NILAVRONILL SHOOVRO

 

SOLITUDE

 

Everyone is living in solitude. Nobody would like to agree on it. Everyone would try to deny it in their defense to project himself and herself as a social being living in connections with other fellow beings. Yes, that is true in all respects. We all are social beings, living in our societies. And we vibrate in connections with people like us. All these are the essential facts of our life. Our everyday life is being orchestrated accordingly. It is also essential to surviving in life. Yet, if we fathom deep into our own life, we can never deny the fact that basically, we live in solitude also. Each of us has a unique individuality where we like to remain lonely with ourselves. Where we seldom give access to penetrate others. This is the domain of our solitude. Which we like to reserve only for us. And this aspect of our life shapes our psychic spheres. So, we can say, in the innermost chamber of our heart we remain in solitude.

If anybody thinks it’ll prevent us from being social, it wouldn’t be right. Every one of us interacts with others socially even carrying this solitude, in our self-identities. And it never prevents us from being social. Rather keeps us serene and helps us to preserve our sanity. Yet most of the time we are not aware of it. We consider solitude as a negative aspect of life. To us, solitude is some form of confinement. Which deters us from all the opportunities of life. Yes, that can be true whenever someone lives in exile or prisons or even leftover by the family and friends. That is a different issue.

We are talking about solitude as the coherent part and even an important phase of our day-to-day life, this remains the center of our psychological self. Everything else may rotate around it, keeping us connected with the outer world. Solitude allows us an excellent opportunity to deal with the big questions in our life. At various times in our life, we face big questions about the essence of our individualities in our social life. If we wish to go around these questions to fathom out real and true answers, we have to bow down Infront of solitude. And it’ll eventually help us to realize the essence of our relations with the universe and society as a whole.

Solitude enhances our creativity. Solitude frees the mind up from all the distractions of everyday life and allows it to focus more fully on any particular thing. It allows our brain to think independently outside the social norms and ongoing trends to come up with unique, extraordinary solutions to ordinary problems. It enhances our self-identities to cultivate uniqueness in our self-expression.  Especially for the creative minds of artists painters sculptures musicians writers, solitude plays an interim phase of self-discovering also. Which is the important essence of creativity. Solitude is our chance to learn something about ourselves. Self-discovery is a process that involves seeking answers to few basic questions. Namely who we are and what makes us unique concerning others. It also inquiries about our innermost dreams. Where should we reach? It helps us also to find out whether we remain satisfied with our achievements in life or not, and why?

Solitude provides us an opportunity for perspective. Whenever we are caught up in the hassles of day-to-day life, all we can do is, sit back and ponder around our solitude. It’ll help us to resort to our problems with effective solutions. If we want to see and appreciate the big picture of what our life is all about, we have to step back a little bit into the innermost chamber of our solitude.  So, not only for the creative people but also for the common people solitude can help immensely. Moreover, we shouldn’t consider solitude as loveliness. These two aren’t synonymous with each other. Solitude is a state of mind. Loneliness is a state of physical condition where we remain alone without being accompanied by our near and dear ones. Loneliness affects us adversely, whereas solitude helps us positively.

We at Our Poetry archive have decided to publish one single issue devoted entirely to this theme “Solitude”. And surprisingly we got a huge response from our writers. Too many poets have submitted their literary works in the form of poetical expressions on this particular theme. So, we couldn’t accommodate everyone’s poetry in a single issue. We’ll publish their poetry in the next issue along with others’ poems.

With this concluding issue of volume six, ‘Our Poetry Archive’ has now completed its sixth year in online publishing. We consider this as an achievement of excellence along with a huge responsibility to carry on with our good works with enhancing literary quality. During these six years ‘Our Poetry Archive (OPA)’ has gained huge popularity among the poets and readers, internationally. We have also come across several new poets every year. We hope our readers will also increase with each volume and issue. At present, the number of website viewership has crossed the six hundred thousand marks. So, we are hopeful and committed in our devotion to keep going and excel beyond.

With this March 2021 issue, we are presenting poet LILLA LATUS of Poland as the poet of the month. Poet Aprilia Zank has taken her interview exclusively for OPA. We are confident enough about this special issue devoted entirely to the theme ‘SOLITUDE’. We welcome our readers to take a look and roam around the creative flashes of brilliance of contemporary poets around the world.

NilavroNill Shoovro

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

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

LILLA LATUS POET OF THE MONTH

 

APRILIA ZANK TALKING WITH

POET OF THE MONTH 

LILLA LATUS

MARCH 2021

APRILIA ZANK: According to the American poet Robert Frost, “Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” Can, in your opinion, all thoughts be 'translated' into words?

 

LILLA LATUS: I wish they were but I realize that it is possible only to some extent. We – poets - create the unique world in which readers can find something which has been subconsciously sensed but impossible to be expressed in other way. I believe that the rich world of words has the power to uncover those hidden thoughts. Maybe a poem is a bold attempt to “translate” thoughts into words. 

 

 

APRILIA ZANK: The English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley once wrote: “Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” Can you explain how poetry unveils the hidden beauty of the world?

 

LILLA LATUS: Unveiling that hidden beauty is both challenging and difficult. Wisława Szymborska – a Polish poetess, Nobel Prize winner in 1996 – wrote “We're extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in”.  So its beauty is also something mysterious. Maybe we – poets – should just do our best to write as well as we can. This is the only way to show what a wonderful world it is.

 

 

APRILIA ZANK: The American poet of English origin W. H. Auden was convinced that, “A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.” Do you think that poetic language should always be refined and cultivated, or may it also be rough and raw if necessary?

 

LILLA LATUS: Polish language is so rich, varied and offers so many possibilities to express different emotions, views. My mother’s tongue is my homeland. We can describe the world, feelings using both refined and raw language It’s our right and chance as well. Of course, the context should justify the choice of words.

 

 

APRILIA ZANK: Please consider the following statement of the English scholar and poet A. E. Housman: “Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out... Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.” Do you write or prefer explicit poetry with an obvious meaning or message, or rather more cryptic, challenging poetry?

 

LILLA LATUS: I love ambiguities, complexity in poetry. It requires from the reader some effort but – on the other hand - it enables to understand the poem in a special, individual way. I hope it doesn’t exclude pleasure of taking great delight in reading poetry. Discovering the deepest meaning, searching for the gist can bring a real satisfaction and often takes readers by surprise.

 

 

APRILIA ZANK: “Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.”, is a famous quote by the German romanticist and philosopher Novalis. To what extent can poetry have a therapeutic effect?

 

LILLA LATUS: Poetry can be therapeutic both for the poets themselves and for its readers. I have even some theory - poets are usually cheerful people because they write sad poems. Maybe it is a bit far-fetched but as far as I know it applies to many artists, people who create artworks with their own blood, soul and heart. Art can’t heal wounds but it can make them less painful.

 

 

APRILIA ZANK: According to Salvatore Quasimodo, an Italian poet and literary critic, “Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own.” Is, in your opinion, the poet primarily a personal voice, or rather the echo of his fellow beings?

 

LILLA LATUS: I wonder if it is possible to distinguish clearly between the personal voice and the echo. The Polish poet – Czesław Miłosz, Nobel Prize winner in 1980 – believed that a special deity, daimonion, chooses a poet and in inner whispers dictates poems. I want to be original, to show something new, personal but we are made up of different experiences and maybe it is impossible to draw the distinctive line between this what is really mine and that what influences me. It is great when the reader recognizes the vibes of the poem as his own.

 

 

APRILIA ZANK: The American literary critic M. H. Abrams asserted that, “If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.” Do you also think readers need to be educated as to how to go through a poem? If 'yes', in which way?

 

LILLA LATUS: It depends on what kind education we mean – this academic, scholar or that one arising from individual sensitivity which has nothing to do with formal education. I believe in the power of erudition but it can be gained in different ways. Of course, well–read reader is more likely to understand some metaphors and references but the readiness and willingness to “absorb” the poem can’t be neglected.

 

 

APRILIA ZANK: Let us now consider the words of the American songwriter and poet Jim Morisson: “If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.” Can you please tell us how poetry can be/become educational?

 

LILLA LATUS: In my experience, poetry can broaden minds, improve perception and consequently “deliver people from the limited ways”. I try to tell in my poems about philosophy, history, literature but those themes are used to convey something emotionally personal. The content is merely the tool to make the reader see the subject from a different angle, in a new light. Besides, reading poetry may result in arousing an interest for looking up some new notions, terms.

 

 

APRILIA ZANK: The British-American poet T. S. Eliot claimed that, “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.” Do you sometimes/often experience 'love at first sight' for poems that you have not understood immediately/completely?

 

LILLA LATUS: Sure! That weird flash may appear all of a sudden. The enchantment can be compared to love at first sight. Moreover, it has nothing to do with the academic value of the poem. It is a question of the right moment, feeling that it applies to you very much, touching some fragile and soft part inside. I hope that “communication” mentioned by T.S. Eliot still works.

 

 

APRILIA ZANK: Paul Valéry, a French poet, essayist, and philosopher, said: “A poem is never finished, only abandoned.” Do you also think that the final 'embodiment' of a poem happens in the mind of the reader?

 

LILLA LATUS: It is likely to happen. Surprisingly, it applies also to poems with the clear, final punch line. But a poem is something open, not closed and it should allow to have “to be continued” option letting the reader accomplish it with his own sensitivity, creativity.

 

 

APRILIA ZANK: The famous British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie believes that, “A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.” Should, in your opinion, poetry have a strong social and/or militant component?

 

LILLA LATUS: I don’t think it’s a main goal of poetry but it can’t be excluded. Some poets whisper, others shout raising different issues, playing various strings. Anyway, we – poets – can make waves.

 

 

APRILIA ZANK: The poetic credo of the highly influential American poet Maya Angelou was the following: “The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you - black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.” Do you also think that your poetry addresses a large and varied audience?

 

LILLA LATUS: Hope so. I believe in the strength and power of words. We – people – have a lot in common. A poem is a kind of meeting and shaking hands. I want to give hope, new perspective, brighter light and everybody can be my soulmate.

 

LILLA LATUS (Poland) - poetess, translator, author of reviews, essays, song lyrics, articles about travelling. Many times awarded both for her poetry and engagement in cultural activity for local community. Published nine books of poems. Her poetry has been published in many magazines and anthologies, also in USA, Australia, India, The Czech Republic, Italy, Albania, etc.

  

Dr. APRILIA ZANK is an educationist, freelance lecturer for Creative Writing and Translation Theory, as well as a multilingual poet, translator, editor from Munich, Germany and an Author of the Poetry book BAREFOOT TO ARCADIA. Born in Romania, she studied English and French Literature and Linguistics at the University of Bucharest, and then moved to Munich, Germany where she received her PhD degree in Literature and Psycholinguistics for her thesis, THE WORD IN THE WORD Literary Text Reception and Linguistic Relativity, from the Ludwig Maximilian University, where she started her teaching career. The research for her PhD thesis was done in collaboration with six universities from Europe, and as a visiting lecturer at Alberta University of Edmonton, Canada. Dr Aprilia writes verses in English and German, French and Romanian and was awarded a distinction at the “Vera Piller” Poetry Contest in Zurich. Her poetry collection, TERMINUS ARCADIA, was 2nd Place Winner at the Twowolvz Press Poetry Chapbook Contest 2013. In 2018, she was awarded the title “Dr. Aprilia Zank – Germany Beat Poet Laureate”, by the National Beat Poetry Foundation (USA). She has been an acclaimed guest at cultural events in Germany, Great Britain, Canada, Turkey, Singapore and Romania, where she read her poems, delivered lectures on various topics. Her poems and articles are published in many ezines and Anthologies of different countries.

 

 

LILLA LATUS

 

LILLA LATUS

 

Architect Or Non-Existent Town

 

Line curves

are dancing with Sabbath candles

I am making up Shtetl

again

each street’s name is

Nice or Good

from the train station

you can get to the Bright Sides

and in the theatre, you can pay for Plays

each word separately

 

Walls are spinning

Columns are bouncing up

to the Sky

like to the music

by the best Klezmer

 

and who told

that Architecture

cannot be danced about

 

 

Pure Form

 

I am sitting at the dirty

train station

thinking about you

 

dirty thoughts

in the purest form

a train is

coming leaving

 

a cleaner has washed

the floor

I am walking along

the corridor

 

alone

 

pure profit

 

 

Romeo

 

he does not have

to sleep alone

 

he is looking for Juliet

in younger and younger

bodies

 

a bed helps put

loneliness to sleep

 

Romeo does not stray

only he cannot find

the right balcony

 

 

A Girl Wih Raindrops In Her Voice

 

She used to tell me about Plato and Aristotle.

Her Slavic accent sounded like gravel in the

Rain. Ing,ing, ing…

Feeling a fading shadow around my neck

I see a bright cave paved with desire and

Fear. In her language love and hatred are feminine

Nothing was neuter. Golden mean in motion.

I was Alexander but not great enough to conquer

The furthest reaches of her soul.

Leaving was a move excluding one of

The possible versions of future.

All places of my happiness are taken and create

Gloomy theory of forms.

Sitting in a brown study with blind shutters,

I can hear raindrops searching for a dry land.

Falling, tapping, dying, ing, ing, ing…

 

 

Incomplete  Cv

 

Age: 18 years old

Education: uncompleted

Marital status: single with prospects

Financial status: backpack full of dreams

Professional experience: impossible to gain

Interests: fast motorcycling

 

No condolences appreciated

 

LILLA LATUS

 

LILLA LATUS (Poland) - poetess, translator, author of reviews, song lyrics, articles about travelling. Many times, awarded both for her poetry and engagement in cultural activity for local community. Published nine books of poems. Her poetry has been published in many magazines and anthologies both in Poland and abroad (USA, Australia, India, The Czech Republic, Italy, Albania, etc).

 

BORCE PANOV

 

BORCE PANOV

 

Lethargy

 

like a sweeper

that sweeps

the bad dreams

of the night

the town awakens me

on the park bench

and says

Move, you wanderer,

make a space

for this old man

and we were sitting

with our thoughts

like with empty streets

between us

with childish carelessness

the dawn was sitting as well

but for a while

because this bench

became too small

when the day

sat besides us

like asthmatic

whose breath

is shortened

by everyone

and here it is

a thought

like a dog on a leash

is dragging

my lethargic body

from yesterday

again

 

 

Dance(Ma)Ster

 

1.

Summer Moon, dance with me

like the shadow with its cat

 

I am dancing,

and my shadow with my invisible “I” is dancing,

yet it does not drink a drop

 

2.

dance with my body, my soul,

in a time,

till the heart drinks us up

 

I am dancing,

and drinking, but one should not drink alone

with the dawn sleeping under the thin skin of the night

 

3.

with death as well,

like with body fluid, I am dancing

yet I do not drink a drop

 

I am dancing, and I haven’t learnt to die,

although I had been teaching myself

 

4.

I am dancing,

and my shadow with my invisible “I” is dancing,

but my heart would not drink it up…

 

 

Horizon Of Living

 

No, I am not happy with you

you live before your time

no, there is no room for me there

my body tells me

 

you are wrong, you are wrong

nothing will exist

if the time and the space are apart

if you and I are apart

from the horizon of our living

 

I say to my body

that takes up space in the future

not being aware that

that is the only way the future is created

 

I am not, I am not happy with you

it is so tight in here and I can hardly breathe

as I am embryo

should I give you a birth one more time

 

my body tells me, and I beg it

to bear just a moment only

when we will not be just a cultural layer

under the horizon of living

 Translated From Macedonian Into English

By Daniela Andonovska-Trajkovska

BORCE PANOV

 

BORCE PANOV was born on September 27, 1961 in Radovish, The Republic of North Macedonia. He graduated from the ''Sts. Cyril and Methodius'' University of Skopje in Macedonian and South Slavic Languages (1986). He has been a member of the “Macedonian Writers’ Association” since 1998. He has published: a) poetry: “What did Charlie Ch. See from the Back Side of the Screen” (1991), “The Cyclone Eye” (1995), “Stop, Charlie” (2002), “The Tact” (2006), “The Riddle of Glass” (2008), “The Basilica of Writing” (2010), “Mystical Supper” (2012), “Vdah (The Breathe of Life)” (2014), “The Human Silences” (2016), “Uhania” (2017), “Shell” (2018); and several essays and plays: “The Fifth Season of the Year” (2000), “The Doppelgänger Town” (2011), “A Dead-end in the Middle of an Alley” (2002), “Homo Soapiens” (2004), “Catch the Sleep-walker” (2005), “Split from the Nose Down” (2006), and “The Summertime Cinema” (2007). He has also poetry books published in other languages: “Particles of Hematite” (2016 - in Macedonian and Bulgarian), “Vdah” (2017 – in Slovenian), “Balloon Shaving” (2018 – Serbian), and “Fotostiheza” (“Photopoesis, 2019 – Bulgarian). His poetry was published in a number of anthologies, literary magazines and journals both at home and abroad, and his works are translated into English, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, French, Catalonian, Mongolian, Uzbek, Albanian, Romanian, Polish, Italian, Arabic, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Danish language. Panov works as the Counselor for Culture and Education at the municipality of Radovish, and he is also Arts Coordinator for the “International Karamanov’s Poetry Festival”, held in Radovish annually. Poetry of Borce Panov translated from Macedonian into English by Daniela Andonovska-Trajkovska:

ALAN JEFFERIES

 

ALAN JEFFERIES

 

Only Spring

 

My first wife insisted

i should never have married

in the first place,

such was my fondness for solitude;

then, promptly unmarried me

 

My second wife had no such complaint -

but then, she too has left

for the land from which there is no return.

 

So my love of solitude

has been left to take root,

and grow unchecked;

it’s waist high on the verandah

and it’s only spring!

 

 

Our Life Awaits Us Somewhere

 

Our life awaits us somewhere,

just round the corner

a wardrobe full of neatly pressed shirts

a caravan pulled up on a verge,

a bicycle rusted to its chain.

Somewhere beyond all that

our life awaits

 

like a better version of ourselves

waiting to reappear;

See, I was never far away

I was always just here

hands folded on my lap

breath gently drawn in

 

I was always here,

just around the corner

waiting for you to reappear.

 

ALAN JEFFERIES

 

ALAN JEFFERIES is a poet and childrens' author born and raised in Brisbane. He started writing and publishing after moving to Sydney in 1976. Between 1998 and 2007 he lived and worked in Hong Kong where he co-founded (with Mani Rao and Kit Kelen) OutLoud, Hong Kong’s longest running English language poetry reading. He's published six books of poems, his most recent being a bi-lingual edition “Seem” (Flying Islands, 2010) (Chinese translation by Iris Fan Xing). He currently lives in Woolgoolga on the NSW mid-North Coast. A new book of poems, "in the same breath"  is forthcoming from Flying Islands in 2021.