ―   44

After 2   ―  M. C. Rush   ―  45

I Was Awakened at Midnight   ―  Jiang Pu   ―  46

Alchemy for Want of a Kiss  ―   Cordelia Hanemann   ―  46

Absence   ―  Hedy Habra   ―  48

What Else Is There   ―  Jeanne Holdridge   ―  49

A Te Poggiata   ―  Rita Stanzione   ―  50

Begonia   ―  Paul Willis   ―  50

Leaning Against You  ―   Margaret Saine, tr.   ―  51

the world ends   ―  ayaz daryl nielsen   ―  51

I Fell in Love with Luo Jin   ―  Maja Trochimczyk   ―  52

When I Was in Istanbul   ―  Linda Hughes  ―   53

An Impossible Canvas   ―  John Schneider   ―  54

Confession   ―  Kevin Thornburgh   ―  55

Avoid Dance   ―  Marc Janssen   ―  56

Mad Apples   ―  Kit Kennedy   ―  57

Tremulous   ―  Paul Willis   ―  57

Just Thinking   ―   Leslie Hendrickson- Baral   ―  58

Less Prepared   ―  Lee Clark Zumpe   ―  58

A Place for the Luminous  ―   Charlene Langfur   ―  59

Cover Art: Soap Bubbles in Encinitas, color photo by Chris Hannemann

Contributors in Alphabetical Order   ―   60

CSPS Contest Opportunities   ―  60

CSPS Newsbriefs 2023, No. 2 by Maja Trochimczyk   ―  62

Publishing Opportunities with CSPS   ―  65

2022 CSPS Donors, Patrons, and Membership CSPS   ―  66

Membership Form   ―  68

"Hearst Castle Palms" Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

EDITOR’S NOTE

Poetry is “a place for the luminous,” observes Charlene Langfur of Palm Springs, California, in a poem I selected to close this summer volume of the California Quarterly, celebrating light and all that emits light – the sun, stars, and poets’ minds…, “Luminous,” from Latin “luminosus” or full of light (that is “lumen”) is what shines and makes this world more vivid, brighter. Langfur’s poems provide this CQ with its opening and closing; she finds inspiration during walks in the desert, in her garden, in daily life full of wonders and surprises. She joins several frequent contributors to the CQ with poems in this issue: Jane Stuart, Diane DeCillis, Jeanne Holdridge, Leslie Henrickson-Baral, Kit Kennedy, ayaz daryl nielsen, Margaret Saine, John Schneider, Kevin Thornburgh, and Paul Willis. There are also newcomers like Alex Przybyla and Lee Clark Zumpe. 

When selecting poems, I felt a bit like a magpie, attracted to all that shines – jewels, pennies, bottle caps... From bird of paradise (Carlo diOrio) and blooming desert (Sarah Baker) to mad apples (Kit Kennedy), poets find inspiration in nature that seems tamed by people. Yet, the grand, ageless themes of the ocean, universe, sunlight or moonlight keep attracting their attention, so much so that I was able to assemble a section about the moon (new, quarter, full) and the meaning of moonlight (poems by Thornburg, Garstka, C. Baker, Stone, & DeCillis). The word “moon” appears in six titles and 34 other places; sun – 18, day – 17, sky – 14, star – 13, ocean and universe – 10 each, night – 9, time – 7... 

What are the most obscure words and topics that caught the poets’ attention? Livingston Rossmoor dedicates his poem to “Afflatus” or “inspiration” – with operas by Bellini and birdsong. Ludwig van Beethoven hides among instruments (Marc Janssen). Phoebes, roadrunners, hummingbirds, bees, dragonflies, dogs, coyotes, and whales are among the lively menagerie that inspires poets, mostly based in California. I take readers to movies in China; Linda Hughes to Istanbul. Poets reflect about human relationships, with an array of emotions, joy to grief: a daughter’s pregnancy (Daniel Thomas), absence (Hedy Habra) and saying goodbye (Jane Stuart). They know, as Leslie Hendrickson-Baral notices: “within the universe of the heart space lies the Secret.”

 Maja Trochimczyk 

Los Angeles, California

 NEWSBRIEFS 2023, NO. 2, SUMMER 2023

By the time readers receive this issue of the California Quarterly, the submission period for the 2023 Annual Contest will have been closed and the judge Anna Maria Mickiewicz will be selecting the best poems from the batch of anonymous submissions forwarded to her without any identifying information. The three prize-winners will then be published in the last CQ of 2023 while the Honorary Mentions will be considered for publication. 

Since I decided to feature all Honorary Mentions from the 2022 Annual Contest in the first Poetry Letter of 2023, the Winners of the 2022 Monthly Contests will appear together in the second issue of our newsletter. The winners of the 2022 Monthly Contests, adjudicated by Alice Pero, are:

• January (Nature, Landscape): 

1st Prize: Pamela Stone Singer,“Forest Air”;

2nd Prize: Jane Stuart, “On the North Side”;

3rd Prize: Gwen Monohan, “Focal Points”

• February (Love): 

1st Prize: Jerry Smith “Lovers”;

2nd Prize: Jane Stuart “Crossing the Moon”

• March (Open, Free Subject): 

1st Prize: Jeff Graham, “A Certain Day's Every,”

• April (Mythology, Dreams, Other Universes): 

1st Prize: Debra Darby, “Awaken.”

• May (Personifications, Characters, Portraits): 

1st Prize: Carol L.Hatfield “Cloud on the Ground”; 

2nd Prize: Joan Gerstein “White on White”

• June (The Supernatural): 

1st Prize: Pamela Stone Singer,“Buffaloes Escape”

• July (Childhood, Memoirs): 

1st Prize: Anna J. Jasinska “My chicken egg apron”; 

2nd Prize: Lynn Axelrod “Fenestra”

• August (Places, Poems of Location): 

1st Prize: Sean McGrath “10/21: At Sea, After Light”; 

2nd Prize: Colorado Smith “Tigers of the Tsangpo”; 

3rd Prize: Teresa Bullock “Born Again”

• September (Colors, Music, Dance): 

1st Prize: Jane Stuart, “Watching Time Go By”

• October (Humor, Satire): No award

• November (Family, Friendship, Relationships):

1st Prize: Richard L. Matta, “Shucking Shells”

• December (Best of Your Best (awarded or published poems):

1st Prize: David Anderson “Where Plovers Complain”; 

2nd Prize: Carla Schick “She Painted”

MEMBER NEWS 

CSPS Monthly Contest Chair, Alice Pero who is also Sunland/Tujunga Poet Laureate, had a six- page feature in Cholla Needles 76 and a feature with Brendan Constantine at Village Poets in Bolton Hall Museum in April 2023. She also received a commendation for her work with students at Fair Oaks School in Altadena. 

Former CSPS Secretary, CQ Editor, and CSPS Life Member, Margaret Saine had one poem and two haiku sequences published by David John Tyrer of Atlantean Publishing in his monthly broadside Bard. Margaret was also recently featured as “Bard #36” (6 pages of poems) published in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. 

CSPS VP for Communications, Richard Modiano received the Joe Hill Prize for labor poetry from the Los Angeles-Long Beach Harbor Labor Coalition, published The Forbidden Lunch Box poetry collection and serves among rotating hosts of The Poets Cafe on KPFK 90.7 FM. 

CSPS Secretary Ambika Talwar won 9th place in the Bharat Award for Literature (2022) for a short story titled, Big, Blue & Beautiful. She published haiku and haibun in Red Paper Parasols: 2022 Anthology of Southern California Haiku Study Group. With cover design and haiku by Maja Trochimczyk and poems by William Scott Galasso , Deborah P Kolodji and other CSPS members; this anthology received a Honorary Mention at the 2023 Los Angeles Festival of Books. 

Talwar was also published in Crystal Fire. Poems of Joy and Wisdom (Moonrise Press, 2022) with 11 other poets (including CSPS’s members Ella Czajkowska, Mary Elliot, Alice Pero, Allegra Silberstein, Jane Stuart, & Bory Thach). Talwar’s paintings were used to design the cover and begin each poet’s set of remarkable poems. The anthology was edited by Maja Trochimczyk, and recently praised by Michael Escoubas in Quill & Parchment vol. 262.  

We are grateful that our list of generous benefactors, that is members of Gold Circle, Silver Circle, Patrons and Donors (names listed in each CQ) has increased this year. Thanks to your donations, our wonderful group of volunteers can publish an excellent poetry journal, organize contests, and keep promoting poetry.

~ Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President

"Butterfly Kite in Azure Sky" Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Cover image, Soap Bubbles in Encinitas by Chris Hannemann, features soap bubbles made by 

Maja Trochimczyk for her granddaughter Juniper at San Diego Botanic Garden, May 2023.

CSPS Announces its 36th Annual Poetry Contest, Anna Maria Mickiewicz, Contest Judge - Deadline June 30, 2023

The California State Poetry Society is pleased to announce its 36th Annual Poetry Contest. Submissions are accepted by mail in the period from March 15th to June 30th, 2023.  

PRIZES: $100, $50, $25 Cash for 1st, 2nd and 3rd Prizes. 

The three prize-winning poems will be published in the California Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 4 (2023 Winter). Poems selected for up to six Honorary Mentions may be published in the CQ or in the Poetry Letter, depending on the Editors’ choices. 

Reading fees: Members, $3.00/poem; Non-members, $6.00/poem. Winners will be announced in September 2023. Submissions are welcome of original, unpublished poems in English, with 80-line (two-page) limit per poem. Submissions are only accepted by mail.  

HOW TO SUBMIT: Send a cover letter with all poet information  (mailing address, email address, name, phone) and a list of the titles of all submitted poems, as well as one copy of each poem with no poet identification, and a check for the appropriate reading fees to:  

Annual Contest Chair  

P.O. Box 4288 Sunland, CA 91041-4288

CONTEST JUDGE: Polish-British bilingual poet ANNA MARIA MICKIEWICZ agreed to serve as this year’s Contest Judge, while Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President, will continue as Contest Chair. Ms. Mickiewicz is a poet, writer, editor, translator, and publisher. She is the founder of the publishing house Literary Waves that published many volumes of poetry in English and Polish. Born and raised in Poland, Anna moved to California and then to London, where she has lived for many years.  She is a member of the English Pen. Her poetic works have appeared in the United States, UK, Australia, Canada, Poland, Mexico, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Salvador, India.

She was honoured with the Gloria Artis medal for Merit to Culture by the Polish Ministry of Culture, the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity and The Joseph Conrad Literary Prize (USA). In 2022 as part of the 3rd International Day of Polish Diaspora Education, organised by the Polish Academy of Social Sciences and Humanities in London, she was awarded the title of Polish Artist of the Year. She is a member of the Jury of the K M Anthru International Literature Prize in India and the Chapter of Madal for PoEzja Londyn. 

Mickiewicz received her Master of Arts degree from Maria Skłodowska-Curie University in Poland. She also obtained a certificate in Media Studies from Birkbeck College, London UK. As a student, she was involved in the democratic and civil rights movement in Poland in the Eighties. She was one of the editors of the civil rights’ independent magazine Wywrotowiec (The Rebel). After moving to England, she worked as a correspondent covering literary and cultural issues for the Polish press and radio. For many years she was a member of the Board of the Union of Polish Writers Abroad. 

She cooperated with many organizations, including with Channel 4 in the UK and the Institute of Public Affairs in Warsaw. Together with the British translator of Polish literature, Noel Clarke, she took part in the creation of the exhibition Eagle and Lion, which was presented during the official visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Poland. In 2013 at the University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies, she organized the World Premiere of World Poetry Day - European Literary Dialogues. She belongs to several poetry groups in London: Enfield Poets, The Highgate Society's Poetry Group and Exiled Writers Ink. She often presents her works at open poetry meetings. In 2013 and 2018, evenings devoted to her work were organised by the groups Poets Anonymous and Exiled Writers Ink at the prestigious Poetry Cafe belonging to the British Poetry Society. In an online competition announced by Poetry Space for poem week, her poem "A gray coat" took first place. She has appeared on the Poets Anonymous poetry radio many times, presenting her work.