Happy Holidays, Happy New Year 2017, Happy Poets Laureate!

Village Poets of Sunland - Tujunga wish all poets and poetry lovers  a happy, healthy and creative Holidays and a fantastic New Year 2017 filled with beauty, love, serenity, and poetry. In short, all the delights of a poetic life.  We will see you on January 22, 2017 at the first reading of the new year, featuring Lisa Cheby, who teaches English and poetry at the Verdugo Hills High School. See our Calendar for further events. 

Since four of us are grandmothers (Dorothy, Marlene, Elsa and Maja), we share the photo of one of the grandchildren, Adam Depinski of Warsaw, Poland, with wishes written by Maja:

May your Heart by light as a Feather

May your Smile be bright as the Sun

May your Days be sweetened with Laughter

Happy Holy Days of Loving Kindness & Fun!

Maja Trochimczyk and Village Poets

_________________________________________________

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
• February 28, 2016  - Eddy M. Gana Jr. and Stephanie Sajor 
• March 20 - Georgia Jones-Davis 
• April 24 - Lois P. Jones and Alice Pero 
• May 22 - Marsha de La O (Ventura) and Jerry Garcia
• June 26 - Judy Barrat
• July 24 - Bill Cushing, poetry, and Chuck Corbisiero, guitar -  with a Visit by Mariko Kitakubo
• August 28 - Elline Lipkin, Altadena Poet Laureate, and Music by Heather Donavon and Steve McCormick
• September 25 - Douglas Kearney and Mandy Kahn
• October 23 - Shahe Mankerian  with Shandy & Eva Duo 
• November 27 - Deborah P Kolodji and Naia 

October group photo with Shahe Mankerian, Shandy & Eva, and Village Poets. 

_________________________________________________

POET LAUREATE APPLICATIONS 

DUE JANUARY 15, 2017

Since Elsa Frausto is completing her three-year term in 2017, we are looking for a new Poet Laureate for our area, with expanded border, compared to previous years.  

APPLY TO BECOME OUR NEW POET-LAUREATE 2017-2019 

Applications are now available to become the next Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga, for the years 2017-2019. The deadline is January 15, 2017.

The Poet Laureate as a community leader should be comfortable with public speaking, appearances and interviews and should be able to speak clearly and capably. We seek a person whose life and works reflect a love of our area which includes the flora, fauna, mountains, creeks and our diverse human community. This is a person who is the voice of our community, a cheerleader, a person whose words give wings to the heart of Sunland and Tujunga. During his/her term in office the Poet Laureate is encouraged to publish a collection of his or her works, as in a chapbook, for historical documentation.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

1) All applicants must be at least 18 years old and active members of the local poetry community. The candidates should be residents of the Foothills, from Lake View Terrace to La Canada Flintridge, inclusive of Sunland, Tujunga, Shadow Hills, La Crescenta and Montrose. They must show a history of active interest in the local community and will be expected to actively engage with the community activities of Village Poets.

2) All applicants must be able to demonstrate an active participation in poetry activities through publication and/or featured poetry readings.

3) The applicants must agree to serve as Poet Laureate for a term of two years, including volunteer activities, poetry readings, publications, and other projects contributing to the promotion of poetry and the arts in the community.

4) The Poet-Laureate of Sunland Tujunga must commit himself/herself to attending the Passing of the Laurels Ceremony on April 23, 2017, as well as a similar ceremony at the end of the term in office, in April 2019. The Poet-Laureate must also demonstrate an engagement with the local poetry community by attending at least six of the eleven monthly readings organized each year by Village Poets in Tujunga, CA. 

HOW TO APPLY

Please download, print and return the application form (PDF) from Villagepoets.com website: Application 2016. Attach the following:

1. List of publications and featured readings 

2. Sample of poetry (approx. five poems, with two about Sunland-Tujunga) 

3. History of community service. 

4. One paragraph discussing a favorite poet. 

5. One paragraph describing how you as Poet Laureate would promote poetry. 

Submit the Application form with a sample of poems, other items 1-5 from the above list and a check for $15.00 made out to Little Landers Historical Society (LLHS, with Village Poets of Sunland Tujunga noted on the check), and send the package to: 

Poet Laureate Selection Committee

c/o Marlene Hitt 

10728 Plateau Drive 

Sunland, CA 91040. 

If you have questions regarding the Poet Laureate program call Marlene Hitt at (818) 951-1041, or email Maja Trochimczyk, at maja@moonrisepress.com. 

Please check our website www.villagepoets.com for further information.

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.

Shahe Mankerian Featured Poet with Shandy & Eva Musicians at Bolton Hall on 10/23/2016 and Poet Laureate News

Village Poets of Sunland Tujunga present

SHAHE MANKERIAN

Featured Poet at Village Poets Monthly Reading

at Tujunga's Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Ave. Tujunga, CA 91042

Sunday, October 23, 2016 at 4:30 p.m.

Shahé Mankerian is the principal of St. Gregory Alfred and Marguerite Hovsepian School in Pasadena and the co-director of the Los Angeles Writing Project. As an educator, he has been honored with the Los Angeles Music Center's BRAVO Award, which recognizes teachers for innovation and excellence in arts education.

His poems have won Honorable Mentions in 2011 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award and Arts & Letters Journal of Contemporary Culture. Shahé was a Semi-Finalist for the Knightville Poetry Contest. He was the first place winner of 2012 "Black and White" anthology series from Outrider Press. 

Mankerian's most recent manuscript, History of Forgetfulness, has been a finalist at four prestigious competitions: the 2013 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition, the 2103 Bibby First Book Competition, the Quercus Review Press, Fall Poetry Book Award, 2013, and the 2014 White Pine Press Poetry Prize. His poems have been published in numerous literary magazines. 

Writer's Block at Father's Grocery Store

Coarse coffee grinds took the color 

of Medusa's hair. A pound of garbanzo 

weighed less than Nabokov's Lolita. 

A bag of pita felt softer than Juliet's 

pillow before suicidal Romeo. I wrote 

countless villanelles on paper bags 

before stuffing them with cans of dolma, 

bottled rose water, and pouches 

of Aleppo pepper. I thought I saw 

the Karamazov Brothers tasting Kalamata 

olives. Sometimes I sat on cardboard 

boxes full of fava beans and daydreamed 

about Anne Sexton. I couldn't write 

because Father called me back to work. 

Madame Bovary wanted two pounds 

of French ham sliced thinner than lined paper.  

*The Indian River Review / April 2016

The music feature at the October 23 Reading will be an acoustic duet Shandy and Eva, hailing from Poland and the Caribbean. 

SHANDY AND EVA

Shandrelica and Eva met at the Los Angeles College of Music where they started the band. The most interesting part of it all is that Shandrelica Casper is from the Caribbean (Curacao) and Eva (Ewa) Zmijewska is from Poland.   

​Shandy&Eva are an acoustic duet performing their originals and covers. They play a variety of styles from country to pop to jazz standards. Despite different musical backgrounds their blend is unique.

They do not say much about their music, except listing some influences that will give you an idea of what their sound is like: Brandi Carlile, Norah Jones, Joni Mitchell, Eva Cassidy, Keb Mo, Celine Dion, March Anthony, Lady Antebellum.

Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/ShandyandEwa/

Website:

http://shandyandeva.wixsite.com/shandyandeva

A sample song:

https://www.facebook.com/ShandyandEwa/videos/

APPLY TO BECOME OUR NEW POET-LAUREATE 2017-2019 

Applications are now available to become the next Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga, for the years 2017-2019. The deadline is January 15, 2017.

The Poet Laureate as a community leader should be comfortable with public speaking, appearances and interviews and should be able to speak clearly and capably. We seek a person whose life and works reflect a love of our area which includes the flora, fauna, mountains, creeks and our diverse human community. This is a person who is the voice of our community, a cheerleader, a person whose words give wings to the heart of Sunland and Tujunga. During his/her term in office the Poet Laureate is encouraged to publish a collection of his or her works, as in a chapbook, for historical documentation.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

1) All applicants must be at least 18 years old and active members of the local poetry community. The candidates should be residents of the Foothills, from Lake View Terrace to La Canada Flintridge, inclusive of Sunland, Tujunga, Shadow Hills, La Crescenta and Montrose. They must show a history of active interest in the local community and will be expected to actively engage with the community activities of Village Poets.

2) All applicants must be able to demonstrate an active participation in poetry activities through publication and/or featured poetry readings.

3) The applicants must agree to serve as Poet Laureate for a term of two years, including volunteer activities, poetry readings, publications, and other projects contributing to the promotion of poetry and the arts in the community.

4) The Poet-Laureate of Sunland Tujunga must commit himself/herself to attending the Passing of the Laurels Ceremony on April 23, 2017, as well as a similar ceremony at the end of the term in office, in April 2019. The Poet-Laureate must also demonstrate an engagement with the local poetry community by attending at least six of the eleven monthly readings organized each year by Village Poets in Tujunga, CA. 

HOW TO APPLY

Please download, print and return the application form (PDF) from Villagepoets.com website: Application 2016. Attach the following:

1. List of publications and featured readings 

2. Sample of poetry (approx. five poems, with two about Sunland-Tujunga) 

3. History of community service. 

4. One paragraph discussing a favorite poet. 

5. One paragraph describing how you as Poet Laureate would promote poetry. 

Submit the Application form with a sample of poems, other items 1-5 from the above list and a check for $15.00 made out to Little Landers Historical Society (LLHS, with Village Poets of Sunland Tujunga noted on the check), and send the package to: 

Poet Laureate Selection Committee

c/o Marlene Hitt 

10728 Plateau Drive 

Sunland, CA 91040. 

If you have questions regarding the Poet Laureate program call Marlene Hitt at (818) 951-1041, or email Maja Trochimczyk, at maja@moonrisepress.com. 

Please check our website www.villagepoets.com for further information.

Maja Trochimczyk becomes ST Poet Laureate No. 6 in 2010, 

with Joe DeCenzo, Poet Laureate No. 4 during Passing of the Laurels Ceremony

at McGroarty Arts Center, Tujunga