Big Tujunga Wash, January 2020, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
On Sunday, February 23, 2020, at 4:30 pm. at Bolton Hall Museum (10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042), Village Poets and California State Poetry Society invite poets and poetry lovers to the second Village Poets reading of the year 2020 and of the entire '20s decade. We will present poet, harmonica-player, and psychologist, Rick Smith. The reading will include two open mike segments and we encourage poets to read love poems in celebration of St. Valentine's Day. Refreshments will be served and $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.
This presentation is partly sponsored by the Dignity Health Foundation, through a grant for "Close to Nature" Project for Phoenix Houses of Los Angeles, with the California State Poetry Society as one of the collaborating partners.
Big Tujunga Wash, January 2020, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
We would also like to remind all Village Poets - featured poets and regular participants that the deadline for submissions to our anthology is extended to February 16, 2020 and the deadline for applications for the position of Poet Laureate is on February 2, 2020 (222020): http://villagepoets.blogspot.com/2020/01/happy-new-year-2020-calls-for-poems-and.html
Rick Smith is a poet, editor, blues harmonica player, and clinical psychologist living and working in Southern California. Born in New York, and raised in his Dad's artistic house in Pineville, Pennsylvania, Smith's early induction to the art world was by his father, William Smith, painter, artist, and art director for The Saturday Evening Post, Reader's Digest and various book publishers, including a series of book covers for Carl Sandburg's books. William Smith was also the author of Sandburg's portrait now in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and a subject of one of Sandburg's poems. Read more about the Sandburg recollections on Rick Smith's website https://docricksmith.com/.
Rick Smith's latest book of poetry is Whispering in a Mad Dog's Ear published by Lummox Press in 2014. He also published Hard Landing (Lummox Presss, 2011), The Wren Notebook (Lummox Press, 2000), and Exhibition Game (G. Sack Press, 1973). As blues harmonica player he may be heard in recordings of the City Lights, on recordings by other bands and companies, and on the soundtracks of three films including Days of Heaven. Here's a recording from a poetry reading where Rick played the harmonica: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXLLf77OIbg
St. Germaine District, Paris, 1949
My dad sets up his easel
in the ruins of St. Germaine
and I get to amuse myself
in the post-war debris.
Concrete slabs and twisted re-bar
throw mad shadow in the morning sun.
My dad takes a charcoal stick to the blank
canvas, roughs out
what's left of an apartment building.
Stained canvas becomes a battlefield
The hand and the stick depend on tension.
Six steps lead up to nothing,
fascinating to me or to someone
who studies destruction.
There will be no finishing touches
on this new order.
We try to imagine the noise this
would have made but the kids
went blind
before they were deaf,
were senseless before the skin peeled away
from jagged fire all around.
Theory and speculation no longer matter. There
is disregard for the form and content debate.
There is no counting of ambiguities;
it all goes up in a flash and
it all goes up as one.
But this is about art,
illusion that sustains us.
Dad puts up the one piece
that is still recognizable as wall
while I break rock and darkness falls.
(c) 2001 Rick Smith, published in Rattle No. 16, Winter 2001.
Big Tujunga Wash, January 2020, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
When the Fog
from The Wren Notebook (entry #75)
When the fog laid in
a wren from two worlds
came flying across water.
Dark was that water
and darker still, the wren.
She herself was invisible
and so
she was gone.
You were saying
the wren flying in darkness
isn’t real
because she was only a dream.
“And just dreaming it,” you said,
“doesn’t make it real”.
I say,
sometimes
I see things.
That makes them mine.
And just as real
as the empty space
that holds them
as they carry on wind
from something
toward something else.
Dream is what we’ve got;
the flight is real.
Oaks in Descanso Gardens, October 2019. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
Farewell to the Oak Tree at the Tujunga Library
On Monday, January 13, 2020, the Sunland-Tujunga Branch Library held a Farewell to the Coast Live Oak Tree just outside of the library. As the librarians wrote
"we know you share our affection for the Coast Live Oak Tree outside our branch. The tree has been a fixture of our community for many years, and when we realized it was suffering, we hoped we could do something to save it. We hired a certified arborist to evaluate the tree and make recommendations for how to proceed. Unfortunately, the assessment indicated that we will need to remove the tree because of its severe structural decline."
Two poets read their poems to commemorate the Oak Tree. The noted poet and flautist Alice Pero, the co-producer of Moonday Poetry Readings, posted her reading online and shared with us her poem.
Old Oak of Sunland/Tujunga Library
on the Occasion of Laying the Tree to Rest, Jan 13, 2020
Old oak, you have watched us long
while we trampled the underbrush
nearly 100 years
You watched
while we turned forest floors
into highways and sidewalks
finding comfort in books
inside cool walls of cement
and stone
Once you baffled the sun*
with your thick, fertile branches
your Old Women** friends
teaching us the prayers of the Tongva
though they, too, were almost gone
by the time your seed sprouted
We are grateful for your shade
your outstretched arms
as children ran about under you
shouting and playing
feeling spirit spreading grace
We are grateful for the grace
all live oaks give
more than just precious oxygen
something of an ancient time
when trees were sacred
Now we must now send you back
to the earth from which you came
with hope that the spirit of trees
remains in your seed
*In 1910, a Los Angeles Times correspondent wrote about Sunland:
In the center of town the oaks are so thick that that the sun is baffled
**"Tujunga" in the native Tongva language means "the old woman"
© 2020 Alice Pero
Alice Pero reading in front of the Coast Live Oak, Photo by Joe DeCenzo.
Pamela Shea, Sunland-Tujunga Poet Laureate, also read her poem to commemorate the Oak Tree.
Coast Live Oak Tree Celebration
1/13/2020, Sunland-Tujunga Branch Library
By Pamela Shea, 9th Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga
Fluttering leaves have bid welcome
To Sunland-Tujunga Library.
Our beloved Coast Live Oak
Has blessed us over a century.
An icon, a landmark,
A beacon, and our friend,
Will live on in memory
Its influence will never end.
Oh dear, beautiful tree,
The time for goodbyes has come.
You’ve adorned our community,
Protecting us from rain and sun.
A sentinel to learning,
You have bridged earth and sky.
Welcoming, inspiring,
Our host and our ally.
Precious one, so majestic,
Standing proudly all these years,
We must now bid you adieu
With our thanks and with our tears.
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