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Poetry is a way of life, a shortcut to the sublime, the heart of matter. First, I read poetry in Polish (Tuwim and Brzechwa, then Staff, Norwid, Lesmian, Milosz, Szymborska, Poswiatowska, Bialoszewski). Then, I became interested in bilingual editions (Rimbaud, Rilke, Verlaine). Then, I learned more English, starting from songs by the Beatles and moving back to poetry of T.S. Elliot, e.e. cummings, and Emily Dickinson who are still my three favorites. An avid reader since my Polish childhood, I started writing in English. The flexibility, richness and focus of this language never cease to amaze me!
Since 1995, I have kept a personal poetic journal and gave all sorts of poems to my friends. I like illustrating them with my photographs, taken mostly in my garden and neighborhood of Southern California. In 2006, I decided to share my work and at public readings and in journals, chapbooks, and books. I've served as a Poet Laureate of Sunland Tujunga in 2010-2012 and received the Creative Arts Prize from the Polish American Historical Association for my books about Polish experience in World War II, The Rainy Bread and Slicing the Bread. I have published five books of poetry, three anthologies, and nearly 300 poems in various venues (The Clockwise Cat, California Quarterly, Cosmopolitan Review, Magnapoets, Quill and Parchment, Ekphrasis Journal, Edgar Allan Poet Journal, Epiphany Magazine, Lily Literary Review, Loch Raven Review, Lummox Journal, OccuPoetry, Quill and Parchment, Phantom Seed, Pirene's Fountain, poeticdiversity, The Sage Trail, The Scream Online, San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, Spectrum and anthologies by Poets on Site, Southern California Haiku Study Group, and others. I'm a member of several poetry groups, including Village Poets organizing monthly readings, and Westside Women Writers. With Kathi Stafford, I edited the WWW anthology Grateful Conversations (2018).
As an author/editor of seven scholarly books and over 60 scholarly articles and chapters published in peer-reviewed journals and books, I'm well established in the music history world, with three main specializations: Polish music of the 19th and 20th centuries, 20th-century contemporary music, and ecomusicology. I presented my work at over 80 international conferences.
As a grant-writer, I serve as Senior Director of Planning and Development for Phoenix Houses of California (since 2007) and have raised over $107 million dollars in my twenty-year fundraising career. I'm also the Founder / President of Moonrise Press, established in 2008 in Los Angeles, as well as Secretary and Communications Director of the Polish American Historical Association, and President of the Board of the Helena Modjeska Art and Culture Club.
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