Moonrise Press: Grateful Conversations: A Poetry Anthology edited by Maja Trochimczyk and Kathi Stafford (May 2018)

Grateful Conversations: A Poetry Anthology

Edited by Maja Trochimczyk and Kathi Stafford

Paperback, 280 pages, with black and white illustrations

ISBN 978-1-945938-22-1
Color Paperback, 280 pages with color illustrations
ISBN 978-1-945938-24-5
E-Book in EPUB format with color illustrations
ISBN 978-1-945938-23-8

http://www.moonrisepress.com/grateful-conversations-anthology.html

Moonrise Press is pleased to announce the publication of Grateful Conversations: A Poetry Anthology, edited by Maja Trochimczyk and Kathi Stafford. Grateful Conversations is a portrait of a group of female poets from California, who come together each month to hone their craft and share their verse. Known as Westside Women Writers and active as a group since 2008, they include Millicent Borges Accardi, Madeleine S. Butcher, Georgia Jones Davis, Lois P. Jones, Susan Rogers, Kathi Stafford, Sonya Sabanac, Ambika Talwar and Maja Trochimczyk.

In the words of the WWW founder, Millicent Borges Accardi, this is “a community of women writers working together to support each other with strong attention to craft, to grow as writers and as people in community.” The volume includes poems written for seven workshops and poetic self-portraits of the nine writers. Many photographs by the poets (Madeleine S. Butcher, Lois P. Jones, Susan Rogers, Sonya Sabanac, Ambika Talwar and Maja Trochimczyk) provide illustrations for the poems.

WWW at the Norton Simon Museum.August 2013.

L to R: Maja, Susan, Lois, Georgia, Sonya, Madeleine and Millicent.

PREFACE

“In the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone’s existence in this world.”

— Wisława Szymborska

Poetry is an elusive gift. The women whose work is reflected in this volume have supported each other in their ongoing writing—some of them for as long as ten years. We express our support and gratitude to all the family, friends, and fellow writers on this journey with us.

Our group expanded and contracted: some women traveled a lot, others moved away, still others had to deal with illness and pain. Yet, we continued to meet and share poems, to be an inspiration for each other, especially in “arid” creative times.

The title of our anthology “Grateful Conversations” comes from a prompt by our “Fearless Leader” Millicent Borges Accardi that was given back in 2010 to a then-smaller group. It resulted in poems that remained among the favorites of their authors. Indeed, writing and participating in a poetry group leads to may “Grateful Conversations” – filled with appreciation for different sensitivities and life-experiences, and for shared interests in the poetic craft.

During the workshops, we often had the eerie experience of bringing poems on related themes without planning this in advance. Interestingly, the “communion of minds” also permeated the critiques: if most poets thought that a line, ending, beginning or a metaphor were awkward, too wordy or uninspired – it was clear that revisions were in order.

The idea of putting together an anthology based on our workshops was born in early 2016 and it has taken over two years to assemble the materials.

We are fascinated with the diversity of poetic responses to the same prompt – be it word, image, or place. Thus, we present poems from our workshops and field trips, hoping that our readers will find their diversity refreshing. The only criterion for inclusion of a workshop in this anthology is to have at least three poems that resulted from it.

We asked poets to contribute mini-essays about their personal experience with poetry and the Westside Women Writers group. The poets selected their favorite poems for a self-portrait. Poems in this section may or may not have been presented for critique during our workshops; some poems may have been previously published somewhere else. They have been chosen with great care to represent what each poet thinks of herself – as samples of her most important work, or testimonials to the most significant steps in life journey, commemorated in poetry.

We are thrilled to reach the finish line and present to our readers poems, essays and photographs by Westside Women Writers.

Let the Grateful Conversations continue…

— Maja Trochimczyk & Kathi Stafford

Madeleine and Millicent at the Norton Simon Museum, August 2013.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prior Publication Credits, xi

Preface by the Editors, Maja Trochimczyk &Kathy Stafford, xiii

Introduction by Millicent Borges Accardi, xv

Part I — Workshops, 1

Workshop 1 —Writing on a Prompt, 3

By Millicent Borges Accardi (2011): ”grateful conversations never had but now taking place”

Grateful Conversations Never Had — Millicent Borges Accardi, 5
Culver City, ICU — Kathi Stafford, 7
The Ultimate Destination — Sonya Sabanac, 8
The Lake of Claret — Maja Trochimczyk, 9
The Next Flight — Ambika Talwar, 11
Grateful Conversations — Susan Rogers, 12

Lois, Ambika, Kathi, Maja and Susan after Lois’s featured reading at Bolton Hall Museum, Tujunga, August 2017.

Workshop 2 —The Harpist at the Getty Villa, 13

Organized by Kathi Stafford in March 2013, to see the “Cycladic Harp Player” (2700 -2300 BC), an ancient sculpture at the Getty Villa, Pacific Palisades

Still — Madeleine S. Butcher, 15
Harp Player — Lois P. Jones, 16
Harp Player — Susan Rogers, 18
Seven Strings — Kathi Stafford, 19
Proposal — Ambika Talwar, 21
A Song of Stillness — Maja Trochimczyk, 23

WWW at the Norton Simon Museum.August 2013.

L to R: Maja, Susan, Lois, Georgia, Sonya, Madeleine and Millicent.

Workshop 3 —Van Gogh at Norton Simon Museum, 25

Organized by Maja Trochimczyk in August 2013. Based on two paintings by Vincent Van Gogh, “The Mulberry Tree” and “Winter (Vicarage Garden under Snow)” in the permanent collection of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena.

Wild Hair — Millicent Borges Accardi, 27
Winter in the Vicarage Garden — Millicent Borges Accardi, 28
After Vincent Van Gogh’s “Winter (The Vicarage Garden under Snow)”— Lois P. Jones, 29
Premonition — Sonya Sabanac, 30
Into Color, Into Light — Maja Trochimczyk, 31
Half Summer - Half Wintergreen — Ambika Talwar, 33
Sophie and Vincent — Madeleine S. Butcher, 34
The Mulberry Song — Maja Trochimczyk, 36
Mulberry — Kathi Stafford, 38
Greenery — Georgia Jones-Davis, 39
Café Terrace with Tarkovsky —Susan Rogers, 40