MARIA MIRAGLIA

 

POETRY AND MUSIC

 

“The loss of the tastes for poetry and music is a loss for happiness, and may possibly be injurious for the intellect, and more probably for the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.”

-Charles Darwin

 

Poetry has very ancient origin, it dates back to prehistoric time with hunting poetry in Africa and panegyric or elegiac court poetry of the empire of Nile, Niger and Volta valleys. Some of the earliest written poetry in Africa is found among the Egyptian Pyramid Texts written during the 25th century BC. while the earliest poems in Eurasian continent evolves from folk songs or from a need to retell oral epic.  In ancient times, the word is the only tool that can be used to tell legends, important events and transmit ethical and cultural values. Since the writing is still unknown, the poet is forced to remember everything by heart. He activates his genius only after receiving inspiration from the Muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosine, the goddess of memory. When the poet receives the divine inspiration, thanks to magical gifts, he is able to convey the message to men. Poetry therefore presents a sacred aspect for the whole archaic civilization. First of all, the poet is not in control of it, it is only the means by which the gods communicated with men. The ability to tell stories has been for several centuries the only tool capable of spreading and developing the cultural baggage of societies and passing on the philosophy of principles and values of entire peoples. In the archaic world, poetry played an active role in the intellectual development of mankind. Poetry like any other form of artistic creation, is one of the pillars of the humanities. By following the paths of emotion and imagination the poem transmits knowledge and human values. Steve Pinker, a Canadian cognitive scientist argues that literature has its ethical power “better still, it shapes the human being, body and soul.

 

But, if for us today poetry is identified with the word, once upon a time it was identified by the accompaniment of musical instruments such as the lyre of the Aedi in ancient Greece, the four-stringed lyre or the Druidic harp of the Celts, the viella of troubadour chant in the feudal Middle Ages, the lute, the flute, the theorbo and then the modern wind or string instruments. As Eugenio Montale said, in his speech given at the Swedish Academy in 1975, when awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, “poetry probably arose from the need to add a vocal sound to the rhythm of primitive music”. Only much later, following the invention of writing, words and music can be written and differentiate. Thus, written poetry makes its appearance. Even if the common relationship with music is still felt. Poetry today is that of songwriters accompanied by single musical instruments or by entire orchestras when poetry becomes song and spreads thanks to mass events such as concerts aided by means of diffusion and promotion such as radio, television and any other means of recording. and transmission. If we want to have a chronological reference point, as far as Western literature is concerned, we can say that in Greece the verses sung by the Aedi began to be written down with the introduction of alphabetic writing, around the eighth century

 

But poetry began to be self-sufficient with respect to music, with the spread of the printed book invented by Gutenberg around the middle of the fifteenth century. In this phase the reading becomes progressively silent, visual and a private fact and at the same time a mass phenomenon

Poetry and music are the arts that come closest to the sublime. There is a strong undeniable connection between them. Both evoke and suggest sensations and emotions through rhythmic sounds and harmonies capable of creating aesthetic suggestions and fantasies. Poems also have aspects of sound just like song lyrics and poetry is meant to be heard just as a song. A poem can be read quietly, but it has more power when read aloud to other people since they can then hear the sounds and feel the mood, feeling and tension it conveys. The same can be said for songs lyrics which also have a particular sound used to exhibit a specific mood or feeling. There is a natural flow that is evident in the words of a poem and similarly in the lyrics of a song. Often times there are repetitions in both songs and poems what gives them a flow and rhyme. Music without any words can also convey emotion and mood just like a poem does. Musical instruments can play together to create a rhythm and rhyme and feeling in a way akin to that of a poem.

 

In 2016 the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Bob Dylan, a songwriter. This did not arouse any surprise since music and poetry do not belong to two distant hemispheres, rather music and poetry interpenetrate and do nothing but grow up and often make each other better. Both arts are unique: Dante has shown us with his Comedy how poetry can "sound good" and so did Montale in Creacks the pulley of the well. A rarer form of music, unconventional but still music. The song has not replaced poetry because the will to write without making music or to make music or play without writing has remained intact. It stays only admantine the assertion of Alexander Pope that "Music resembles poetry, in each /Are nameless graces which no method teaches/ And which a must hand alone can reach."

MARIA MIRAGLIA

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NILAVRONILL TALKING WITH JETON KELMENDI

 

NILAVRONILL TALKING WITH

POET OF THE MONTH

Dr. JETON KELMENDI

APRIL 2021

NILAVRONILL: Why do literature and poetry in particular interest you so much? Please give us some idea about your own perception of literature or poetry in general.

JETON KELMENDI: It’s true that for me the life without literature has no meaning. To give the right answer, it is not just a short sentence. First, in my family I have some writers. Azem Shkreli is my uncle and is considered the top poet in Albanian literature and our culture in general. Secund, I have the origin from the epic zone in the western site of Kosovo, Rugova. There people from there are pride for their identity and their history. The third, is art and literature that covers my body as my skin and of course takes place in my three pillars that my life continues: The god is first, my fatherland is secund and third is literature. The fact that poetry and literature is not in the best days, because day after day we have les readers, while this fact breaks my wish, but never stop me writing, translating and loving the literature in general and poetry especially. 

 

NILAVRONILL: How do you relate your own self existence with your literary life in one hand, and the time around you, in the other.

 

JETON KELMENDI: Literature does not give me the possibility to live from it. It gives me so much pleasure, but for relation to life I thought since early life. I studied for media, security and politics. This gives me the possibility to live physically, while the art and poetry gives me the possibility to live spirituality. When you see in this it looks a bit not satisfaction, but in fact this is my combination, which gives an intellectual living in our modern days in Europe. Simply, the relations of myself with myself is poetry and literature, that’s how needs a person to be himself in this nobody world wild.     

 

NILAVRONILL: Do you believe creative souls flourish more in turmoil than in peace?

 

JETON KELMENDI: What I believe and what is the reality in our days  does not mean to be always the same. To me creative soul is a concept of ideal person, but this fact it is not functional in most of the peoples in the world. The world has gone so far, where human is becoming more and more robotic. People for me they don’t live their life, but they spent their life, repeating things every day. The technology has goon so far and for me it has two sides: on one hand people can communicate quicker and fast, plus we can share our values and experiences as we are doing, for what I consider is a great lack for as, but if we see another side, people are fed-up with books, reading as it was before and as reflect of that we have lost our readers. I think also here we can separate in two groups: one group who love sincerely poetry is with fate, because can link with same other. Another group are people who lost the sentiments and as a reaction of this technology they became more technical people. One think I believe, now we are less poets, less readers, but stronger and better as a quality.     

 

NILAVRONILL: Do you think in this age of information and technology the dimensions of literature have been largely extended beyond our preconceived ideas about literature in general?

 

JETON KELMENDI: Yes, we are living in the age of information and technology and of course this has given as the opportunity to extend our art and what is the most beautiful for me  is the fact that we as a family. Imagine how good is that we are friends, while we have never met each other personally. This have more goodness if we analyse: we know each other’s way of writing, way of thinking, building the sentences and more and more. To know more culture we become richer in our souls. One think I would like to tell, I am reach not with property, but I am very rich with my friends poets and however I speak with them I feel fulfilled that I am part of this community if I can call community the poets.     

 

NILAVRONILL: Now, in this changing scenario we would like to know from your own life experiences as a poet, writer and a creative soul: How do you respond to this present time?

 

JETON KELMENDI: This time is a revolution on everything and in the revolution everyone has to deal with the speed of the developing. So, in the situation when you can be left behind, one think is important to understand: You have to adopt if you want to perceive. I tried to be in a step with the time. My poems I write in my mother language Albanian and I translate myself into English and I give any of my friends to correct and edit them. Moreover I have a lot of friends and some of them are translators and they aske me to translate into different languages, so in this way I collaborate with colleges and different international association of writers. As you know I am active member of European Academy of Sciences and arts and this has given me more possibility.     

 

NILAVRONILL: Do you believe that all writers are by and large the product of their nationality? And is this an incentive for or an obstacle against becoming a truly international writer?

 

JETON KELMENDI: Yes, this is a different what is the real value and what is not value. Today we have good writers and good associations of writers, which they do a great job, but at the same time we have a lot more writers that are anonymous in their country and of course are not a good writers, but they have connection in international affairs and they play not a good game. Sometimes this makes me upset but the technology has given the possibility to everybody and we have to be carefully when we deal with this issues.  

 

NILAVRONILL: Now, if we try to understand the tradition and modernism, do you think literature can play a pivotal role in it?  If so, how? Again, how can an individual writer relate himself or herself to the tradition and to modernism?

 

JETON KELMENDI: I think in postmodern writing is important to have a personal stile of writing. To use the tradition and to express in modern way is a very good stile. In my poetry I always try to do that, because this looks more interesting to an international reader, as it look better to me when I read something from an author from another country. The essence of poetry for me is the personal things to make important for others, and if you arrive to do that, I think you have become a real poet.  

 

NILAVRONILL: Do you think literary criticism has much to do with the development of a poet and the true understanding of his or her poetry?

 

JETON KELMENDI: Literary criticism is not doing its one job as it should be done. I understand that is not easy to read everything what is published in our days, but it should be more to do the criticism. Some media are serving sometimes more average and not good writers than a real poets and writers, but again the criticism have to write more on good poetry.  

 

NILAVRONILL: Do you think society as a whole is the key factor in shaping you up as a poet, or your poetry altogether?

 

JETON KELMENDI: I think there are several factors that have influenced my formation as a poet and as an intellectual. National tradition, difficult life in captivity, because I was born in an occupied state and when I was 19 years old my country was liberated. So, these are the issues that have hardened me as a poet, but I also speak several foreign languages and I read and translate books from these languages, so I have got different experiences and I have combined them all. I think, or believe that I am an Albanian writer with a universal approach to themes, always maintaining the sense of being a citizen of the world.

 

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

 

JETON KELMENDI: In fact, I think that's true. Time has made that not only the middle class, but a majority of citizens are feeling deserving of literature. The dynamics of life is only one side that I believe has influenced, but we should not forget the fact that social networks are doing their own thing. I think we have become a consumer society of food and technical vital things, so there is a decline in readability in general.

 

NILAVRONILL: We would like to know the factors and the peoples who have influenced you immensely in the growing phase of your literary life.

 

JETON KELMENDI: During my upbringing, a series of factors influenced me: the enslavement of my people, my childhood unequal to other colleagues, I finished high school in the parallel system, that is, secretly from the Serbian government. I believe that family traditions have also had an impact. I have several writing uncles and they have naturally influenced my formation.

 

NILAVRONILL: How would you evaluate your contemporaries and what are your aspirations for or expectation from the younger generation?

 

JETON KELMENDI: I try to write about different topics and issues, but always preserving humanity and love as a universal value. I think the new generations are luckier, because technology enables them to access and even speaking foreign languages, especially English, helps them. one simply has to have passion and love for literary art and poetry. if you do not live with poetry you cannot be a real poet.

 

NILAVRONILL: Humanity has suffered immensely in the past, and is still suffering around the world. We all know it well. But are you hopeful about our future?

 

JETON KELMENDI: Of course, humanity has survived and will survive against various threats, but only with love, work and faith. I believe strongly in value and love and of course I am optimistic.

 

NILAVRONILL: What role can literature in general play to bring a better day for every human being?

 

JETON KELMENDI: The role of literature is to ennoble the souls of citizens. a person who reads literature has a very dignified formation, whether in communication or in content. literature is no longer ideological as it was in communist countries, but for me literature belongs to the aristocratic strata.

 

Prof. Dr. Jeton Kelmendi: Poet, player, publicist, translator, publisher and a professor of university and academic. Born in the city of Peja, Kosovo (1978), Jeton Kelmendi completed elementary school in his birth place. Later he continued his studies at the University of Pristina and received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Mass communication. He completed his graduate studies at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, specializing in International and Security Studies. He finished his second master degree in diplomacy. Kelmendi did a PhD in the “Influence of media in EU Political Security Issues”. He is professor at AAB University College. He is active member of the European Academy of Science and Arts in Salzburg Austria. For many years he has written poetry, prose, essays and short stories. He is a regular contributor to many newspapers, in Albania and abroad, writing on many cultural and political topics, especially concerning international affairs. Jeton Kelmendi became well known in Kosova, after the publication of his first book entitled: “The Century of Promises” (“Shekulli i Premtimeve”), published in 1999.  Later he published a number of other books. His poems are translated in more that twenty-seven languages and published in several international Literature Anthologies. He is the most translated Albanian Poet and well known in Europe. According to a number of literary critics, Kelmendi is the genuine representative of modern Albanian poetry. International critics and poets wrote for him a lot of article, considering him as great European poet. He is a member of many international poetry clubs and is a contributor to many literary and cultural magazines, especially in English, French and Romanian Languages. The wisdom of his work in the field of Literature is based in the attention that he pays to the poetic expression, modern exploration of the text and the depth of the message.  His Genre is focused more on love lyrics and elliptical verse intertwined with metaphors and artistic symbolism. Currently resides and works in Brussels, Belgium and in Pristina, Kosovo.

JETON KELMENDI

 

JETON KELMENDI

You Can’t Leave To A Different Time

 

I travel through time

following trails of imagination full of wishes

round and round my thoughts

can’t find an open door

to a different time,

a door that takes me to where I want

to love a bit better,

to stay longer

 

If I was a Northern Wind

I’d blow over valleys and peaks, tonight

I’d bend oak trees and plis hats alike,

I’d change this time:

into a different one.

I’d open the doors to hope

and I’d be full of hope

for a better time

 

If I was a Ray of Sunlight

over the prettiest necks in the city I’d lie

Wow! What warmth

winking with love’s eye,

distracted

fingers running through disheveled hair

this would be the talk

but one can’t just leave to a different time

 

If I were the one I’m not

to a different time I’d leave,

but, damn, I am who I am

oblivion’s last letter

left for a different time,

the way valuables are kept,

unlike food at a gleeful feast

for today

one can’t leave to a different time. 

 

 

I Sat At The Beginning Of My Self

 

I sat

on my memory

and waited and waited

until all conclusions

I began anew.

 

The truth faded the dreams, until

the meaning lost its meaning,

time said it belonged to the devil’s time.

belief turned into disbelief,

a wicked time strengthening the evils

hope and desire turned to illusion,

it must’ve been their time, the untrue truth,

the silent word.

and it is I who woke up

from my memory

asleep in your remembrance

reawakened.

 

I saw

crumbs after time’s footsteps, crumbling

the future

leaning on patience

in the peel of time, lustfully

I can’t run after myself

I have to end it.

 

I rested

until the unthinkable seasons

were tired of running

until the rest is rested

that’s when I woke up. 

Woken from its bed

a late night’s autumn and the moon.

Flooded tomorrow’s thoughts

love became a sea of love,

together we swam until ecstasy.

 

Now, I wait and see

and it looks like that time I sat

at the beginning of myself

but the words struggle to stay awake

like they did that one night.

 

 

 

I’ll Tell You Something

 

From my mouth

From my soul, strange

thoughts emerge

sometimes they appear leaving

other times arriving

from a different world

than our own

 

I know that many of them

are slightly less than few

and that their language is unspoken

unwritten,

but I say it is somewhere.

somewhere between me and you, my life

lived oh so fast

 

And while all languages have alphabets

of their own, so begins

this language of ours

with our failure to understand

new beginnings

 

And time, an island inhabited by timelessness

giving time to those without time

followed by a group of wordless words

at the border crossing of

spirit-mind

 

I hide from myself

so my hearing doesn’t see me

so my sight doesn’t hear me

as it happens with other things.

 

It’s better to know

languages unspoken, timeless

like what we talk

up the hill of

meaningless meanings.

 

Complying with my strangeness

and nothing else,

let this game have

rules

 

So that afterwards

whoever hears the results

someone will win and someone will lose.

 

 

I Brought Myself With Me

 

I.

Firstly

a narrow street

barely to keep me, to bring it with me

then to walk on until where I was fist off,

where the meaning begins

 

in chaos

my dreams appeared

as one day I began to see

waking dreamscapes

I brought myself to school

and teacher Ukë’s guidance,

I’ll carry until the beyond

 

where meanings are abound

 

life has its own desires

and so does love

albeit endless

 

we will come after the awakening

of the light,

you can never tell

human fate

there is destiny in this journey.

 

II.

And after you crossed somewhere

just the first steps

of your life’s journey

my own fate begins to attain

gratitude expressed in courage

for the upcoming days,

for the farseeing eye, expressive faith

if there is truth

you need courage to believe

I brought myself

to the occupied homeland

to the end of my suffering

 

this whole waking reverie

with sunsets almost extinguished

one day it just broke out, the war in Kosovo began

and they said: from now on innocence is guilty

they baptized Death with their names

and Freedom with their surnames.

 

III.

I did what I did

and brought myself here

now I’ve got all the time

to deal with

myself

hauled through time

 

Do whatever you like,

but don’t forget the long roads

on history’s wrinkled forehead.

 

 

 

Dare To Be A Hero

 

Over my shoulders I carried fear and courage

until now

to this day, folded

upon no one’s time, untimed

with difficult journeys, bravery

face to face with fear,

how far can you carry the faith

which can’t be further trusted

neither in wild humans, nor

journeys, and upcoming new days,

uncertain loves

well, then, love,

this juicy ripened apple

forgotten within human soul

describing to the passerby

the taste of spirit’s pain.

 

II.

Carrying within my heart

life’s joys and sorrows

possibilities and impossibilities

thoughts and intentions

all reasonable

expected and exact arrivals

oh what chaotic events

coming and going

and yet again

can’t hide the predictions

about a different time

one needs courage to dare

to believe in love.

times on the walls of folded time

determine directions, of a road longer

than the change of a season

to another

twilight of times

into the years of my life.

 

III.

My love for you, I carried in my mind

the end is endless for

whomever confuses the steps of departure

the getaway will be after them

to split the directions in two

to understand that life moves

just as the wind blows

 

Somewhere there’s a ruse that can trick dreams

but those realities are not good

like in my pretty stories

the game goes on through

disregard for the regard

of events that link us

with the world

of faith with courage

beyond fear

and the most fearsome valor.

 

 

 

Before I Write

 

I don’t need no humaly beauties,

women adorned by eyes, mind and spirit

poetry is no art

if not written deeper

than the vigor’s end.

 

how can I call myself a poet

I can’t measure living reveries

with a couple of dreams

even if they’re the prettiest

like these words awaiting to be written

thusly ideas flow, like

life

 

with selected words, previously

unwritten,

thoughts as big as silence

give meaning to events, this writing

for you

for my verse

for your new attitude

 

Lake Como, oh what sights

and tall peaks beyond,

sun bestowing its rays, so

we can’t see each other through

the window at the balcony

and I didn’t see anything else

and I started writing

poetry

 

let go now of our conquering sight

let go of your writing too,

I wrote over my soul

an event

the envy of all

told me,

and we begun climbing uphill

with no end in sight

 

I didn’t close the door on the conversation

I let it get in

and my words grew into sentences and phrases

I got nowhere to go, it said,

therefore,

writing has roots this deep

and can’t be so easily unsaid.

time leads time,

I was its event

while this poem came to be.

 

 

I’m Waiting For You

 

I’m waiting for you

beyond my possibilities

in the nowhere’s somewhere

 

the wait continues

if the arrival and departure make sense

and are reasonable

 

I meet you

in the pages of closed books

and the titles of forgotten poems,

I seek you

through the many thoughts, when

the absence comes forth,

and thusly

you overcame all my waitings

 

We walk together

through unknown streets, that

only I see in my dreams

that’s how I wait for you

even when someone else waits for you

it is still me doing the waiting

 

I don’t talk about you anymore

my thoughts are spent,

it’s been enough

all those times I waited

at the beginning of myself

for you to pass by.

 

 

 

I Am Somewhere

And That’s Good Enough

 

I am somewhere, I live somehow

beyond the point of remembrance

in the unspoken sentence of patience

 

I dwell somewhere

at the end of self, down there

if the meaning recognizes me,

I am happy

 

I find myself

within my tired sorrow,

previously unseen

not even in a dream,

I saw time sliding from my

hands

and I was convinced

that my absence does not exist

so that I look everywhere

to find myself

 

I got no more qualms,

I know you took all its traces

with you

and that I don’t have any questions,

it suffices that

I remember your name.

 

 

The Origins of Love

 

The meaning of life is,

the reason to walk towards tomorrow,

a dream

that everyone has the right to see

 

such a creature

everyone wants if for themselves, for

their own people

even though it doesn’t know from whence

love came, and where it goes to

 

while you don’t know its origins,

it’s a secret,

hidden like the air that

time has brought through us

until here

 

every time they talk about

the origins of love,

the wise ones wrote

definitions and theories,

formulas, and poetry too,

but, one thing’s for sure,

no one knows for sure

 

One thing you gotta’ understand,

without claiming you’re inventing

some big thing,

love is born each day

each night,

in the afternoon, after midnight.

simply, seen anytime

anywhere

 

and if that’s the case,

where does love live then,

where does life love,

where, then, is its

origin, location, timespan!

 

A theory is overthrown by

another one,

as one season follows another

until a year turns a leaf.

origin is the meaning

both obvious

and obscure.

 

Love comes from God

only He

knows its origin.

 

 

A Revalation

 

I don’t need big words, praises,

colors of thought, chaotic ideas

about myself, this is not correct

until we reach the point of truthfulness

 

If truth had any power

it wouldn’t let the fraud talk

with such truthfulness

that’s how time did it with itself,

as it splashed in memory

pieces of my times

I think of something unknown

 

with an abundance of courage and

drowsy meanings

desires woven, with love,

the spring of events flowed

full of incidents,

for the unknowns, for the unexpected

a new discovery this one

 

That’s how today

a new variant of an old day

seasons come and go -- beyond they walk

for life has one direction -- death

and we journey that away

 

Now, I myself overcame so many

deaths

only because I trusted life

with my longest dream

 

I didn’t put glasses on my thought

to look truth in the eye

and I insanely believed that

the meaning will see me,

but it’s not correct

to not end

this beginning

 

the pasts and the presents

crucify tomorrow

except beauty, everything else follows

its own flow

like this revelation.

 

JETON KELMENDI

 

Prof. Dr. Jeton Kelmendi: Poet, player, publicist, translator, publisher and a professor of university and academic. Born in the city of Peja, Kosovo (1978), Jeton Kelmendi completed elementary school in his birth place. Later he continued his studies at the University of Pristina and received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Mass communication. He completed his graduate studies at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, specializing in International and Security Studies. He finished his second master degree in diplomacy. Kelmendi did a PhD in the “Influence of media in EU Political Security Issues”. He is professor at AAB University College. He is active member of the European Academy of Science and Arts in Salzburg Austria. For many years he has written poetry, prose, essays and short stories. He is a regular contributor to many newspapers, in Albania and abroad, writing on many cultural and political topics, especially concerning international affairs. Jeton Kelmendi became well known in Kosova, after the publication of his first book entitled: “The Century of Promises” (“Shekulli i Premtimeve”), published in 1999.  Later he published a number of other books. His poems are translated in more that twenty-seven languages and published in several international Literature Anthologies. He is the most translated Albanian Poet and well known in Europe. According to a number of literary critics, Kelmendi is the genuine representative of modern Albanian poetry. International critics and poets wrote for him a lot of article, considering him as great European poet. He is a member of many international poetry clubs and is a contributor to many literary and cultural magazines, especially in English, French and Romanian Languages. The wisdom of his work in the field of Literature is based in the attention that he pays to the poetic expression, modern exploration of the text and the depth of the message.  His Genre is focused more on love lyrics and elliptical verse intertwined with metaphors and artistic symbolism. Currently resides and works in Brussels, Belgium and in Pristina, Kosovo.