Our Author, Marlene Hitt, the Grand Marshall at the Parade and Featured Poet in Montrose, July 22 at 3pm

Marlene and Lloyd Hitt, Grand Marshalls of the Independence Day Parade, 2017

Congratulations to Marlene Hitt, author of Clocks and Water Drops. She was the Grand Marshall of the Independence Day Parade, with her husband Lloyd Hitt, and will be featured on July 22, at 3pm at the Montrose Library.  The reading will present Dorothy Skiles and Marlene Hitt, in a double feature of Village Poets. Montrose Library is located at 2465 Honolulu Avenue, Montrose where the Village Poets reading will start at 3 p.m. on Saturday, July 22, 2017.  Two segments of open mike will also be available for those who wish to read their poems. See you all there!

Marlene Hitt is a Los Angeles poet, writer and retired educator with local history as an avocation. She has served for many years as Archivist, Museum Director and Historian at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga. She is a native Californian and a graduate of Occidental College. She also studied at CSUN, USC, UCLA, Glendale College and Trinity College in Ireland. As a member of the Chupa Rosa Writers of Sunland for nearly 30 years, she has worked with this small group of poets from whom has sprung readings at the local library, the Poet Laureate Program of Sunland-Tujunga, and the currently popular Village Poets. Her poetry received several first place prizes in annual competitions of the Women’s Club, San Fernando Valley, and many awards from the John Steven McGroarty Chapter of the California Chaparral Poets. Congressman Adam Schiff declared Marlene Hitt to be the Woman of the Year 2016 and her name was entered into the Congressional Record.

Her work appeared in Psychopoetica (UK), Chupa Rosa Diaries of the Chupa Rosa Writers, Sunland (2001-2003), Glendale College’s Eclipse anthologies, two Moonrise Press anthologies, Chopin With Cherries (2010) and Meditations on Divine Names (2012),Sometimes in the Open, a collection of verse by California Poets Laureate, and The Coiled Serpent, anthology of Los Angeles poets, edited by Poet Laureate, Luis Rodriguez (2016). She published chapbooks Sad with Cinnamon, Mint Leaves, and Bent Grass (all in 2001), as well as Riddle in the Rain with Dorothy Skiles, a stack of poetry booklets for friends and family, and most recently a critically acclaimed poetry volume, Clocks and Water Drops (Moonrise Press, 2015). 

More information: 

• Clocks and Water Drops: http://www.moonrisepress.com/clocks-and-water-drops-by-marlene-hitt.html
• Blog about Clocks and Water Drops: http://moonrisepress.blogspot.com/2015/01/
• Interview on Colorado Blvd. Blog: https://coloradoboulevard.net/mapping-the-artist-marlene-hitt/ 

ARRIVAL

Please, come home.

Walk into the door of the kitchen

where stew and wheaten bread

steam, where a fire warms.

Your father will tune the strings,

unwrap the bohdran.

I will uncover the harp.

The stew will simmer.

With hands wiped on my apron

I will open my arms

to you, my firstborn child

so long traveling. Your sisters 

will dance. The old ones will smile

through brown, gapped teeth,

will smile blue into your eyes.

Wrapped around you, the old songs,

the scent of turf fire, the smell

of our own wool and you will sing.

While you sleep

I will wrap around you a woven shawl

to shield you. Please come home

to bleating lambs,

to the resting place of love.

Marlene Hitt, published in Clocks and Water Drops (2015)  

ISBN 978-0-9819693-5-0

LOVE MENDED

That old threadbare word – love

flows in a fabric patterned

with shades of crimson colors,

whispers of mauve and the yellow of dry sun.

Chopin wove love into the air,

Monet stroked it onto canvas.

That word so often patched

nearly falls apart, its meaning frayed –

until a newborn cries 

or a daughter becomes a bride,

until the lace of fifty years together

fully knits. Love unravels

until a friend perceives and cherishes,

until there is an ear ready to listen, 

a shoulder to cry on. Love is repaired

with the consecration of all the threads.

Then, there is delight in love’s stitching,

the worn word renewed

into the One Love.

Mended.

Marlene Hitt, published in Clocks and Water Drops, 2015

Marlene  and Lloyd Hitt as Grand Marshalls. Photo by Bill Skiles.

Pam Shea, Dorothy Skiles and Joe DeCenzo with Village Poets in the Parade.

Moonrise Press publisher, Maja Trochimczyk, in the 2017 Parade.