December Publication Roundup

The WWS members included in this post published their work in amazing places during the month of December. I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available) or a blurb (if available) if the publication is a book, along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.

Please join me in celebrating our members who published in December!

Congratulations to Maylin Tu, whose article “Skid Row’s toilet crisis: how a basic necessity became a political battle” appeared in the Guardian.

The sun is rising over Skid Row as a crane slowly lifts a shiny, two-unit toilet from the back of a truck and on to the sidewalk. The new bathroom – rectangular and off-white with a ventilated roof – is replacing another unit that has stood on this corner for over 15 years.

The upgrade is a hopeful moment. But for the more than 4,400 unhoused people who call Skid Row home, finding a bathroom remains a daily trial.

Residents must make do with a patchwork of public bathrooms and porta-potties that are operated by overlapping municipal programs, shelters and non-profit groups. The challenge is compounded by the fact that many toilets are shut down overnight. Five years ago, a report called No Place to Go found that Skid Row had just nine public toilets available at night for about 1,800 people then living there – 80 toilets short of the UN standard for a refugee camp.

Congrats also to Laura Sturza, whose article “Does Anyone Out There Still Handwrite Their Holiday Cards?” appeared in The Ethel from AARP.

My then-single mom won a trip to Europe aboard an ocean liner in the late 1940s. And while I’ve seen a photo of her from that trip, all glammed out with a handsome man — not my father —beside her, she swears she was only flirting. Her proof is in the handwritten cards and letters that she and my dad, the man she would marry, exchanged while she played heartbreaker with the other guys. It’s 70 years later, and she still delights in rifling through the missives she and her future husband swapped.

As we rev up for the holiday season, I propose celebrating with memorable, personalized notes that recipients will know are meant just for them. Senders can include a question about a grandma about to turn 100, or congrats on new grandchildren. What about those who relish chronicling the year’s highlights with a printed, two-page recap of what everyone in the family has been doing? They could maintain the tradition — and please shorten the recap to a page at most — with a handwritten, personalized embellishment for each recipient.

Congrats to Audrey Harris, whose essay, “This is L.A.,” appeared in the book Jose Dávila: Sense of Place, published by LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division), 2022.

Here’s an excerpt from Carla‘s poem “My Wife Who Became My Husband:”

He has begun to sound more mannish,
as if we were in an old-time movie,
maybe “My Fair Lady”— he’s as grumpy as Professor Higgens.
I’m not saying he wasn’t a curmudgeon before
but the first days after his top surgery, it was as if
he’d awoken in his real body, without breasts
being referred to as “he” and “my Husband”—
the latter a shock. And I was moved by his happiness
as if he’d finally landed on the right planet. But then,
I suppose the anesthesia and pain pills wore off
and as often happens with these things, there was
a downward movement as if the plane
went into a tailspin. He has no regrets but perhaps some
resentment that he couldn’t have been born
into the right body the first time around. After
that I couldn’t seem to locate the euphoria,
the sweetness of those early post-surgery days
when I could tend to him, and I felt even with his pain
he looked upon it all with wonderment,
as if he’d tunneled out the birth canal again, the right gender.

Here’s an excerpt from Carla‘s poem “Sashay:”

We do a short walk this time,
across Belvedere and back
in our Northwest Pasadena neighborhood.
I want to walk miles
but my hurting hips say otherwise
feeling as if Shakira were here
singing “my hips don’t lie”
only mine are not swinging
like hers. I wish Dakota
our Saint Bernard would teach
me how to sashay, move her
hips so sexy and gracefully,
big and beautiful that girl.
She lives for sniffing
and finding people, Milo says.

Congratulations to Tanya Ko Hong, whose poem “Mother Tongue” appeared in the anthology Beat Not Beat: An Anthology of California Poets Screwing on the Beat and Post Beat Tradition, edited by edited by Rich Ferguson and published by Eric Morago’s Moon Tide Press.

In addition, Tanya‘s translation of the poem “No Need to Savor Youth” by Na Hyeseok appeared A Collection of Poems.

Her flesh is soft, soft
her skin radiant
her hair silky black
her eyes sparkling, sparkling
her ears astute
her words alive
her frame lean
her manner impulsive
like a sparrow
like a swallow
like a parrot
like a peacock

Congrats also to Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, whose poems “Thinking of Andrés Montoya” and “Love Poem for LA” appeared in Huizache.

Kudos to Carolyn Siegal, whose short story “The Last Jew in Boyle Heights” appeared in the Coachella Review.

My walker catches on the splintered plank floors of the front porch. I push hard and plop into the wicker chair, flattening the cushion Ruthie sewed thirty years ago, sun-faded and fraying. White paint is now grey, and the porch overhang is peeling in strips, brown wood showing through. I am an old man in an old house. A big birthday party at my daughter Sharon’s in the valley this afternoon. She circled the date on the kitchen calendar. What’s there to celebrate? A more sensible person would be dead already. 

Bird chirps are drowned out by the constant whoosh of the freeway, grinding gears of a large delivery truck two blocks away. A bus barrels past, a black plume in its wake. Since Ruthie died, life has shrunk. The porch is as far as I get most days. The ten steps to the sidewalk might as well be Mount Everest. 

A shout out to Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera, whose short story “Visiting Hours” appeared in CALYX: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women.

Congrats to Rosanne Freed, whose poems “Datura,” “Middle Schoolers Today,” “In the middle of war, he’s asking for poems,” and “Can my words dance the tango while California burns?” appeared in Lothlorien Poetry Journal Lothlorien Poetry Journal.

Here’s an excerpt from Rosanne‘s poem “Datura:”

On a hike in Malibu Creek State Park,
the Ranger points to a plant
with large, white, trumpet-like flowers.
This is Datura, aka jimsonweed.
Her flowers emit an erotic scent at dusk
but the leaves have a nasty smell.
Chumash Indians used the leaves
to encourage visions—

before he finishes speaking 
the woman next to me bends down
to rub a leaf…

Here’s an excerpt from Rosanne‘s poem “Middle Schoolers Today:”

Two buses of eleven-year-olds
from a North Hollywood school
for advanced studies, which I soon learn

is a euphemism for an ESL school
with low test scores. I’m one of the hike
leaders—nineteen in my group,

plus their teacher, and ‘dos madres’.
There’s so much to see in a Wildlife Reserve,
I explain. We have a short time together

and there are a lot of you. Don’t talk.
Look and listen. Every tree and flower
has a name. Learn them. Become their friends.

Here’s an excerpt from Rosanne‘s poem “In the middle of war, he’s asking for poems:”

Images on TV—

            women birthing babies
            in unheated basements. In the dark.

            a dog howling next to its family
            lying dead in the street.

            fathers waving to their wives & kids
            departing in the trains.

Ukrainian is a beautiful language.
What form of goodbye do the families
use at the train stations?

Here’s an excerpt from Roseanne‘s poem “Can my words dance the tango while California burns?”

Six fires. The closest seven miles away.
My little dog refuses to go out.

My eyes itch & burn.
I write a line & delete it.

Rhythmic footwork romances the music.
Roses bloom on my patio.

Smoke saturated with fear & grief seeps
inside. Emergency text:

If the winds change direction,
be ready to go at a moment’s notice.

In addition, Roseanne‘s poems “Do You Have a Sitting Room?” and “Where’s the Museum?” appeared in Verse-Virtual.

Here’s an excerpt from Roseanne‘s poem “Do You Have a Sitting Room?”

You could never describe the years
I spent working at the Getty Museum
as boring.

Have you ever seen a credit card
signed in Japanese, Korean or Chinese?
Or seen a driver’s license
from Vladivostok, Kazakhstan or Jakarta?
Or explained to a Japanese speaker
the photo she wants to see is in storage?
Or showed off your Swedish, only to confuse
Goodbye and Hello?

Here’s an excerpt from Roseanne‘s poem “Where’s the Museum?”

Do you work here? said an old lady,
Could you direct me to the Getty Museum?
This is the Getty Museum. I said
from behind my cash register.

Congratulations to Noriko Nakada, whose essay “Night Blooming Jasmine” appeared in Forty Fifty.

At the start of the pandemic, we signed my daughter up for some virtual soccer lessons. After her second-grade homeschool lessons, we wanted her to move and to have someone other than us tell her what to do. Her coach helped her become the master of the ball and encouraged her to work on her chicken leg (weak foot). In short sessions in the front yard, she developed discipline for soccer practice. Around the same time, I planted some night-blooming jasmine in the corner of the yard. It wasn’t in bloom when we planted it, but I was hopeful that this tropical plant would bring the fragrance of Los Angeles to our small plot. The sweet smell of jasmine signals spring. Its pungent, floral perfume cuts through cool mornings and brightens LA’s June gloom. The pretty flowers pop up all over the city, their scent floating on the breezes as bright jacaranda trees bloom. This purple is the color of spring in LA, but jasmine is the scent.

A shout out to Elizabeth Galoozis, whose poem “Nine of Pentacles” appeared in Witness.

now we have
these trees.
not planted by us
but in our care.
well…
your care.
you water them assiduously;
I just sit
on the back patio
with a glass of rum at dusk
under the crescent moon
and watch
with love.

Congrats to Carolina Rivera Escamilla, whose poem “El Mozote 1981” appeared in Espacio.

Abres
             tu puño,
niña de siete años,
             y
            yo, luciérnaga
             dudo en alzar
             el vuelo.

Estrellas parpadeantes
alumbramos tu miedo
perdido
dentro de ese universo
en la penumbra
junto a la oscuridad
             del cantón El Mozote.

Congrats also to Sandy Yang, whose short story “Bounty” appeared in Salt Hill Journal.

Kudos to Jenise Miller, whose essay “Making Christmas cake in Compton” appeared in High Country News.

The sweet, spicy aroma of cinnamon, allspice and rum wafted through the apartment, a hint of goodness to come. The fruitcake appeared once a year in our apartment in Compton during the Christmas Eve festivities my Panamanian family celebrated. As a child, I waited all day for my mother to place the cake at the center of the table, carefully positioned like a star on the Christmas tree. Though she had not made it in years, on the first Christmas after she died, I yearned for that glorious fruitcake.

Preparation usually began months, if not years, before Christmas. Rum and Manischewitz Concord wine remained in our kitchen cabinet solely for the purpose of soaking dried fruit in a one-gallon plastic jar. The jar of fruit sat on top of the refrigerator, the flavors melting into each other, long before the cake’s advent. I knew of no other dish so virtuous that it required such patience.