"Grateful Conversations" in Ventura on April 4, 2019 and 2018 Moonrise Press Bestsellers in 2018

Poets featured in the "Grateful Conversations" anthology can be heard reading their work this week on Thursday, April 4, 2019 at 7:30 pm at the Foster Library in Ventura  (651 E. Main Street, Ventura, CA) in a reading series hosted by Phil Taggart.  Kathi Stafford, Sonya Sabanac, Lois P. Jones, and Ambika Talwar will be there and books will be available as well.

Grateful Conversations: A Poetry Anthology 

Edited by Maja Trochimczyk and Kathi Stafford

Paperback, 280 pp., black/white illustrations, 

  ISBN  978-1-945938-22-1  ($24.80)

Color Paperback, 280 pages with color illustration

  ISBN 978-1-945938-24-5  ($98.00)

E-Book in EPUB format with color illustrations 

 ISBN 978-1-945938-23-8 ($10.00)

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

The ebook with color photos is available from kobo.com

https://www.kobo.com/my/en/ebook/grateful-conversations-a-poetry-anthology

You can read the editors' introduction with the table of contents on Moonrise Press Blog http://moonrisepress.blogspot.com/2018/05/grateful-conversations-poetry-anthology.html 

A sample poems can be found on this blog: 

 https://moonrisepress.blogspot.com/2018/06/sample-poems-from-grateful.html

Kathi Stafford, Susan Rogers, Sonya Sabanac and Lois P. Jones at the anthology reading in Ventura.

MOONRISE PRESS BESTSELLERS IN 2018

Moonrise Press sold 334 books in 2018, with three poetry bestsellers - "Grateful Conversations" in the top position with over 100 copies sold, followed closely by "The Desert Hat" by Ed Rosenthal with over 60 copies, and "Gardens of the Earth: According to Nature" by Margaret Saine, with over 40 copies.  Congratulations to the poets! 

The Desert Hat by Ed Rosenthal

Published in October 2013, in paperback and e-book formats.

ISBN 978-09819693-7-4, paperback, 74 pages, $15.00

ISBN 978-098-19693-9-8, e-book in e-Pub format, 1.2 MB, $10.00

The “poet-broker” Ed Rosenthal was inspired by surviving alone in the Mojave Desert for six and a half days. The lyrical result of his ordeal, "The Desert Hat," consist of 36 poems illustrated with 12 photographs of his hat and Salvation Canyon where he spent most of his time. Rosenthal’s poetry does not recount his experience in detail; it is not replete with maps, photographs, and a day-by-day account of his adventures. Instead, we gain an insight into what it means to be truly lost and found, to survive the strangest of desert nights and return to the heart of the city… with a newly found wisdom and zest for life. With an introduction by Ruth Nolan and photos by Maja Trochimczyk, and Ken and Wendy Sims. For more information visit a post about this book on the Moonrise Press Blog.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Ed Rosenthal’s The Desert Hat not only recounts an incredibly vivid story of survival, but maps out the dangerous journeys of the heart and the imagination in that hallucinatory place between mind and body, between nature and man, between the past and the future. Like poet James Wright, Rosenthal ”goes/ Back to the broken ground” of the self and finds a stranger there trapped in the cosmology of an endless, unpitying desert. As the stark “sun burns holes/ into the sky” the psyche’s true-north compass finds salvation’s shade. Rosenthal climbed out of “the busted monster’s mouth” with a beautiful, moving book.   

     ~ Elena Karina Byrne,  Executive Director of AVK Arts 

In "The Desert Hat," Los Angeles poet/real estate broker Ed Rosenthal presents the mythopoetic journey through his real-life experience of being lost for 6 days in remote canyons of the Mojave Desert's Joshua Tree National Park in September, 2010. "The Desert Hat" delves deeply into the wildest and unpredictable heart of the Mojave into a storied landscape that Rosenthal renders as both recognizable to the reader and also deeply specific to his solitary and unanticipated experience, and in these poems, creates an empathetic and spiritually-affirming desert landscape that resonates within all of our desert hearts.   

~ Ruth Nolan,  Professor of English @ College of the Desert 

Gardens of the Earth by Margaret Saine

Published in September 2018 in BW and color paperback formats, 
as well as an ebook, in E-Pub format. 

ISBN 978-1-945938-25-2 (paperback), $18.00

ISBN 978-1-945938-26-9 (color  paperback), $40.00
ISBN 978-1-9459382-7-6, EBook, $10.00

http://www.lulu.com/shop/margaret-saine/gardens-of-the-earth-according-to-nature/ebook/product-23799469.html

More information: http://moonrisepress.blogspot.com/2018/09/announcing-new-poetry-volume-by.html​.  

"Gardens of the Earth: According to Nature" by Margaret Saine is a poetic exploration of nature tamed and shaped by humans, nature that in turn shapes the gardeners and gives them a purpose, a cause for action, and a reason for reflection.  Saine's inspired trip to the garden includes the seasons, rain and sunlight, multi-colored blossoms, and lots of birds. She shares her delight in gardens and gardening with a host of contemporary poets and friends and the renowned gardeners of the past. The book includes a separate section on trees, and is richly illustrated by Saine's own photographs, with the characteristic interplay of light and shadow, clouds and mists. Certain poems are translated into French, German, and Italian. 

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Gardens, as always in poetry, are pretexts. In this new book, Margaret Saine attempts to reveal to us, simply and purely, their mystery. Nature and poetry are unified in a symbiotic song of life. “Gardens of the Earth” is a peaceful symphony of beauty that pulses with the chords of human existence: the garden as metaphor of our condition of transient beings on this earth.      ~ Eliécer Almaguer

The growing of plants, their enticing being explained by a kind gardener aunt to a lonely girl. Plants, flowers, paragons of life, as recipients and keepers of personal memories. Plants, trees of the world, here seen with the oceans, as giving breath, oxygen, to human beings. And plants, reciprocally breathing the carbon dioxide humans exhale: a true terrestrial symbiosis.       ~ Sibilla De’Salici

When the trees forget /that I am there/ have truly arrived/ in their midst, says Margaret Saine.  And so I felt, reading Saine’s latest book, “Gardens of Earth”, that I had arrived in the midst of poems, as unselfconscious as the trees she inhabits. How does a poet bring a reader into the middle of gardens without becoming precious or mundane?  Saine invites us with her natural rhythm, color and the interweaving of several languages, enveloping us completely in beauty before we know what has happened to us. The poet reminds us that we are spirits, that this garden, as she says, is our entrance into matter, l’entrata in materia. If paintings could be poems or poems paintings, this book would be the avatar.

        ~ Alice Pero, author of “Thawed Stars”, founder of Moonday Reading Series  and Windsong Players Chamber Ensemble


Margaret Saine’s Gardens of the Earth is an exceptional exploration of gardens not only as a small patch of land that bring gardeners peace, but as part of a larger biosphere, connected forever to the larger world. She might start in a plot of land on the earth, but her poetry reaches out to discuss the atmosphere, an encroaching urban world, and life and death itself. Her microcosm explores the macrocosm of this world.

 ~ John Brantingham, Professor of English, Mount San Antonio College

Announcing New Poetry Volume by Margaret Saine, Gardens of the Earth: According to Nature

https://moonrisepress.com/saine---gardens-of-the-earth.html

Moonrise Press is pleased to announce its newest poetry collection, Gardens of the Earth: According to Nature, by Margaret Saine (September 2018).  This exploration of nature tamed and shaped by humans, nature that in turn shapes the gardeners and gives them a purpose, a cause for action, and a reason for reflection.  Saine's trip to the garden includes the seasons, rain and sunlight, and lots of birds. She shares her delight in gardens and gardening with a host of her contemporary poets and friends and the renowned gardeners of the past. The book includes a separate section on trees, and is richly illustrated by Saine's own photographs, with the characteristic interplay of light and shadow, water, clouds and mists.

ISBN 978-1-945938-25-2 (paperback), $18.00
ISBN 978-1-945938-26-9 (color  paperback), $40.00
ISBN 978-1-945938-27-6 (ebook in ePub format)​, in preparation

ABOUT THE POET

Margaret Saine lives in Los Angeles. After a doctorate in French from Yale, she taught Spanish at universities in California and Arizona. She writes poetry, haiku, and short stories in five languages and also translates other poets. Her books are Bodyscapes,Words of Art, Lit Angels (Moonrise Press, 2017), and five haiku chapbooks.

Poetry manuscripts ready for publication include The Five Senses, Reading Your Lips,Words of Winter, and While Alive, as well as Paesaggi che respirano [Breathing Landscapes], to be published in Italy. She has recently completed As You Were Saying, a dialogue with American poet William Carlos Williams.

FROM THE INTRODUCTION BY MARGARET SAINE

ACCORDING TO NATURE


Gardens. All humans love gardens. They exemplify human well-being in nature, a nature made by plants that is evidently joyful and at ease, and eminently pleasing to the eye. My title may be ambiguous to some, those who perceive gardens as cultivated alone, and nature would then be the antithesis.But I want to stress gardens as the synthesis they are, of ambient nature and of human nature.  Gardens represent a nature cultivated and beautified to human tastes, they are nature on a human scale, in a human measure. 

But one learns with regret that gardens don’t last forever. First they grow and are arranged, with large empty spaces still in between small growing plants and trees; then they have their heyday; but soon they may almost imperceptibly fall into neglect and alteration. They may go wild, haywire, go to seed, during one of those long trips one takes, or they may be downright abolished by others, the authority. Bulldozed, paved over.

[...]

My garden is my sky lab, made up of star dust. It is an adventure that does not entirely depend on me, but has its own—always surprising—dynamic. After I set it up, give it the basics, it begins to follow its own rules and laws and continues to surprise me. Each interference by me—ripping out and putting in, weeding, pruning and shaping, coaxing and tying up, lowering and stretching—is minor compared to what looks like the garden’s own will, and which is none other than the interaction of all elements of this ambience according to nature. Including the plants themselves, who affect other plants and the environment, and are affected by them in return.

I like it when my garden does so much better than I had thought, or at least when it does unexpected things, in an intriguing, overall good way. But when the emperor vine or morning glory, which blooms on its white shelf when I wake up, begins winding across the stone path like a snake and crawling over other plants and strangling them, I have to interfere and strangle the strangler, so to speak, limiting her to her place.

I live, we live, on this earth. Flowers are a gift, they seek and elicit beauty in us and from us. Gardens are always “according to nature,” environmental nature as well as human. There are no human beings who don’t like gardens. And all gardens like and welcome humans.  After all, we and the plants are each other’s fondest breath.
                                                                                                            ~ Margaret Saine

ABOUT THIS BOOK

“All humans love gardens.” With this observation Margaret Saine shares her lifetime of poems about plants. The beauty of flowers is what ties us to the earth, here turned into poetry, with our gratitude.
                                                                                                     ~ Agnes Rosenblüth


Gardens, as always in poetry, are pretexts. In this new book, Margaret Saine attempts to reveal to us, simply and purely, their mystery. Nature and poetry are unified in a symbiotic song of life. “Gardens of the Earth” is a peaceful symphony of beauty that pulses with the chords of human existence: the garden as metaphor of our condition of transient beings on this earth.
                                                                                                             ~ Eliécer Almaguer


The growing of plants, their enticing being explained by a kind gardener aunt to a lonely girl. Plants, flowers, paragons of life, as recipients and keepers of personal memories. Plants, trees of the world, here seen with the oceans, as giving breath, oxygen, to human beings. And plants, reciprocally breathing the carbon dioxide humans exhale: a true terrestrial symbiosis.
                                                                                                              ~ Sibilla De’Salici

When the trees forget /that I am there/
I have truly arrived/ in their midst, says Margaret Saine.  And so I felt, reading Saine’s latest book, “Gardens of Earth”, that I had arrived in the midst of poems, as unselfconscious as the trees she inhabits. How does a poet bring a reader into the middle of gardens without becoming precious or mundane?  Saine invites us with her natural rhythm, color and the interweaving of several languages, enveloping us completely in beauty before we know what has happened to us. The poet reminds us that we are spirits, that this garden, as she says, is our entrance into matter, l’entrata in materia. If paintings could be poems or poems paintings, this book would be the avatar.
                                    ~ Alice Pero, author of “Thawed Stars”, founder of Moonday Reading 
                                        Series  and Windsong Players Chamber Ensemble


Margaret Saine’s Gardens of the Earth is an exceptional exploration of gardens not only as a small patch of land that bring gardeners peace, but as part of a larger biosphere, connected forever to the larger world. She might start in a plot of land on the earth, but her poetry reaches out to discuss the atmosphere, an encroaching urban world, and life and death itself. Her microcosm explores the macrocosm of this world.
                                                                                                              ~ John Brantingham

TABLE OF CONTENTS


According to Nature               ix

Garden  3
Playing with Shadows 5
The Bird  7
Midwinter Early Spring 8
Planten un Blomen  9
Cactus  10
Heads or Tail  11
After the Monsoon   12
Dopo il Monson    14
Wind  15
Once Upon a Wind   16
January Rose   18
Garden Borders  19
Carnation  20
Clouds   #1  21
Clouds   #2  22
Clouds   #3  22
Lifetime Guarantee 24
Garden Sketch 25
Forest for the Trees  26
Short Poems 27
Bearded Iris   28
Birds  29
Bird of Paradise 30
Herbstzeitlose~~~Colchicum 32
Philodendron  33
In the Winter Garden  34
Narcissa  36
Narcissus by Caravaggio #2 38
Rose   40
Climbing Rose  42
Peony 43
Black Pansies and Forget-me-nots   44
Transporting the Euphorbia  45
Daylilies Daily  46
Pollination 48
River Voices  49

NINE TREE POEMS 50
Ginko 51
Wind in the Pepper Tree 52
The Fig Tree  53
The Ear Tree 55
Tree as a Book 56
Klimt’s Tree of Life 57
The Tree Outside  58
Tree  59

Amor sacro amor profano   61
In Each of Us 63
Life 64
Rose-Red Flower Woman  65
So Many  67
Random Light Spots of Time: An Almanach   69

About the Poet 77

Saine's previous book published by Moonrise Press was Lit Angeles, described on its website here, and available from lulu.com and from Amazon.com. 

LINKS TO LULU.COM

Paperback, ISBN  978-1-945938-02-3, $15.00

Color Paperback, ISBN 978-1-945938-04-7  , $35.00

EBook, Apple Books, iTunes, Nook, etc., ISBN 978-1-945938-05-4, $10.00

EBOOK ON KOBO: 

https://www.kobo.com/ph/en/ebook/lit-angels

About Saine's Lit Angels, on this blog:

https://moonrisepress.blogspot.com/2017/02/margaret-saines-literary-and-artistic.html

https://moonrisepress.blogspot.com/2017/02/village-poets-feature-margaret-saines.html

And on Village Poets blog: 

http://villagepoets.blogspot.com/2017/01/margaret-saine-features-with-eva.html

Moonrise Press Poets in the News - California Quarterly, Pushcart Nominations, and More

There are lots of news about our very active poets published by Moonrise Press: Beverly M. Collins (author of Mud in Magic), Marlene Hitt (author of Clocks and Water Drops), Margaret Saine (author of Lit Angels), as well as Susan Rogers, Lois P. Jones, Maja Trochimczyk, and Dorothy Skiles (published in Meditations on Divine Names and in  Chopin with Cherries  anthologies). Lets review them in reverse chronological order, starting with the most recent news.  

Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY VOL. 44 No. 1 (SPRING 2018)

The California Quarterly vol. 44 by 1 was edited by Maja Trochimczyk. This volume features almost 60 poets, including Marlene Hitt, Kathabela Wilson, Lois P. Jones, Susan Rogers, and Margaret Saine - all published by Moonrise Press in the past, as well as Deborah P. Kolodji, Madeleine S. Butcher, and William Scott Galasso.  Cover by Abby Diamond - a portrait of a local yucca in a bud, ready to blossom, using her technique of "torn paper mosaic." (Her work can be found on Etsy: AbbyDiamondArt).

Copies of the CQ may be obtained by ordering online at CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety.org , or by mailing a request for a specific​ issue together with a check for $10.00 per copy. Do not forget to name the specific issue you are requesting (this one is 44/1) and submit your order to:  CSPS VP/Membership 2560 Calabria Ct, Dublin, CA 94568. Every poet is invited to join the CSP Society, online or by mail. First fill out the form on the website, then print it and send with payments by mail to: 

CSPS Vice President - Membership, 

2560 Calabria Court, Dublin, California  94568

The editor comments: "When editing this volume first I thought I should have a theme of spring, new life, renewal, then i realized that poets submitted mostly about the fall (what was currently written), so I had to revise my theme into the "cycle of life" - in its physical natural beauty and spiritual depth.  I'm thrilled to have encountered so many new wonderful poets, and to be able to publish the work of talented friends. I used some haiku, including two of mine, as comments on shorter poems, and wrote a new poem to close the issue."

You can find the table of contents of the California Quarterly, Volume 44, Number 1 on Poetry Laurels Blog: http://poetrylaurels.blogspot.com/2018/04/california-poetry-in-california.html

Photo of maples in Warsaw by Maja Trochimczyk

ARBOR COSMICA 

                      ~ for my children

No fear, no hate, not even a mild dislike*—

we leave our heavy burdens, shards of memories

broken, all too broken, at the bottom of crystal stairs

beneath clouds of white camellias, petals swirling

through air like the snow of forgetfulness

Perfect symmetry of blossoms

points the way — up, up, always up

rainbow crystal stairs, revealed

one by one as we ascend — inwards,

outwards — dancing spirals of our DNA

We get to know this place — these depths,

these heights — for once, for all lifetimes

With each step, pure notes resonate

and expand into clear, spacious chords —

the music of the spheres rings out, wave by wave

expanding from our open hearts

Each chord — harmonious, different —

each melody in this vast symphony

sweetly twines around another, and another

until all are One Song, One Wisdom —

of stem and flower, of leaf and root

in this Cosmic Tree of humanity

Arbor Cosmica —

We have been here

all along without knowing

(c) 2018 by Maja Trochimczyk

Photo of a maple in Warsaw by Maja Trochimczyk

DOROTHY SKILES AND SUSAN ROGERS NOMINATED FOR PUSHCART PRIZE

The editors of the 2017 issue of the Altadena Poetry Review nominated Dorothy Skiles and Susan Rogers for the highly regarded Pushcart Poetry Prize. The full list of nominees included:  Thelma T. Reyna, Cathi Sandstrom, Dorothy Skiles, David Slavin and Alicia Elkort. Nominations for this prize are submitted by editors of poetry books and journals who can present up to six names/six poems for recognition from the year of publications. On April 16 at 7 pm you can listen to their poems at the Altadena Public Library.  

Meanwhile, the same and other local poets will have their work published in the Altadena Poetry Review 2018, the cover is above and the reading will be on April 29, 2018.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE ANTHOLOGY PRESENTS MOONRISE PRESS POETS

Ami Kaye of Glass Lyre Press edited another wonderful anthology, entitled Collateral Damage. In her words: "the mission of the Collateral Damage project is to raise funds and greater awareness about children with basic survival needs, for programs that protect and educate children and foster child advocacy. This book will highlight children traumatized by school shootings and gun violence, children who are abused and exploited, and those caught in the crossfire of wars and political strife. .. As current custodians of this world we need to protect the future: our children. If we work together we can harness the strength to speak up for those not allowed a voice; turning away is not an option anymore."  The cover is by Tracy McQueen and the poets include: Ambika Talwar, Kathabela Wilson, Martin Willitts, Jr., and Maja Trochimczyk. Their work appeared in Chopin with Cherries Anthology in 2010. 

MAJA TROCHIMCZYK'S INTERVIEWS IN EUROPE

Photo by Arturas Morozovas from Delfi magazine, Lithuania.

Earlier in the spring, Maja Trochimczyk had the pleasure of talking about her immigrant experience, family war-time traumas, and life in general to two journalists from Europe. Polish-Lithuanian journalist Witold Janczys wrote a story based on her interview for a Lithuanian publication, Delfi, the largest portal in Baltic countries. Polish music journalist and broadcaster Ewa Szczecinska from the Polish Radio recorded an interview to be broadcast in installments - the series has just began - in Polish  Here are the links, and a photo from the Lithuanian publication - translated from Polish into Russian!

 https://www.delfi.lt/multimedija/u-nas-i-amerikie/u-nas-v-amerike-ceny-tozhe-rastut-no-i-zarplaty-uvelichivayutsya.d?id=77319547

https://www.polskieradio.pl/8/380/Artykul/2082339,Maja-Trochimczyk-Zycie-pomiedzy-Polska-a-USA

BEVERLY M. COLLINS CELEBRATES THE BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Beverly M. Collins and Maja Trochimczyk at Phoenix House Venice with their books.

On Saturday, February 24, 2018, eminent poet Beverly M. Collins visited Phoenix House Venice residential treatment program for adult men to celebrate Black History Month with poetry.  An accomplished, prize-winning author of two books and hundreds of poems published in a variety of journals, Beverly read her poems and discussed their inspirations. Some of her witty and wise verse has been collected in two books Mud in Magic (Moonrise Press, 2015) and Quiet Observations (2006).

Beverly M. Collins with her 2015 book Mud in Magic

Beverly was joined in the reading by Maja Trochimczyk (poet and Senior Director of Planning at Phoenix House who organized the event) and two patients from the treatment program who read excerpts of their excellent work in progress. The audience of nearly 50 men was very attentive and interested. The afternoon ended with the listeners using one word to describe what they love the most in life: family, sports, art, sunsets, etc... At the end of a poetic afternoon, Beverly and Maja donated books of poetry to Phoenix House.

http://poetrylaurels.blogspot.com/2018/02/black-history-month-at-phoenix-house.html

Meanwhile, Maja Trochimczyk wrote and posted for everyone spring holiday wishes, for all ways of celebrating the spring, from Easter to Spring Equinox: 

Village Poets Feature Margaret Saine's Lit Angels on February 26, 2017

The first reading from Margaret Saine's newest book, Lit Angels, published by Moonrise Press in February 2016 will take place on the Oscar Sunday, February 26, 2017 at 4:3O p.m. Saine was invited to be the  Featured Poet at the Monthly Village Poets Reading for the month of February 2017. She will be accompanied on the classical guitar by Eva Zmijewska. 

The Village Poets Monthly Readings present poets and musicians of note, since 2010 over 60 poets have read their work. The reading on Sunday will take place at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga (10110 Commerce Ave. Tujunga, CA 91042) and will include two segments of open mike and refreshments.  You can read more about this reading and other poets featured at Bolton Hall Museum on the Village Poets Blog. 

MARGARET SAINE

Margaret Saine lives in Los Angeles. After a doctorate in French from Yale, she taught Spanish at universities in California and Arizona. She writes poetry, haiku, and short stories in five languages and also translates other poets. Her books are “Bodyscapes,” “Words of Art,” and 5 haiku chapbooks. Poetry mss. ready for publication are “The Five Senses,” “Reading Your Lips," "Words of Winter," and "While Alive," as well as “Paesaggi che respirano” [Breathing Landscapes], to be published in Italy. She has recently completed “As You Were Saying,” a dialogue with American poet William Carlos Williams.

Lit Angels (=Literature Angels ~ Angels of Light) is a collection of poetry inspired by literature and the arts. Written in English, the volume includes several translations into German, Arabic, French and Italian.


The Tree Outside


Above the window sill
the minuscule stippled leaves
dance in the breeze

Mulberry trunk
cut by the window sill 
as if as if—

By inner eye we know 
the tree to be intact

Trunk reaches down to roots
where the atoms come from
roots and trunk 
spread into sky
rhizomes breathing 
the vital breath 
that sustains us

(c) by Margaret Saine, from Lit Angels

Lit Angels by Margaret Saine 

96 pages (xiv + 82 pages), illustrated with 14 photographs by Saine

Moonrise Press, February 2017

Distributed by Lulu.com, soon on Amazon and other online sites.

Paperback, ISBN  978-1-945938-02-3, $15.00

Color Paperback, ISBN 978-1-945938-04-7  , $35.00

EBook, for  iTunes, Nook, etc., ISBN 978-1-945938-05-4, $10.00

ABOUT LIT ANGELS

This book is Margaret's elegant, wise, and worldly oeuvre - a distilled reflection of her sagesse and sophistication. Enjoy it!

~ Mani Suri


Like her photography, Ute’s poems breathe movement, shadow and light that immediately transports the reader to the experience of moving within the social fabric of her woven words.

~ Virginia Jasmin Pasalo, poet, editor of "The Tree Anthology," Manila, the Philippines 



The poetics of Margaret Saine is a pleasant flight, ranging back and forth between sigifiers and the signified, giudiciously exploring art and nature. Each element is endowed with meaning, connecting it with human presence and human feeling. Under the poet’s gaze, a movement in time occurs that returns it to us, it tells us of other voices who are leaving traces in personal and universal history. An interesting, marvelous exchange occurs between the forms of being and their most profound abode, like a window to the sun, opening and smiling at us.

~ Rita Stanzione, poet and science instructor, Salerno, Italy

Right after the reading all guests and poets are invited to the Back Door Bakery and Cafe for the Artist's Reception celebrating "Rose of Roses" photography exhibition by Maja Trochimczyk - during the Oscar Night at the Cafe...Read more about the exhibition

on the Poetry Laurels Blog. Two other events for the exhibition include: An Evening of Poetry and Roses (St. Valentine's Day), and Shandy & Eva among the Roses on February 25, 2017 at 7:30 p.m.

http://villagepoets.blogspot.com/2017/01/margaret-saine-features-with-eva.html