Deborah P Kolodji and William Scott Galasso Present Haiku Anthology on February 25, 2018

Lilac in Descanso Gardens

The Village Poets  are pleased to invite poets and poetry lovers to their next Monthly Reading to be held on Sunday, February 25, 2018  at 4:30 p.m., at the Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042. The reading will feature Deborah P Kolodji and William Scott Galasso, the co-editors of the 2017 edition of the Southern California Haiku Study Group anthology, entitled Eclipse Moon.  

The reading will include also two open mike segments and refreshments, with finger food and sandwiches provided by Lydia Grant. At the reading, $3 donations collected for the cost of the venue, the second historical landmark in the City of Los Angeles, that celebrated its centennial in 2013.  The Museum is managed by the Little Landers Historical Society.

Deborah P Kolodji and William Scott Galasso read from Eclipse Moon in Pasadena

November 2017

The Southern California Haiku Study Group was founded 20 years ago by Jerry Ball, and has met on the 3rd Saturday of the month, at 2 pm, ever since.  It currently meets at the Hill Avenue Branch Library in Pasadena, 55 S. Hill Avenue, Pasadena.  Each year, the group publishes an anthology of Southern California Haiku voices.  The most recent anthology, Eclipse Moon, was edited by William Scott Galasso with Deborah P Kolodji.  It was named after a haiku by Diana Ming Jeong:

  eclipse moon
  an abyss forged
  over time

     - Diana Ming Jeong

DEBORAH P KOLODJI

Deborah P Kolodji is the California regional coordinator for the Haiku Society of America and moderator of the Southern California Haiku Study Group. The former president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, Kolodji is also is a member of the Haiku Poets of Northern California , the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society, Haiku Canada, and the California State Poetry Society. Author of four chapbooks of poetry, her first full-length book of haiku and senryu is Highway of Sleeping Towns, from Shabda Press. Debbie has published more than 900 haiku in publications such as Frogpond, Modern Haiku, the Heron’s Nest, Bottle Rockets, A Hundred Gourds, Acorn, Rattle, and Mayfly.  Debbie co-organized the 2013 Haiku North America conference about the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, and joined Haiku North America as a director in 2016.

WILLIAM SCOTT GALASSO

William Scott Galasso is the author of fourteen books of poetry, including Silver Salmon Runes published 2016 on Createspace. Eclipse Moon, in which he appears as contributing editor, and that came out in November 2017,  Mixed Bag, a new collection fof Haibun, Haiku Sequences, Tanka and Short Poems is due for publication in March.

one breath
the difference between
I am and I was

Photos from the "Eclipse Moon" Haiku Anthology Reading, February 25, 2018

The "Eclipse Moon" anthology was the "feature" at the Bolton Hall reading for February. After the two "featured readers" presented their own recent work (Deborah P Kolodji and William Scott Galasso), we were treated to a real poetry feast. Ms. Kolodji selected haiku from the anthology to create a lovely and thoughtful narrative. It was read by William Galasso, Kimberly Esser, Greg Longenecker, and Deborah P Kolodji. Kathabela Wilson and Rick accompanied the poets on flutes (Rick), tamboura and percussion (Kathabela). The four readers were given bouquets of camellias from Maja Trochimczyk's garden at the end of the reading. Refreshments prepared by Marlene Hitt included finger sandwiches by Lydia Grant. 

Dorothy Skiles commented: "The carefully woven tapestry of haiku delivered on stage by Deborah and Scott and other members of the Southern California Haiku Study Group on 2/25/18, echoed through the hall of the Bolton Hall Museum!" 

Deborah P Kolodji, and William Scott Galasso accompanied by Rick Wilson on flute.

Poets in attendance: Standing L to R: Maja Trochimczyk, Jonathan Vos Post, Joyce Futa, Sharon Hawley, Dorothy Skiles, Mari Werner, Pamela Shea, Marlene Hitt, Mary Torregrosa and Rick Wilson. Seated L to R: , William Galasso, Deborah P Kolodji, Dorothy Skiles, Kimberly Esser, Greg Longenecker and  Kathabela Wilson 

Seated: William Scott Galasso, Deborah P Kolodji, Kimberly Esser, Greg Longenecker 

Standing: Rick Wilson, Maja Trochimczyk, Kathabela Wilson

Deborah P Kolodji and Maja Trochimczyk in blue. Photo by Mary Torregrosa

Joe DeCenzo, photo by Kathabela Wilson

Dorothy Skiles, Photo by Kathabela Wilson

Thanks for Haiku - Deborah P Kolodji and Naia Feature on November 27, 2016

This has been a year to be thankful for, with so many amazing poets and musicians having graced the Bolton Hall Museum: Seven Dhar and Teresa Mei Chuc, Eddy M. Gana Jr. and Stephanie Sajor , Georgia Jones-Davis, Lois P. Jones and Alice Pero, Marsha de La O and Jerry Garcia, Judy Barrat, Bill Cushing with Chuck Corbisiero, plus Mariko Kitakubo, Elline Lipkin, Altadena Poet Laureate, and Songwriters Heather Donavon and Steve McCormick, Douglas Kearney and Mandy Kahn, and in October, Shahe Mankerian with Songwriters-Musicians Shandy and Eva.

We will be able to add to our blessings  on Sunday, November 27, 2016 at 4:30 p.m. (after Thanksgiving), and enjoy the haiku and other Japanese-style poetry of Deborah P Kolodji and Naia.  As usual, the reading will take place at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga (10110 Commerce Ave. Tujunga, CA 91042), with segments of open mike, refreshments, and $3 donations collected in George Harris's Hat (Harris was the builder of the Bolton Hall, now a Los Angeles Historic Monument No. 2, having celebrated its centennial in 2013). 

DEBORAH P KOLODJI

Photo by Naia

Deborah P Kolodji is the California Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of America, the moderator of the Southern California Haiku Study Group, which meets on the 3rd Saturday of every month at the Lamanda Park Library in Pasadena, and is on the board of directors for Haiku North America.  

Her first full-length book of haiku, highway of sleeping towns, was published recently by Shabda Press. (http://www.shabdapress.com/deborah-p-kolodji.html).   With over 900 published poems to her name, and four chapbooks of poetry, Seaside Moon (2005), Red Planet Dust (2006), unfinished book (2006), and Symphony of the Universe (2006), Kolodji finds inspiration in beaches, mountains, deserts, and urban life of Los Angeles County.

"Deborah P Kolodji’s haiku collection is a gem. Born of an art that transcends science, her haiku transport the reader into the past and future, while being firmly rooted in the present. Highway of Sleeping Towns underlines the truth that the the best haiku are contemporary and ageless, personal and universal."      - Roberta Beary, author of the Unworn Necklace and editor at Modern Haiku

white marble
I am small at the feet
of Lincoln


floating purple--
my daydreams follow
the water hyacinth


highway
of sleeping towns
the milky way


settling the estate
empty gum wrappers
in her purse


the scarf
she never finished
brown pine needles


morning tidepools
a hermit crab tries on
the bottle cap


winter sea
the rise and fall
and fall


a caterpillar's progress
across the fallen leaf
jet lag


moon flower
a love letter
to Captain Kirk


LA traffic
our lady of the perpetually
late


our history
written in rock
desert lavender

NAIA

In 1998, Naia discovered haiku through the works of Kobayashi Issa. She joined a small study group in Long Beach and has been writing haiku and other forms ever since. Shortly after she began submitting for publication, Naia’s haiku were published in two prestigious anthologies in Japan: 1) Masaoka Shiki Festival Anthology, Ehime Prefecture Culture Foundation, Japan, 2001, and 2) 55^thBasho Festival Haiku Anthology, Basho Memorial Museum, Japan, 2001 (one of only 17 poets accepted from the United States)

Naia’s haiku, haiga, haibun, tanka, and other poetic forms have been published in numerous books, anthologies, collections, e-journals, newsletters, and magazines in the U.S and internationally.Additional haiku-related activities include:

•          co-editor, bits of itself, 2002 Haiku Society of America members’ anthology
•          member, founding planning team for the first Haiku Pacific Rim Conference, 2002
•          editor, above the tree line, 2008 Southern California Haiku Study Group anthology
•          editor, shell gathering, 2009 Southern California Haiku Study Group anthology
•          judge, HPNC annual Haiku Contest, 2009
•          regional coordinator, Haiku Society of America 2009-2014
•          co-founder & moderator, Haiku San Diego, 2010 to present
•          reader, 23^rdannual Two Autumns Reading, 2012
•          reader, Tea House Reading, Yuki Teikei Haiku Society Annual Reading, 2012
•          co-chair, Intervals, Haiku North America 2013 Conference
•          editor, what the wind can’t touch, 2016 Southern California Haiku Study Group anthology

A video of her work may be found on Vimeo:  ants on the sidewalk, a multimedia urban celebration by Naia, Deborah P Kolodji, and Gregory Longenecker:  https://vimeo.com/60378349  Presented at Haiku Pacific Rim 2012, published in Haiku Chronicles in 2013.

  

Poems

songbird

even the crow in the next tree

listens

new love . . .

still some green

in these autumn leaves

in those moments

when all is still and he’s sure

I’m asleep . . .

the way his lips linger

upon my bare shoulder

Ghosts Among the Cornflowers

From this place at the edge of a cornflower patch so wide that it seems as if a great wave poured from the afternoon sky and liquefied the land . . . from this place, I begin to wonder. Who planted them? Who knelt here, tended here, bent and yielded here, dreamed here? Who planted these cornflowers gone to seed, to weed, again and again, until this knee-deep sea of them?

windswept cloud . . .

    in blue ink the apology

        owed since childhood

PHOTOS FROM THE READING

Thanks for Haiku... of Deborah P Kolodji and Naia!

November group photo with Deborah P Kolodji, Naia, Mariko Kitakubo and Village Poets. 

and many thanks to all the Poets that were featured at our readings, and to all who attended and participated in the Open Mike this year.  We greatly appreciate your contributions to our genteel and reflective readings.

• January 24, 2016  - Seven Dhar and Teresa Mei Chuc

VILLAGE POETS IN OCTOBER 

Village Poets after the reading by Shake Manerian, with Shandy and Eva Duo, October 23, 2016.

Standing L to R: Maja Trochimczyk, Pauli Dutton, Richard Dutton, Pam Shea, Sharon Hawley, Judy Barrat,Joe DeCenzo, Marlene Hitt, Dorothy Skiles and Yatindra Bhatnagar. Seating L to R: Mira Mataric, Elsa Frausto, Shahe Mankerian, Shandy and Eva. 

Eva, Shahe, and Shandy at Bolton Hall Museum.

The second event was the annual Lit Crawl LA 2016, held in North Hollywood on October 26, 2016, with four Village Poets reading their spiritually-inspired works in the "Into Light: Poetry of the Spirit" reading with Joe DeCenzo, Maja Trochimczyk, Marlene Hitt, and Elsa Frausto. Some of the poems came from the 2012 anthology, issued by Moonrise Press, Meditations on Divine Names. 

Some of these poems may be found on the Moonrise Press Blog, as well as on the Poetry Laurels blog by Maja Trochimczyk.

Thanks for Haiku - Deborah P Kolodji and Naia Feature on November 27, 2016

This has been a year to be thankful for, with so many amazing poets and musicians having graced the Bolton Hall Museum: Seven Dhar and Teresa Mei Chuc, Eddy M. Gana Jr. and Stephanie Sajor , Georgia Jones-Davis, Lois P. Jones and Alice Pero, Marsha de La O and Jerry Garcia, Judy Barrat, Bill Cushing with Chuck Corbisiero, plus Mariko Kitakubo, Elline Lipkin, Altadena Poet Laureate, and Songwriters Heather Donavon and Steve McCormick, Douglas Kearney and Mandy Kahn, and in October, Shahe Mankerian with Songwriters-Musicians Shandy and Eva.

We will be able to add to our blessings  on Sunday, November 27, 2016 at 4:30 p.m. (after Thanksgiving), and enjoy the haiku and other Japanese-style poetry of Deborah P Kolodji and Naia.  As usual, the reading will take place at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga (10110 Commerce Ave. Tujunga, CA 91042), with segments of open mike, refreshments, and $3 donations collected in George Harris's Hat (Harris was the builder of the Bolton Hall, now a Los Angeles Historic Monument No. 2, having celebrated its centennial in 2013). 

DEBORAH P KOLODJI

Photo by Naia

Deborah P Kolodji is the California Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of America, the moderator of the Southern California Haiku Study Group, which meets on the 3rd Saturday of every month at the Lamanda Park Library in Pasadena, and is on the board of directors for Haiku North America.  

Her first full-length book of haiku, highway of sleeping towns, was published recently by Shabda Press. (http://www.shabdapress.com/deborah-p-kolodji.html).   With over 900 published poems to her name, and four chapbooks of poetry, Seaside Moon (2005), Red Planet Dust (2006), unfinished book (2006), and Symphony of the Universe (2006), Kolodji finds inspiration in beaches, mountains, deserts, and urban life of Los Angeles County.

"Deborah P Kolodji’s haiku collection is a gem. Born of an art that transcends science, her haiku transport the reader into the past and future, while being firmly rooted in the present. Highway of Sleeping Towns underlines the truth that the the best haiku are contemporary and ageless, personal and universal."      - Roberta Beary, author of the Unworn Necklace and editor at Modern Haiku

white marble
I am small at the feet
of Lincoln


floating purple--
my daydreams follow
the water hyacinth


highway
of sleeping towns
the milky way


settling the estate
empty gum wrappers
in her purse


the scarf
she never finished
brown pine needles


morning tidepools
a hermit crab tries on
the bottle cap


winter sea
the rise and fall
and fall


a caterpillar's progress
across the fallen leaf
jet lag


moon flower
a love letter
to Captain Kirk


LA traffic
our lady of the perpetually
late


our history
written in rock
desert lavender

NAIA

In 1998, Naia discovered haiku through the works of Kobayashi Issa. She joined a small study group in Long Beach and has been writing haiku and other forms ever since. Shortly after she began submitting for publication, Naia’s haiku were published in two prestigious anthologies in Japan: 1) Masaoka Shiki Festival Anthology, Ehime Prefecture Culture Foundation, Japan, 2001, and 2) 55^thBasho Festival Haiku Anthology, Basho Memorial Museum, Japan, 2001 (one of only 17 poets accepted from the United States)

Naia’s haiku, haiga, haibun, tanka, and other poetic forms have been published in numerous books, anthologies, collections, e-journals, newsletters, and magazines in the U.S and internationally.Additional haiku-related activities include:

·         co-editor, bits of itself, 2002 Haiku Society of America members’ anthology

·         member, founding planning team for the first Haiku Pacific Rim Conference, 2002

·         editor, above the tree line, 2008 Southern California Haiku Study Group anthology

·         editor, shell gathering, 2009 Southern California Haiku Study Group anthology

·         judge, HPNC annual Haiku Contest, 2009

·         regional coordinator, Haiku Society of America 2009-2014

·         co-founder & moderator, Haiku San Diego, 2010 to present

·         reader, 23^rdannual Two Autumns Reading, 2012

·         reader, Tea House Reading, Yuki Tekei Haiku Society Annual Reading, 2012

·         co-chair, Intervals, Haiku North America 2013 Conference

·         editor, what the wind can’t touch, 2016 Southern California Haiku Study Group anthology

A video of her work may be found on Vimeo:  ants on the sidewalk, a multimedia urban celebration by Naia, Deborah P Kolodji, and Gregory Longenecker:  https://vimeo.com/60378349  Presented at Haiku Pacific Rim 2012, published in Haiku Chronicles in 2013.

Poems

songbird

even the crow in the next tree

listens

new love . . .

still some green

in these autumn leaves

in those moments

when all is still and he’s sure

I’m asleep . . .

the way his lips linger

upon my bare shoulder

Ghosts Among the Cornflowers

From this place at the edge of a cornflower patch so wide that it seems as if a great wave poured from the afternoon sky and liquefied the land . . . from this place, I begin to wonder. Who planted them? Who knelt here, tended here, bent and yielded here, dreamed here? Who planted these cornflowers gone to seed, to weed, again and again, until this knee-deep sea of them?

windswept cloud . . .

    in blue ink the apology

        owed since childhood

VILLAGE POETS IN OCTOBER 

Village Poets after the reading by Shake Manerian, with Shandy and Eva Duo, October 23, 2016.

Standing L to R: Maja Trochimczyk, Pauli Dutton, Richard Dutton, Pam Shea, Sharon Hawley, Judy Barrat,Joe DeCenzo, Marlene Hitt, Dorothy Skiles and Yatindra. Seating L to R: Mira Mataric, Elsa Frausto, Shahe Mankerian, Shandy and Eva. 

Eva, Shahe, and Shandy at Bolton Hall Museum.

The second event was the annual Lit Crawl LA 2016, held in North Hollywood on October 26, 2016, with four Village Poets reading their spiritually-inspired works in the "Into Light: Poetry of the Spirit" reading with Joe DeCenzo, Maja Trochimczyk, Marlene Hitt, and Elsa Frausto. Some of the poems came from the 2012 anthology, issued by Moonrise Press, Meditations on Divine Names. 

Some of these poems may be found on the Moonrise Press Blog, as well as on the Poetry Laurels blog by Maja Trochimczyk.

Happy New Year 2013!



A New Year 2013

Just past the midnight hour -

New Year begins to flower

amidst high expectations,

cheers and celebrations!

We embrace the new with

resolve to keep promises

made, as days fade into

the patterns of our lives.

Dorothy Skiles, 12/28/12
7th Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga

(C) Copyright 2012 by Dorothy Skiles

________________________________________________

Happy New Year 2013!

from Village Poets of Sunland Tujunga

_________________________________

Haiga "The Gift" (c) 2012 by Maja Trochimczyk, created for

a New Year Exhibition at the Japanese American Museum in Los Angeles

Ever calling - Never heard

Ever seeking - Never seen

Revealed

Detail from "The Gift" (c) 2012 by Maja Trochimczyk

___________________________________

New Year

           

A new palette, blue-white,

fresh brushes with no tint

That long season,

that whole year

blanketed itself

over the backs of colors.

Those were the yesterdays,

A child’s red dress

stitched by great-grandmother

shimmered on her skin

beside the greens of Maui’s sea

and lavender hills of sunset,

mixing up to something odd.

Tubes of paint lie fresh

not yet opened

You were dressed in black

smart and slim

every day of the year,

and now I wonder

what your face would say

if I would give you

a sun-yellow sweater

edged in gold.

The new season has begun,

bright, clear and golden.

These are the days to remember.

Burnt umber is a fine beginning.

Over that a springtime tree.

~ Marlene Hitt

(c) December 1999

___________________________________

Floating Holidays

The fourth Thursday in November

The last Monday in May

The twenty-fifth day of Kislev

The first Sunday

Following the first full moon

After the vernal equinox

The second new moon after the winter solstice

Unless there is an 11^th or 12^th intercalary month,

In which case it starts on the third new moon

I much more prefer the holidays that occur on a regular date

Especially those that fall on the 1^st

Steadfast and constant, dependable

Something you can anticipate

Primo, numero uno

Back to basics, square one

A built in chance to see things through clear eyes

A time to hail new beginnings

Salute the dawn of self improvement

And pose exalted on a rock of resolutions

A time to reel in that fish and rid the monkeys from your back

To wage battle against your apprehensions

Subdue your inhibitions

And vanquish your constraints

To finally stop procrastinating once and for all

Or least start thinking about it.

Yeah,

A clean slate

A fresh start

Another chance to finally get it right

Joe DeCenzo

_________________________

Time

A vacant pause while the traffic of your life speeds by.

Funny, time is really meaningless

Until you appreciate how much of it you’ve used.

It’s a shock when you first realize

You have fewer days ahead than behind.

Time is tender, so tender that we should cradle each day in our arms

So we can breath its presence, ignore the clocks and accept the moments.

We should smell and touch and taste each minute

Then set it free to make room for the next.

Time is opportunity,

The chance to experience all that occurs in an instant

Or endure the eternal echoing regret;

The chance to extract the sweetest citrus

Or let the rind grow sour at hand’s neglect;

The chance to arrest the fleeting glance

Or let the heart lay fallow on a field of indecision.

Time is for doing.  And those who do nothing,

Always seem to be running out of time.

Joe DeCenzo

_________________________

 

 

 

 

Happy Gnu Year 

By Mari Werner

The gnu is a large antelope that

inhabits the African plains

from Kenya to northern South Africa.

Gnus are grass eaters.

From the viewpoint of a blade of grass,

no gnus is good gnus.

However, gnus are very inventive.

They have developed a process

for making a special kind of paper,

which they call gnus paper.

They’ve also invented a particularly

effective broom. A gnu broom

sweeps clean.

Gnus have sophisticated social customs.

Some gnus prefer mornings

and some prefer evenings,

so they stay awake at different times

and watch over each other.

The evening gnus watch

the morning gnus and the morning gnus

watch the evening gnus.

Gnus have historically formed tribes,

the first of which was the Hoo Gnu.

Later came the Yew Gnu and the Aye Gnu,

which eventually merged to form the Wee Gnu.

Because of their many fine qualities,

gnus were recently honored by being

added to the Chinese zodiac.

The year 2013 was declared

the year of the Gnu.

May your gnu year be filled

with smiles and good gnus.

____________________________


Poems (c) by the respective poets
Photos (c) 2011-2012, by Maja Trochimczyk