Village Poets Presents California Quarterly 52:3 (Autumn 2026) on 25 October 2026 at 4:30pm

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. There will also be an open reading and local poets are welcome for that segment. 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. Open readers can participate in the Zoom reading!

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 Each editor is responsible for selection and organization of previously unpublished poems and translations (with original versions enclosed) for their specific issue.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 250^th 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, Bruce Heard, and Maja Trochimczyk and Zoom readings, projected on the screen by Patty Pieczka, Pamela Singer, Charlie McCurdy, Dave Rosenheim, Sandra Irwin, Roman Montemorano, Mike Brealeux and Ken Holland. 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. 

California State Poetry Society: Village Poets Monthly Readings Present California Quarterly Vol. 52 No. 3 at Bolton Hall, October 25, 2026, at 4:30pm

California State Poetry Society: Contents of California Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Autumn 2026) Edited by Maja Trochimczyk

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

 

ON SEEING HAIR ON X.COM

 

~ for thousands of brave Persian women of 2026

 

I saw braids on the table,

dozens of them, laid out flat

side by side – trophies collected

after women were shot

in the streets of Iran,

raped in prisons,

murdered by jihadis.

 

        straight long black hair

 

        curly permed locks of hair

 

        bleached blond pretty hair

 

        shining smooth ebony hair

 

Each bunch tied with

a piece of string,

ready for sale, for a killing profit.

Dozens of braids laid flat

on the table.

 

Sharia’s spoils.

Men who cut the hair –

nowhere to be seen.

 

                                   Maja Trochimczyk, Los Angeles, California

 

EVEN NOW

 

I’m in heaven where sunlight is always golden,

shadows of branches caught as they lengthen

toward the edge of grass but never cross.

 

In heaven I am a child creeping toward my mother’s

bedroom door, behind which she is napping.

It’s her birthday and I will surprise her

with a drawing I made, a flower I found.

 

Or it’s my birthday, my child creeping forward

on the other side. Just as the child reaches

my door, I’ll pull it open to say, “Boo!”

and the child will giggle and shriek, running

down the hall. We live in heaven and I know

this will happen; it happens all the time.

 

I will run, and I will not drop the gift, and I will turn

and close my eyes against the warmth of mid-afternoon. 

 

Ziggy Edwards, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania