NILAVRONILL SHOOVRO

WELCOME

TO

OUR POETRY ARCHIVE

FROM THE EDITOR

Humanity has come a long way since the dawn of the civilization. It has evolved around life and hope, to reach its present state. During this long journey human nature has also evolved around few basic characteristics. Namely fear, desire, grief, joy, pride, ego, love and hate. These are the main emotions which shape the human nature. Many believe that we as human being have not changed much since the dawn of the civilization. Their argument mainly stands on two facts. One is, as they want to put it straight, that we are unable to understand one another. This is our inheritance from our ancestors. So, the conflicts between various tribes, groups, and races remain still. And the second one is, this tradition of differences actually prevent us to establish true human connections between various sects, which leads to numerous wars and fights between one another. Although not every war is the outcome of racial conflicts, rather than conflicts of economic interests. Yet, we cannot deny their views entirely. Yes, we have inherited this hatred among the tribes and races, nations and peoples from our ancestors. And still we wage wars on others on and often. We didn’t overcome this human characteristic still now. We as human being has changed in both appearance and ability, from discovering the wheel of civilization to the technologies to voyage into the outer space. Yet our basic instinct of hatred among each other remain all the same. We have built nations with brutal military forces; we spend trillions of dollars yearly on arms and armaments. We put borders almost everywhere to block the immigrants to enter our lands. Constantly we try to find out new mechanism to exploits others to consolidate our economic supremacy. So, hatred among each other’s and occasional wars in between military powers is also necessary for this sort of civilized societies that we have proudly created.

We forget that we all are human with the same basic instincts that we have already discussed earlier, namely fear and desire, grief and joy, pride and ego, love and hate. Yet the irony of our civilization is, most of the time we overlook these overwhelming similarities with one another. Instead constantly we hover around the secondary differences such as language, color, religion, races etc. Again, these secondary differences dictate us how to behave and communicate with the others, who are not from our own community. Actually, this communal instinct is our prime inheritance that we want to preserve as our cultural tradition.

So, the problem of human civilization is primarily the problem of communication of sympathy among each other communities. This problem although has largely been tried to encounter throughout the human history, still persists in our inner soul and in our social structures. We should examine our own individual nature and make a comparative study with the nature of the other people of different communities. Only then we can learn about their conditions and aspirations and would realize that we are on the same boat together. It’ll help us to understand different communities and realize our own limitations. During the last couple of centuries our civilization has started to examine these cross-cultural differences and prejudices through the lens of literature. It is the domain of literature where one can overcome the barriers of prejudices to realize the comparative situations of different cultural sects and can relate to each other without any misperceptions. Although literature expresses itself through a particular language, yet it can also overcome the language barriers through translations. So, literature is the most important tool to play a definitive role in the cross-cultural interactions between various communities. It is through the fine arts, mainly literature even more specifically through poetry, we as a human being can find that human connections of sympathy which can bring us closer to each other among different communities around the world. Thus, poetry can also play an important role in cultural exchange worldwide.

As the founder editor of Our poetry Archive, personally with this vision and belief I have started to publish Our Poetry Archive as an international monthly web journal back in 2015. It is indeed true at that time even I was not sure about the success of my endeavour. During this long journey of five years I have made number of friends around the world with more or less same visions, who have joined OPA in various capacities. One can wonder, how a journey of only five years can be long enough to be praised. Yet it is indeed true that not many web journals can continue as long in web publishing. We have published Sixty issues of Our Poetry Archive during last five years. Not only that, we have also published five massive annual Anthologies during the same period. Our aspiration was to bridge up the cultural barriers and establish a world forum of human sensitivity to spread out the essence of humanity around the world. And we have taken this aspiration only to counter the traditional communal differences among various tribes, races, communities, nations. Actually, we believe language is not at all a barrier to embrace others with love and compassion. The vice lies in the basic instinct of communal prejudice and hatred. Basic instinct of greed and power to exploit and manipulate others. Yes, literature and poetry specifically can play an important role in encountering these forces, prejudice and hatred, greed and power.

With this issue Our Poetry Archive has completed its fifth year of web publishing. I would like to extend my gratitude to poet Deborah Brooks Langford and poet Stacia Lynn Bocskay of USA; poet Maria Miraglia of Italy, Poet Alicja Kuberska of Poland, poet Aprilia Zank of Germany, poet Anca Mihaela of Romania for their constant support and hard work to help OPA during this long journey of five years. I would also like to thank poet Leyla Isik of Turkey and Poet Ipsita Ganguly of India for their supportive role as the members of the editorial desk. Last but not the least, we from the entire editorial team remain obliged to each and everyone who have supported OPA with their contributions during these five years. And especially our readers should also be credited for their huge support to make OPA so popular around the world.

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:

ourpoetryarchive@gmail.com

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

MARLENE PASINI:

OUR POETRY ARCHIVE FEATURED

POET OF THE MONTH

MARLENE PASINI

MARCH 2020

ALICJA KUBERSKA: What does poetry mean to you?

MARLENE PASINI: For me, poetry is a way to cross a bridge to the worlds that are beyond this dimension. It is a possibility in which, with the power of the word, metaphor and creativity, my soul finds itself. Poetry shows us a path in which it is possible to transcend and evolve as human beings both for the poet and for those who listen to his poetry.

ALICJA KUBERSKA: What’s according to you the meaning of poetry in the contemporary world?

MARLENE PASINI: Poetry in the contemporary world has taken on new challenges in a world where the presence of technology is increasingly present, so poets must continue their work and include new ways to get their poetry to the public because in this way the poetry inserted in this world today can take on new nuances and dimensions that continue to allow its existence in a world that urgently needs the awakening of its sensitivity.

ALICJA KUBERSKA:  Can you describe your creative process while writing a new poem?

MARLENE PASINI: I usually work for projects with certain specific topics, where what I write is directed towards that perspective. This leads me to have a discipline and I schedule the schedules for this. But emotional states also play a very important role, and they are the ones that inspire writing. When I write poetry, I try to put inspirational music, light a candle or some incense. Writing poetry is a sacred act.

ALICJA KUBERSKA:  Did it happen to you that a poem was just your dream?

MARLENE PASINI:  I have had experiences where during my dreams a voice dictates my poems. Sometimes my dreams have helped me to write a novel.

ALICJA KUBERSKA: Tell us about your inspiration. What’re the most important subjects to you?

MARLENE PASINI: My poetry and in general my novels or literary essays have a spiritual and transcendental approach where the themes are the great enigmas of life and also the essence of beauty, soul, love, nature, the universe, God as a manifestation meta universal Romantic love also inspires me.

MARIA MIRAGLIA:  Which were the emotions that inspired your first verses?

MARLENE PASINI: I was a girl when I started writing my first verses, so love for my mother, joy and awe for nature were my first sources of inspiration.

MARIA MIRAGLIA:  Was your aspiration to become a poet or did all happen by chance?

MARLENE PASINI:  My concerns at an early age for poetry and literature, led me to become a poet and writer. It is a gift I have innate way. I never thought of it as a goal but as the years went by it became my vital trade and my way of life.

MARIA MIRAGLIA:  Who is the first person you read your poems to and why?

MARLENE PASINI: Some of my poems I showed them to my friends during my teenage years because of the same things that are shared at those ages. Then my poems were stored for a long time in a drawer until they began to be published in cultural magazines at my 24 years and then until the publication of my first book around my 27 years. Then my poetry and my literary work began to be spread.

MARIA MIRAGLIA:  Have you published any poetic anthology, if so, what did you feel the first time you got it in your hands?

MARLENE PASINI: My poetic work has been included in several anthologies around the world. And as far as I have gathered poems in an anthology for others, yes, I have done it, it has been a work that has been derived from literary workshops that I have given for 8 years to children and adolescents, whom I taught them how to write poetry and stories, later I have gathered his writings in various anthologies, which has filled me with deep joy and satisfaction to help these little ones have seen their dreams and illusions come true.

MARIA MIRAGLIA:  Who are the poets you prefer reading? Do you get inspiration from them?

MARLENE PASINI: Latin American poetry is the poetry with which I identify most because I am Latin. From the Mexican Elsa Cross and María Barandas to the poetics of Argentina's Olga Orozco, they are the ones that have most influenced me, they deal with the deep themes of life, they talk about destiny, temporality and seek to link the internal world with the external world. It seems to me that they have been great search poets as I am.

APRILIA ZANK:  How important is accessibility of meaning to you? Do you challenge the readers to work hard to decipher your poems, or do you prefer transparency of meaning?

MARLENE PASINI: In general my poetic work is complex both for its symbolism, as well as for the metaphors and the use of high language, but recently I have realized that I must access a more transparent, fluid and simple poet for the reader because this facilitates the understanding and at the same time motivates poetry to continue attracting more people.

APRILIA ZANK:  What kind of poems do you write mostly? Do you have recurring themes, or are all your poems unique?

MARLENE PASINI: My poetry is a search of myself, a search of all those unknowns that we carry in life as human beings, so normally the topics such as destiny, life, death, nature, spirituality are constant in my work. So is love as that force or energy that sustains us in this Universe.

APRILIA ZANK:  Do you think your poetry is typically feminine / masculine? If yes, in what way?

MARLENE PASINI: I do not think that my poetic work has a gender approach, however in some essays and novels if there is clear evidence of feminism, for example, I have an essay that is about a study and research of women throughout history in his sacred role he has had over time. In some of my novels there is quite marked weight in the characters that are women. Possibly if there is a woman-oriented approach, however, my poetry is open, impersonal and deals with spirituality, which belongs to the human being, no matter if it is male or female.

APRILIA ZANK:  Do you write mostly about yourself, or do you also have an open eye /ear for the issues of the world?

MARLENE PASINI: I write about myself, but basically from the great concerns and enigmas that concern everyone and sometimes I wrote some poems as a complaint of injustices and other topics that unfortunately affect the world.

APRILIA ZANK:  In what way is your poetry different from that of other poets?

MARLENE PASINI: My poetry has a cadence and a special musicality, it seems to me that no poet is identical, although the same themes can be treated, each poet has his own style.

LEYLA IŞIK:  What are the main factors to make poetry real poetry?

MARLENE PASINI: Any text that is created from the beauty of the word regardless of the subject, the text that has an intention, which allows sensibility to be awakened in the reader, which can open a window to the world and at the same time bring us closer to the truth and within oneself, one can already say that one is poetizing and then that text can be said to be a poem.

LEYLA IŞIK:  Do you think imagery is important in poetry? Where does the importance of imagery begin in a poem, where does it end?

MARLENE PASINI: One of the things that characterizes poetry is the possibility of recreating a theme through images, metaphors, this is what takes the reader to other dimensions and to multiple readings and interpretations when reading a poem, which makes it distinguish from any common text. For me a poem is born with an image and also ends with an image. This allows us to open the doors of imagination, creativity and sensitivity definitely.

LEYLA IŞIK:  What are the most used types of poetry in your country?

MARLENE PASINI: Mexico has a great tradition in poetry. Since pre-Hispanic times, indigenous peoples were wonderful poets. Then with the conquest of Spain came the influence of the so-called Spanish Golden Age and poetry was produced with a religious sense. Later, with the time of independence, a nationalism began to be sought and the literary trend was in this direction, with more patriotic tints. Latin America went through the same social process which also marked the literary work of Mexican poets in the eighteenth century. The stage of the new nineteenth century and the growing progress in Europe greatly influenced, especially in artistic trends such as surrealism that was part of the poetic work in Mexico and Latin America. At the moment with the opening of an increasingly technological and globalized world, poetry has become more open and I think that world problems are also the concern of artists and poets and in that sense their work is directed.

LEYLA IŞIK:  What’s important to be a good poet? To write good poems!

MARLENE PASINI: It seems to me that vocation is the first important thing, to have that gift to write poetry, to love poetry and to love to write. Then there are other factors such as having the discipline to always write, publish his poems, continue studying literacy, be a good reader, read other writers and poets and finally spread his literary work.

LEYLA IŞIK: Who are the most important poets and their main properties nowadays?

MARLENE PASINI: Today there are a lot of poets, and to think that only a few are consecrated poets would be to set aside many others who are of an impressive lyric. Speaking of the poets of my country, in particular I could mention prominent poets such as: Coral Bracho, Elsa Cross, Tedi López Mills, Monica Boullosa, Davis Huerta, to name a few.

DEBORAH  BROOKS  LANGFORD:  Understanding poetry begins with visualizing the central images in the poem. What do you see, taste, smell, hear, and feel? What is the imagery of your poetry?

MARLENE PASINI: The image of nature itself is very important for me when making metaphors and writing poetry, my emotions are also, I seek to connect with them, how I feel and through them come my body sensations, the sounds of the most there, what is not enough to see but that the soul listens to, I connect with the aromas produced by nature itself, a flowery field, a forest in the dawn, a rose, the smell and taste of love. I connect with the voice of my heart.

DEBORAH  BROOKS  LANGFORD:  What is the mood of your poetry? (Or How does it make you feel?)

MARLENE PASINI: My emotional field with which I built and fed my poetics depends a lot on my specific experiences at a certain moment. In general there is a feeling of nostalgia in my poems, typical of my sensibility, a nostalgia for lost paradise, that place that the soul longs for. Sometimes a feeling of loneliness and orphan hood. Also, on some occasions my poetry recreates the beauty of life and love as a feeling that is always present in everyone. MY poetry is a reflection also of my soul in love and passionate.

DEBORAH  BROOKS  LANGFORD:  In your poetry who is the speaker of the poem? Are you speaking to yourself or to others?

MARLENE PASINI: In my poetic work most of the time it is my soul or myself that addresses me. Through poetry I may be answering my concerns, my doubts about my personal questions. That quest for wisdom. But also, on other occasions it is my soul that speaks to other souls. It is as if I would like to share that wisdom that my higher self already has.

DEBORAH  BROOKS  LANGFORD:  What is the message of your poetry?  What messages do your poetry convey?

MARLENE PASINI: My poetry is a search of the superior being, it is a search of the soul, as well as of the fundamental themes that cause us mystery and intrigue to all, death, the afterlife, life after life, God, the Universe. In my poetry there is a message of spirituality, of search, of transcendence, there is a message of honoring nature, life, of the possibility of enlightening us. My poet is also a search for the ideal love, the soulmate and the state of love and reverie that every poet lives.

DEBORAH  BROOKS  LANGFORD:  Does the internet and social media contribute to the success of your poetry? Is this the reason you write for?

MARLENE PASINI: I write for myself; I publish my books for others, I never write to fill only spaces on social networks. But what is true is that today social networks are a very valuable instrument for the literary work of any writing to be mostly known and to cross boundaries and borders. Networks can definitely be a way for any writer or poet to find the success they deserve.

NILAVRONILL SHOOVRO:  Thank you so much dear poet for the interview. We would like to know your personal experience with OPA as a literary web journal. Would you like to share anything more with our readers?

MARLENE PASINI: I am grateful to you Nivranovill and to Our Poetry Archive for the great opportunity to integrate my literary work into the organization's program. Through this wonderful organization, poets from all over the world can find a way to publicize their literary work and also collaborate in a worldwide community of poets, who try to bring light to the world with their poetry and help create awareness. in a world that requires it so much.

MARLENE PASINI

MARLENE PASINI

Beginning

The dawn extends

Its warm and silky transparency,

The moisture is filtered

Through the pores of the earth.

Flowers, leaves and crusts

Lacerate the ethereal

Course of the days,

In the high breeze dusts fly

Compressed memories and pollen,

Mosses and lichens disrupt

Their velvety silence.

Swarm offish routines

In an everlasting void.

From the weariness of those furry ivies

My eyes are infinite exiles

And thoughts burst like mauve.

Beyond the sharp smell of musk

Permeates the air

And melts the resinous aroma of trees

And orange of the evening,

Where the birds’ songs are scattered

And experiences diluted,

Where ethereal dreams mature

And the absences sigh,

There we will return to the beginning.

In its intense indigo,

The night covers desires

Of transient chimeras,

In the slow and transfigured step

Of what’s always the same

We dissolve into intangible sequences.

There where absences gleam

We’ll go back to the beginning.

Spell

Lost ripple

In the glance,

Inscriptions of the invisible

Fall to the bottom of the dream,

Badges from another time.

Fleeting wings dance away

Among the branches,

Every move

Evaporates at the instant bonfire.

From afar the rumor of our steps

Besieges the pond and its jade stillness.

Untouched blackness of shadows.

A last silent walks burning the darkness

Quartz of light

Crossing a splendor of clouds,

reverberates in silent waters.

The Deep Sky

It’s an impassive crow’s song.

To dream

Dissolved light:

Spell.

Abandonment

The night goes through us

In the deepest,

Avid snake that penetrates

The cleft of dreams.

We pretend to sleep

As impenetrable

Crystal spheres

The earth does not comfort

Just throw off its dark and rough

Orphanage.

Above

Wind towers

Fall

Apart

Under

Vacuum.

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY ALICIA MINJAREZ RAMÍREZ

Glass Road

Memorable birds

in grottoes of silences

and paths traced in time.

Still raining outside

in the dark soul of the jungles,

in the forgotten spirit basin:

island of torn solitudes

on the bare feet of the beggar,

in the yards of that house

packed with ruined objects.

The fine moisture dissipates the pores

barely breathable from things,

of experiences and words ever drawn

on stones and silenced logs.

Flood of thoughts that clutter my mind,

cold shadows slide in shallow stillness of the dawn.

Stays

Thick lethargy the afternoon outbreak,

bright opening consumes

the pulsation of life itself.

I overflow,

I spill in the undeniable

breaking of the moment.

Slightness of time in time.

And your voice

and your presence is rain.

Endless cliff of rhythms.

Butterfly wings:

flower over the waters of the pond,

clouds, leafless puffs,

birds that migrate cycles.

And where do I go? And you?

Since eternity names flutter

to strips of oblivion.

And your light kisses they fork the dawn,

your love in the crack

deeper of my thinking

doves in the dream, inside bell towers,

among the hidden branches of the gloom.

Mineral tear,

dark memory sore.

MARLENE PASINI

MARLENE PASINI: She was born in Mexico. She is a Communicologist, Writer and editor, Transpersonal Psychotherapist, Life Coach and Coach in Transpersonal Education, Coach in Mindfulness and Meditation, Master in Literature, Diploma in History, Diploma in Egyptology and Hieroglyphs. Alternative Medicine Specialist. Cultural Ambassador of Mexico City by the Latin American Association of Poets, Writers and Artists. She is Specialist in Ancestral Wisdom, Comparative Religions and Mysticism. He has published seven books of poetry, two essays, two novels and two personal development books. She won two awards for her poems, one in the State of Mexico and another one in Buenos Aires Argentina. In 2018 she obtained the Diamond Star distinction for her career in Letters by the International Circle of Journalists. She won the Ibero-American Prize for Literature by the Leadership Today Foundation in April 2019. And finally she obtained the Recognition to Mexican Letters by the Academy of Literature and Poetry, as well as by Houses of the Poet Association, in July 2019.

ZACHAROULA GAITANAKI

ZACHAROULA GAITANAKI

Fatherland

For many years now,

he regards the foreign country

his second home.

But in his heart,

an eternal love

nests for Greece.

A handful of the native soil,

a small branch of lemon tree

and a seashell from Aegean Sea

antidotes of forgetting.

Besides the icons he keeps,

in a small box,

the soil, the seashell, the flowers,

mementos from his fatherland.

Zacharoula Gaitanaki, Greece

Postscript

My fried, I wrote a big letter

but I missed to mention this”

I saw in television, a reportage

from a fire in a colors factory.

There was a kitten getting out

of the ruins staring

with curiosity the camera

shooting the destruction.

It seemed to me

like a good omen.

Not the camera,

the kitten I mean.

Zacharoula Gaitanaki, Greece

A Short – Lived Bestseller

“Extraordinary, “Excellent”,

“Interesting”, “a beautiful book”,

“Important”, “a graceful book”,

“Gorgeously written”, “Fantastic”..

A young writer of a bestseller

was collecting words and reviews

in a notebook specially

for this purpose.

When, by chance, he opened it,

after some years,

all its pages were blank.

Zacharoula Gaitanaki, Greece

ZACHAROULA GAITANAKI

Dr. ZACHAROULA GAITANAKI was born in Athens on November 30th, 1966. Now, she is a small farmer and lives with her family in Zoni, a small Arcadian village in Peloponnese. She writes poems, articles, short stories, essays, novels and review of  book.  She is also a translator  of books of poetry. She is a life member of the “World Academy of Arts and  Culture”  /  “World Congress of Poets” (which awarded her the title of the Honorary Doctor of Literature) and of the IWA (International Writers Association). She is a member of the “World Poets Society” and of the “Asociacion Mundial de Escritores – A.M.E.” of  Spain (No 3299). Member of “Poetas del Mundo” («Poets of the World»). Her poems, short stories and essays have appeared  in foreign and Greek Anthologies, they have been translated into English, French, Italian, Albanian, Bengali, Russian, Hungarian, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and have won prizes in national and international literary competitions.  She selected by “The International Poetry Translation and Research Centre” and the Journal of “The World Poets Quarterly” one of “The International Best Translators 2005” (China, 2006) and by the Greek Literary Club “Xasteron” as “The Best Greek Translator of the year 2007” (March, 22, 2008). “Best Poet of the Year 2012” by the IPTRC. “Best Translator of 2013” by the “International Writers and Artists Association – IWA”.  «Translator of 2017» by the Academia Alternative «PEGASIANE» (Albania). She has published the books: 1.-  “DISSIMILAR  LANDSCAPES” (Poetry collection), Athens, 2001 & e-book (2018).    2.-   “POTIS  KATRAKIS, A PROLIFIC  WRITER” (Essay), Athens 2003.   3.-  “STATHIS  GRIVAS – WRITING FOR LIFE  – Tracking in his poetical space”.  Essay), editions “Platanos”, Athens, 2006.  4.- «200 YEARS ZONI (1810 – 2010)», a special edition (with 59 photos), “Morfotikos Exoraistikos Syllogos Zonis of Arcadia”,  2010 . 5.- “POTIS KATRAKIS – ROUTE TO CREATION”, (Essay), Athens (1st edition: 2012, 2nd edition: June 2013), Editions “Lexitipon” and 6.- «IN MY LITTLE OFFICE», poems, Zoni Arcadia, 2018, e-book edition. With 3 other poet have published the e-books: «WEDDING EVE OF FEAST» (2018) and «THE ENGAGEMENT» (2019).