Showing posts with label Village Poets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Village Poets. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Ella Czajkowska presents Alchemy of Words at Monthly Reading of Village Poets in Tujunga

On June 22, 2025, Ella Czajkowska presented "Alchemy of Words" at Monthly Reading of Village Poets at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga. In her introduction of the featured poet, Maja Trochimczyk cited the following about the poet and the book. 

"Her love of creative writing was born in high school, where she started writing poetry and short stories. In 2015, Ella started to write poetry in both Polish and English, and from 2017 she writes only in English. Her book of Polish language poetry, entitled “Tam, gdzie umierają marzenia”, was published in Rzeszów by Sowello in 2019. Her English-language poems appeared in the California Quarterly and the Crystal Fire anthology (Moonrise Press, 2022). She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2022 by the California State Poetry Society for her poem The Calling.

  

"Ella worked for many years as Public Relations (PR) Manager for the EWELINEB brand. She has produced music and PR materials for fashion shows at the Fashion Week in New York, London, and Amsterdam, among others. Ella’s other great passion and inspiration in life is music. Surrounded by it her whole life, with both her father and mother having graduated from prestigious music schools, there was always a great respect for art and culture in her family home. All throughout her childhood she would be taken to theaters and opera houses, where her love for opera, ballet, and classical music ever grew. A graduate of two music schools, Ella learned to play piano, clarinet, and percussion—piano remains her favorite instrument to this day. A true Renaissance person with a wide range of interests, talents, and knowledge, she was born in Warsaw, Poland and lives in Los Angeles, California."


Roza Yoder, Beata Czajkowska, E. Czajkowska, Maja Trochimczyk, June 22, 2025

The Alchemy of Words is the first English-language poetry book of Ella Czajkowska who previously published a book of poems in Polish. These 70 poems deal with themes of nature, divinity, human emotions, existential contemplation and the complexities of life. The poems explore the beauty and terror of natural world, the fleeting nature of joy, the struggles of existence, and the interplay of love and hate. Through vivid imagery and entrancing verse, the poems evoke a sense of wonder and introspection. They invite readers to an adventure of  exploring human experience, reflecting upon the intricacies of life and the power of language and art. 



"Elzbieta's poems electrify, like touching a spark to gunpowder, seeing a starless sky explode in a blaze of colors. Exciting. Original. Thought provoking. Inspiring." ~ Marek Probosz, actor, director, and writer. "Ella Czajkowska ushers a voice of sublime sincerity into our increasingly outlandish human realm." ~ Piotr D. Siemion, Ph.D., Author and Essayist.

The Sublime Senses 

               Until the heart stops it desires.

               Until the mind stills it aspires;

 

                Until the senses take 

                their leave they deceive—

                such dreams they weave...




The Calling

 

Take my hand, we shall drink golden starlight 


from the brass chalice of curiosity,


adorn our hair with stars’ glittering light. 


We shall clothe ourselves in silver moonlight 


and blush our faces with sunlight’s kiss,


and dance through the dust of time unmeasured, 


whirl till we are dizzy with awe 


and drunk on the songs of the universe.


 I have not truly known freedom until 

I have shaken off the chains of attachments

to this world, this low-land

—of biological, mechanical, electric—

of static, of moving, till I felt the seductive

beckoning of the ephemeral,

the limitless melody of cosmos.

 

I measure myself in dawns and twilights, 

in inhales and exhales, breathless moments, 

in dreams and daydreams and nightmares

as I unravel into blooming.

I am a flower floating eternally,

a soundless drifting in space on waves

of the darkly enchanting oceans, 

nebulae of purples and pinks.

 

And I dare you to not heed my calling, 

and I dare you to resist the pulling, 

the fire, the resonance in the bones

which leaves the traitorous flesh a-trembling.

And I hail to you: Come! We shall walk down, 

down to the center, down to the core,

down to the end of all, down till it’s up, 

until it becomes the beginning.


Joe DeCenzo, Ella Czajkowska, Susan Dobay, Maja Trochimczyk, Bory Thach at reading from "Crystal Fire" anthology at Scenic Drive Gallery, Monrovia, 2022.

All You

 Breathe in, breathe out. Let it go, let it flow.


Let it seep out like water through fingers,


Like sand—drop after drop, grain after grain. 


Empty out all the filth, discard the trash—

There is no use for useless and no worth to worthless,


No sense in senseless, no purpose to purposeless.


There is a song to be found in silence,


Peace—in motionlessness wrapped in chaos. 


Seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting


The moment—a breathless wealth of endlessness 


Hidden in a second, an age of blissful now.


Freedom is found in a mind unburdened from want,


From expectations, desires and needs, and thus from fear— 


Of losing, of needing more, and not receiving enough.

 


You are the grain of sand in a desert dune— 


A drop of water in infinite ocean—


You are the breath, the design, the universe.

 

Not everything is about you— Everything is about you—

 

‘I create myself’







Sunday, August 20, 2023

Two Moonrise Press Authors at Village Poets Reading at Bolton Hall, August 27 and September 24


 Two of Moonrise Press authors will be featured at upcoming Village Poets Monthly Readings held on Sundays at 4:30 pm at at  Bolton Hall Museum, located at 10110 Commerce Ave, Tujunga, Los Angeles, CA 91042-2313. Beverly M. Collins will read her work on Sunday,  August 27, 2023, at 4:30pm Suggested donation $5 per person for the cost of refreshments and to donate to the Little Landers Society that manages the Bolton Hall Museum, a Los Angeles Historical Landmark built in 1913.


Beverly M. Collins is one of 3 Winners in the Wilda Morris June 2021 Poetry Challenge (Chicago), a 2019 Naji Naaman Literary Prize in Creativity (Lebanon). Collins is also a prize winner for the California State Poetry Society, twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize and short listed for the Pangolin Review Poetry Prize (Mauritius). Her photography can be found on the cover of Peeking Cat 40 (UK), displayed online by The Academy of the Heart and Mind, printed on Fine Art America products, iStock/Getty Images, Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, Spectrum, and others.  Website: https://beverlym-collins.pixels.com   www.facebook.com/bevelymcollinsnow Instagram@beverlymcollinsartist

Her book Mud in Magic was published in July 2015:


Beverly M. Collins’s "Mud in Magic" is her second poetry book, filled with the wisdom of experience, Her skillful and often aphoristic or narrative poems portray a scene or a character that we could encounter on our streets, in our cafes. The poems are organized into three parts: Thought Bistro (Part I), Tinder Flames (Part II), and Elixir Café (Part III). The beauty and wonder of daily life fill these pages and delight the readers.

Marlene Hitt's second full-size poetry volume, Yellow Tree Alone. Selected Poems will be featured during the Village Poets reading on Sunday, 24 September 2023 at 4:30 pm.  Written between 1998 and 2022, these 129 poems bring together the fruit of a lifetime of wisdom and creativity.  The title is borrowed from the last poem in the book, a description of a bright yellow tree, lonely in a vast empty field - a symbol of the loneliness of the poet, often misunderstood by those around her. It is a universal condition of every poet, every creative and inspired soul that reaches beyond the mundane, beyond their immediate surroundings, transmuting the chaff of experience into the gold of words.  Marlene Hitt's poetry perfectly exemplifies this alchemy of creative craft.

182 pages (xviii pp. prefatory matter, and 164 pp.); 6 in x 9 in. 

ISBN 978-1-945938-34-4, paperback, $22.00 plus S & H 

ISBN 978-1-945938-35-1, ebook, ePub format, $10.00

Cover photo by Karen Winters, cover design by Maja Trochimczyk


Yellow Tree Alone

 

Yellow tree

Stands glowing

In sideways light

Regal and glorious

Her beauty

Her message

For life’s meaning

Wasted

With no one

To see that golden

Radiance

She sings

To no one

Who’d hear her

But the Sun, Ra

The Giver of Gold



ABOUT MARLENE HITT

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. Her critically-acclaimed first poetry collection Clocks and Water Drops was published by Moonrise Press in 2015. In addition to publishing numerous poetry chapbooks, she has authored a non- fiction book Sunland-Tujunga, from Village to City. Her poems appeared in Psychopoetica (UK), Chupa Rosa Diaries of the Chupa Rosa Writers, Sunland (2001-2003), Glendale College’s Eclipse anthologies, CSPS California Quarterly and Poetry Letter; three Moonrise Press anthologies (Chopin with Cherries, 2010; Meditations on Divine Names, 2012; and We Are Here: Village Poets Anthology that she co-edited in 2020 with Maja Trochimczyk). 

Most recently she was one of 12 poets invited to contribute to Crystal Fire. Poems of Joy and Wisdom (2022). Her work appears in Sometimes in the Open, a collection of verse by California Poets Laureate, and The Coiled Serpent, anthology of Los Angeles poets, edited by Luis Rodriguez (2016). She served at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga as Museum Director and docent for many years. Ms. Hitt was the history writer for the Foothill Leader, Glendale News Press, North Valley Reporter, and Voice of the Village newspapers. She has been honored as the Woman of Achievement by the Business and Professional Women's Club, Woman of the Year by the U.S. Congress, and many congratulatory scrolls by the City and County of Los Angeles, and the State of California. In 2019, Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga presented to Marlene and her husband Lloyd, a Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing their support of poetry in the Foothills.




Friday, August 2, 2019

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)


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)




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.