Happy New Year! With Leland-St. John and Galasso, 29 January 2023, Bolton Hall Museum, Tujunga

So Far, So Good, photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Happy New Year 2023! Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga are pleased to invite poets and friends of poetry to the first of this year's Monthly Reading held in-person, on Sunday, January 29, 2023 at 4:30 pm. at the Bolton Hall Museum, located at 10110 Commerce Ave, Tujunga, Los Angeles, CA 91042-2313. We will start the year on a high note, presenting two eminent poets, Sharmagne Leland St. John and William Scott Galasso. 

According to Chinese zodiac, this will be the year of Water Rabbit, starting on January 22, 2023... Two segments of open mic will be available and refreshments will be served. Suggested donation $5 per person for the cost of refreshments and to donate to the Little Landers Society that manages the Bolton Hall Museum, a Los Angeles Historical Landmark built in 1913. 

This will be the last Monthly Readings with featured poets selected by Dr. Maja Trochimczyk, who has served as Artistic Director of Village Poets for 12 years, booking poets, creating blogs, posting notices on Facebook, and emailing poets. After she steps down, Alice Pero, current Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga, will take over the role of making selections of poets for the VP Monthly Readings. 

SHARMAGNE LELAND-ST. JOHN

Sharmagne Leland-St. John, 22-time Pushcart Prize nominee, is a Native American author, poet, concert performer, lyricist, artist and filmmaker. 

 

She is the Editor-in-Chief of the 21-year-old literary and cultural arts journal Quill and Parchment.com. She is the founder of fogdog poetry in Arlington, WA, Quill and Parchment Poetry at The Vauclause Lounge in West Hollywood. Sharmagne tours the United States, Canada, and Europe as a performance poet.

 

She is widely anthologised and her poetry and short stories appear as well in many on-line literary journals, radio and television.  She has published 7 books of poetry Unsung Songs (2003),  Silver Tears and Time (2005), Contingencies (2008),  La Kalima (2010), A Raga for George Harrison (2020) IMAGES: A Collection of Ekphrastic Poetry (2021)  The Trip (2021) and co-authored a book on film production design. Designing Movies: Portrait of a Hollywood Artist( Greenwood/Praeger 2006).

 

Sharmagne is editor of Cradle Songs: An Anthology of Poems on Motherhood (2012,) winner of the 2013 International Book Award Honouring Excellence in Mainstream and Independent Publishing as well as one of four finalists for the NIEA. (National Independent Excellence Award). 

Tiny Warrior

by Sharmagne Leland-St. John

 

You never saw the spring my love

Or the red-tailed hawk circling high above

On feathered wings my love

You only knew the snow

You never saw the prairie grasses bend and blow

And undulate like the shimmering indigo sea

You never saw me

Your eyes were closed so tight

They say you put up quite a fight

Somehow your life was over before it had begun and

Gently did I touch and kiss your tiny-fingered hand

Born too soon

You never saw the silver moon

Or the light of a summer's day

Last night I dreamt a gathering of eagles

Had come

To spirit you away

Born too soon

Your tender heart

Could not beat

To the pulsing rhythm

Of life's taut drum

 

 

Nikolai 1982-1983

 

~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~

 

Bruna Vieira gathers flowers

by Sharmagne Leland-St. John

Bruna Vieira gathers flowers in her garden
she dreams of wildflowers but
chooses sunflowers instead
she's smart she knows they'll last the longest
she'll cut the stems tall, put sugar in the water
and hope they'll still be beautiful
when he comes to visit on Sunday

in her dreams she's dressed in hymns
not jeans and a blue and white striped pullover
she dances for the flowers and calls them Girasol
as they nod their sunshine heads
in the blue and white Meissen vase
where she has carefully arranged them
with their stems cut at an angle

she spins and her red hair is a furore of flames
leaping and licking the scented air behind her
she has adagio and lento
tattooed in curlicues on opposite ankles
to remind her of the tempo of the dance
and the rhythm of her life
in black ink a flutter of sparrows
dot her right wrist…
as she reaches out to caress the flowers
one of them flies away

from IMAGES: A Collection of Ekphrastic Poetry (2021) Taj Mahal Press

WILLIAM SCOTT GALASSO

William Scott Galasso is the author of seventeen books of poetry including Rough Cut: Thirty Years of Senryu (2019),Legacy: Thirty Years of Haiku, (2020) and Saffron Skies (2022), his latest published work. In addition, Scott’s co-edited two anthologies, Cascade Cuneiform (1995), with The Seattle Live Poets and Eclipse Moon, (2017), with Deborah P. Kolodji moderator of the SCHSG. He serves as an editor for the California Quarterly. 

He will present the newest book, Saffron Skies, published in 2022.

Sample Poems:

zen garden  

every snowflake 

finds a stone  

hunger moon

between tank treads

winter wheat  

 

let me be  

a hummingbird

busy in your blossom 

let me flutter you to sunburst

and fine Spring rain   

At The Mercy of Poseidon

Body surfing, I'm caught in a blue/green

fetal curl. The Pacific's rolling thunder, blasting

my ear's cavity, as I, having seconds ago flown before

the seventh wave's China white crest, plunge now,

Hard and fast as a hawk after prey towards what I hope

is sand not stone, when in an instant the world

turns upside down and I inexplicably land on my feet

astonished praising the God of good fortune

                    MRI test

                    no tumor,

                    no clot

(c) William Scott Galasso

                                  WISHES FROM VILLAGE POETS

Maja Trochimczyk with her 15-month old granddaughter, Dec. 2022

With best wishes for a joyous Hanukkah and Merry Christmas, 

Village Poets would like to share some Christmas-themed poems 

by our founder, Marlene Hitt. Enjoy!

Birth

Mary was silent as she smiled.

Shepherds murmured, watching him.

"What a fine, fine boy, a beautiful child

Jehovah-shammah, Adonai, Elohim!"

How did they know, those quiet men?

Who had told them the future of God?

They knelt, they prayed, they whispered,"Oh when?"

went on their way to plod and to plod

to live out their lives so patiently

watching, listening, tending their sheep

not guessing a thing about thorns and a tree

waiting, waiting, awake and asleep.

It is later now, so many years.

for us there are stories to make us cry

twined up with miracles, joys and tears

of the poor little baby born only to die

and to live, who will lovingly take us along

"Fear not!" We hear it again and again

and with gratitude we sing loudly our song

in the name of the Baby-Child. 

Amen and Amen.

(c) by Marlene Hitt 

   Duccio di Buoninsegna, Madonna with Angels and Saints

In Reverie This Christmas

A fire. And some china cups

the taste of tea upon the lips

flavored by lovely moments that cling

in Time's delicious sips.

Christmas dreams, so many pass

join chain-like into long thought strings

chains linked up to smile and song

tear-stained, circled, like table rings.

A fir tree always centers here

beside the sofa and this chair.

circles of light on green and red

mingle with the scented air.

The oldest grandma sat right there

dressed in a home-sewn skirt.

the grandfather's pipe, unlit, unsmoked

spilled ash-brown leaf upon his shirt.

And now some little slippered toes

step on those ghostly feet

of memories, of time passed by

of life in slow retreat.

Here, dreaming at the fireside,

mixing sad with cinnamon

all the Christmas remembering

blends and mixes and steeps till done.

(c) by Marlene Hitt

     Christmas Tree Ornaments, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Fir Tree Fairy Tale

A small dead tree alone one night

was covered with tinsel and covered with light.

That bundle of wood waited till morn

That poor dead tree was standing forlorn.

It heard the midnight bells and then

it saw the starry skies as rose-hued

frosty winter dawn

stroked sleepy little eyes.

Then the spirit of happiness entered that place

the glow of joy was on each small face.

Children danced and grandfathers smiled

mothers and grandmas hugged each little child.

The breath of joy burst through the tree

as it came alive as was meant to be

Awake, awake on Christmas morn,

the time when fir tree hearts are born. 

(c) by Marlene Hitt 

  

Our Lady of the Bright Mount, Czestochowa, Poland