Thursday, February 1, 2018

STACIA LYNN REYNOLDS

WELCOME
TO
OUR POETRY ARCHIVE

“In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs, in spite of things silently gone out of mind and things violently destroyed, the Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time. The objects of the Poet’s thoughts are everywhere; though the eyes and senses of man are, it is true, his favorite guides, yet he will follow wheresoever he can find an atmosphere of sensation in which to move his wings. Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge—it is as immortal as the heart of man.”
~William Wordsworth, “Preface to Lyrical Ballads"

Literary masterpieces, written pieces of artistic technique, acknowledged and accepted in ancient societies into the society we live in today, has instructed, informed, enlightened, and entertained generations. From the beginning works of ancient classic literature into the modern world of literature today, literary masterpieces have expanded the consciousness of man. Literary masterpieces have been, and continue to bestudied, analyzed, and criticized. Generations of literary scholars and students of literature have sought to define, classify, and determine the role each piece literature has on society today as well as societies and cultures before them.

Classic literature stimulates the human thought process today as it did in the ancient cultures. Through a writer’s written technique, cultures have read myths about life’s questions concerning the creation of humanity, why they have been created, and promises of an eternal life. Epic poetry has dealt with war, heroes, and everyday living that draws the mind to morality, ethics, and conduct. The Romantic Era and its literary genius drew the beauty of the world into words; including politics, war, love, and nature. It is through these literary masterpieces; I found understanding and appreciation of genius of thought, along with the artistic written techniques of classical literature. The creation of characters and the drama that flows from them, enhances my thinking process through the writer’s purpose and meaning of intent. Coming to an understanding of intent through allegory and symbolism of the words used within the context of various works, has deepened my comprehension of literary masterpieces. The results of deepened thought go beyond my expectations, as I encounter and read more works of classical literature. I believe these literary works enhances the sense of spirituality and mortality in life, and can have an enormous impact upon today’s society.

Beginning with the Ancient Period of literature, up to today’s Contemporary literary masterpieces, the standards and qualities found within the pages affects the reader. The art of literature which individuals bring, draws emotion through their writing. They play an enormous role today as they did in the ancient cultures. Though cultures and political ideals have been ever changing, the standard and qualities that make literature a masterpiece remains the same. Literary masterpieces and its human expression of symbolic value will continue to possess the reader with powerful and emotional words.

Please take time and enjoy the talent Our Poetry Archive has added to the February 2018 General Edition. This February we are also introducing fifteen new poets for the first time. We are also glad to present Poet Fethi Sassi of Tunisia as the Poet Of the Month. Readers will find the interview with the poet for the first time in OPA. We sincerely thank each poet and reader who is actively involved in this wonderful monthly web journal and continued their support of Our Poetry Archive.

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 copy righted materials in OPA well before the 20th of every month. Also, please state your country of origin, mother language, nationality, and where you reside along with your short Bio written only in 3rd person narrative. Finally, please specify in the subject line of your email which edition you are submitting to, to avoid any confusion, and to assure your poems are published in the correct edition. Thank you! Our Poetry Archive’s email address is: ourpoetryarchive@gmail.com

Author Stacia Lynn Reynolds, editor, sincerely thanks each 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

email us to:

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FETHI SASSI

OUR POETRY ARCHIVE FEATURED
POET OF THE MONTH
FETHI SASSI

FEBRUARY 2018

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 favourite Poets? What are some of your favourite 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?

FETHI SASSI: I’ve been writing poetry from my first young days, since I’m twelve years old. Since my early days I was fascinated about reading; I kept to choose  most kind of excellent books that give me a great chance to increase my knowledge; this kind of reading make my level going better. At first my favourite poets was the old Arabic ones that offers me the chance to try the poetic rhythm and exercises my writing deeply. Second I was interested by the Syrian poet Nizar kabani and the Palestinian  Mahmoud Derwich inspired me a lot in the poetry world and teaches me more technical method writing and more words and verbs from the dictionary. Therefore my pictures begin to belong to a different imagination. That’s why I ‘m sure about inspiration as a guiding power that goes far in writing and keep ideas flowing one by one.


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

FETHI SASSI:  All poets and writers has the possibility to be under the criticism provocation; indeed in my weekly meeting with some important poets and academia teachers who’s try to explain to me how can we get a successful poem by discovering  a new method of writing and they try always to correct the general ways of my writing to improve better. My biggest complement was writing the modern poem comparing to the new wave of poetry. but there is a strange ideas of some poets affirming that there is only one way to write Arabic poetry with the kalil verses. As a fanatic attitude make me upset.


OPA: What is your favourite 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?

FETHI SASSI: I can never imagine a favourite poem because I don’t make comparison between them. Just I compare my sons; all they have different tastes and they have been made and written in different world and feelings too.  Even the first ones; it was my first guest on my whiteness. From the beginning I don’t write with the same ability I become more joined to my world as I built a cave to live in with too many special rituals.      


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

FETHI SASSI: This is really a big hope to be a poet or a writer. As a prophet that gives for all people the way to live more with love and peace. Always convert the poet his great hopes for love to others by writing. Many lines or a poem even a whole book; a promise to live more in happiness and a passport for humanity to give a chance for tomorrow. 


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?

FETHI SASSI: I can never do it because in my country there is no job in poetry or writer. We do this with passion and we spend our own money to publish books you can never compare us as the developed countries when you see the culture is an industry. This is really incomparable and I hope that one day we can achieve this level.  


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

FETHI SASSI: I can see that writing and reading are the most important thing in my life. And I was all my life in the way to do it with nonstop. I always practice my second passion as canary breeders. I have now an important number of canaries that they are my lonely friends and fellows. It is really a great pleasure to be the hole day in the accompany of such creature. 


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

FETHI SASSI: Yes, really it is very primordial to live in the poetry world, but only for the person who has the possibility to give something of the readers, to benefit the knowledge of others; and subtract questions ready for a new look and new answers. Every writer and poet contributes in the general history of the mankind by completing the missed sentences that solve existence and the legendary heavy questions.    


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

FETHI SASSI: To write poetry is not to answer questions but to try to ask differently. This is most of the big lesson that I have done and keep understood. Really I see differently this fantastic world and always I try to answer my questions differently and answer too. the poetry is the unusual view to everything.


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

FETHI SASSI: In general most people bother about literature; it is the wrong way that they like to be in. But if they consider that talking is never be efficient and writing is the perfect method to go in excellent discussion with everything. The new life and the technology that beats our daily life, offer for us only everything with no effort and they have no more time to think about.


OPA: If humanity tries to understand tradition and modernism; do you think literature can play a pivotal role in obtaining understanding?  If so, how? Again, how can an individual writer relate himself or herself with the tradition and modernism?

FETHI SASSI: Yes, I think so. Literature can have an important effect to join for humanity the understanding between tradition and modernism in the simple way that the modern things are no more than the new way of tradition; we have to believe the big relation between them. Every field has to make a great development in the built of such things.                                         


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

FETHI SASSI: I don’t think so because the society cannot help the creator to shape; as he advances lonely to charge his world.

           
OPA: We would like to know about any influences that has inspired your poetry and writings.

FETHI SASSI: More influences has inspired my poetry and writings are my readings and my relation with important poets, our contact improved my level of writing because changing experiences is so important.


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

FETHI SASSI: My country has a great and important literary heritage from the last century We can observe most of poets and writers with too much works in different literary object; all those are preparing the way for us to make more important writing.  


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

FETHI SASSI: Really we are the product of our society and nationality. we keep to belong For it and for all the chances that it offer for us. more the nation tries to give for her writers and poets the real value and to give all the possibilities in a hard and power work more the train of the art will go faster. To become an international writer is a personal purpose, if the writer live with a great ambitions he can go greater with time to become very known but step by step.


OPA:  What 7 words would you use to describe yourself?

FETHI SASSI: Love- happiness- beauty- peace- poetry – book- body – philosophy-Woman- the impossible poem.


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

FETHI SASSI: I like to give for all my readers to try everyday reading some books, to try seeing the world in our place to admire the world where we already live. To see, how we can together change this world just by one poem.

FETHI SASSI is a Tunisian poet, Haikuist, writer, and translator. He was born in Nabul in 1962. He has published five poetry collections: A Seed of Love (2010), I Dream …. And I Sign on Birds The Last Words (2013), A Sky For A Strange Bird (2016), As Lonely Rose on a Chair (2017) and And You Are the Entire Poem, (Canada in 2017): https://www.createspace.com/7092707
The editorial staff of this project: Stacia Lynn Reynolds and Deborah Brooks Langford; sincerely thank you for your time and hope we shall have your continued support.

FETHI SASSI


FETHI SASSI

YES ... IT HAPPENS

She knows very well igniting fire ,
in the basements of her smile  .
Yes she knows that ...
When you leave your lips alone to pick up your forgotten fingers there,
as you walk follow the names.
Dancing  in the speech ways  ...
Nothing in the universe remains in the same state.
you really ignore what will happen to the wind  !
if you persist in the shadows .
So I still say :
It usually happens when you smile  ...




ALONE WE WERE

I will go alone ...
as a desire night .
We were young and the wind knew us.
We carried the wheat fell to our smiles our neighborhood walls.
We were alone,
They don’t know that you’re living in the street of the speech.
Let them;
stand with me at the first line
to stay alone in the fog as a grass embroidered in water.




NIGHT , COME WITH ME

Night ;
I regretted everything.
I don’t remember my name.
I hid my shadow every night in the bottle of twilight .
Night , come with me where I don’t know  !
there so far in the forest names !
made me a pure whiteness to write something ,
ambiguous or something like this …
just I feel forced like the fingers of my poem to
commit a suicide .




THE COLOR OF MY POEM IN THE WOUND

A broken glass throughout the whiteness,
can you explain to me ?
How can we write something without noise,
without crying .

Passion hanging in the sadness,
wear your clothes, no spot on it.
Only a tattoo not justified by Jesus,
to write a rose at the lowest cost.

A blood high in speech,
why the ache of my poem hurts me ?
The color of my poem in the wound is sweeter.
I am the one who doesn’t understand the ache of absence.
Than died alone and left me a stranger ;
before the poem closes its balcony.




I HAVE ENOUGH

This poem is my room.
I sit on the balcony  …
after all this world became irrelevant to me,
I have enough tears.
I have a pen and a paper, and a napkin to keep the deceased.
Where I am trying alone .
I don’t need an address or postman.
I will throw my words on my balcony for the doves to eat.
And restore my kisses to the size of lovers.
The world will look clearer to me  ....
But I don’t need all that.
All the story   …
I will sit on my balcony waiting for a woman
who never arrives ,
to stone me with a look at a sad evening  ….


FETHI SASSI

FETHI SASSI is a Tunisian poet, Haikuist, writer, and translator. He was born in Nabul in 1962. He has published five poetry collections: A Seed of Love (2010), I Dream …. And I Sign on Birds The Last Words (2013), A Sky For A Strange Bird (2016), As Lonely Rose on a Chair (2017) and And You Are the Entire Poem, (Canada in 2017):


YIOULA IOANNOU PATSALIDOU


YIOULA IOANNOU PATSALIDOU

TIME

There, the end of another year
is here once again.
how times flies
and overtakes me!
it overtakes me and ruthlessly
pushes me into the abyss.

i am searching for allies, to beat it.
to slip by it , to save myself.
And never to be defeated by it.
To make it obey to what i want.
To send it back to the early seventys
and stop time there.
To be blessed again
with a never ending celebration,
for the joy of life.
to  savour once again
the sweet fruits of justice and peace/
And live on the rhythm of celebration
what ever life i am left with.






LIFE

To caressed me
and i come to life
the creation smell sweet
the feast bigins.

i dress up in morning
in colours in light
i worship the trees,
the earth , the water.

I kissed the noon
and my heart grew wings
it fluttered
it searches for the embrace.

i be friended the  down
it fell in my two hands
i married  life
and had three children

i named  them love,
justice and humanity
and i have happiness
as my constant companion
and i am not afraid of death
nor of pitfalls.






SINCE THE MYTHICAL TIMES

Since the mythical times
they stand like bright beacons
of love of friendship
Pelops and Hercules

And the flames that light
at the altar of Olympia
are the people's compass
to the path they paved

Fine men and women
arrive on time once more
from the neighbourhoods of the world
to compete for the wreath.

In friendship and love
in the stadium once again
they will strive for peace
and world happiness.

YIOULA IOANNOU PATSALIDOU

YIOULA IOANNOU PATSALIDOU was born and raised in Avgorou  Famagusta Cyprus. She descends from the historical wealthy family of Ioannis Gonemi but the property of the family has been stolen by government employees after the Turkish invasion in her country in 1974. After graduating from Pancyprian Lyceum of Larnaca , she pursued studies in photography and French language and civilization in Lyon France. She participated in performances  of a music dance group. Later she created a famous everyday six hour radio show at a local private radio station. She has published five  collections of short stories, fairy tales and poems. She has participated in many internationals anthologies supporting the peace and she was awarded many times.



YANG CHI-CHU,


YANG CHI-CHU

PINEAPPLE CAKE
鳳梨酥

As the Taiwan-island-shaped pineapple cake is savored,
Packaged with food quality assurance,
Stuffed with Guanmiao’s local pineapple,
Sour ‘n sweet,
That old-time wax-gourd filling has been forgotten.

Decades ago in the countryside
Teeming with big wax gourds,
Neighbors shared pineapple cake,
Piling up kindness piece by piece,
And the leftover cake went to
The pastry chef, to be
Fully cooked and fried--
A tradition of cherishing food.

The insipid wax-gourd filling--
A test of the chef’s ingenuity--
Blended with various aromas,
Surprisingly played up to
The yearning of sweet desert.
Kneaded into dough in pieces, the pineapple cake
Wafted a hometown sentiment through the air.

Today the island-shaped pineapple cake
Goes for local pineapple filling instead,
Cased with the island’s splendors,
Along with a tropical flavor, sour ‘n sweet,
Spreading across shopping malls:
The genuine Guanmiao pineapple cake
Tourists
Know nothing but Taiwan in their mouths.






ONE LITER OF TEARS 
一公升的眼

I’m growing up to
Have feet and hands.
Suddenly I hear the sounds--
TONG, TONG, TONG--
Smelling of fear,
Stamp, and hide deep in amniotic fluid.

I begin thinking,
Fingers grasping and toes paddling
Habitually in all directions--
RONG, RONG, RONG--
Staying in the warm bed
Humming—fiddling with the fluid to sleep.

I feel music
Wafting from far away.
A nocturne, it’s said.
DENG, DENG, DENG--
Fragmented
Notes—I’m waving a baton in dream.

A voice’s telling a tale about
Love of tears night after night.
I’ve not learned to cry yet,
Amniotic fluid readily serving as my tears.
Not till one liter of tears are filled up,
Not till I leave the warm bed,
Do I realize--what love is.






FORT SAN DOMINGO
紅毛城

The rise and fall of the nations
And their checkered past
All remain
Jockeying for the marine power

In the red-brick house
The owner’s language
Smelled of something
RING-RING-RING...
Service ring
Spanish, Dutch, English
Transmitting the wisdom of the butlers
Transmitting the influence of the time

In the Empire’s hand
Who, would let go of it

Translated by
WANG Ching-lu王清祿

YANG CHI-CHU,

YANG CHI-CHU,b. 1981, a doctoral student in Comparative Literature at Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan, specialized in East Asian Literature in the period of 1930s.  She published her master thesis “Interdisciplinary Adaptation: A Study of the Narrative and TV series of the Trilogy of Wintry Night” in 2010,as well as poetry books “Living Among Cities” in 2016 and “In the season of Summer LotusBlossom” in 2017. She participated 2014“Tras las Huellas del Poeta” International poetry meeting in Chile, 2016 Formosa International Poetry Festival in Tamsui, Taiwan, and 2017 Capulí Vallejo y Su Tierra in Peru.


VERICA TADIĆ


VERICA TADIĆ

THE BRIGHTEST LIGHTHOUSE

When you love like a century your day is long
And nobody can In no war win you

You are no more a lonely and little I
Your I is growing
And becomes larger than you
Larger than life

Only then The World is smaller
Than the universe of two beings

In whose encounter All fluids of the cosmos
Touch and epitomize

Only then you are a chord of human power
In the interval I YOU WE ALL

And when death irrevocably
transfers you to unknown spaces

You will be the brightest lighthouse

Wherever you are
On the continent of your name
LOVE will shine

The most durable Sanctity
In which future generations
Will take communion

Only that Sanctity
Is larger than dreams and reality
Larger than everything that exists

Because LOVE has made Both Gods and People
***





UNIVERSES OF TENDERNESS

In the shells of time
Murmurs the sea
of our days

Nothing else
Is important to me
That I can wish for
In this world

From the moment
our beings rearrange
in the universes
of tenderness

In a fusion of two universes
A new Sun is always born

And only then you can cruise
through infinity

And sail into some
Magical waters

In which every touch
And kiss

Turn into
islands of flowers

And only then you ride
On a star   born in magic

The powder of which   shines
Even when   the star   fades away
***





WHEN I BECOME A PRAYER

If you are upper eyelash
And me lower eyelash

Our love will be the eye
That sees both worlds
This one here
And the one above us

As long as the music of stars
Announces  your arrival

And in my  smile
The Moon  of your sky
Daydreams

Connected in myriad
Of mutual flickers

We will live in each other
As reflections in the water

So if I am a holiday
Be my celebration

When I am a prayer
Be a saint in front of which
I keep vigil in prayer

When in each breath
One eternity lives

And in each step heavenly
We touch the road

We will dream our future US

English translation:
ŽELJKA  FODULOVIĆ

VERICA TADIĆ

VERICA TADIĆ was born on 08.12.1949 in Donji Dubac (Municipality of  Guča, Western Serbia). She graduated from the Economics Faculty in Kragujevac. She has been publishing contemporary poetry, haiku poems, essays, reviews, studies, stories, maxims and aphorisms in domestic and international magazines and joint publications. She is represented in numerous literary editions and magazines, in forty joint books, as well as in eight anthologies of Serbian writers, two anthologies of Balkan writers and one world anthology.