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Thursday, December 1, 2022

Moonrise Press Announces Nominations for Pushcart Prize 2022

Crystal Fire poets at the opening of Sky Garden Exhibit, Scenic Drive Gallery, Oct 16, 2022
Mary Elliott, Bory Thach, Marlene Hitt, Alice Pero, Joe DeCenzo, Ambika Talwar and Maja Trochimczyk

Moonrise Press is pleased to announce its nominations to the Pushcart Prize 2022. We submitted six nominations to Pushcart Prizes 2022 mostly from the Crystal Fire anthology. The anthology editor stated: "Since all poems in the book are excellent, my focus was the jury: what poems do the Pushcart Prize committee NEED to read for their own spiritual benefit?" 

Therefore, five poems were selected from Crystal Fire. Poems of Joy and Wisdom. In addition, one poem was selected from Maja Trochimczyk's Bright Skies. Selected Poems. 

The poems nominated for Pushcart Prizes 2022 are as follows: 

1. From Crystal Fire: “Migration” by Bory Thach

2. From Crystal Fire: “A Room Full of Boxes” by Marlene Hitt

3. From Crystal Fire: “If I Rise” by Alice Pero

4. From Crystal Fire: “At Times, I Find Myself in Time” by Jeff Graham

5. From Crystal Fire:  “Joy in a Careless Breeze” by Ambika Talwar

6. From Bright Skies: "Matka Boska Zielna" by Maja Trochimczyk


Congratulations to all the nominees! Their poems are copied below. In some cases, the layout is not correct online and cannot be fixed. Apologies to the poets. 


Bory Thach reads at the closing of Sky Garden Exhibit, November 20, 2022

Bory Thach

Migration 


Feel the warm breeze taking a rest 

Among woods and valleys.

The ground is rich soil that leads 

Into one shimmering blue lake.

 

Steps ripple in the water 

That surrounds mountains. 

The setting sun illuminates 

A cloud-covered sky,

 

Tree leaves become golden 

Phoenix feathers.

Evening darkens to night, 

Letting go of the chaos

 

Allows for true freedom. 

Dreams continue with 

The writing brush chasing 

Memories.

 

Taste the newly brewed wine 

Of life, untainted by pollution. 

Amidst scattered clouds, 

Swans are journeying home— 

The mind can’t help but join them.


(c) by Bory Thach

This poem was selected for submission to the Pushcart Prize committee. However, another poem was nominated as the best poem in the entire anthology by fellow poet Mary Elliott. It is quite a honor, so here's the second poem by Bory Thach. 

Memory 


Sometimes, under a full moon, 

raise a cup to the clear sky in holy 

reverence. Pray for lover’s safe return

Intoxicated by loneliness—

I can hear you sing, 

ever so softly.

 

Time passes by like flowing water, 

like the cold edge of a blade against 

my skin. I speak with joy. I laugh.

Turn around and look 

at the lifetime

of passion.

 

Let us be carefree. Let’s wander 

toward the horizon. I only wish

for all my days to be as bright as you.

Even in my dreams, your eyes 

guide me with light. I can stay 

in this world 

forever.


(c) Bory Thach


Marlene Hitt reads at Sky Garden Exhibit opening, with Maja Trochimczyk

Marlene Hitt

A Room Full of Boxes

 

If that box could be mine, I would fill it
with love letters or needles and colored threads.

The tiny silver one I would fill
with pink face powder to put in a purse.

I wouldn’t take the wormwood chest,
its lock closed, rusted on, keyless,

 

for it is not the box, but the treasure within; 

that box camera, a photo inside still unseen,

 

a thin case, long and narrow, to carry pencils 

and a pink eraser, water color paints.

 

Lying open on a table, a hand carved chest invites 

and I crawl in. Someday, maybe, this chest will     


                hide beneath the seed of an oak
                stay unfound until the oak has aged to forest tall,


then fall from a lightning fire, a storm 

which pulls it screaming from its roots.


                Where the chest still hides, open.


Alice Pero reads at the opening of Sky Garden Exhibit, October 16, 2022

Alice Pero

If I Rise


If I rise up past the sun 
I will keep a point 
down in the green
I will not cast all my anchors up 
I will still touch
the tiny trees that sway 
the weeping branches

If I hide behind the moon 
dark shadows paint
on planet’s hills, beam
a long ray on moon’s quiet
I will still leave
my thought, brush 
the wings of birds 
in Earth flight 
Form greeting

If I try to fathom space
 mark deep traces
in the unknown
I will not rise up forever
past the fallen friends 
remaining loved ones grieving
Those caught in Earth’s
endless turning

 

           I will catch the silver
           of the dep and silent sky
           I will bring a treasure home 
           to touch the earth, each eye


Raaga for Himalayan Sunrise by Ambika Talwar

Jeff Graham


At Times, I Find Myself in Time

 

1

The beginning must begin some-where/time. 

And before the beginning begins, the nothing— 

immaterially substantial—must end,

must slip

from what isn’t is to what wasn’t will be,

into and out from (thus through) being— 

existent to exist—

to what can/will/has never be/been again.

It might be that I have begun. I may be so that I may.

 

2

hour by hour,

none but the emergence of The Hours. 

The present becomes the present

when I go where I am to go

when I am to go there 

in order to find myself,

if not where I had thought,

then some juncture equally important,

as being where and when I may

(or may not) be is integral,

is the most that I can ask for.

 

3

Unfixed form of time’s spheroid lattice, 

of time’s fluidity of flux,

where my waited-for world

is fashioned and recast for the first time…

again.

Now is never now,

since the present becomes the next now; 

thus, the now-next

departing into a sequence of future presents, 

unendingly next and now

and now and then.

 

4

Time, whose beginning and end are its middle, 

whose middle is always the middle for me, 

whose lapses are where time is crossed by time, 

whose crossings connect a cross-stitch of lives.

I wake to each existence,

to existence’s every,

to and from the ether of dreams’ to-and-from, 

out from and back to the day’s midway.

 

5

Memories of tomorrow, aspirations for yesterday. 

Genesis comingles with the end’s remnants.

I move through time that moves me

and moves me through,

retrograde through past to meet the ever-presence 

of what come—

sightless as blinding—

for me to chance to grasp that after the aftermath, 

what is will never was.

Tomorrow unended, yesterday unbegins.

 

6

And the day’s minusculia amalgamates 

with the blinding silence of yesternext. 

Narration of oblivion and the single motion 

as progenitor of all future maneuvers, 

including the crawl of the day‘s‘ sun(s) 

traversing an alternate continent of sky.

After the ending ends, I falter to find

that the shadow on the sundial is only my own 

while I stand steadfast to look at the time,

hat it’s just the beginning begun to begin

again,

that it’s just another always, as usual

as never.

 

7

No—tomorrow. No happy endings.

Yet, tomorrow I will say tomorrow again

since it will simply be a day, such as a day is such. 

Yesterday: the ghost of a legion of thoughs.

Today: configurations of wasn’ts and will-nots, 

desperately hunting the omnipresent elusivity

of is.

Today is tomorrow’s yesterday; therefore, 

yesterday is inevitably tomorrow’s today. 

No happy endings, not due to sorrow,

but since nothing ends.

Elseless, I become the momentary.



(c) Jeff Graham


Ambika Talwar


  Joy in a Careless Breeze

 

Oh! Where are the forests       and lakes

I long for? Ripple         of feathered wings 

and curls of water       that sing. Wishbone 

afloat. Smudge of dust      on our faces 

knees and hands that        clasped walls 

of rock, mud, fossils, language of lichen.

 

Rain-song on my head      We sing soaked

drenched with joy       untrammeled as wing

bone. Oh! Where            the forestsand lakes

I belong for?         Fragrance of wet wood 

cedar trickling  with fresh breath rising 

of latent wilderness           whose heart 

beats in mine own.     I must walk far

 

from here to there      where wisdom beads 

fall from treetops         scattering auburn leaves 

on unaware sleepers.         Where are the forests

where we can sprawl random as a forgotten 

daisy lost as a forest flower about to burst– 

bloom with limitless        joy in a careless breeze?

 

 

 

Prana, ruah, chi…

breath stirs in all directions

 shimmering new leaves

 
(c) by Ambika Talwar


Maja Trochimczyk with "Crystal Fire" and "Bright Skies" at the Sky Garden Exhibition
November 5, 2022, Scenic Drive Gallery, Monrovia

Maja Trochimczyk 

Matka Boska Zielna

 

~ for Mother of God of the Herbs (August 15)

 

Look at the greening hill slopes charred by last year’s wildfire

that’s magic. Look at the mountain sunflower that grew

at the edge of the asphalt on Oro Vista road, it already blooms

out of nowherethat’s magic, too. The postcard-size garden

by the old, wooden house, a shack, reallyfills with flowers

every spring. Fruit appears on orange trees after bees collect pollen.

 

The scent of sweetness, the cheerful noise of bee wings

is it not far more miraculous, a thousand, a million times

more delightful than the 100 floors of steel-metal-glass

of skyscrapers proudly pointing at the sky? Incomparable

with a patch of weeds, nature’s miracles of renewal.

 

How proud we are of our empty metallic constructions

that will rust in the jungle, abandoned, like stone pyramids

of the Mayas, shrouded by vibrant green of leaves and

branches. Thousands of years of human fame obliterated

by the steady, living, fertile abundance, the overflowing

force of life, of matter, our Mother.

 

Roots, shoots, and tendrils spread out, germinate,

flow through the soil in search of water, nutrients,

life, more life, ever growing, ever richer, dancing,

singing the abundance of beingthe song of creation

we arewe arewe arewe are all—

we are oneoneone


(c) by Maja Trochimczyk, first published in Quill and Parchment



Photo by Maja Trochimczyk at the Sky Garden Exhibition, 2022







 

Monday, November 14, 2022

Sky Garden Exhibition Closing on November 20, 2022 with a Reading from "Crystal Fire"

 Scenic Drive Gallery and Moonrise Press present SKY GARDEN, an exhibition by Ambika Talwar & Maja Trochimczyk. Closing Reception: Sunday, November 20, 2022, 2:30-5:00 pm with a poetry reading from the Crystal Fire anthology. In person: Ambika Talwar, Maja Trochimczyk, Ella Czajkowska, and Alice Pero.  

The Exhibit is open by appointment until November 20, 2022 at Scenic Drive Gallery, Monrovia, CA 91016, Email  maja@moonrisepress.com if you cannot attend and would like a tour, or if you can attend and need the address. 

Free admission. Reception to follow. Books and art available for purchase.


This exhibition presents paintings by Ambika Talwar and photographs by Maja Trochimczyk, inspired by nature and natural spirituality. Ambika's paintings have been used as illustrations in a new anthology by Moonrise Press, edited by Maja Trochimczyk, Crystal Fire, with 144 poems by 12 poets: Elzbieta Czajkowska, Joe DeCenzo, Mary Elliott, Jeff Graham, Marlene Hitt, Frederick Livingston, Alice Pero,  Allegra Silberstein, Jane Stuart, Ambika Talwar, Bory Thach, and Maja Trochimczyk. The nature photographs by Trochimczyk appear in her 2022 collection, Bright Skies, with 85 poems and over 160 photographs.


EVENT PHOTOS

During the month on display, There were several visits to the gallery by appointment, including a concert of Polish song-writer and guitarist Piotr Kajetan Matczuk on November 6, 2022. He was touring Southern California and stopped by in Monrovia.  Many thanks for playing the wonderful Polish songs to texts by Adam Mickiewicz and others at the gallery! Video clips will follow.

Piotr Kajetan Matczuk at the Sky Garden Exhibit, November 6, 2022


Susan Dobay, Piotr Kajetan Matczuk, Maja Trochimczyk


The closing reception was held on  November 20, 2022 with four poets from " Crystal Fire" in person (Joe DeCenzo, Maja Trochimczyk, Ella Czajkowska and Bory Thach), and one poet attending via zoom, Alice Pero. 

Joe DeCenzo, Ella Czajkowska, Susan Dobay, Maja Trochimczyk and Bory Thach

Ella Czajkowska

Joe DeCenzo

Bory Thach

Bory Thach


Bory Thach


Joe DeCenzo, Ella Czajkowska, Susan Dobay, Maja Trochimczyk and Bory Thach


We are very grateful to Susan Dobay for her generous hospitality and artistic intuition, selecting and placing the artwork in the gallery. 

Maja Trochimczyk and Susan Dobay with the two books associated 
with the Sky Garden Exhibit, Crystal Fire and Bright Skies.