Meditations on Divine Names - Group Reading, July 22

On July 22, 2012 at 4:30 p.m. Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga will present the new anthology from the local Moonrise Press, "Meditations on Divine Names" edited by Maja Trochimczyk and available online: www.moonrisepress.com/divine.html.  The reading will feature selected poets who contributed to the volume and all Los Angeles participants are invited to attend and read their work.

Meditations on Divine Names is an anthology of contemporary poetry, featuring 138 poems by 63 poets associated with diverse spiritual traditions. Their poems represent: various branches of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Kabbalah, Wicca, Sukiyo Mahikari, and ancient Greek, Egyptian, Hawaiian, and Slavic religions. The book is divided into ten paired sections: Naming, Names, Earth, Water, Air, Fire, He, She, Being, and Loving.

The editor, Maja Trochimczyk is a poet, music historian, photographer and non-profit director. Born in Poland and educated in Poland and Canada, she published four books of music studies and three volumes of poetry. She describes herself as a Catholic mystic.


The poets belong to different religions or religious denominations. They see the manifestations of the divine in many aspects of life - personal prayer, religious ceremonies, singing of psalms, family relationships, nature, sun, sky, bread making, loving, and love making. They admire the colors of the sky and the liquid nourishment of water. The clarity of mountain air and the gentleness of human touch. From the four letters of YHWH to Lada or Pele, the anthology catalogs some unusual divine names. Poets reflect on the act of naming, the facts of knowing and unknowing of our God(s). They give testimony to their hopes and beliefs, and share what they find beautiful and inspirational, or, sometimes, disturbing. There is darkness around and death, but the poets look for ways to ascend above, to illumination.

LIST OF POETS:

The following poets are represented: MJ Adams, Nicholas Alexander, Catherine Auman, Jon B., Marcielle Brandler, Sharon Chmielarz, Joe Decenzo, Carol Dorf, Kate Hallett Dayton, Carl Estrin, Amy Falvey, Elsa S. Frausto, Bill Gillard, Michael Graber, John Guzlowski, Peter J. Harris, Carl Hitchens, Marlene Hitt, G. Bennett Humphrey, Oriana Ivy, Mitch James, Roy Jacobstein, Lois P. Jones, James Levin, Terranda King, Alexis Krasilovsky, Leonard Kress, Sharmagne Leland-St. John, Rick Lupert, Radomir Voytech Luza, Czeslaw Milosz, Rajiv Mohabir, Geoshino Ollscia, Shirley Dunn Perry, Nils Peterson, Lenora Popa, Kate Robinson, Susan Rogers, Mary Kay Rummel, Nicholas Samaras, Peter Shefler, Marian Kaplun Shapiro, Dorothy Skiles, Lee M. Sloca, J.D. Smith, Barry Spacks, Odarka Polanskyj Stockert, Charles A. Swanson, Taoli-Ambika Talwar, Judith Terzi, Maja Trochimczyk, Ann Tweedy, Davi Walders, Martin Willitts Jr., and Kathabela Wilson

Sharon Rizk and Radomir Luza instead of the Oscars

The Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga are pleased to announce their upcoming open MIC poetry event on Sunday, February 26, 2012 (yes the same time as the red carpet for the Oscars), at 4:30 – 6:30 p.m., at the Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Ave., Tujunga, CA 91042.

The featured poets are Sharon Rizk and Radomir Luza!

Sharon Risk earned a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and currently has a private psychotherapy practice in Pasadena. She also teaches at a local community college, and provides clinical supervision for psychotherapy interns and trainees at various agencies. Sharon is a published poet and has one CD collection of her original work “The Shadow of Your Longing: Poems to Grow With” available on Amazon.com.

Radomir Vojtech Luza’s love of politics an art comes from his parents who escaped Communism in their beloved Czechoslovakia in 1948. Radomir has averaged about a book a year. He has been widely-published in literary journals, anthologies and on websites, and has organized poetry readings across the country, including UNBUCKLED: NOHO POETRY, which he co-organizes and hosts in North Hollywood. Luza has also recorded three spoken word CDs: STRAIGHT OUTTA NOHO: INCOMPLETE, NOTHING WATER and IN THE DARK OF MORN: A JOURNEY TOWARDS LOVE.

______________________________________

SHARON RIZK



Sharon Rizk was born in Oregon in 1943. She has spent the majority of her life in various communities within Los Angeles County, although her first few highly formative years of schooling occurred in San Francisco. She received a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature as a young adult, and returned to
school as an older adult to earn a Master’s degree and a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology.

She currently has a private psychotherapy practice in Pasadena, CA, teaches at a local community college, and provides clinical supervision for psychotherapy interns and trainees at various agencies. She is a published poet and has one CD collection of her original work “The Shadow of Your Longing: Poems to Grow With” available on Amazon.com. She also has conducted several free writing workshops for the community over the past two years and facilitated a low-fee weekend writing retreat at the end of September, 2011. She can be reached at 626-674-4599 or srizk@earthlink.net.

Coming Up for Air

There will be times
when you may notice
something
missing

remember then
you come from here
seaweed forests crooned
at your arrival

sweetly undulate
each time that you return
you will visit land
pretend

that walking suits you
but know
of something
not alarming wrong

but not precisely right
San Francisco dawn
when her bridge is nestled
in a vagrant cloud

fallen out of formation
to feel its way through
and round girders, cables
veins of traffic

vaguely heard
but not seen and so
the bridge as well
not there

you will come up for air
an other sea to wash through you
that turns your blood bright red
when you inhale

and darkens
as it courses through
your body
as if

there were a time continuum
upon which
you could spot yourself
to avoid confusion, disarray

the sense of
something
missing
as you turn and turn

when air becomes unbearable
when one more breath
would ask too much
remember then

you come from here
there is no past that binds
no future that compels
no constraint upon this moment

it
is
all
all here

_____________________________________

RADOMIR LUZA



Radomir Vojtech Luza’s love of politics an art comes from his parents who escaped Communism in their beloved Czechoslovakia in 1948. His mother was the youngest actress ever accepted into the Czech National Dramatic Conservatory, where she studied until Adolph Hitler closed-down the school in 1943. His father, Radomir Sr., was a Resistance fighter against the Nazis in WWII, and later a widely-published full professor of Eastern European History at Tulane University in New Orleans. His grandfather, General Vojtech Luza, led the Czech Resistance until he was murdered by the Nazis in 1944.

From his first book, THE HARAHAN JOURNAL (1986), to his 24th, THE CAFÉ LATTE TAPES, Radomir has averaged about a book a year. He has been widely-published in literary journals, anthologies and on websites, and has organized poetry readings across the country, including UNBUCKLED: NOHO POETRY, which he co-organizes and hosts in North Hollywood and a new Reading in NOHO at Phil’s Diner beginning January 18th.

Luza has also recorded three spoken word CDs: STRAIGHT OUTTA NOHO: INCOMPLETE, NOTHING WATER and IN THE DARK OF MORN: A JOURNEY TOWARDS LOVE.


Cleveland

The Starbucks on West 6th matters tonight
It slices through the poetry critic in my head like
The birth of death

Over there on the intersection of asphalt and pain the city stops making sense
It is a brown flamingo a flying submarine an undiscovered leper colony

Girls walk down Superior thumb prints in caffeine jungle nonfat milk not included
Boys sashay Lake Erie buttons bend below cuff
Water runs through levee of lips

Fish lying still
Finding me away from me
Raping the riverbed of retreat

The love we share
The backs I break
Cleveland free me
Squeeze me
Believe me

The easy way is getting harder
The numbness of instinct
The intrusion of genius
The arrogance of confidence

Your warehouses and flats
Buy words my sweaters take
My angels fake
My sister makes
Your rivers snake and shake through castrated causeways and bulletproof heartaches

At the parking lot across from the steak house I park my ulcer red Pontiac rent-a-car
And give Sam the attendant four dollars. I give the homeless guy down the block 35
Cents. After buying a Plain Dealer newspaper from a bilge box across the street I admit it
To myself: it is your people Cleveland your black, your red, your white, your green
Your baritone meadows and your rustic rattlesnakes
You close earlier than death my Midwestern mohawk
You open later than life Ohio ovary
Over there by the chophouse children lean on charred chandeliers and press tomatoes
Born while they ruled the universe in naked pinstripes
Cleveland you are my father
Guarding borders with a sunflower

__________________________________


Camellia photos from Descanso Gardens (c) 2012 by Maja Trochimczyk

Village Poets present Dorothy Skiles on Sunday, 9/25/2011

On Sunday, September 25, 2011, the Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga present the group's President, Dorothy Skiles, as featured poet of the Monthly Poetry Reading at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga. The reading will start at 4:30 p.m. and will include an Open Mike for guest poets (2 poems or 4 minutes). Light refreshments will be provided. A cowboy hat will be passed around for donations to the Bolton Hall Museum.

“Poetry has always been in my blood,” claims Dorothy who has been writing poetry since her teenage years. The first poem she wrote was about her grandmother who died when Dorothy was fourteen years old. In 1970, Dorothy graduated from San Fernando Valley State College earning a B.A. in English. That same year she started her career with the County of Los Angeles, Department of Public Social Services, and retired after 34 years of public service.

While married, raising twin boys, and managing a career, Dorothy published her first chapbook entitled The Sidewalk Gallery (1979). Other chapbooks followed including Ear to Earth (1996), Spine Flower Blues (1999) - a collaborative effort with fellow members of the Chuparosa Writers of Sunland-Tujunga, and Riddle in the Rain (2003) - a joint venture with Marlene Hitt, former Sunland-Tujunga Poet Laureate. Over the last 15 years Dorothy has read her poetry in coffee shops, book stores, and other venues including special church services. Also, her poems have appeared in various community publications.

Dorothy is currently the President of the Village Poets Planning Committee and is an active member of the Chuparosa Writers. She is also an active member of SAGE, which offers continuous learning for seniors and operates under the sponsorship of the Tseng College at CSUN and the Lutheran Church in the Foothills located in La Canada.



TWO POEMS BY DOROTHY SKILES

Winds


Early Autumn calls…

and Santa Ana winds whirl and bend

the half-barren white birch trees

before early dawn when

first day’s light dances among

Sunland-Tujunga’s old oaks.


Early Autumn calls…

Winds howl through the San Gabriels

until late afternoon brings calm,

and the promise of

the red hawk’s tranquil flight

above the Wash before dusk falls.




Deep in My Dreams


Deep in my dreams

In the middle of the forest
there is a house,
unafraid, I walk in.

Deep in my dreams

Weariness enfolds me
bringing me to my knees,
I lay by the cold, stone fireplace.

Deep in my dreams

God’s Spirit is translucent.
I am transparent, for
Her Truth is very near.

Deep in my dreams

I awaken, unafraid,
to a house with
no windows, no doors.



___________________________________


Poetry (c) 2011 by Dorothy Skiles

Nature photos (c) 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk (Big Tujunga Wash, Sunland grass, Sunland-Tujunga - view towards northwest)