Village Poets of Sunland & Tujunga: From Divine Names to Kolodji's Haiku

On July 22, 2012, at Bolton Hall Museum, the first reading from "Meditations on Divine Names" featured poets Joe DeCenzo, Marlene Hitt, Dorothy Skiles and Maja Trochimczyk, the anthology's editor.

The readers of poems also included Angela Lee and Mira Mataric. Poets presented their own work as well as selected poems by others: Czeslaw Milosz, Sharon Chmielarz, Marian Kaplun Shapiro, John Z. Guzlowski, Rick Lupert, Susan Rogers, Leonard Kress, Odarka Polanskyj Sprocket, and Barry Spacks.

The hosts, Lloyd and Marlene Hitt, reminded the poetic guests that the Bolton Hall Museum is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and encouraged everyone to attend the festivities.

A photo album from this even is available on Picasa Web Album: Meditations at Bolton Hall.

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Deborah P. Kolodji - Featured Poet on August 26, 2012!

The next Village Poets Reading at Bolton Hall Museum will take place on August 26, 2012 at 4:30 p.m. The featured poet, Deborah P. Kolodji, is well known in the poetry community for her involvement in the haiku movement, not just because of her talent.

Deborah P Kolodji is the moderator of the Southern California Haiku Study Group, which meets each month at the Pacific Asia Museum on the 3rd Saturday of the month. She is also a member of the Haiku Society of America, the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society, the Haiku Poets of Northern California, and the Science Fiction Poetry Association. She served as president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association for five years, ending in 2011.

She has published over 800 poems in journals both on and off the web, including Modern Haiku, Frogpond, bottle rockets, Acorn, Simply Haiku, the Heron's Nest, Star*Line, Strange Horizons, Tales of the Unanticipated, the Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Goblin Fruit, poeticdiversity, and the Mainichi Daily News. Her short stories have been published in THEMA, Tales of the Talisman, and Everyday Weirdness. Her essays can be found in Frogpond, Haiku Canada Review, the Horror Writer's Association Newsletter, and Chicken Soup for the Dieter's Soul.

Since the cover of "Meditations on Divine Names" is a closeup photo of a matilla poppy, a haiku about this flower was selected to represent Debbie's talent:

matilija poppies -
a skillet of fried eggs
on the campstove

For those interested, here's a link to Debbie's reading of three haiku at Catalina Library in Pasadena: Kolodji at Monday Evening Poetry.