Ruth Nolan from Mojave Desert, October 23, 2011

On Sunday, October 23, 2011 at 4:30 p.m. Village Poets present Ruth Nolan as the Featured Poet of the Monthly Open Reading at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga.

Ruth Nolan is a Mojave Desert poet, writer, scholar, adventurer, and protector. She is a native of the Mojave Desert in the Apple Valley area and Associate Professor of English College of the Desert near Palm Springs, California. For two summer seasons, 1986-87, she worked for the BLM as a helicopter hotshot and engine crew firefighter in the California Desert District, and has extensively hiked, traveled, and embraced the essence of her desert homeland.

She is editor of the new anthology, No Place for a Puritan: the literature of California’s deserts, published by Heyday Books. She was awarded a Joshua Tree National Park Affiliate Writers Residency for 2008-09, and recently collaborated on a film about the park with the UCR/California Museum of Photography. Her poetry has appeared in many literary publications, including Inlandia: a Literary Journey Through Southern California’s Inland Empire, Poemeleon, Askew, Pacific Review, Epicenter, Mosaic, Southern California Haiku Journal, and San Diego Poetry Annual.

She co-edits Phantom Seed, a bi-annual literary magazine dedicated to the nuances of the California desert, and is advisor to the College of the Desert literary/visual arts magazine, Solstice. Her poetry collections include Wild Wash Road (1996) and Dry Waterfall (2008.) She lectures and speaks widely on desert literature and related topics, such as desert conservation and California Indian culture.

Ruth Nolan writes poetry and prose pieces about her life and journeys throughout the desert, and also posts her original desert photography on her blog, Phantom Seedlings, at: http://ruthnolan.blogspot.com/

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.



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Poetry (c) 2011 by Dorothy Skiles

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

Georgia Jones-Davis (8/28) and Dorothy Skiles (9/25)

On Sunday, August 28, 2011, the multi-talented Georgia Jones-Davis has delighted her audience at Bolton Hall Museum with a selection of wistful, insightful, and inspiring poems, including a sample from her recent chapbook, Blue Poodle (Finishing Line Press, 2011). The publication party for the book took place on August 14, and Georgia was also featured at Cafe Alibi's monthly reading managed by Alex M. Frankel. In 2010 she was declared an "emerging poet" and recognized by the Los Angeles Public Library's ALOUD series, Beyond Baroque and other poetry organizations.

Georgia started her reading with her contribution to the anthology "Chopin with Cherries" (Moonrise Press, 2010). The genesis of the piece was quite interesting. It turned out that her poem was created during a traffic jam on the 405 and therefore belongs to the genre I created and keep promoting, that of "freeway poetry." She pulled over to write it down, so it was not entirely committed to memory and recorded in writing only after the arrival home - as a true "freeway poem" should be. Leaving the technicalities aside, we particularly enjoyed Georgia's tributes to other creative spirits, mostly poets that she favors, like John Keats and Anne Sexton.

The listeners included poets who came to present their work and to hear the featured poet live - it is always a treat to hear poetry in the poet's own voice. The hall was filled with talent, young and old, and we documented the evening with a couple of group pictures.


Poets L to R: Russell Solomon, Georgia Jones-Davis, Mari Werner, Mira Mataric, and Jaimie Pritchard (seated); Dorothy Skiles, Jim Gibson, Pam Shea, Barbara Briodin, Don Krotser, Marcia Behar, Judith Terzi, Lois P. Jones, Neva Wallace, Maja Trochimczyk, Joe DeCenzo, Mary Terragosa, Isaac Montoya (standing).

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The next Village Poets Reading at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga will feature one of the Village Poets, Dorothy Skiles, and will take place on September 25, 2011 at 4:30 p.m. More information about Dorothy's poetry and a sample of her work will be posted here in the coming weeks.



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Photos: 1) Georgia Jones-Davis with her Blue Poodle and cherries, and Maja Trochimczyk with Chopin with Cherries; 2) group photo of some poets at the reading; 3) Bolton Hall Museum, Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA.

Village Poets at the Watermelon Festival

The Magnificent Four, or the Village Poets of Sunland Tujunga: Joe DeCenzo, Marlene Hitt, Dorothy Skiles and Maja Trochimczyk, created and managed a new element at the 50th Annual Watermelon Festival, held at Sunland Park on Saturday, August 13, 2011, from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. The Poetry Corner presented new, original poetry for children along with well-known classics by Shel Silverstein, A.A. Milne, and Rudyard Kipling (The Tale of Elephant Child). We recited English and Polish tongue-twisters and sang humorous rhyming children's songs. The model of a home-setting with children's chairs on a giant comforter, scattered with zebra pillows and stuffed animals, was created at a poetry event for the Puppetry Festival at McGroarty Art Center last year. See the photos from that event: Maja and Friends - Poetry Corner.

Each of the four poets contributed something: Joe brought the baloons and comforter, Dorothy donated the gifts, Marlene lent us a mike, and I had signs, books, and more comforters and stuffed animals that I cared to carry from my car... Our fifth member, Barry Ira Geller, did not make it, though contributed to advance publicity of the event.

Children came with their parents to rest for 10 - 15 minutes from the hectic pace and excitement of the festival. They sat quietly, listened, read poems from the books provided by poets, and picked up their prizes - colorful balloons and little toys. We planned on two hours, but filled out three - due to the constant ebb and flow of the audience it was hard to find a good time to pack up and go. We are happy that Beverly Collins once again brought her poetry to share in Sunland.

I do not write for children and certainly do not write in rhyme, so I was especially pleased that Joe DeCenzo read from his Ballad of a Hawk and twice recited a very amusing, brand-new poem-game, helping children to learn the names of body parts in English. In his poem, the last word of each couplet is missing and children have to guess what it is..."head" or "chin" or "shin." I noticed quite a few children who were English learners and this was a very good lesson for them.

We also had a couple of older children reading from our stack of books - picking poems they found funny. My contribution included poems "What I love in Sunland" and "On the Beach" for Father's Day, as well as two New Year's Haiku about the Year of the Rabbit. I also sang about The Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly and recited tongue-twisters about the winsome woodchuck and the warbling warbler, and, my favorite, a Polish beetle rustling in the rushes:

W Szczebrzeszynie chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie
a w Trzemiesznie straszy jeszcze postrach oczu strzyg!

Next year? More poets, and some limericks, I think... the G-rated ones, of course. The photo album is posted on Flickr: Poetry Corner at Watermelon Festival.

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GEORGIA JONES-DAVIS FEATURED ON AUGUST 28, 2011

On Sunday, August 28, at 4:30 p.m., the next Village Poets Open Reading will feature Georgia Jones Davis. For more information see the previous issue of this blog.

Georgia Jones-Davis, August 28, 2011

The Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga present Georgia Jones-Davis as Featured Poet at the Poetry Reading at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga on Sunday, August 28, 2011, at 4:30 p.m. The Village Poets Reading also includes an Open Mike for guest poets and refreshments. A hat is passed around to collect donations for the Bolton Hall Museum.

Georgia Jones-Davis is a former book review editor at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. She has published poetry in "Westwind," "The California Quarterly," "The Bicycle Review," "Brevities," Sam Hamill's website "Poets Against War," "Voices From the Valley," "poeticdiversity" and "South Bank Poetry" (London), among other publications. She is also one of the contributors to the "Chopin with Cherries" anthology. Georgia serves as a co-director of Valley Contemporary Poets and the founder of The Jewish Home for the Aged poetry club. She was honored as one of the Newer Poets 2010 by the Los Angeles Poetry Festival, Beyond Baroque and the Los Angeles Public Library ALOUD series.

Georgia wrote and published poetry while a student at UCLA, but avoided poets and poetry during her more than twenty years in literary journalism. After leaving the newspaper world, poetry came back like a long lost, muddy dog. It took some coaxing and a lot of grooming to get back into the poetry show ring, she says.

SAMPLE POEMS:

EMILY AT AUSCHWITZ

She wore the thin
leather boots bought in Haight-
Ashbury. On the ride
back to Krakow
a disturbance crept up on her,
a disturbance she could not recognize.

Joseph, her great-grandfather,
arrived in one of the last transports,
never left.

Does blood murmur to its own
through ash that still dirties the air,
bone whisper to its own
through dust piled beneath the soles?

In this place where the dead survive
did Joseph's fire-digested eyes
know Emily on sight,
the daughter of his daughter's daughter,
a link in the dying chain

miraculously alive.


MISSING DON HO

When I was eighteen I traveled to Hawaii
with a tribe of old and holy women from the Midwest.

I wore a tight yellow sheath, tasted papaya for the first time.
My roommate slept in curlers, studied bible before bed.

Midnight I was on the beach, stepping into the heartbreaking
breakers that rolled beneath a yellow ukulele moon.

Those steamy nights in Oahu how Don Ho filled the churchy, starchy hearts
of the sturdy wahinis from the islands of Iowa, Indiana, Illinois

with naughty hulas and pineapple dreams. The lingering aloooooha
of Don Ho was what the fat, widowed, moo-moo'd belles took home

to deep lakes and wide rivers, corn and wheat fields of the Sandburg prairie
that rolled like an ocean beneath a yellow ukulele moon.

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ABOUT THE BLUE POODLE

Georgia Jones-Davis's first book of poetry, The Blue Poodle, will be unveiled on August 14, 2011 at 3 p.m.




The poems in "Blue Poodle," the debut collection by emerging poet Georgia Jones-Davis, have been described as ripe and plumy, as the "liquid poetry of roller skating, snow and blood." "Keep knives hidden," Georgia writes, but she doesn't! These poems are sometimes lyrical or humorous or tough -- sometimes all three at once -- yet "easy listening" poems that will go on playing a tune in your head, as Suzanne Lummis described them. Ghosts of beloved writers, murdered ancestors, mothers, daughters and the vanishings all around us abound in the familiar yet original stories these poems tell.




Blue Poodle by Georgia Jones-Davis
ISBN: 1-59924-772-0
published by Finishing Line Press
Post Office Box 1626
Georgetown Ky 40324
$14 (paperback)
To order online:
www.finishinglinepress.com
click on "New Releases"

Millicent Borges Accardi - July 24, 2011

After a lovely, lively, and whimsical reading by Alice Pero (assisted in one section by a fellow poet and editor of her delightful book, Thawed Stars, Russell Salamon), we were getting ready to hear Georgia Jones-Davis in July and Millicent Borges Accardi in August. We already sent Georgia's biography to The Voice of the Village when it turned out that she has to postpone her appearance by a month. Thus we will enjoy the presence of Millicent a month earlier, on July 24, at 4:30 p.m. As all Village Poets Readings, this one will take place on a Sunday afternoon, in the enchanting interior of the Bolton Hall Museum, at 10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042. The reading will include open mike sections before and after the feature (accomodating up to 18 poets) and light refreshments will be served, courtesy of the Bolton Hall Museum staff.

Millicent Borges Accardi, a Portuguese-American poet, is the author of three books: Injuring Eternity (World Nouveau), Woman on a Shaky Bridge (Finishing Line Press chapbook), and Only More So (forthcoming Salmon Press, Ireland 2012). The beautiful covers of her books are reproductions of paintings by her husband, Charles Accardi (his website is: charlesaccardi.com)

She has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the arts (NEA), the California Arts Council, Barbara Deming Foundation, Canto Mundo, and Formby at the Special Collections Library at Texas Tech (researching writer-activist Kay Boyle). Her work has also received three Pushcart Prize nominations.

Accardi’s poetry has appeared in over 50 publications, including Nimrod, Tampa Review, New Letters and Wallace Stevens Journal as well as in Boomer Girls (Iowa Press) and Chopin with Cherries (Moonrise Press) anthologies.

Her theater and book reviews can be found in print and online at The Topanga Messenger. Past artist residencies include Yaddo, Jentel, Vermont Studio, Fundación Valparaíso in Mojacar, Milkwood in Cesky Krumlov and Disquiet in Lisbon, Portugal.

She received degrees in English and writing from Califortnia State University Long Beach and holds a Masters in Professional Writing degree from the University of Southern California. She works as a freelance writer (theater reviews, grant writing and instructional design); this type of work leaves her with time to create and travel to poetry residences around the world. More information may be found on her website: Millicent Borges Accardi.

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About Injuring Eternity :

Millicent has an amazingly intimate way of writing that makes you feel as though you are going through the pages of her life alongside her.
~ Gabe Sachs, Writer/Producer 90210

In Injuring Eternity Millicent Borges Accardi gives the reader a day’s worth of character poems in three parts, morning, noon, and evening. These sketches are fun to pick up and read one or two at a time and think about. Sitting down and reading them all at once can seem a little too much, but perhaps that’s the introvert in me. The collection is of mostly free form poems, well shaped and with excellent use of interesting and specific details, with the title coming from a quote from Henry Thoreau “As if you could kill time without injuring eternity”. The overall poem though, goes beyond the person, into capturing a statement about relationships and life... Many will find something of value just by randomly opening pages and selecting something new: births, deaths, lovers, children, snooping, guns, the down side of Las Vegas, soap operas and birthdays.
~ The Compulsive Reader by Sheri Harper

The work addresses family, love, politics, art, and religion. It tackles current events, popular culture, and spares a few asides for Miles Davis. It's an ambitious collection that takes a lot of risks.
~ from a review published in Chamber Four

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Mourning Doves

Have such soulful
Eyes, their gray suit
Of feathers blurs and sinks
Them into the background
Like a creature in hiding.
They hover below the wild
Bird feeder set up for the finches
And harvest the shells, the thistle
Seed casings and what drops after
The finches and faux robins and phoebes
Have feasted. The mourning
Doves huddle and nest in the mountains
Of seed shells and dirt and make circles
With their small bird bodies turning
Into the ground digging a place around
Them as if they were under a shrub with only
The black drops of ink from their tail feathers
Visible. In a group, they lie in wait, their dear gray
Eyes gloomy and sullen and innocent and they want
What the world desires, to be fed and comfortable
And consummated and happy.

Alice Pero - Featured Poet on June 26, 2011

The next monthly Village Poets Reading at Bolton Hall Museum, Tujunga, on June 26, 2011 at 4:30 p.m. will feature our wonderful neighbor, poet and musician, Alice Pero. A co-founder and host of Moonday Poetry readings at Pacific Palisades, she recently started Moonday East in nearby La Canada Flintridge, but she is our neighbor in Sunland.

Alice Pero was born in New York City, the child of an electrical engineer and a housewife/editor. She graduated from Putney School in Vermont and The Manhattan School of Music in New York City. She received dance training at the Martha Graham School in New York and from many private teachers and studied flute with Harold Bennett. While a student she played with the National Orchestral Association in New York City and currently she is playing chamber music concerts, after a long hiatus from the flute. She is a member of the California Poets in the Schools, and was a workshop leader for the New York City Ballet Education Department Poetry Project for many years. Pero is also a teacher of poetry to grade school children and she has developed a unique curriculum that utilizes her experience with music. In October 2002, Pero founded a poetry reading, Moonday, at Village Books in Pacific Palisades, California, which she co-produces with Lois P. Jones. She recently inaugurated the Moonday East series at the newly constructed Flintridge Bookstore in La Cañada, while continuing the popular Pacific Palisades readings.

Pero discovered poetry after studying rhythm with the music educator, Jamie Faunt, and has been writing poetry seriously for 29 years. She has done many featured readings in New York and Los Angeles and has been published in over 60 small magazines and anthologies, including: North American Review, 13th Moon, The Alembic, North Dakota Quarterly, RiverSedge, New Delta Review, The Distillery, Lullwater Review, Poet Lore, River Oak Review, The Cape Rock, Fox Cry Review, The Griffin, G.W. Review, Main Street Rag, Quercus Review, Oregon East, The Pikeville Review, Xavier Review, Studio One, Three Mile Harbor, Salonika, San Gabriel Valley Quarterly, Soundings East, Spillway, Sulphur River Literary Review, Minnetonka Review, Word Thursday, Très diverse-city, Valley Contemporary Poetry Anthology, Albatross, Lummox, Bayou, Carquinez Poetry Review, Cadillac Cicatrix, California Quarterly, Cairn, The Old Red Kimono, and Sanskrit.

Her first book of poetry, Thawed Stars, published in 1999, was hailed by Kenneth Koch as having “clarity and surprises.”

Lyn Lifshin has said: "Alice Pero's poems are deliciously open, brimming with leaps, twists and surprises, often joyful and fizzy as a fireworks display." The book is available on Amazon.com:
Thawed Stars.

“The romance of discovery, the radiant brilliance, the surprise and laughter are all here in Alice Pero's deeply intelligent insights into the edge of things." ~The Book Reader~
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RUMORS

They say that soon
the sun will be swept
into the sea
The moon will visit me
and tell me
how to rescue the sun

but I know these are only rumors

The sea keeps secrets in violent waves
and leaves me wondering

The sun burns alone
in scorching silence

but only I live to dream
_________________________

from Thawed Stars

© 2011 Alice Pero

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The monthly Village Poets readings at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga have been blessed with a number of impressive guest poets and regular visitors reading their work at the Open Mike segments. We are looking forward to hearing Alice's poetry next month.

Cindy Rinne's recent reading at Bolton Hall (May 22) was a popular success, not only because of the beauty and inspiration of her poetry, with a deeply personal, reflective tone, focusing on the beauty of nature. Cindy brought and shared with us a set of wonderful fiber art pieces, that she designed and made from pieces of fabric, embroidery, inscriptions of poems, etc. I particularly loved the beautiful blue piece with small houses on it, and the story about her house that burned down. We live in the wildfire zone, close to the mountains that are as beautiful as they are dangerous...

At the end of Cindy's "Earth Voices" presentation of her poetry and fiber art, the audience "dressed up" in her artwork and posed together. She wrote about this experience on her blog: FiberVerse. I took a couple of photos; here's a group shot of all poets holding Cindy's fiber artwork. Thank you, Cindy!



L to R: Jim Gibson, Dorothy Skiles, Marlene Hitt, Lloyd Hitt, Joe DeCenzo, xx, Lois P. Jones, Russell Salamon, Beverly Collins, Marcia Behar, Mari Werner, Deborah Marlow, and (seated) Maja Trochimczyk, xx, Barbara Brolin, Cindy Rinne and Mira Mataric.