Village Poets present Michael C Ford and John Brantingham, May 28, 2017, Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga

Passing of the Laurels 2017: Elsa Frausto, Dorothy Skiles, Marlene Hitt,

Joe DeCenzo, new poet laureate, Pamela Shea and Dr. Maja Trochimczyk

The joy of poetry continues in the foothills... After the 2017 Passing of the Laurels Ceremony and crowning PAMELA SHEA the Poet Laureate of Sunland Tujunga for the years 2017-2019, we are proud to present two of the most famous and accomplished poets of California, MICHAEL C. FORD AND JOHN BRANTINGHAM, both with an extensive record of book publications and public appearances (see below). 

They will co-feature on Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 4:30 p.m. at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, the Historic Monument No. 2 in the City of Los Angeles. The Museum is located at 10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042. and celebrated its centennial in 2013.  The Museum is managed by the Little Landers Historical Society, a dedicated group of community volunteers. 

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It is only the second time in the history of Village Poets Monthly Readings (since 2010) that we feature a Pulitzer Prize Nominated Poet, Michael C. Ford. Our first Pulitzer Prize Nominee was John Z. Guzlowski (April 2011) who also recently received the Benjamin Franklin Prize for his poetry. The readings include a featured poet (20 min. each for two poets) and two open mike segments. Refreshments are served and $3 donations collected for the cost of the venue. The Village Poets group consists of: Marlene Hitt, Joe DeCenzo, Dorothy Skiles, Elsa S. Frausto, and Dr. Maja Trochimczyk, all former Poets Laureate of Sunland Tujunga.  

MICHAEL C. FORD

Michael C. Ford

Michael C. Ford is a poet, playwright and recording artist. He has been publishing steadily, since 1970 and credited with over 28 volumes of print documents.

He’s been featured on approx. 65 spoken word tracks that include California Artists Radio Theatre productions plus 4 solo recordings. Since 1985. His debut vinyl {Language Commando} received a Grammy nomination [1987] and his Selected Poems  [1998] earned a Pulitzer nomination on the 1st ballot.

His poetic narrative titled VIETNAM /  PEACE CASUALTIES published on-line for  November 3^rd  Club was nominated for a 2006 Pushcart Prize. His first CD document was Fire Escapes; was a 1995 entry from New Alliance Records & Tapes. His 2010 document is titled 20^TH Century Goodbye:  the  production being a collaboration between Michael Campagna and Larry Thrasher:  both of whom brought their Psychic TV chops to the project. 

Hen House Studios has been promoting and marketing his CD   Look Each Other in the Ears [2014]. That document, in both vinyl and CD formats features a stellar band of musicians, not the least of which were surviving members of a 1960s theatre

rock quartet that most of you will remember as The Doors.  His most recent volume of poetry published by Word Palace Press  is titled Women Under The Influence {2016}

BOOKS BY MICHAEL C FORD

• Stuttering in the Starlight (1970)
• There’s a Beast in My Garden (1971)
• The Mt. Alverno Review [editor: West Coast anthology in tribute to Kenneth Patchen] (1971)
• Sheet Music [chapbook-length poem] (1972)
• Lacerations in a Broom Closet [prose] (1973)
• Lawn Swing Poems (1975)
• Rounding Third (1976)
• West Point [chapbook-length poem] (1977)
• Sleepless Night in a Soundproof Motel (1978)
• Prologue to an Interview with Leonard Cohen [replicated broadside] (1979)
• Foreign Exchange [editor: National Anthology] (1979)
• Two American Plays (1980)
• Sloe Speed [chapbook-length poem] (1984)
• Prior Convictions (1985)
• Ladies Above Suspicion (1987)
• Twice [a sheath of broadsides] (1989)
• Tourguide Machinegun (1992)
• Cottonwood Tract [chapbook-length poem] (1996)
• Emergency Exits [ Selected Poems: 1970-1995] 1998 Pulitzer nomination – REVIEW – Michael C Ford immortalizes and, in many instances, resurrects not only past popular iconic figure, but those neglected regions and landmarks from the Pacific Northwest to the shores of Lake Michigan, marking passages of time in America. – Los Angeles Times
• Nursery Rhyme Assassin (2000)
• To Kiss the Blood off Our Hands (2007)
• The Marilyn Monroe Concerto [3-movement pamphlet edition] (2007)
• The Demented Chauffeur (2009)
• The Las Vegas Quartet [single poem pamphlet edition] (2011)
• San Joaquin County Solutions [collaboration with North Central Valley photo-journalist Rose Albano Risso (2011)
• Atonal Riffs to a Tone-Deaf Borderguard (2012)
• Women Under the Influence (2016)

A GET-WELL CARD 

                         

                    To Laurel  Ann Bogen

we 

have a good idea, Laurel Ann!

whenever you get real down and 

sad and flippy and  gloomy and 

wig'd out and your whole head feels 

like the Hindenburg making you feel 

like you just want to crash in New Jersey, 

why 

not pretend all poets in Los Angeles 

named Laurel Canyon after you: okay,

but for an assortment of alienated human

beings, it's a crappy canyon full of post

hippie love heads, secular humanists, a 

few 

reactionary corporate criminals with fat 

wallets, an unwholesome variety of 

me-generation burnouts; but I know most 

LA poets would have the best intention: 

holding 

one of their own in high esteem; besides,

think about what pigeons in Buffalo, New 

York do to the statues at Lafayette Square! 

you 

see, Laurel Ann, it's really not so terrible to 

be able to move around: turning into some 

monumental 

petrified memory could be just another stone 

drag.  

(C) by Michael C. Ford

JOHN BRANTINGHAM

John Brantingham

John Brantingham teaches creative writing at Mt. San Antonio College, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, and the Center for the Arts. He is the author of Dual Impressions: Poetic Conversations about Art, an ekphrastic collection. He also published the following books and chapbooks:

• East of Los Angeles, 
• Putting in a Window, 
• The Mediterranean Garden, 
• Heroes for Today, 
• Mann of War, 
• Let Us All Pray Now to Our Own Strange Gods, 
• The Gift of Form, 
• The Green of Sunset, 
• In the Land of Bears, and 
• Study Abroad. 

Brantingham also co-authored How to Write, a textbook, and wrote The Gift of Form: A Pocket Guide to Formal Poetry. His blog "30 Days until Done" contains different instructions every month: "This month we are writing poems about joy," or "This month, we write poetic letters..." Visit: http://johnbrantingham.blogspot.com/.

Two of his poems were featured by Garrison Keillor on the Writer's Almanac and you can find his books on Amazon.com.

http://johnbrantingham.blogspot.com/p/the-green-of-sunset.html

It is difficult to praise a book of poems that you already feel so emotionally connected to: it seems unnecessary, a gesture that only takes away from the beauty, wisdom, goodness, honesty, imaginativeness, and spirituality of the work itself. Nevertheless, John Brantinghham’s The Green of Sunset is the finest collection of poems he has ever written, which is saying something, considering he’s been producing excellent work for going on 20 years now. Let the prose poems contained in this collection stand alongside those in Mark Strand’s Almost Invisible and Jim Harrison’s In Search of Small Gods as some of the most accomplished of the past decade. Simply put, these poems are the work of a writer operating at the very top of his craft.

--Paul Kareem Tayyar, Author of In the Footsteps of the Silver King (Spout Hill Press) and Follow the Sun (Aortic Books).


Our best writers weigh their words carefully, and John Brantinghham is certainly one of them. He is a craftsman with a huge heart who cares deeply about people and stories and the chaos we call our lives. His characters are beautifully rendered, real and true, at once vulnerable and courageous. Wise and insightful, Brantinghham's work brilliantly captures the light and darkness in us all.

--James Brown, Author of The Los Angeles Diaries and This River.

Village Poets Present the June Featured Poet, Judy Barrat (June 26, 2016)

The Village Poets are pleased to invite poets and poetry lovers to the Monthly Poetry Reading on Sunday, June 26, at 4:30 p.m., at the Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042. The reading will include a featured poet, Judy Barrat, and two open mike segments. Refreshments will be served and $3.00 or more donations will be 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.

JUDY BARRAT

Born in the Bronx, New York, Judy was for most of her teenage years what she calls a “closet  writer” of poetry and short  fiction.  When she moved to Los Angeles in her 20's and got married, had two children, and subsequently became a single working mom writing became a thing of the past but she slowly began dabbling again in poetry and fiction, having  found sunny California  a bigger, warmer closet in which to write and about 5 years ago, was convinced by a friend that it was time to bring her writing into the light.

She has been sharing her thoughts and words at various poetry and music venues around Los Angeles and has had her work published in several quarterly magazines and anthologies, including  the Pelham Parkway Times, the San Gabriel Valley Quarterly, Spectrum, Then and Now and  Wild Women of Words, as well as on-line journals.  Not too long ago, Judy began to fuse her writings with a musical background of jazz or blues, both instrumental and vocal, adding another dimension to her repertoire.  

In October of 2015 she presented a one woman show at the Gardenia Club in Hollywood to musical accompaniment, eliciting a wonderful review in Cabaret Scenes Magazine.  Her writings  (quoting Jody Jaress, actress, vocalist): “are poignantly descriptive, carry a depth of insight and mystery, and no matter what her subject or genre,  are poetically, brilliantly, and sometimes defiantly a lot like Judy herself... wonderfully enjoyable to say the least.”

                                              Grass in Descanso Gardens, spring 2016, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk


           REMEMBERING THE DAISY DAYS

As children my best friend and I climbed a grassy hill
  that seemed to kiss the sky; it was dotted with flowers.
We thought when we reached the top
  The clouds would be just within our reach.

Along the way we passed some trees,
 giant oaks and maples and a lone weeping willow.
And there were birds, bluebirds and robins
 and we thought “this is where they learn to sing”.

Once at the top we’d sit in the cool grass
  picking honeysuckle, drinking nectar from the stems;
We held buttercups to each other’s chins
  To see the bright yellow reflection on our faces.

And then there were of course, the wild daisies
   Which swayed in the grass and called for us to
Pick one to determine whether the boys we liked
   Liked us back – he loves me, he loves me not.

Now all grown up I wander through a field
  Of flowers and stoop down to pick a daisy,
Reminded as I am, of those carefree daisy days.
   I look around, find myself alone and begin,

I gaze at this lovely perfect flower which seems
   to look right back at me with its big yellow eye
As one by one I gently pull petals until
   the last petal is gone: “he loves me not”.

He loves me not?– I stare in disbelief at
   that unblinking yellow eye and tearfully ask:
          “Is that your final answer?”

                                    © Judy Barrat, December 2011

Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

_____________________________________________

The double-feature reading on May 22, 2016 was a great success and we are grateful to Marcia de la O and Jerry Garcia for sharing their words and ideas with the Village Poets. Here are some pictures taken by Joe DeCenzo.

Photos by Joe DeCenzo and friends.

Village Poets Present Marsha de la O and Jerry Garcia on May 22, 2016 at Bolton Hall

On Sunday, May 22, 2016, at 4:30 p.m. Village Poets will present two fascinating contemporary poets Jerry Garcia and Marsha de la O, in the monthly Open Mike Reading at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga (10110 Commerce Avenue). The reading will include two segments of Open Mike and refreshments - coffee, fruit, snacks or cakes - depending on the Village Poets' fancy.  This reading is one of "tenderness" - or "kindness" and "gentility" - because there's not enough of these three virtues in our world these days... 

The building, fascinating with is frontier beauty (facade and fireplace built of huge river-rocks) and storied history (Los Angeles's Historical Landmark No. 2, built in 1913), is managed by the Little Landers Historical Society that organizes events and quirky exhibits as well as invites the poets for their monthly feasts free of charge. Nonetheless, Village Poets do make donations to the LLHS, and for that purpose pass the hat, also historic - and formerly owned by the Bolton Hall builder, George Harris, to collect suggested donations of $3 per person that are then used to purchase refreshments for the poets and guests, and to donate funds to the Little Landers Historical Society.

 

Freshly squeezed orange juice was a must in mid-century California. 

Items from the current display at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga. 

JERRY GARCIA

Jerry Garcia is a poet, photographer and filmmaker from Los Angeles who is too old to have been named after The Grateful Dead guitar hero.He has been a producer and editor of television commercials, documentaries and motion picture previews. He is currently producing Poetry Films based on his and the poetry of others. 

In 2006, Jerry was chosen by the L.A. Poetry Festival to participate in Newer Poets XI Series as part of the L.A. Central Library’s Aloud Series.  In April 2015 he was winner of Terry Wolverton’s dis•articulationsreader Poem series.

His poetry has been seen in Askew, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, Chaparral, The Chiron Review, Palabra, Verdad Magazine, KCET’s Departures: Poetry L.A. Style, Tia Chucha’s Coiled Serpent Anthology and his chapbook Hitchhiking with the Guilty. 

Jerry is a past-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets and former president of Beyond Baroque’s Board of Trustees.


While Walking the Dog
Last Evening

I saw a falling star,
its tail so long,
its head so black,
surely it must rest this morning 
in a neighbor’s backyard, 
blackened rock, warm to the touch,
conspicuous on a thick bed
of blue grass.

If it struck like the truth
it could be the famous Boson
and if it had not been honest,
the prayers of many
would nod as they hold on to tomorrow
while the rest of us scramble
to keep the day intact.

Sometimes, what is visible in the black,
like reflected branches
and multi-galaxies of matter,
would support belief in substance,
while to others
the flickering sky expresses
the Divine.

(c) by Jerry Garcia 

MARSHA DE LA O

Marsha de la O was born and raised in Southern California. Both sides of her family arrived in the Los Angeles area before William Mulholland built the aqueduct that brought in water from the eastern Sierras. 

Her latest book, Antidote for Night, won the 2015 Isabella Gardner Award and was published by BOA Editions.  Her first book, Black Hope, was awarded the New Issues Press Poetry Prize. 


Summer

as far south as possible – to live – the ache  
on the edge of what can’t be endured, 
Monterey cypress on the spit, this remnant— 
when will longing be done with me—
parched, parched St. Catherine’s Lace 
fuming her last, and Sister Datura, 
mi loca, my girl, her closed mouth 
twisted like paper, horses in the 
shallows, piebald and panicked, rearing 
in the foam, ghost eyes wide, oh 
far-ranging roans, blue multitudes 
why oh why can’t I, rushing the horizon—  
naturally I dream the length of summer 
days & nights when the moon lives 
for weeks in my room, staggering in late 
every night drunk, slip sliding off her 
shoulders into an ivory pool on the carpet 
and still she will not ease me

(C) by Marsha de la O

___________________________________________


VILLAGE POETS WITH LOIS P. JONES AND ALICE PERO

The beautiful, inspired, whimsical, sensuous, and richly woven from a tapestry of words and images reading by featured poets Lois P. Jones and Alice Pero will remain among the highlights of the season. Not just the featured poets rose to the occasion, other readers celebrated the Earth Day of April 22 and commemorated the Armenian Genocide of April 24.

Poetry took us to the stars, inside a drawing by Leonardo, and on nature hikes, to see dragonflies in the Tujunga Wash. We learned how to eat a mountain and what Odysseus did when Sirens sang their irresistible song.  We listened, we thought, we laughed, we cried... 

Lois P. Jones thus summed up her experience: "The air was clean and crisp, the sunlight dappling, the poetry served al dente, warm and welcoming. There was humor and pathos (a powerful poem on the anniversary of the Armenian holocaust), odes to spring and renewal, the whimsical dynamism of Alice Pero and the welcoming light of MC, Maja Trochimczyk. A poet afterward offered something which I will take with me forever. "Your poetry opens the soul." Better than any awards or flashy publications. I must remember to keep my eye on the soul."

PHOTO L To R: Seated: Tim Callahan, Lida Abramian, Susan Rogers, Lois P. Jones, Alice Pero and Marlene Hitt . Standing: Maja Trochimczyk, Joe DeCenzo, Beverly M. Collins, Mark Evans, Bo Kyung Kim, Pam Shea, Elsa S. Frausto, Dorothy Skiles, Joe, Mira Mataric, Kathabela and Rick Wilson, and Janet Nippell.  Other photos are on Facebook and will find their way to an online album.

Happy Fourth of July with Poet Laureate Dorothy Skiles

Three Poets Laureate rode in one car, a brown convertible decorated with flowers, flags, and sage-colored ribbons, to match the Poet Laureate sign and the posters with the name of our newest Poet Laureate No. 7, Dorothy Skiles.  Dressed patriotically from navy pants, to red shirt and white hat, with a shining sash and a red umbrella decorated with whimsical maxims, Dorothy sat on the back of the convertible, waved and occasionally recited her poem "Congratulations" written especially for this occasion.

The 4th Poet Laureate Joe DeCenzo drove in a top hat, evening coat, and blue jeans; the 6th Poet Laureate, Maja Trochimczyk, covered in stars, waved and called out with good wishes.  A teen helper, Ann, walked along and gave away postcards with Dorothy's inspiring poem.  The Poetry Mobile followed the Little Landers Historical Society, and other notables, in a very large parade. This year, it included, in addition to vintage cars, dirt bike riders, horse riders in a variety of outfits, the Oldest Rock of Sunland Tujunga, and more.

There were jazz bands and rock groups, Christian musicians and local notables - the chair of the Sunland-Tujunga Chamber of Commerce, the Honorary Mayor of Sunland Tujunga, The two Grand Marshalls of the Parade, including Lloyd Hitt (with Marlene Hitt), dressed in Bolton Hall's Black and White outfits with colorful sashes.  Dorothy read her poem that was distributed on colorful postcards.

CELEBRATION

The Fourth of July's
Night skies are alight with stars
In celebration

Of our nation's birth!
Red, white, blues of many hues
Dance before our eyes.

Children frolic about,
Lovers snuggle on the lawn
All want to stay 'till dawn!

(c) 2012 by Dorothy Skiles

Our two feuding politicians were there as well, Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alarcon and his challenger in the election to the seat on the California Assembly, Raul Boccanegra. They will face off again in the next round. Let the best man win!!!

Patriotic music blared from loudspeakers, children sprayed each other with water, the fire trucks continued creating summer showers for those who wanted to brave the curtains of water. The dirt bikers and the unicycle rider showed their tricks, the marching band from Verdugo Hills High School marched, the cheerleaders and the color guard delighted the crowds with their routines. I'm sure there were more participants, but I could not see them all. 

We met up with the donkey, named Maggie, at the end. Luckily, she did not provide our music - we were playing American golden oldies - Sinatra and Cole Porter, with Ella Fitzgerald and more... Everything was all right, as it should be, at the Sunland-Tujunga Fourth of July 2012 Parade!!!!

See more pictures from the parade: Maja Trochimczyk's Fourth of July 2012 Album.

Photo Captions: 1) Joe DeCenzo, Dorothy Skiles and Maja Trochimczyk; 2) The Poets' Mobile in the Parade; 3) Dorothy Skiles; 4) Joe DeCenzo, Dorothy Skiles, Maja Trochimczyk and Raul Boccanegra; 5) Maja Trochimczyk, Councilmember Richard Alarcon with his daughter, and Dorothy Skiles; 6) Maja Trochimczyk with a Donkey named Maggie.