Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Moonrise Press Poets in the Altadena Poetry Review 2018


On Sunday, April 29, 2018, over 60 poets published in the Altadena Poetry Review 2018 edited by Pauline Dutton and Elline Lipkin, gathered at a special event at the Altadena Library. In the photo above there are four Moonrise Press poets: Beverly M. Collins (Mud in Magic), Dorothy Skiles (anthology Meditations on Divine Names), Marlene Hitt (Clocks and Water Drops, and anthologies Chopin with Cherries and Meditations on Divine Names) and Maja Trochimczyk, publisher and editor. Also present, not yet published by Moonrise Press, is Pamela Shea, Poet Laureate of Sunland Tujunga. 




Marlene Hitt published Clocks and Water Drops in 2015. here's a poem from the book:

The Old Clock

As old as time. As old as my time
is the clock on the mantle at home;
mahogany brown, sloped sides,
its pendulum swinging with no thought of its own.
It sits on a faded pea-green footlocker,
Grandpa’s, from the war,
My eyes look back at it now;
clock, box, shadows,
see time swing back and forth.
Grandma lies in my brother’s room,
cancer taking her away by small bits.
Back and forth, time, predictable,
with no choice for anyone,
tick, tock, tick, tock,
one way then the other. Stop, I plead.
Its pendulum measures
whether I can stand the sound or not.
Back and forth, it subtracts the minutes
of my Grandma’s life. 
In one dark corner stands Death,
not even bothering to sit down,
a creature glaring,
a bandana slung loosely around his neck,
wears a Stetson, a Cowboy Death in boots,
lasso in hand to catch her.
He will own her, not I anymore.
Back and forth. It is the clock I remember,
pendulum monotonous in the night.

(c) 2015 by Marlene Hitt




Beverly M. Collins published Mud in Magic in 2015 as well. Here's the title poem from this wonderful collection:


Mud in Magic

It is to spend time on a funky junction,
overlook the “how” and become
“I don’t know.” It is to wear an early-bird
coat with full feathers when the entire
event is late. It is to find that one has tricked
the trickster, turned the tables on the
bait-and-switcher...and got a free ticket.

It is to take life too serious. Put the squeeze
on what is not right-for-you, feel it sting
the palm of your hand like a bumble bee
on the blind side of an apple...but win the bushel.

Mud in magic can be welcome, as “loud”
at the library, “quiet” at an amusement park,
fun as a root canal one day before the feast.
It can murk up the view of a clear day then dry
quickly. It is the moment a way with words does
not win one a way with other things wanted.

It is to select a fall-from-grace, show that taste
buds are dull or absent from the mouth altogether.
It is to be drunk on foolishness, shame one’s way
up the side of the nearest mountain, then watch
the seeds evolve into practical moves.

Proof in the face, some stumble and win the race
one  foot behind the other; however triumphant 
or tragic. The low-down on high-life appears
that dry desert has hidden moisture
and there are obvious bits of mud in magic.


(c) 2015 by Beverly M. Collins



Maja Trochimczyk read her poem "On Squaring a Circle" that first appeared in Into Light: Poems and Incantations (2016). 

On Squaring the Circle


It is a simple square that contains the circle
four ideas, four words

— Sorry — Forgive — Thank — Love —

No need for explanations,
long winding roads of words
leading into the arid desert
of heartless intellect, auras
of geometric shapes floating above
your head a scattered halo
of squares, sharp-edged cubes
prickly triangles, and hexahedrons

No, not that. Instead let us find
the cornerstone. Simplicity.

Sorry — to erase the past

Forgive— to open a path into the future

Thank— to suffuse the way, each moment
with the velvet softness of gratitude

Love — to find a pearl unlike any other,
a jewel of lustrous shine incomparable,
dazzling, smooth, pulsating sphere

A dot on the horizon grows
as you, step by step, come closer
until you enter into the shining
palace without rooms
where inside is outside,
the circumference is in the point,
the point in the circumference

where movement is stillness
and stillness dances within —
traveling to a myriad planets,
suns, galaxies, with unheard-of
velocity, everywhere at once

Love everyone — Respect everything

*     *    *

So that’s how you square a circle

(c) 2016 by Maja Trochimczyk





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