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Altadena Poetry Review: Anthology 2024
Editor, Peter J. Harris
Contributing Editor, Carla R. Sameth
Cover & Interior Design: Thelma T. Reyna & Kevin Poythress
Introduction by Robin D.G. Kelley, Ph.D.
137 Poets ~ 177 Poems ~ 282 pages
Price: $19.00
Publisher: Golden Foothills Press
http://www.GoldenFoothillsPress.com
ISBN #: 978-1-7372481-2-5
To Order: Amazon
To Order Email: goldenfoothillspress@yahoo.com
ABOUT THE BOOK:
The Altadena Poetry Review Anthology: 2024 may be the best in a long tradition of topnotch anthologies produced by Altadena Poetry Review. Its three sections: “Shared Magic,” “Synergy Portfolio,” and “Ode to the Land,” afford 137 gifted poets plenty of freedom to display their skills. This highly anticipated issue will not disappoint. As with previous anthologies from APR, their latest offers something for everyone.
ADVANCE PRAISE:
“Peter J. Harris has created a wondrous mosaic of new and familiar voices in a collection of poems readers will want never to end.”
–Michael V. Sedano, Ph.D., Co-founder, Editor-in-Chief, Publisher: La Bloga (online)
“There are poems of innocence and experience, loneliness and remembrance, tragedy and joy. Whether formal or free verse, reverent or irreverent, playful, or mournful, they address critical issues for us all.”
–Mary Langer Thompson, Ed.D., Senior Poet Laureate of California, 2012
“A riveting collection of 170+ poems that weave the diverse expectations and perspectives of poets through the prisms of heritage, grief, nature’s rhapsodies, memory, racism, and self-introspection … It mirrors the collective soul of a community bound together by a poetic universal language.”
–Magha Sood, Poet, Editor, Literary Activist
“Editor Peter J. Harris demonstrates a keen literary eye in his choices of poems for this anthology … to bear witness to examinations of the human heart,” the human condition.”
–Michael Escoubas, Editor and Book Reviewer, Quill and Parchment (online)
ABOUT THE EDITOR:
Peter J. Harris is Co-Poet Laureate (2022-2024) of Altadena, CA, and Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow (2023-2024). In 2015, his book of poetry, Bless the Ashes, won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and his book of personal essays, The Black Man of Happiness: In Pursuit of My ‘Unalienable Right,’ won the American Book Award. Harris is the author of five books and writes the blog WREAKING HAPPINESS: A Joyful Living Journal.
FROM THE BOOK:
Everything I Had was Blue
by Sharmagne Leland-St. John
the cotton dress I wore that day
the sapphire sky
the train upon which I arrived
the river flowing past our little town
the periwinkles in the window box
my eyes, my mood, my muse
the curling smoke from your cigar
the willow plates upon the cupboard shelves
the hydrangea soap I used to bathe myself
the veins on the back of my own hand
the notes I sang
somewhat out of tune
everything I had was blue
the taper’s flame
the ink inside my pen
my socks and shoes
the night
my rose tattoo
the lacy camisole that slipped
drifted off my shoulders
toward the floor
but did not fall
the moon
the Picasso print hanging on the bedroom wall
everything I had was blue
even the notepaper
upon which you wrote the words:
“I love you” and “Goodbye”
Originally published in the online journal, Quill and Parchment, February 2018.
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