Kathi Stafford at Bolton Hall Museum, May 27, 2012

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The Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga invite you to their upcoming Poetry Reading on Sunday, May 27, 2012, 4:30 – 6:30 p.m., at the Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Ave., Tujunga, CA 91042.

We are very pleased to have as the featured poet Kathi Stafford. She is a member of the Westside Women Writers group and a contributor to the Portuguese-American Journal. She has previously acted as poetry editor and senior editor for Southern California Review. Her poetry, interviews, and book reviews have appeared in literary journals such as Rattle, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Connecticut River Review, Southern California Review, and Hiram Poetry Review. Her poetry has been anthologized in Chopin and Cherries, as well as Sea of Change: Poems for Hitchcock.

She edited a chapbook about Beatrice for Galerie De Difformite, called Beatrice Emerges, and including poems by Millicent Borges Accardi, Susan Rogers, Maja Trochimczyk, and Jennifer Smith, 2011. difformitechapbooks.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/beatrice-emerges/

Stafford is also a member of Poets on Site whose work was recently included in the anthology, On Awakening, celebrating the paintings and creative imagination of Hungarian painter, Susan Dobay. The anthology was edited by Kathabela Wilson.

Born and raised in Texas, Stafford has lived in India and contrasting the memories of her childhood with the exotic impressions from her Indian sojourn is a frequent theme in her poetry.

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Near Belur Temple

Kathi Stafford

The playful daughter of a Hillman is feeding jackfruit
to a black-fingered monkey . . . Kapilar

The girl can’t stop herself. The monkey
keeps begging and she goes on handing
him treats, piece after piece.

Cardamom blankets
the evening scent. Incense
burns behind bushes.

She’s anxious—knows her pet
will have a tummy ache,
but hands him jackfruit again,

Because the planets are beginning
to glow along the horizon. Soon clouds
will dip down their holy smells.

She pulls her turquoise sari
close around her skinny self.
The silk a present from the older sister,

the grave one who played the mother
but can always bring the child