Spring in Bloom with Poets Elsa Frausto & Sean McGrath

 

Village Poets will celebrate the warmth of spring with a presentation of original poetry by Elsa Frausto & Sean McGrath on Sunday, April 27 at 4:30 pm at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, CA. There will also be an open mic, so please bring your best poems to participate. The Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Ave, Tujunga, CA 91040. Bolton Hall is a Los Angeles Historical Landmark built in 1913. Our reading starts at 4:30 pm and goes till 6:30 pm. Refreshments will be served. Parking available across the street at Elks Lodge 10137 Commerce Ave.

 Elsa S. Frausto, the eighth Poet Laureate of Sunland Tujunga (2014-2017) was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has lived in the Foothills with her family for over twenty-five years. Her work has appeared in a number of local and international publications, among them Porte des Poetes, Speechless the Magazine, Poem of the Month in Poet at Work, Badlands, the anthology Meditations on Divine Names and many anthologies by Poets on Site. She was the coordinator and host for Camelback Readings held at the Sunland-Tujunga Library. Elsa is a member of the Chuparosa Writers, volunteers at the Friends of the Library Bookstore and at the Noise Within Theater (Pasadena) and is poetry editor and translator for the Spanish language literary magazine la-luciernaga.com.  Her venture as Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga (2014-2016) was the blog Poetria.org. Her local musings Walking Around could be read monthly in the local paper, Voice of the Village.  In 2017, her book, Sunland Park Poems, co-written with Alice Pero was published by Shabda Press.

 Poems by Elsa Frausto

If I could do with the night…

 If I could do with the night

what the choreographer

with the dance.

Undress it of its dictionary,

surprise her moonless.

A crackle of grasshoppers

and an absence of frogs

in the air at eleven,

to the rhythm of a hand

on your hips

and yours on my breast.

If I could do with the night

what it does with me.

Dance without a choreographer,

full moon like once your mouth

on the roundness of mine.

And a second after eleven

the total silence of grasshoppers.

 For you, who know everything

What will be left of this time

a year from now or on my 65th birthday?

The walks and how the wind seemed to come

out of nowhere.

Your body when I bathed it clean

to insult the illness in it,

call it out of you, to show its face.

The one it hides around your heart.

A stone, a beating stone, so sick,

so alive.

Two poems written in the back of books.The first book by a Russian poet imprisoned in Soviet times- Yuli Daniel

Poet,

you left enough pages for me to write on.

It’s past one

and I don’t sleep,

the same way cold and hunger kept you awake.

Thoughts can be jails

with bars on all sides.

I peer out into the night

like a bird

undeserving of the name.

The second book is by Wallace Stevens

Once my father was young.

Once we walked on Sunday

to buy a paper at the stand

on the corner of Hollywood and Western.

It’s not there anymore.

Memory of you

Question I will never ask-

How many years for your hair to grow that long?

Maybe I did and don’t remember.

You could have answered me like this-

I trimmed it every new moon since I had you at 19

until I turned 30. You spread out in its thickness

and the night built nests of light in its waves.

But you wouldn’t have said that.

Those weren’t your words, you didn’t say the rest either

because I never asked you.

Maybe I did. One doesn’t remember everything.

Sean McGrath is a poet, writer and teacher who has resided in the Northeast and the Southwest of the United States. He has published three poetry collections — Untitled Baby Project (2023), From a Balcony in Palos Verdes (2022), and Oculus (2016) — and is working on his fourth, Untitled Baby Project 2.0. His poetry has appeared with the California State Poetry Society and Awakenings Review. He received a B.A. in English from Brown University in 2011. Sean has been teaching literature and writing classes at Chadwick School in Palos Verdes, California for the past eight years and he currently resides in Torrance with his wife, their two young sons, three dogs, and a cat. 

Poems by Sean McGrath

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.

Published in “from a Balcony in Palos Verdes” (wor(l)ds publishing)

hunger for eternity

you ever miss something

even when you are beholding it

right there in your dumbstruck eyes?

it had been close during

the goldfleeced autumns in Massachusetts,

the sunsets in Redondo,

the winters from a balcony in Palos Verdes

when snow had just started to top the distant Angeles

but never so distilled,

not until this little monster

crash landed on my pumping heart

and looked back at me with my own eyes—

then, as before, every moment felt worth holding onto forever

then, like never, each moment felt like it was rushing away

so this is how you fall out of love with the ordinary,

I thought,

this is how the hunger for eternity grows

Published in “Untitled Baby Project” (2023) 1^st prize winner CSPS Monthly Contest March 2024

Car Poem #2

I hadn’t thought

  it would be so much time circling

parking lots,

  it would be so much time in the rocking

chair with his paws latched onto the neck of my shirt

  in the dark hours of morning,

 so much time chasing him around

knocking rocks out of his mouth,

   chasing him around with a tissue to get his nose,

     so much time sharing colds,

I hadn’t thought—

 

     I guess I had little interest in forecasting

the future.

     I lived one page at a time, trusting

it was a good book probably, and no

need to skip ahead.

 

    The last chapter was all

beer glasses and long runs, longer drives,

coastal shores and a wife worth every

   mile.

 

Some days I wonder

  is this a punishment

    or a reward

  for all that good living?

maybe both

     and probably neither,

it is just a life,

   hardly a page turner,

      to extend that metaphor—

  though a stone on the beach

may be more fitting,

   something tractable

   and battered slowly and certainly

by the endless waters

  which then

    dust by dust it becomes

part of and maybe remains;

 

I’m not sure, it’s all so uncertain

and I hadn’t thought

    to give it much good thought

 until now with a life more precious than mine

asleep in the backseat.

Published in The Awakenings Review (Spring 2024)

 

 

 

 

Village Poets Will Celebrate 2025 with Poets Shahé Mankerian and Jackie Chou on Sunday, January 26

 

 

Village Poets will celebrate the New Year with Armenian-American poet, Shahé Mankerian and Los Angeles poet, Jackie Chou, for an exciting presentation on Sunday, January 26 at 4:30 pm at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, CA.

There will also be an open mic, so please bring your best poems to participate.

The Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Ave, Tujunga, CA 91040. Bolton Hall is a Los Angeles Historical Landmark built in 1913. Our reading starts at 4:30 pm and goes till 6:30 pm

This reading is sponsored by Poets & Writers.

Shahé Mankerian is the principal of St. Gregory Hovsepian School in Pasadena, CA, and the director of mentorship at the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA). He previously served as co-director of the Los Angeles Writing Project and is a recipient of the Los Angeles Music Center’s BRAVO Award for innovation in arts education. Mankerian’s debut poetry collection, History of Forgetfulness, was published in 2021 by Fly on the Wall Press (UK). The collection was a semifinalist for the Khayrallah Prize and a finalist for the Bibby First Book Competition, the Crab Orchard Poetry Open Competition, the Julie Suk Award, the Quercus Review Press Poetry Book Award, and the White Pine Press Poetry Prize.

Three Poems by Shahé Mankerian

After the First Rain

A sparrow visits our front lawn.

Her feet sink deep into the mud.

In rows, neighbors cultivate

perfect roses, African irises,

pergolas full of morning glories—

We’ve discolored their street

with harsh immigrant landscape:

puddles of mosquitos, dehydrated

apricot trees, and hollowed vases.

On his bicycle, a freckled face

newspaper boy tosses The Los

Angeles Times at hydrangeas

and chrysanthemums but skips

our oil-stained driveway. Before

going to the bakery, Father steps

on the porch and praises the passing

 rain for washing his Chevrolet. Like

discovering pearl, the sparrow pulls

 a gleaming worm from the steam

of our neglected soil and devours it.

Published in  Taos Journal of Poetry | Issue 13 | November 2023.

Show & Tell

         To Lucille Clifton

 José lifted a rabbit from a corroded cage

and said, “This is Jesús. We found him

sleeping among the dead daffodils.”

 

Elizabeth asked us to cover our ears

“Because Beethoven was deaf,” she said

as “Ode to Joy” squeaked on her violin.

 

I clapped the loudest because on the first

day of school Liz braided my shoelaces

with hers. Mrs. Honzay poked my forearm

 

with a pen, “Settle down,” she whispered.

Sweaty Mika wore his father’s space suit.

Selma uttered from her wobbly desk,

 

“He even smells like an alien.” When I stood

in front of the blackboard, nauseous,

with nothing fancy to share, I raised

 

my trembling hands shoulder high.

“I was born with twelve fingers,” I said,

“and I have the scars to prove it.”

Published in Contemporary Verse 2 | Summer 2024 | Vol. 47 Issue No. 1

Khachaturian in Beirut

On my 6^th birthday, Father clenched an imaginary

sword and marched around the living room

to the rapid beats of the Sabre Dance.

 

Outside, the Lebanese Civil War raged as tanks

smashed through abandoned cars. Inside,

Father jumped on the lopsided sofa

 

and shouted, “Son, this is Aram Khachaturian!

The greatest living composer from Armenia.”

Dead bodies bloated below our balcony,

 

but I fancied Khachaturian in a cape, a red

plume on the helmet, and a magical shield

that protected children from wayward bullets.

 

Father raised the volume of the turntable

right before the staccato of xylophones silenced

the screaming hostage in the nearby alley.

 Published in TAB Journal, Volume 11, 2023

 

© 2024 Shahé Mankerian

 

                                                   

Jackie Chou is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee whose poem "Formosa" was a finalist in the 2023 Stephen A DiBiase Poetry Prize. Her work has also appeared recently in The Ekphrastic Review, Panoply Zine, Synchronized Chaos, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and Lee Herrick's Our California project. Her two collections of poetry, Finding My Heart in Love and Loss and the Sorceress, published by cyberwit in 2023, can be found on Amazon.

 Three Poems by Jackie Chou

Losing You

I lose you

like a jacaranda tree shedding 

its purple trumpet flowers

 

In losing you, I lose myself 

parts of you 

that became parts of me

the laughter 

the gestures

the candlelight in the eyes

 

I lose you

though I have already lost you

a million times

in small daily fragments 

a memory here 

a photograph there

 

Soon my heart 

will be bereft of you

like debris 

and leaves

swept away by a breeze 

 

I lose you

like pieces of a mosaic 

falling one by one

until the last seashell 

hits the floor 

with a final clonk

First published by Synchronized Chaos, August 2024

At the End of the Day

Our day ends when it is time to part

My lids fall with the curtain of night

For darkened dreams, I depart

 

To the milky sky my black horse darts

Deep in slumber, I'm my own knight

Our day ends when it is time to part

 

To chase joy, a forgotten art

I must with my own demons fight

For darkened dreams, I depart

 

The surreal realm has made me smart

To defeat the darkness with my light

Our day ends when it is time to part

 

Like everything is free, I load my cart

Pushing its weight with all my might

For darkened dreams, I depart

 

In separate worlds, we're apart

My lone pursuits bring no plight

Our day ends when it is time to part

For darkened dreams, I depart

First published by Lothlorien Poetry Journal, April 2024

 

Formosa

 

Your breath awakens me
to an isle of swaying palms
and loosed ankles.
You dance in the shadows
of crisp-winged butterflies,
auspicious like a yellow kitten,
prodding your ideologies into my head,
your brown hair tousled in the breeze,
ambition glowing in your pupils.
Your musical notes cross my stave,
your fingers bent at the right angles,
holding chopsticks with dexterity,
in night markets of neon boulevards,
where omelets are flipped and mice thrive,
your eyes locking with mine,
in our shared landscape.

 

Finalist in the Stephen A Dibiase Poetry Prize 2023

 

© 2024  Jackie Chou

                                                                                Photo by Lois P. Jones