Call for Submissions to Village Poets Anthology, Due January 31, 2020

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Village Poets Monthly Poetry Readings at Bolton Hall Museum, in Tujunga, CA, Moonrise Press will issue an anthology of Featured Poets and frequent guests sustaining the VP Readings over the past decade, 2010-2020. Edited by Marlene Hitt and Maja Trochimczyk, the anthology will provide a portrait of our poets and documentation of our readings. It will be published in paperback and ePub e-book formats, distributed by Barnes & Noble, Amazon and other booksellers, as well as via Moonrise Press.

Each featured poet is invited to submit 1-3 poems (fitting on up to two page 6X9, standard trade book size), a brief biography (150 words), and a portrait. A favorite photo from the readings is also welcome.  Guests who frequently read their work during the monthly events are also invited to submit their work. The poems may be previously published, if they are a favorite of their authors.

To submit, send an email to Maja Trochimczyk, maja@moonrisepress.com, with the subject: “VP Anthology Submission – Name” by January 31, 2020. The attached one Word file must include name, address, email, phone number of the poet, with brief bio and poems in Book Antiqua font, size 11. Photo, resolution 300 dpi should be the second attachment. The anthology will be published by June 2020 and celebrated in a group reading at Bolton Hall Museum. Poets will receive the anthology in PDF and eBook formats and will be able to purchase the paperbacks at 50% of retail price.

More information will be posted on our blog: villagepoets.blogspot.com

ABOUT VILLAGE POETS: Village Poets of Sunland Tujunga is a group of former Poets Laureate of Sunland Tujunga (L to R: Elsa Frausto, Dorothy Skiles, Marlene Hitt, Joe DeCenzo, Pamela Shea, and Maja Trochimczyk). They organize poetry readings in their beautiful foothill community, write poetry, and publish books, making sure that poetry life is rich and vibrant in the foothills. Every two years, Village Poets organize a competition for the Poet-Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga (currently serving: Pamela Shea). Another continuing project is the Village Poets Monthly Reading at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, CA. Visit: www.villagepoets.com   www.moonrisepress.com.

MARLENE HITT was the first Poet Laureate of Sunland Tujunga (1999-2001). She has been a member of the Chupa Rosa Writers of Sunland-Tujunga and the Foothills since its inception in 1985. In addition to numerous poetry chapbooks, anthologies and readings, she has authored a non-fiction book Sunland-Tujunga, from Village to City. She serves at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga as Museum Director and docent. In addition to her poetry activities, she has served as history writer for the Foothill Leader, Glendale News Press, North Valley Reporter, and Voice of the Village newspapers, as well as the Shadow Hills Property Owners Association newsletter. She has been honored as the Woman of Achievement by the Business and Professional Women's Club. She lives happily ever after with her husband Lloyd and an outdoor cat named Lautrémont.  Her poetry collection Clocks and Water Drops was published by Moonrise Press in 2015.

DR. MAJA TROCHIMCZYK, the sixth Poet Laureate of Sunland Tujunga (2010-2012), is a poet, music historian, photographer, and non-profit director born in Poland and living in California (www.trochimczyk.net). She selects and invites poets to feature at the Village Poets series  - the final approval is made by the whole group. She published seven books on music, five volumes of poetry, and three anthologies (Chopin with Cherries, Meditations on Divine Names and Grateful Conversations). Hundreds of her articles and poems appeared in English, Polish, as well as in German, French, Chinese, Spanish and Serbian translations. The venues for her poetry included: Altadena Poetry Review, Loch Raven Review, Epiphany Magazine, Lily Review, Ekphrasis Journal, Quill and Parchment, Magnapoets, The Cosmopolitan Review, The Scream Online, The Original Van Gogh’s Ear Anthology, Lummox Journal, Phantom Seed, Spectrum, Poezja Dzisiaj, OccuPoetry, as well as anthologies published by Poets on Site, Southern California Haiku Study Group, and others.

She taught music history at McGill University and USC. Trochimczyk presented papers at over 90 national and international conferences in Poland, France, Germany, Hungary, U.K., Canada, and the U.S. She received awards and fellowships from ACLS, SSHRCC, USC, McGill University, MPE Fraternity, Polish American Historical Association, City and County of Los Angeles, and Poland’s Ministry of Culture. The Senior Director of Planning at Phoenix Houses of California, President of California State Poetry Society, President of Helena Modjeska Art and Culture Club, Trochimczyk also serves as Communications Director and Board Secretary for the Polish American Historical Association.  She is the owner of Moonrise Press and maintains several blogs: poetrylaurels, chopinwithcherries, moonrisepress, PAHAnews, californiastatepoetrysociety.com, and this one – all on blogspot.com.

Marlene & Lloyd Hitt, Moonrise Press Authors, Receive a Lifetime Achievement Award

Marlene and Lloyd Hitt with Village Poets. Photo Emil "Gene" Schulz Jr.

The Lifetime Achievement Award, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

On July 28, 2019, at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, Village Poets presented its "Lifetime Achievement Award" to Dr. Lloyd Hitt and Marlene Hitt during a crowded poetry reading, MC-ed by poet Joe DeCenzo, and filled with loving tributes and gifts to the wonderful couple, retiring from their active duties as members of Village Poets, an organization that they co-founded in 2010 with Dorothy Skiles, Joe DeCenzo and Maja Trochimczyk.

Photo Emil "Gene" Schulz Jr.

The covers of Marlene's Hitt books and anthologies that included her work were portrayed on the large banner from her Independence Day Parade ride, an old pick up truck. It served as the centerpiece for the ceremony.

Photo by Emil "Gene" Schulz Jr.

Marlene read an excellent selection of her poems, selected to serve as a counterbalance to poems by her husband Lloyd, read  later by Joe DeCenzo.  Many of these poems were never published, though some came from her 2015 book, Clocks and Water Drops (Moonrise Press).   After a joint reading of a poem "The Remembering" with Joe DeCenzo, who represented the voice of Lloyd, he remained on the stage to present Lloyd's own poetry. 

Marlene and Joe DeCenzo read "The Remembering." Photo by Maja Trochimczyk 

THE REMEMBERING

She says she remembers
the dark meat of grouse
chunky with bites of buckshot,
cabbage fried in bacon grease,
one pot of potatoes for eleven children.

He says he remembers
sugared tomatoes stewed in the warm kitchen,
flour-and-milk pudding on a snowy day
with brown sugar and nutmeg.
The days they salted the pork.

She remembers
the root cellar full of salamanders,
chickens and peas and jams in jars,
muddy prints on the scrubbed floor,
hot water on the side of the stove.

He remembers
digging the well. Twilight harvests.
Piling manure on the side of the house,
ferrets in the henhouse,
the cow that nearly gored his mother.

She remembers
the one tin dipper in the wooden water bucket,
the babies coming one after the other,
the grandmother, the hired hands,
Sunday dinners, so many pies.

He says he remembers
the day they brought the Rumley home,
the joy of an easier days’ work,
the calving, the horse with colic,
the Northern Lights.

She says she remembers the story
of her father coming home
over unmarked prairie,
the horses leading through blizzard,
the dot of lamplight in the frosted window.

He remembers the story
of the day a mother loaned blankets
to fevered, trail-weary men.
In a month children died,
throats closed, breath trapped inside.

She remembers
her first sight of the city
the day after they eloped,
the room they stayed in,
the frame garage that became their home.

He remembers
the job that took him from her,
the full, sweet moments of coming home,
their small corner drug store,
built together. The children.

They say they remember
as they hold hands,
speak about the new ways of things,
and of their old world
which has passed away.

(c) Marlene Hitt, from Clocks and Water Drops (2015)

http://moonrisepress.blogspot.com/2015/05/press-release-clocks-and-water-drops-by.html

http://www.lulu.com/shop/marlene-hitt/clocks-and-water-drops/paperback/product-22125602.html

Joe DeCenzo reads, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Joe DeCenzo read an extensive selection of poems from The Earth Time, Lloyd Hitt's first poetry collection, published in 2018 as a surprise Christmas gift from Marlene, and edited by her, with help from Maja Trochimczyk (Moonrise Press, 2018).  Since Lloyd, during Village Poets readings, contented himself with setting and putting away chairs and with reminding the poets not to make a mess, the quality and scope of his poetry surprised and delighted the audience. 

Grandfather Clock

I sip my coffee, the clock chimes six. 

In that slow, honest pensive way, the brass pendulum swings. Stops. 

The early morning sun reflects

when time stands still.

When I was eight, I believed

I could enter that split second,

that time was frozen and I could live forever. 

When I was young

there was so much time. 

When I was fifty,

time was filled with family and work, 

now my children are me.

I watch and remember.

Dad was eighty, wan and bent,

one hand gently pulling the clock chain 

the other cradling the weight 

in white cotton gloves, as if to nurse 

the minutes, that time might

                                                    stand still.

(C) 2018 by Lloyd Hitt, from The Earth Time (Moonrise Press, 2018)

Paperback:  http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-earth-time/23963399

EBook:  http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/the-earth-time/24521745

Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

The Presentation of the "Lifetime Achievement Award" concluded the first half of the proceedings.  On behalf of all Village Poets gathered on the stage Maja Trochimczyk thanked Lloyd and Marlene for establishing the Poet Laureate program and helping organize and manage the monthly Village Poets readings at the Bolton Hall Museum, held since 2010.  

Photo by Emil "Gene" Schulz Jr.

Photo by Kathabela Wilson

Photo by Emil "Gene" Schulz Jr.

The second half of the celebration brought in tributes and thank-yous to Lloyd and Marlene, for their lifetime of efforts to unify, protect, and beautify the community and enrich the literary scene of the foothills.

MAJA TROCHIMCZYK talked about the role of Marlene and Lloyd in the start of the Village Poets and Poet Laureate Program in Sunland-Tujunga. She thanked the  honorees for years of poetic inspiration and community involvement. Instead of reading her own poems, she presented Marlene's "Fifteen Ways of Hearing the Wind Chimes" published in the Chopin with Cherries anthology that Maja edited in 2010  as her own Poet Laureate project, celebrating the 200th birth anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin.

Photo Emil "Gene" Schulz Jr.

Peter Larsen, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk 

Other poets also read Marlene's poetry instead of her own. Village Poets regular member, Peter LARSEN read the wonderful poem "Silence" from Marlene Hitt's  Clocks and Water Drops (Moonrise Press, 2015).

SILENCE

There is something about 
silence...its weight,
the way it inhales,
leaves the room clear 
for thought.
Though quiet is never pure
as all the world knows.
Take away the whirr of fans,
traffic’s drone, 
and leave the sky
clear and quiet. 
Turn the voices off,
quiet the old record.
Sound still creeps in 
with the call of birds,
scrambled scree 
on the hillside,
bees, or a night 
full of crickets. 
Without these, 
the beating sound 
of one’s own heart.
One evening 
we sat moon-bathing, 
listening for nothing. 
But the silence,
so light, so fragile,
just slipped away.

(c) 2015 by Marlene Hitt, from Clocks and Water Drops

Standing room only. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Many poets expressed their gratitude by reading their favorite poems dedicated to the honorees. We heard from Joe DECENZO, Pamela SHEA, Elsa FRAUSTO, Dorothy SKILES, Dr. Mira MATARIC, Alice PERO, Ed ROSENTHAL, Beverly M. COLLINS, John ASKEW, Chris CRESSET, Cile BORMAN and other guests - including artist Cory STEIN and muralist Gerardo BARRIENTOS - that came to congratulate Lloyd and Marlene for their impact on the poetry world and the community. Local activists presented their tributes, gifts and flowers. 

Congratulations and Thank  You, Lloyd and Marlene! 

Village Poets with Lloyd and Marlene Hitt. Photo by Emil "Gene" Schulz Jr.

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.

Announcing "Clocks and Water Drops" - Poetry Book by Marlene Hitt

Cover with photo by Lloyd Hitt

ISBN 978-0-9819693-5-0 , 116 pages.

Moonrise Press is pleased to announce that the next poetry book in our Women Writers series will be by Marlene Hitt, the first Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga, former Museum Director at the Bolton Hall Museum, organizer of readings, community events, editor and author. The book includes 73 poems divided into sections on: Children, Marriages, Portraits, Neighbors, Seasons, Small Things, Passages, and Farewells.  The title captures the poet's fascination with the flow of time, as relentless and powerful as drops of water that can shape rocks and move mountains. 

Marlene Hitt

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.

Marlene Hitt, Photo by Lloyd Hitt

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. 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), and Sometimes in the Open, a collection of verse by California Poets Laureate. She published Sad with Cinnamon, Mint Leaves, and Bent Grass (all in 2001), as well as Riddle in the Rain with Dorothy Skiles, and a stack of chapbooks for friends and family.

Ms. Hitt, elected Woman of Achievement for year 2001, served a Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga in 1999-2001, at the turn of the century. She has published several books on local history, including Sunland-Tujunga From Village to City (Arcadia, 2000, 2005) based on columns written for the Foothill Leader, Glendale News Press, North Valley Reporter, Sentinel, and Voice of the Village newspapers since 1998. Over the years, she taught in elementary school, worked in a pharmacy, chaired committees, tap-danced, and played English handbells, autoharp and ukulele. She dedicates her successes to her husband, Lloyd, her children and grandchildren, her biggest fans.

About this Book

Clocks and Water Drops is a book of treasured gifts packed in memories and reflections as tasty as homemade bread, fanciful as a rose petal salad and healing as warm camphor oil on a child's skin. Marlene Hitts’ astute and thoughtful voice paints a world as gentle as lamb’s wool and precious as a girl’s first pony. Open this cedar chest of poems, don its knitted socks and prepare to chase the moon through love and time.

~ Jack Cooper

Author, Across My Silence

Marlene Hitt is an attentive poet, an inspired poet. She listens to the sounds of the past, disappearing from our electrified, virtually connected lives:  the “plodding of beetles,” the ticking of the grandfather clock, the tapping of rain on a window sill.  She watches shifting hues in the sky and the mesmerized faces of children “glued” to their TVs; she sees how the children still brighten at the sight of a Christmas tree.  Marlene shows her readers what a life well lived could be; she makes poems from family stories, community celebrations, and discoveries in a back alley. She portrays her grandparents and her children, yet she does not forget her neighbors, the homeless, the lost… Clocks and Water Drops, her first full-length poetry collection, is a gift of “small things” – a gift of remembrance and affection, a whimsical and wise offering of carefully calibrated images and reflections.  We are thankful for the talent of Marlene Hitt, the first Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga, a historian of local communities, and a treasure of poetry in the Foothills.

~ Maja Trochimczyk, Ph.D.

President, Moonrise Press

California Poppy. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk 

I Can Hear the Plodding of Beetles

 I have heard of silence

deep enough to hurt the ear,

of quiet strong enough to know

the sound of blood rushing

through one’s own body.

There was once in this valley

quiet enough

to made public a whisper.

Murmured conversation

pushed away miles with silence.

At night, owl called.  Coyote

sang her blessing over a meal. 

From a dusty trail, once,

hooves made rhythm 

for a wagon’s wheels,

a duet that entertained mid day.

The old parson sang

“Lord, I’m Comin’ Home”

and the song was heard

clear to the hills and beyond.

The men, tired, dusty, hot

slept outside on their cots.

Their lullabies-- the cough of a friend

from across the valley, a quiet song

sung in a tent, a murmur..

Years have passed. Since then,

new sounds fill the air. 

Jays still squabble, 

small creatures scurry

breaking branches,

avalanching piles of pebbles. 

 But now, so many years present,

is a deafness from new noise.

Hammers tap duets with hand saw,  

A cement truck

pounds on the ready soil,

covering  the death cry

of the horned spine flower.

Roaring, as relentless as waterfall,

cascades from the freeway.

Big-rigs speed.  Families rush,

the weary hurry to quieter shores.

Over a rocky place

below the asphalt of the 210

empty flatbeds thump,

bounce over that stubborn place

where tough globs of granite

lay miles deep

and three inches too high.

This morning, inside the loudness,

I see a cat’s mouth

meowing a silent cry

that forms from my memory.

Heard only in my mind

is the call of mourning dove

and the sigh of breeze.

In my thoughts

I can hear the plodding of beetles.     

(c) by Marlene Hitt

Italian Pine in Sunland Tujunga, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk