Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga present California Quarterly Vol. 52 No. 3 (Autumn 2026) at its Monthly Poetry Reading on Sunday, October 25, 2026 at 4:30pm. The reading will include a live component and Zoom for presenting poets based outside of Southern California. The location is Los Angeles's Historic Monument No. 2, built in 1913, Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga (10110 Commerce Ave, Tujunga, CA 91042), with street parking available. Free admission with $5 donation suggested. Copies of the CQ will be available for purchase at a special discounted price. The reading will be moderated by Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President and editor of the issue, and the Zoom site will be managed by Joe DeCenzo. To request Zoom link, email CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety@gmail.com.
Established in 1971, and formally incorporated as a nonprofit in 1985, California State Poetry Society is dedicated to its mission of promoting poetry and art in California and around the world through publishing a poetry journal, newsletter, and organizing monthly and annual poetry contests. The CSPS began publication of the California Quarterly in the fall of 1972, with Gordon Curzon of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as Editor. Currently, the journal is edited by Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President and CQ Managing Editor since 2019, with Konrad Tademar Wilk and Bory Thach, serving as Editors. Each editor is responsible for selection and organization of previously unpublished poems and translations (with original versions enclosed) for their specific issue. The editors prefer artwork by Californians for the cover, though art has also been selected from national and international collections. They select six outstanding poems from the California Quarterly issues published each year as nominees for the Pushcart Prize of the following year.
The third issue of CQ volume 52 was edited by Maja Trochimczyk, who wrote in the introduction: "Autumn is the time of harvest, time of fruition. In the third issue of the California Quarterly published in the year of the 250th anniversary of the U.S., readers find a fine crop of verse found on Submittable.com, submitted on our website, and mailed to our P.O. Box. Forty-eight poems have been written in California, six in New York, five in Pennsylvania, four in Massachusetts, three in Oregon, two in Texas, and one each in Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, and in Washington, D.C." Poetry also came from distant lands: UK, Ghana, Spain, and Pakistan. The Editor selected Dance of Five Elements, a watercolor by poet-artist Diane Lee Moomey for the cover and described her editorial approach as follows: "Since I enjoy classical music’s counterpoint, I wove this CQ issue into a tapestry of words, echoing and resonating in each other. Longer poems are interspersed with haiku by Gregory Cecil and Susan Rogers. In the polyphony of human experience, we overcome grief and become aware of cosmic unity: “streams become rivers / And the river becomes the sea” (Heard). And so, our journey continues, words flourish anew."
The event will include in person readings by Andrew You and Maja Trochimczyk and zoom readings, projected on the screen by other poets wishing to present their work. The following poets are featured in this issue: Daniel Abukuri, Lola AndrésSarah Baker, Bill Baynes, Byron Beynon, Michael Breuleux, Gregory Cecil, David Denny, David Dephy, Ziggy Edwards, Ken Fifer, Patty Dickson Pieczka, A. Dearborn Goldsmith, Rebekkah Gomez, W.C. Gosnell, Robert Haas, Alamgir Hashmi, Bruce Heard, Ken Holland, Henry Hughes, Sandra Irwin, Joanne Jagoda, Steven Larry Klein, Marie C. Lecrivain, Marta López-Luaces, tr. Valerie Martinez,Charlie McCurdy, Anna Maria Mickiewicz, Greg Moglia, Roman Montemorano, Cecil Morris, Pat Owen, Dan Raphael, Andrea Potos, Susan Rogers, David Rosenheim, Dennis Ross Pamela Singer, Jack Tessoro, Maja Trochimczyk, Rosemary Ybarra-Garcia, and Andrew You.
Dr. Maja Trochimczyk is a Polish American poet, music historian, and photographer. She published ten books on music & culture and six volumes of poetry, e.g., Bright Skies. Selected Poems, 2022, and The Rainy Bread: More Poems from Exile (2021), about WWII experiences of Polish civilians. She edited five poetry anthologies: Chopin with Cherries (2010), Meditations on Divine Names (2012), Grateful Conversations (2018), We Are Here. Village Poets Anthology (2020) and Crystal Fire. Poems of Joy and Wisdom (2022). Her research and poems have appeared in numerous volumes of collected works, scholarly journals, and poetry periodicals in eleven countries. Trochimczyk is the founder of Moonrise Press, the sixth Poet-laureate of Sunland-Tujunga (2010-2012) and former Program Director of Village Poets (2010-2022). She has served as President of the California State Poetry Society and Managing Editor of California Quarterly since 2019.
THE GIVEN
Autumn-scent of a just-sharpened pencil,
crisp scritch across a yellow page,
angle of rose light from my lamp
with its aged cranberry glass, given to me
by an elderly friend who had to leave her home.
This morning, another morning, also given–
hours of breath and being,
endurance of the simple radiance.
Andrea Potos, Madison, Wisconsin
AZIMUTH
Not quite a soul flame,
but hopeful triangulation
since the star you seek
has not yet appeared
high on your horizon.
So, for now,
I’ll do—
until my dazzle
becomes the dim glow
of a firefly
encased in the jar
of your memory.
Marie C. Lecrivain, Los Angeles, California
12 VARIATIONS ON THE MOON
One –
Its pale, sun-given light bounces off
our faces, making us into corpses
lurking beneath dark shadows.
Two –
Once, I saw an enormous orange cupola
slowly rising on the horizon,
a starship filled with cosmic secrets.
Higher and higher, it shrank into
a disappointingly common moon.
Three to Six –
Some see the moon as a man in a top hat.
Others as a crown jewel of the terrifying Shiva.
Still others – beneath the feet of the Divine Virgin
or as a circle of brightness, devoured
by an ominous dragon of pure void.
Seven –
Once, it became a round diamond button,
half-stuck in the night’s indigo coat,
an illusion that dissolved behind
a cover of shifting, luminous clouds.
Eight –
Is it hollow inside, a ruin
of underground tunnels,
chambers with space junk
abandoned by ancient aliens?
Nine to Twelve –
It is a captive remnant of an exploded planet,
kept on the leash of gravity?
Selene in a silver chariot? A croissant in the sky?
A cosmic fisher pulling the nets of oceans
from one side of the Earth to the other?
So much to think of! Its silvery sheen -
a mirage, a random mirror
of the sun’s endless light rays,
dazzling beyond measure.
Maybe we are all moons,
glowing with borrowed light,
an otherworldly luminescence
in deserted corners of mundane lives.
Maja Trochimczyk, Los Angeles, California
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