EDITORIAL

WELCOME

TO

OUR POETRY ARCHIVE

 “Mankind must put an end to war

before war puts an end to mankind.”

~John F. Kennedy~

It does not matter where a person dwells upon this Earth; we all witness the effects of war: A solider on the frontlines, images that daily reel over media, first hand witness of bloodshed, terrorism, heartache, pain, uncertainty with no gain. Martin Luther King Jr said, “If we are to have peace on earth…Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; And this means we must develop a world perspective.” Mankind needs to find a better position, create a new paradigm, and come to the forefront; in the advancement of peace and prosperity.

All throughout history, man has fought fellow man. The position of ideals has had such strong roots, in every corner of the world, that the blood of man taints the soil in which we take our steps. Every country has faced its own civil wars and attacks, but in the perspective of the world, we have witnessed World War I, World War II, and it seems, in the 21st century in which we currently live, the world is marching into a third World War. The position of hate has overtaken the perspective of peace and prosperity. The sounds of harmony have gone flat, which causes many to cringe at its sour tones. The tainted music of hate plays daily, over a loud speaker, which is heard all over the world. We must revert our ideals into a world perspective, and create a new paradigm.

The world has to create a new paradigm before we destroy one another. We need to find a better model to follow. There is no doubt that some people in the world are just plain evil; roaming the earth, polluting it with each blackened step. Their only intent is to destroy anything or anyone who is against their stained ideals. Wherever you may dwell, we all face this type of evil, and the unknown fills humanity with fear. But those of us who desire freedom of hate, to witness unity consume the hearts of man, and want to take a stand against the war of humanity, need to come to the forefront; planting our feet upon a greater intent.

Our Poetry Archive has come to the forefront, positioning ourselves in the advancement of peace. We have found a position of great importance by unifying poets and readers from each corner of the world. We have expanded the tapestry of beauty for all the world to see and appreciate. Our Poetry Archive is innovating new methods, in its course, uniting and exposing freedom of words in our modern age. Our philosophy of peace is central to the paradigm in which we continually create and model month to month. We are advancing our march in the view of hope and prosperity for all mankind. Our Poetry Archive’s greatest desire is for all to come to the forefront with us; the forefront of today’s inspiring poets and writers around the world.

Let us not sit in the background, but continue to lead, with focused attention, with our influential words that inspire, encourage and impel others; kindling the flame of hope, peace and prosperity for all mankind. May our words provoke positive emotion, redirecting feelings of hate. Mold yourself into the perspective of unity, contributing to the paradigm of peace in which we model, and come stand with us on the forefronts, as we promote positive innovations in our position of greatness.

Our Poetry Archive’s newest intention is to publish continental poets and poetess from every corner of the world. We have pursued this newest idea so readers of this blog may grasp the literary forms of poets from each continent, and find appreciation in each writer. In the October 2016 Edition, we featured poems from 48 European poets. Though we failed to represent poems from every corner of Europe, we feel this a great representative effort, on behalf of Our Poetry Archive. Our next continental publication will feature poets from North America. The Special Continental Edition numbers will be in the December 2016 edition. We have an open invitation, for submission, for this upcoming project.

For this month’s November 2016 General Edition, Our Poetry Archive is pleased to introduce the Featured Poet of the month; Alicia Minjarez Ramirez! We encourage everyone to read her inspiring words, found in her personal responses given, in our interview with her. Alicia has also contributed five personal poems for all to read.

Please take time and enjoy the talent Our Poetry Archive has added to the November 2016 General Edition. Those who would like to participate in our upcoming editions, please send at least three poems and a profile picture, along with the explicit confirmation of your permission for publication of your copyrighted materials in OPA well before the 21st of every month. Again a reminder: December will be a Special Continental Edition, featuring poets from North America, then the January Edition will be a General Edition. Please specify, in the subject line of your email, which edition you are submitting to, to avoid any confusion, and also to assure your poems are published in the correct edition. Those who are submitting to the Special Continental Edition, please state where you are from as well. Thank you! Our Poetry Archive’s email address is: ourpoetryarchive@gmail.com

Author Stacia Lynn Reynolds, editor, sincerely thanks each and every poet, poetess and reader who is actively involved in this wonderful blog and continued support of Our Poetry Archive.

From The Editorial Desk

OPA

A

WORLDWIDE WRITERS’ WEB

PRESENTATION!

PUBLISHED BY

OPA

OUR

POETRY ARCHIVE

ONLINE MONTHLY POETRY JOURNAL

https://ourpoetryarchive.blogspot.com

email us to:

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******************************************

ALICIA MINJAREZ RAMIREZ

OUR POETRY ARCHIVE FEATURED

POET OF THE MONTH

ALICIA

MINJAREZ RAMIREZ

November 2016

OPA How long have you been writing Poetry? We would like to know the early stories about your growing up as a poet or writer in general. Who are your favorite Poets? What are some of your favorite genres to read and to write? Had they inspired you a lot, do you believe in inspiration as a guiding force behind writings at all?

ALICIA  First I want to thank you the great opportunity to be in this important space. It is a real honor for me!  Wholeheartedly thank you !

I write since I was 7 years old,  only my family, my teachers and my best friends know that I liked to write poems and they chose me to write the final speech at the  end of the school  year.   I was a very shy person but 3 years ago I determined to show the world what I write.   Among my favorite poets are: Hafiz, Rumi, William Blake, Novalis, Pablo Neruda, Ernesto Kahan and Winston Morales Chavarro.  Hafiz was my inspiration when I was 13 years old. Among my favorites genres to read are: Egyptian historical novel, science fiction, metaphysics, espirituality and religion. I like to write free verse poetry,  but I also write poetry prose or narrative.  Someone told me one day that the first words of inspiration are sent by the gods and the rest is the work of the poet. I definitely believe in the inspirational moment that comes to my heart to write.

OPA What has been the toughest criticism given to you as a writer? What was the biggest compliment? Did those change how or what you write?  What has been the strangest thing that a reader has asked you?

ALICIA  The harshest criticism: a journalist from Colombia said one of my poems had a very forced rhyme. She did not know that I write in free verse and that poem had been written several years ago.  The biggest compliment?...   I find them every time when I write a new poem, always wonderful comments!  And I think the  strangest thing that a reader has asked me is:  to marry him!

OPA What is your favorite poem you have ever written? Compared to when you first started writing, have you notice any big changes in your writing style or how you write compared from then to now?

ALICIA  I do not have a favorite poem, because I try to improvement each day and overcome what I wrote.  The difference between the writing of  my poems since I was  only 7 years old is very large compared as I write now, because I did not have knowledge of literary devices, nor knew about the meter and rhyme of  poem,  It  were only  the  felt thoughts come out of the heart of a girl who wanted to change the world.  My writing changed some years ago when my mentors in poetry gave me the guidelines to follow to find my own literary style and I am very grateful to them.

OPA   What has been your favorite part of being a poet or and author? What has been your least favorite?

 ALICIA  I love the creative imagination that allows me to unleash my thoughts. I like to playing with words to get all  what I want with my poems. The only part I don´t  like is that as writers, we do not  have the government support of our countries.

OPA  Did you get to quit your day job and become a writer and or author or do you still have a day job and writing is something you do for fun? If you still have a day job, what is it?

ALICIA On my day job I´m working as a French and English teacher,   I love  my work so much!  But my real passions are: Singing and Writing.

 OPA   Besides writing and reading, what is your most favorite thing to do? What genre are you most looking forward to explore during your writing career? Why?

ALICIA I greatly enjoy each of the activities I do. In addition to reading and writing I am passionate about singing since I was a child. I can sing in 5 different languages: French, English, Italian, Spanish and Bahasa (Indonesian). Through singing, I can get out  all the emotions and  feelings I have inside  of me. I have an  unpublished  book  written in poetic prose,  I'm also writing a novel. I feel that as writers we must explore several genres.

OPA: Do you think literature or poetry is really essential in our life? If so why? How does it relate to the general history of mankind?

ALICIA Man is a social being and the main element of sociability  is the word,  is therefore far better mastered the use of language and literature, we will be more complete and more useful. Speaking of literature is to immerse ourselves in a world of fantasy, fiction, history, facts; It is a world with which we interact and that is all around us at all times. This foundation is achieved through daily learning, either at university, college or daily life. Otherwise we would suffer a stalemate and the only way to overcome it is investigating and searching for ourselves.

OPA   Our readers would like to know your own personal experience regarding the importance of literature and poetry in your life.

ALICIA  We live surrounded  by Poetry.  We find  Poetry wherever we look around ... In a beautiful sunrise,  in a starry night,  on  the tender smile of a child,  in the soft voice of the beloved  one  caressing our soul only with a few words, in  the presence and company of our parents, in the embrace of a friend or a brother. Every moment  it´s  a not written poetry for me, offering us the opportunity to shape it in our canvas of paper… The best poetry will be found within your own voice!

OPA Do you think people in general actually bother about literature in general?  Do you think this consumerist world is turning the average man away from serious literature?

ALICIA There's a lot of it. I feel the love of literature is being lost, perhaps because the consumerist environment in which we live.  For this reason, we need to promote love of literature and poetry.   For an individual can appreciate all this, we must begin to instill a love of Literature and poetry to children in schools,  since kindergarten and not only that, but also the love of culture and arts.

OPA Do you think society, as a whole, has a factor in shaping you as a poet, or your poetry altogether?

ALICIA Definitely!   Because based on social problems, poets are a launching point to talk openly about relevant issues, or also to raise awareness, seeking followers to support our thoughts… We can not remain silent in the face of social injustices.

OPA We would also like to know; How do you relate the present literary trends with the literary heritage of your own country? 

ALICIA  The second decade of the twentieth century is an essential  key  for understanding the current development of Latin American literature period. It is a time when the precious sumptuous rhetoric of modernism is discarded and the basis for a complete break with the immediate artistic past.  From it, the dominant literary modes recognize the common roots. They were  years of demonstrations, proclamations and violent polemics, an intensive search of originality, expressive and formal insurgency that broke out in embodiments radically changing the course of inland letters.

Mainly poetry in American literature, presents a puzzling aspect to the public. The constructive will is imposed on the impressionistic, emotional and spiritual. The avant-garde poetry renews the language and purpose of traditional poetry. The cult of beauty,  to the demands of the aesthetic harmony. The new poetry rejects the rational use of language, syntax, declamatory  and musical form, musical legacy: meter, rhyme, giving primacy to the continued exercise of imagination to the unusual and visionary images, the asintactism, the new typographical arrangement,  visual effects  and a discontinuous and fragmented, simultaneity makes the primary constructive principle. The avant-garde echoes are felt in all Latin American countries.

OPA Are you a feminist? Can literature play any decisive role in feminism at all?

ALICIA  We consider feminism as a doctrine and social movement calling for the observance of capabilities and rights that have traditionally been reserved for men.  I try to defend the fair causes and rights of women on the world, through poetry and social media. Indeed!   Because the twentieth century is characterized by the struggle of women to end with the social, political and symbolic inequality which have been subjected for centuries. Feminism as a social movement born heir to the suffragist movement, has likewise led to a profound reflection on gender enrollment of individuals in their speeches and in their actions, questioning the universality of Culture and Arts.

OPA Do you believe that all writers are by and large the product of their nationality? Is it an incentive or an obstacle in becoming an international writer?

ALICIA  I do not feel that writers are a product of his nationality, because each of them has been influenced differently by some literary currents, or by some poets of different nationalities. It may be the case that a poet is recognized abroad and to be a perfect stranger in his / her own country. The nationality of a writer is not an impediment to excel abroad. Strongly influences,  hard work, consistence and permanence to fight for the realization of their dreams makes the difference.

OPA What 7 words would you use to describe yourself?

ALICIA   I´m  passionate,  courageous,  cheerful,  patient,  consistent, logic  and  meditative.

OPA   Is there anything else that you would like to share or say to those who will read this interview?

ALICIA  Never stop dreaming! Do not listen  the noise of others when they try to destroy your dreams,  just listen to your inner voice and defends everything you love.

The editorial staff of this project: Deborah Brooks Langford, Stacia Lynn Reynolds; sincerely thank you for your time and hope we shall have your continued support.

ALICIA MINJAREZ RAMIREZ

Alicia Minjarez Ramírez

LOVERS

Longing mitigates

the drunken night,

treasuring the imprint

abolished by desire

that breaks us

and brings together,

intrinsic fire

of profane verses

under the intrigue

of shadows.

Materiality keeps

our bodies tied up to

the lunar instant

of balsamic ether,

burning desires

falling apart

evaporating

the mossy seduction

of having the absolute void.

You’re dust in the breeze

of my conscious being,

bringing delightful

and melodic essences

inside hollow fruit trees

of worn out headings.

Imprecise and sharp legend

of upcoming evenings,

barking at the sap sight.

Derange me, seduce me, drive me.

Like a consonant plunging

upon the rhetorical memory,

dialect upsetting and chaining us up

beyond our hands.

Exhalation,

dementia without sanity

defining my earthly Nirvana,

meanwhile, I belong to you

under the remote

silence glass…

By rubbing

your timely

spike.

Translated by:   Alaric Gutiérrez MEXICO.

FOGGY SOLITUDES

I find myself

close - distant

to the zephyr breeze,

I question in vain.

Foggy solitudes,

dressed up as equinoxes

in perennial springs.

I require to silence

flooding words,

to silence tears

adorning my face.

Sadness dwelling

like a stowaway

in soul’s murky mirrors.

Absence afflictions

gradually succumb

between my barren hands.

Pointless

to grasp into hope!

Reason outshines

the fragmented heart

and the bare silence

suffocates the stars.

Stars that won’t shine

upon nostalgia seas

taking away opacities

and a shattered mirror

where my reflection

fades away

right now.

Cracking in my own roots…

dark memories,

empty stealth,

and leaves

scattered on the ground.

Translated by:   Alaric Gutiérrez  MEXICO.

BREATH OF LIGHT

Mute allegory of clouds

feeling my cedars’ roots,

designing the path;

song of blackbirds and orioles,

stunned chimera permuting

fertile figs and pomegranates.

Musical waterfalls

permeate thick

alders and chestnuts,

ethereal decline;

Antioch’s legacy

rinses and distorts

coasts, olives and vines

over the Patara’s coastline.

Emir necromancer

descends from

bare meadows

revealing seeds

to quench the moon

in the subtle geography

of my own shadows.

Your eyes light up

the awoken clay

of jade and honeysuckle,

moistening poems

to clear the air

of the past hours.

Imprecise and concrete trail

upon the wind of days

that intertwines our dawn.

A brief breath of your light

is enough

in the abyss of my night.

Translated by:   Alaric Gutiérrez MEXICO.

OMENS

Words predict

liquid dawns

dismembering

your breath.

Faceless tears

intercepting a wind

of circumspect aphorisms,

sparrows in flight.

Scoped sign upon

the pearls of your laugh,

ambiguous illusions

I drown in your pipe dream.

Match up utopia

the memory of days,

intolerable prose

in the fire of my blood.

Comets watching us

conspiring over shadows

of a present past,

lost and found

waterfalls in your forest,

moon spells.

fallen spells,

omens

from your pen.

Translator: Alaric Gutiérrez

BAKLAVA AND HONEY

Distant contiguous strokes

Set up the prayers of Anatolia.

Eclectic fragrant spices                   

Clove, sumac, vanilla and cinnamon          

Overflowing cornices.         

Gold, silver, apple tea,

Water pipes, almonds and kaput   

Songs of your lineage!

Indigo horizons

Melt the earth

Of mud and jade

in baklava and honey;

Musical odors

Surround

Nocturnal savannas

In the edge of the days.

Bare fingers 

on red-berried mistletoe and oaks

require the transcending kiss,

reaching the limits of touch

bluish declining

of our belongings.

As affable Sultan

dressed up with Habiye silk.

Transcribe my dreams

with watercolors of straight lines

to drown the sun within,

in the bowl of my palms.

Translated by:  Alaric Gutiérrez

TRAVELLER

Redemptive breeze

imprisons my space,

like raining stars

as fragrant words

at the crescent moon,

salt conspires about

your shooting and lasting

existence.

Blue air flutter about

your wet

vertices notes,

ascending

through 

the tree’s essence.

Guttural sounds

spotting

the horizon.

I sense you

among murmurs

of leaves

diluting

liquid shadows,

imaginary

pigeon’s pieces,

luminance music

of the dreams

we forge.

I find you,

wrong or right,

in haste;

in the rain’s

incessant voice.

Beautiful traveler

of dreamed steps

and arms of fire.

Drowned in

desire-scented steam

I dusk upon

foreign oaks,

as touch produced by

your path;

dark moor

of an old sky

reinvent

your word of light,

the illusory

copulation

of language.

©ALICIA MINJAREZ RAMÍREZ

Alicia  Minjarez  Ramírez Poet, Translator,  Singer,   Broadcast locution Radio and T.V. She was born in Tijuana Baja California, Mexico.  She studied a Master Degree in Computer Science,  specialization in Artificial Intelligence.  Master Degree in Computer  Science at the University of Montpellier II, France.

Winner of a special mention at the International Poetry Prize NOSSIDE, Italy 2015,  recognized by UNESCO.  She won the Universal International Poet Award Pentasi B. World  Friendship Poetry, Africa, Ghana 2016. Her poetry was Awarded in Spain in 2015.  

Her poems were included on the  XXI Century  World Literature Book,  Presented at New Delhi, India with  Internationally renowned poets and writers. Mexican Director at Writers Capital International Foundation, an International foundation to inspire writers across the world to contribute to the values of humanity. Coordinator and simultaneous translator   French-  Spanish- English  at  CUPHI III on the III Congress of Universal  Hispano-American Poetry  in Los Angeles, California, 2014.

Participation in the 34th  World Congress of Poets at Peru 2014.  She participated in more than 30 International Poetics Anthologies  at  Chile, Macedonia, Italy, Spain, Mexico, USA, India, Tunisia  and Canada.  Her poems have been published on International  Journals and  Reviews,  such:  Ila and  Taourirt  at Morocco,   “The Poet”  at Tunisia, Galaktika Poetike “ATUNIS” in Albania,   and the famous magazine OKAZ in  Saudi Arabia.

Her poems have been translated into English, Cameroonian,  Arabic,  Portuguese and French.  Have had read  on   International  Poetry  Recitals  in severals  Countries around the  world,  and transmitted in National and International  Radio programs. In the field of translation, she has collaborated with  International Poets and Writers providing versions of their literary works. Her translations were published in magazines and newspapers in:  London, Italy, Albania, Taiwan, United States,  Morocco,   Chile,  Spain, Canada, India, Uzbekistan and Hazaristan. Member of the select International Group PENTASI B. WORLD FRIENDSHIP POETRY created by the father of the visual poetry: Doctor Penpen B. Takipsilim.