Books published by Moonrise Press

This anthology with work by over 80 American poets celebrates the tenth anniversary of Village Poets Monthly Readings, held since 2010 at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, California - a Historical Landmark in the City of Los Angeles. The Village Poets have also held events at the McGroarty Arts Center, the former home of the California Poet-Laureate in 1933-1944, John Steven McGroarty. His Poet-Laureate role inspired the local Poet-Laureate program, initiated in 1999. The anthology's editors are both former Poets-Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga: Marlene Hitt was the First, in 1999-2001 and Dr. Maja Trochimczyk served as the Sixth in 2010-2012 when the readings were initiated. The book consists of two parts: Guests and Featured Poets, represented by 1-3 poems each; and Poets-Laureate, with 10 poets, represented by 6-9 poems each. A list of Village Poets Readings, a brief history of the program, and biographies of the poets are included.

This volume gathers interviews with and studies of the music of Henryk Miko¿aj Górecki (1933-2010). Interviews span his career (1962-2008) and studies are by Górecki scholars from Poland, the U.K., the U.S., and Australia. Chapters highlight three symphonies: the Second Copernican (Kiwäa), the Third Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (Trochimczyk) and the Fourth Tansman Episodes (Wendland). Two studies by eminent scholar and Górecki's personal friend, Prof. Teresa Malecka present his links to tradition and his piano music. The volume also includes an overview of Górecki's career, list of works, music examples, portraits, photographs, and a bibliography. Maja Trochimczyk, Ph.D., is a music historian, poet, photographer, and non-profit director born in Poland and living in California (www.trochimczyk.net). Her work on Górecki was previously published in the Musical Quarterly, the Polish Music Journal, and Organized Sound. She published six books on music, six volumes of poetry, and hundreds of articles and poems.

During the summer of 1934, two Polish amateur-pilots, Joe (Józef) and Ben (Boles¿aw) Adamowicz, who immigrated to the US more than twenty years earlier, flew over the Atlantic on a single-engine plane Bellanca. Their trip took them from New York to Warsaw; they were the first Poles to do so. They became instant celebrities, favorites of the journalists, photographers, and the public on both sides of the Atlantic. Alas, their triumph was short-lived, followed by a fall from grace, to imprisonment and bankruptcy. This richly illustrated book brings to life their forgotten story. Written by a historian, journalist and educator Zofia Reklewska-Braun and director, writer, scholar, and author of over 50 books, Dr. Kazimierz Braun, this book was originally published in Poland in 2011.

"Clocks and Water Drops" is the first full-length collection of poetry by Marlene Hitt, the first Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga, a former Director at the Bolton Hall Museum, a local historian, poet, and community activist. The book of reflections about her life, family and neighborhood changing through the decades, includes 73 poems in sections dedicated to: 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. Poet Jack Cooper praises Hitt's "astute and thoughtful voice" while Kath Abela Wilson admires her "confident and consistent phrasing, and exacting vision."