Maja Trochimczyk, Susan Rogers, Elena Secota, Cece Peri, and Ambika Talwar at the Rapp Saloon in 2015
On September 24, 2017 at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, Village Poets will present two distinguished poets, Cece Peri and Ambika Talwar. The reading will start at 4:30 p.m. on the Sunday afternoon, at 10110 Commerce Ave, Tujunga, CA 91042, and will include two segments of open mike and refreshments.
CECE PERI
Cece Peri’s poems have
appeared in a number of poetry journals and anthologies, including Malpais
Review, Luvina: The LA Issue, Speechless the Magazine, Askew, NoirCon, Capital
& Main, Literary Alchemy, Beyond the Lyric Moment (Tebot
Bach), Master Class: The Poetry Mystique (Duende Books),
and Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Pacific Coast
Poetry Series). She received the first
Anne Silver Poetry Award and awards from NoirCon and Arroyo Arts Collective’s
“Poetry in the Windows.” A New Yorker, she has lived in the Los Angeles area
since 2003. Visit her website at https://ceceperi.com.
Trouble
Down the Road
At
the flat top grill, he was all business,
flung
raw eggs dead center into the corned beef
hash
like a strapping southpaw.
In
the alley, with me, he was all ideas.
Said
he’d be leaving soon, had a shot back east—
a
tryout for the big leagues.
Said
his sister would loan him a Buick convertible,
and
he'd fill it with malt beer and tuna.
All
he needed was a woman to hold
his
cat while he drove.
I like animals, I told
him. Then I dropped
my
cigarette into the dusty clay,
ground
it out, slow,
felt
the road under my foot.
by Cece Peri
AMBIKA TALWAR
Creative Vision for
Changing Times
Author * Healer * Artist * Teacher
Ambika Talwar is an India-born author, wellness consultant,
artist, and educator whose vision is to realize her sacred destiny and invite
others to find their brilliance.
Insights gleaned through life challenges have prompted her to make her
poetry a call to action. Composed in the ecstatic tradition, her poetry is a
“bridge to other worlds.” She has authored Creative
Resonance: Poetry—Elegant Play, Elegant Change and also 4 Stars & 25 Roses (poems for her father). She is published in Kyoto Journal, Inkwater Ink -
vol. 3; Chopin with Cherries; On
Divine Names; VIA-Vision in Action;
in Poets on Site collections; St. Julian Press; Tower Journal, Tebot Bach, and others; has interviewed
with KPFK; has recorded poems for the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California
She won the
Best Original Story award for her film “Androgyne” in Belgium; she produced and
directed it. She asserts it is time for creative visionaries to offer
narratives that change our worldview, and the big film studios must play a part
in this transformation.
As
an intuitive-spiritual healer, she practices IE:Intuition-Energetics™, a fusion of modalities, sacred geometry,
and creativity principles. This full spectrum healing is aimed at clearing
diverse obstructions and bringing clients to ease and wholeness. “Both poetry and holistic practices work
beautifully together, for language is intricately coded in us,” she notes. Her super-charged, intuitive
and subtle healing practices achieve rapid results for clients ready for
change. Loving this work, she says in
these fascinating times, we must resolve our shadow and trauma, so we can call
in our best possible self.
An English
professor, she lives in Los Angeles, CA and New Delhi, India. For book
readings, healing workshops, and individual or group healing consultations,
please contact her at:
My Greece: Mirrors & Metamorphoses
Discover Each Journey as Sacred Destiny
"At the beginning of this surprising memoir filled with heart, humor, wonderment, and sensuality, Grandmother Melpomene (beauteous, mercurial, 97, and Greek) reads Ambika Talwar’s morning coffee grounds and pronounces, “You have a long journey ahead of you. A very long journey.” You will not merely read about this journey. You will be swept away as Ambika’s fortunate companion on an odyssey through what she calls the “cosmic weave” between clashing cultures and shared experiences. … “
~ Amélie Frank (Renowned Poet, publisher, Beyond Baroque board member — Los Angeles, California)
"Some journeys are both external and internal. Such is the case with Ambika Talwar’s sensually-told tale. Her travels in Greece expose us to a keenly perceptive woman’s understanding of creativity, the arts, and life and death. Initially setting out to join a screenwriting workshop, Talwar finds herself becoming part of a community. …. As the author writes, “Making art is a journey. Taking a journey is an art.” With this beautiful and sensitive book, she has made art from her journey as well."
~ Donna Baier Stein, (Author/Publisher Tiferet — Kansas City, Missouri)
"Ambika Talwar leads us on a journey of profound wonder, of mythos and pathos, traveling through the byways of modern and ancient Greece, encountering out-of-this-world human beings who step out of mystery into light, laughter, sorrow, and high play. She weaves a tapestry centered on the feminine quest for wisdom and meaning with poetry conjured from a cauldron of energy, imagery and high magic. Her work enchants at every level."
~ Peggy Rubin, (CEO of Sacred Theater, Seminar leader, Change Agent — Ashland, Oregon)
"My Greece is a gentle journey into the heart and soul of what it means to be human. Ambika Talwar beautifully describes the intimate details of her travels in Greece .… she skillfully weaves in reflections of modern and ancient life from the perspective of an artist searching for meaning. Her depth of awareness and unassuming wisdom allow for a gradual opening of the heart as she introduces questions that, if embraced, can deepen our experience of being human."
~ Philip M. Hellmich, (Director of Peace – The Shift Network. Author of God and Conflict — Berkeley, California)
———
From my Preface
“I wish in finding hidden parts of ourselves wherever we visit that we awaken in us a humanity that has been crumbling for so very long. And through such transformations, may we create our cultures not just as artifact but with recognizing and realizing that beauty is a path to peace.”
~ Ambika Talwar
———
Amazon Author Page:
https://www.amazon.com/Ambika-Talwar/e/B015IFMV1W
https://www.amazon.com/My-Greece-Mirrors-Metamorphoses-Discover/dp/1937207234/
Interview
with Ambika Talwar
(Inner Child Magazine)
Inner
Child Magazine (ICM): What was the inspiration behind your book, My Greece:
Mirrors & Metamorphoses?
Ambika
Talwar: I had been thinking of a story I wanted to
write set some place with lots of butterflies. I had an outline ready. And out of the blue, someone sent me info on
a screenwriting workshop with a group traveling to Greece … I had made a film
in 2000 titled Androgyne. Somehow it all seemed to be connected. So I jumped on it. And Greece, this ancient
land of myth and shadows, tugged. Who would want to turn away an opportunity to
visit this old land!
Someone suggested I would love
being in Paros to write this new story … but I never made it there. Yes, the Island of Rhodes is known for its
butterflies – have not been there either.
We are raised on stories of how
we came to be and what becomes to and of us as we journey. I was curious to visit a place whose
mythology I had read while growing up in India, also ancient. And I kind of missed such elements here in
Los Angeles. So things move too quickly
here… I missed a sense of layered tones.
So as I traveled with my big PD
150 Sony camera and a notebook, I recorded my experiences. These included meetings
with people, traveling between ruins, cafes, old and new parts of old
cities. And I was both enchanted and
deeply sadly disturbed. It made me realize how much we have lost over time and
with rapid industrialization and how fragmented we are in so many ways … well,
as if neuroses were always the fuel.
Should it not be beauty, grace, and the play of wisdom…?
Does this make sense? I wanted to
record and share the narrative of my experiences, which gave rise to other
narratives and poems. These I feel … reflect to me the richness of each moment
alively tuning us in.
And on another level, I just
wanted to tell this story of my time there.
ICM:
Why is this book important to your audience?
Ambika
Talwar: Let me reframe this. What I wish people to get out of this book,
which has taken me so long to complete, is simply an understanding that every
single moment of our lives is a journey and a destiny and a purpose. That a
story, a name, a metaphor can reveal ways for us to find simplicity in our lives.
I wish people find their story in
these moments that are poetic narratives of longing, of isolation, of union …
of desires and create ways to find this… And, I warn you, in moments the
stories run very fast. This is a caution to me as well. We need to let go of so
much, to be whole.
ICM:
What might I glean from the book?
Ambika
Talwar: I’d say this is best left to the individual
reader. What is your particular, unique essence that responds to my story and
poems? This is where you would find
yourself.
ICM:
What do “Mirrors and Metamorphoses” have to do with Greece?
Ambika
Talwar: Well, one can’t travel somewhere and not see
the rich fare offered … foods, but sensibility, mythological framework,
syncretistic connections … something gained, something lost. It’s as if our layered skins take on whole
new identities and just when we start to know ourselves, something else rushes
in to claim us – leading to distortions, sorrow, loss, chaos, and then must
follow a renewing of faith in ourselves.
So in this context… I had titled
my book My Greece: Mirrors, Metaphors, and Metamorphoses, but found
“metaphors” redundant. “Mirrors” said it all for me. So really, the stories reflect how we are
mirrored and how we are changed by one another.
Meetings with people and places
offered motifs to remind me of things forgotten or of the mysterious.
Everywhere I went, people would welcome me saying, “You are Indian. We are
cousins.” And indeed we are cousins. We are all related. So we share mirrored realities, be it in
story, art, mythology, music … and our deep human longing.
What is our sacred destiny? What
do we wish now to mirror? How shall we transform together? Isn’t it this – to
discover all our moments as sacred?
ICM:
How can I use this book to apply it to my life? Is there a strategy? Is it a
fun read or is it a transformational book?
Ambika
Talwar: No, it is not a how-to book, but it invites
you to travel with me, experience my stories, ask questions about who we are,
and wonder where we are going. We may be
transformed by various influences; this is your call.
Perhaps, aspects of my story
might inspire you to be more yourself… whatever that is. I would wish that my readers and, maybe you,
are inspired to see yourself as part of all that is … our inherent unities.
This, I feel, ought to be the foundation of our human culture from now on. And
if this is an offering of “feminine magic,” as one of my reviewers said, so be
it. I like it. It surely is time for us all to reach out to each other so we
may stand in wholeness.
Yes and re-discover our human
heart and its capacity. It’s tough to break out of conditioning.
ICM:
Is it a story or narrative in which I will get lost?
Ambika
Talwar: It is a narrative with smaller narratives
enlivening the tale. You can either get lost in it or find yourself… and this,
too, is a journey. You choose.
ICM:
So there was a gap in your writing of it. What compelled you to finish it?
Ambika
Talwar: I could not rest with myself, had I discarded
it. My initial very rough draft sat for
a bit. For many reasons I could not get to it. Traveling, teaching, recovering
from injury caused delays. I had to get it done. And in 2014 I picked it up
again. So here we are.
I have to say, I am quite a
romantic at heart. This book has been a bit of a strange love affair. Meetings
with filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos was surely exciting; experiencing the
underworld through being robbed left me vulnerable but I handled it quite well;
not visiting the rock in Tinos shattered me; dancing at the Plaka was sweet
swimming in the Mediterranean was pure joy; listening to the Roma boys sing was
enchanting. And, learning to say “Yes” which sounded like a “No” and created
confusion… all this was play. All these
moments mattered. I did not want to forget them. We are all related.
Also, before I traveled to
Greece, I had met many Greeks here in LA. I took some classes in Sirtaki, ate
Greek food, went to a few parties… it is again synchronistic that this
opportunity showed up when it did. I was
being prepared for the journey.
I am grateful that we are
enriched not by the samification of our cultures but by each particular
uniqueness.
