sponsors the 98th ANNUAL SPRING CONTEST (formerly Poets’ Dinner) Open to All Poets Entry Fee: $20
Awards Announcements During Program ON ZOOM Saturday, June 7, 2025, 1 pm to 4 pm Must Attend on Zoom to be Eligible for Awards THEME: INFINITY GUEST SPEAKER: to be determined
Poems must be original, in English, not have appeared online or in any journal or newspaper professionally published and not be previous cash prizewinners (Honorable Mentions OK). Winning poems may be included in a future anthology. 42-line maximum (not including spaces), any form or style. Up to four entries (4) per person; one (1) per category
DEADLINE: April 1, 2025 (POSTMARKED BEFORE MIDNIGHT; NO CERTIFIED OR REGISTERED MAIL)
Type entry on ONE side only of 8 1⁄2 x 11 white paper.
Type category in upper right-hand corner of each page.
DO NOT put your name or any identification ANYWHERE on any entered poem.
Send three (3) clear copies of EACH entry (with no illustrations).
Include a separate page with the following information (typed or legible): Name, Address, Tel no., Email, Title and Category of each poem.
Entry fee of $20 (check) made out to INA COOLBRITH CIRCLE.
AUTHOR MUST ATTEND ON ZOOM TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR AN AWARD. ENTRIES accompanied by ENTRY FEE should be mailed to: Contest Chair Aline Soules, 48 Danville Oak Pl, Danville, CA 94526. Questions? Please contact Aline Soules at soulesa@yahoo.com PRIZES: One POETS’ DINNER GRAND PRIZE: $100 — To be chosen from among the first three prize winners in each category. For each CATEGORY: Three Prizes — $50, $30, $20, plus three Honorable Mentions. Last Year’s Grand Prize Poem, Hermit Thrush, will be read by the author, Deborah Bachels Schmidt
AWARDS PROCEDURE: Winning entries will be announced ONLY on Saturday, June 7 and checked against the master list. If there is NO CLAIM, the prize will go to the next ranked submission. Judges’ decisions are final.
NOTE: The Ina Coolbrith Circle invites all those interested in poetry to its September 20th meeting on Zoom where winners are invited to read their winning poems.
The interview with Michael Poryes turns into a script
“No one ever leaves a star. That’s what makes one a star.” (Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder)
But the idiot who leaves a star, rest assured that a real star will never allow his return, I say.
Here is how my interview with the great Michael Poryes begins.
But it is certainly not a traditional interview. It cannot even be called an interview.
It could be defined as an interesting exchange of experiences, of work and life, where the theme of fame opens many treasure chests, often dramatic.
I therefore “transgressively” skip all the questions that I should have asked the immense screenwriter and filmmaker Michael Poryes and begin to talk about Billy Wilder, his daughter Victoria Wilder, who I met recently, my contact with Gloria Swanson and still on Billy Wilder, for me the number one director in the history of cinema.
An embarrassing statement, however, since Federico Fellini was my mentor.
Michael thinks of Billy Wilder’s films, he can’t remember the title of Wilder’s most theatrical film and asks me.
I : “The most beautiful film on the history of cinema and absolutely the most beautiful film in the history of cinema?” – I answer him – “… is “Sunset Boulevard”.
The film par excellence about fame, the theme of Poryes’ most famous work, the four time Emmy nominated “Hannah Montana”.
Poryes answers me by telling me that Hannah Montana deals with the theme of fame, which instead in “Sunset Boulevard” is fiercely the protagonist.
There is a common aspect between me and Poryes: we are both famous, with the problems of those who are famous and we both try to take fame away from our lives, invaded by fame.
Michael tells me that, coincidentally, his son, yesterday, made him understand how his life can potentially be controlled by his fans, since his information is everywhere on the Internet.
Hannah Montana fans are many and each fan wants to penetrate the life of their star, Michael Poryes, the creator of Hannah Montana!
What do fans really want from their idols? A vast and delicate topic this.
One of the goals of the fans, often linked to unawareness, is to deprive the star of his golden mantle that he shows off on stage, to, in the end, reverse the roles. But how? Just like in: “Les Bonnes” by Jean Genet, where the star is physically killed, his power is killed, his magnetism and seduction is dethroned, to absurdly reinforce his incorporeal icon, which is the only thing that matters to a fan. Atrocious. And this is what happened to me now: someone has penetrated my orbit and attracted by my magnetism towards my core, the “metaphorically” mortal clash is now underway. Who will survive?
At this point Michael talks about Miley Stewart , a teenager who wants to become a pop star. As her success grows, her friends start to look at her differently. And when she, because of her success, moves to Malibu, Miley wants to change everything: she divides her personality between being a star and herself and so creates Hannah Montana. Miley wants to be treated as herself. I reply that this is why I can’t live my life and Michael tells me that you never know if someone is treating you genuinely or treating you to get something from you or they are around you to show off to their friends that they are your friends and never treat you honestly.
Michael tells me that he has had friends since he wasn’t famous and they have never changed with him. And he asks me if it is the same for me. I reply yes, but mine is an unconvincing “yes”, since the energy of the few friends I have is captured by all the others who treat me for my fame.
Michael says that his career has had notable ups and downs, as he assumes mine has also been. Yes, my career has also had moments of glory and moments of oblivion, like the character of Norma Desmond.
And Michael adds that it is very difficult to navigate between people who are your friends, but who are also friends of your fame and people who are just your friends.
All this gets complicated when you are a teenager. You have to understand if your parents use you for the money you produce. I quote Amy Winehouse where the family does not seem interested in Amy, as a human being, but to be interested in her, as long as Amy produces money, so Amy, feeling useful, abuses drugs, to keep up with her shows, and then dies for this and for a love lived in this context. Atrocious. They talk about Lady Gaga and her mother, Sophia Loren and her mother, Cher and her mother. The theme again moves away from Hannah Montana, but the background on fame broadens.
I feel it is right to make known my dramatic relationship with my father, in relation to my fame, obtained, as with Miley Stewart/ Hannah Montana, as a teenager.
My father, a powerful lawyer, destroyed my friendship with Federico Fellini, forbade RAI TV, the Italian state television, from working with them, completely tore me away from my world of entertainment which for me was life, and I, in short, found myself alone, collapsed on the floor of my house in the grip of a powerful depression that isolated me from everything, everyone and even from myself, a depression fueled by my father for years, while Fellini called me for his films and my father tore those vital calls, as oxygen, from my life, because they would have given me back my fame, now in agony like me!
Michael is struck by this dramatic story of mine: because of my fame, my father literally rejected me as a son and punished me for no longer being his son Federico, for having become Wardal! Atrocious.
Only after my father’s death, little by little, without strength and disappointed by everything, I was collected out of pity by a great playwright who imposed me once again on the great stage and when I heard the loud applause of the audience, forgotten due to my long absence, I said to myself, with tears in my eyes, while the curtain fell: “Wardal, listen! You can no longer leave your audience, since it is the only one that loves you and will always love you! Courage, Wardal, you are not guilty of being Wardal! You see, they call you back for the applause! And then, Wardal return to the stage and be Wardal forever! ” .
I was sorry, really, to have vented with the great Michael Poryes, but it was inevitable: the themes of his Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana are so close to mine! Since long ago, now, forever.
Michael comments on how slippery our world of entertainment is, repeating that the anchor for him are true friends that Michael has because he is whole, intact: Michael has never been contaminated by his fame.
That’s why Michael has the same friends as always who have never changed with him, because Michael has never changed. Michael believes in friendship, where fame has no access. Another problem in our entertainment industry is people who want fame without wanting to study, without any preparation that deprives the possibility of believing in something and there is the absence of authenticity since, with my personal experience, I have often seen scripts presented as originals that were instead totally copied from famous scripts, never well read, that were authentic flops.
Another aspect of our entertainment world is that it always requires us to be reborn when we do not feel the need, to renew ourselves when we do not feel the need, to change when we do not feel the need and it takes a continuous “Metamorphosis” to sell, a “product” forced to be born?! A show that I am writing is called “Metamorphosis” and I will share it with Michael, since I know that he is an authentic artist, an authentic person.
A great and current initiative of Poryes is to have rewritten the story of Al Kamilah, immortalized in the non-fiction film: “Al Kamilah the miracle filly” by Angela Alioto directed by Christopher A. Salvador , into a children’s picture book . The story that has fascinated and still fascinates social media is that of a filly for which no one wanted to try anything to save her life and Angela Alioto, on the contrary, trying everything and believing in the miracle, after months and months of dedication and love, saved her life. The book will be released soon illustrated. Poryes believes in believing and, in my opinion, believing only takes place in genuine, honest, authentic beings and that belief can produce miracles.
Michael Poryes, recently becomes very popular also in Italy by Sky TV for his TV series called: “Home, Sweet Rome”, which broadcast by Max an enhanced streaming platform from Warner Bros has obtained in 2024 a huge success also in the USA. “Home, Sweet Rome” is a comedy that has totally interested the Hannah Montana audience, since like Hannah Montana it focuses on the teenager Lucy, played by Kensington Tallman, who changes her life and moves from California to Rome with her father and in with her stepmother, Francesca, who is an Italian pop star! The theme of fame reappears again, but it is less evident and everyone identifies with Lucy, immersed in a new life, in a new culture. Wonderful scenarios of the city of Rome open up with the irresistible glamour of Italian fashion and Roman life that my mentor Fellini immortalized with his most famous film “La dolce vita” and where the air of Fellini remains at the Trevi Fountain, in Via Margutta, at the “Canova” and “Rosati” bars in Piazza del Popolo where I used to go with Fellini and now it seems like I’m having a coffee with Lucy.
I often think about my faith and where it comes from in my life. It’s God’s grace that has been given to me.
We all have a place in God’s heart. I discovered my place at an early age. It was not only the circumstances of the inner city that led me to seek Him. It was something internal. There was a longing to be with Him. This was manifested by my experience of my foster mother Dee always speaking about God and Jesus. I only knew that God existed to me.
Now, 60-plus years later, my seeking is over. God is present in me. He was always there, and His Holy Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Finally, all the decades of knowing that I had been spared. Now, I have devotion to living fully in Him. The world no longer has me captured.
I turned to second Timothy 2-3, which gives me comfort knowing that I’m in Him and not the world of man. There’s a place and confidence of being saved to live in the Lord. Therefore, my faith and devotion have been sealed in my being. Each moment, I turn to Him because it’s always been natural to seek Him, and now I’m with Him here on earth.
May He be given glory for eternity.
To Everyone In My Life
As I reflect on God’s Mercy, there’s great gratitude and comfort, knowing that God’s Presence has always been with me. Now, knowing that my kidney function is declining, dialysis is a gift from God to extend my life. There’s nothing more for me than to be grateful.
I’m experiencing a renewed relationship with Christ Jesus as in childhood. It’s of great comfort to recognize that my purpose is to serve God.
I’m writing this while having treatment. The world is fading, leaving me to experience the greatness of creating. So, it is a blessing to have dialysis because it’s God’s gift of life to live.
I don’t have the strength to volunteer in the frontline
All I have
Is the patience to stay at home as much as possible
Is the perseverance to make do with whatever I have
Is the desire to learn something new each day to pass time
Is the contentment that I can be just safe in isolation
Freedom comes with responsibility
If I can’t do anything to help, I can at least try not to be a part of the problem.
Moon
If only the Moon is greater
A celestial with much power
All the planets swimming in milk
Warmed by Sun inside black silk
May your reflected light shine
Against the drunkness of wine
Uncover the hidden secret line
Each great ball that mutely whine
Open up each soul to perceive
Let no word nor act to deceive
Purge out anger and fear to leave
Shield against any evils to receive
Ambitious greed to seal away
No confusion led out to sway
Only compassion here to stay
If Moon has power in her ray
Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa was born January 14, 1965, in Manila Philippines. She has worked as a retired Language Instructor, interpreter, caregiver, secretary, product promotion employee, and private therapeutic masseur. Her works have been published as poems and short story anthologies in several language translations for e-magazines, monthly magazines, and books; poems for cause anthologies in a Zimbabwean newspaper; a feature article in a Philippine newspaper; and had her works posted on different poetry web and blog sites. She has been writing poems since childhood but started on Facebook only in 2014. For her, Poetry is life and life is poetry.
Lilian Kunimasa considers herself a student/teacher with the duty to learn, inspire, guide, and motivate others to contribute to changing what is seen as normal into a better world than when she steps into it. She has always considered life as an endless journey, searching for new goals, and challenges and how she can in small ways make a difference in every path she takes. She sees humanity as one family where each one must support the other and considers poets as a voice for Truth in pursuit of Equality and proper Stewardship of nature despite the hindrances of distorted information and traditions.
A blooming desert, where crystal flowers sprout in the shifting sand.
A solar eclipse that reveals the stars hidden in the day, silent heat in the frozen space.
The echo of a cosmic whisper, a melody woven with threads of silence.
You are the firm ground beneath my wandering feet, the compass that always points to my north.
The starry sky that reflects the depth of my soul, with no moon to hide its brightness.
A dark silk embrace that envelops the cold, a refuge of shadows that protects me from the light.
You are the stillness after the Big Bang,
the dawn that paints the universe with new colors.
A silent refuge where time curves around me,
my home, my peace, my everything.
Here, gravity leans in my favor, the weight of the world fades away, and in your presence, I float in the weightlessness of happiness.
GRACIELA NOEMI VILLAVERDE is a writer and poet from Concepción del Uruguay (Entre Rios) Argentina, based in Buenos Aires She graduated in letters and is the author of seven books of poetry, awarded several times worldwide. She works as the World Manager of Educational and Social Projects of the Hispanic World Union of Writers and is the UHE World Honorary President of the same institution Activa de la Sade, Argentine Society of Writers. She is the Commissioner of Honor in the executive cabinet IN THE EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS DIVISION, of the UNACCC SOUTH AMERICA ARGENTINA CHAPTER.
