A
WORLDWIDE
WRITERS’ WEB
PRESENTATION!
PUBLISHED
BY
OPA
OUR
POETRY ARCHIVE
ONLINE MONTHLY POETRY JOURNAL
https://ourpoetryarchive.blogspot.com
email us to:
**************************************
A
WORLDWIDE
WRITERS’ WEB
PRESENTATION!
PUBLISHED
BY
OPA
OUR
POETRY ARCHIVE
ONLINE MONTHLY POETRY JOURNAL
https://ourpoetryarchive.blogspot.com
email us to:
**************************************
NILAVRONILL TALKING WITH
POET OF THE MONTH
CONCETTA LA
PLACA
FEBRUARY 2024
NILAVRONILL: Welcome to Our Poetry Archive, dear poet.
And congratulations as the poet of this month. I would like to know your
personal views on literature or poetry in general.
CONCETTA LA PLACA:
First of all, I would like to express my gratitude and
excitement for this prestigious invitation that came from a great international
poet and great publisher. I think that literature, in a broad definition, is a
vast world of thoughts, concepts, opinions, sensations, feelings, each captured
in words, which can be meaningful to people. Within this world we can
rediscover ourselves, find the personality that reflects us. For the human
kind, literature is like a great encyclopedia: through the power of literature,
we feel a connection with authors who have investigated within their soul
centuries before we did. We connect with characters experiencing the same
sensations we do, share questions and attempt answers which for generations
have stimulated reflection, criticism and sensitivity. The entries in this encyclopedia
have been compiled with the language that makes us dream and is part of
creativity.
Literature
allows us to see life reflected as if in a large room with parallel mirrors,
which help us to get to know ourselves and get to know each other. Literature
is the infinite image of our life and helps us stay on course in what Dante
Alighieri defined as "the great sea of being". In the material and
consumerist society in which we live, everything, even art, is subordinated to
the laws of the market. And, in this context, it seems that for many young
people, literature, which is an intangible asset, is considered useless because
does not appear to satisfy their needs for immediate consumption and
visibility. Then, we need to be patient and raise awareness to make them
understand that literature, like poetry, is not a commodity but has an
immaterial value that cannot be assessed by its physical weight, but
nevertheless many of us will discover that, in our lives, it “weighs” more than
a diamond ring or a luxury car. Furthermore, literature not only carries out a
great educational function for individuals, but also has a very important
function in the defence of democracy and serves to strengthen that sense of
unity, of belonging to the human community, thanks to which all men enter into
communication and can feel, in some way, solidarity. Not only does literature
teach us to see the richness of human heritage in ethnic and cultural
differences but it also contributes to the formation of responsible and
critical citizens, it empowers our vocabulary, improve our language to be able
to express our ideas better and more creatively. Refine everyone's sensitivity.
On the contrary, without literature, the world would be a barbaric, uncivilized
world, orphaned of sensitivity and critical sense. The stories of the books
allow access to the sphere of feelings and emotions of the protagonists and in
this way increase emotional literacy. The emotional vocabulary becomes broader
and this improves the definition, expression and understanding of one's own and
other people's emotions. Even poetry - starting from a brief definition which
indicates that it is an art form that creates, with the choice and combination
of words according to particular metric laws, a composition made up of
sentences called verses, in which the semantic meanings are linked to the
musical sound of phonemes, it is a type of writing that transmits emotions, the
poet writes sentences in verse, plays with words, which most of the time have a
hidden meaning. Poetry expresses the poet's imagination, inspiration comes from
his experiences. In the beginning, before the invention of writing, poetry was
oral. It was recited by storytellers. Poetry for me is text that starts from
the creative feeling of the poet, which expresses emotions, thoughts and
feelings and reflects and mixes with his imagination and creativity. The poem
reflects the poet's state of mind, placed in a specific historical, social
context and reaches the hearts of others, because whoever reads it activates
different areas of the brain responsible for emotions. poetic language
therefore exploits words that evoke feelings, emotions and images, adding
meaning to them. The language of poetry is not the logical-rational one, but
metaphorical and symbolic, the same language of fantasy. Poems can change the
way we look at and listen to the world around us. The great poets of the past
have offered us a vast and powerful vision of nature, life and man and we must
always take this into account.
NILAVRONILL: What are the factors that have influenced
you immensely in the growing phase of your literary life. When, most probably
you were not certain of your future as a poet or writer. Do you think society
as a whole is the key factor in shaping up you as a poet, or your poetry
altogether?
CONCETTA LA PLACA:
I started writing at a very young age. I was fifteen
years old when one of my poems was published in an Italian weekly magazine. I
believe that my literary education at school and the great poets studied at
school, such as Boccaccio, Dante, Giacomo Leopardi, Montale, Ungheretti, had a
great influence on shaping and refining my sensitivity. I was certainly also
influenced a lot by the poetics of the great Italian poets I studied at school.
I believe that the poetry of these greats allowed me to see the surrounding
world not as something always and only taken for granted and ordinary, but also
allowed me to grasp - together with all those emotions that these poets wanted
to declaim with their verses and relatively to their historical and social
context - even those nuances that without the verses I would not have been able
to grasp and which would not have allowed me to have a more enlightening vision
of what surrounds me in everyday ordinariness. Poetry has always been for me
the ray of illuminating light, a special focus to observe everything that has
always surrounded me, making me see the world through an emotional perspective
different from that of ordinariness and indifference that the world itself
posed, taking into consideration the places, the historical and social context,
etc., starting first of all from my emotions, thoughts and inner feelings and
giving space to my creativity, imagination to be able to describe something
that is inside the person and about which everyone wonders and that the surrounding
society neglects. It is in poetry that I have always found my refuge and the
place to put my emotions, the regurgitation of my soul, trying not to keep them
for myself, but giving them back to the surrounding world through the verses,
as an antidote to indifference and emotional opacity in the world.
NILAVRONILL: Do you consider your literary life as an
extension of your self-existence? If so, how it is related with the time around
you?
CONCETTA LA PLACA:
Certainly, through poetry I try to extend what is in me,
in my most interior part and which surrounds my existence, but I am not
subjected to external reality, in the sense that I start from it but I do not
remain a prisoner in it, as a mere description. Poetry is for me a possibility
to consider reality in an illuminating and imaginative way but it is not only
this. I perceive my poetry as a tool that filters this reality of mine with my
emotionality, so that from a reality that, at times, I don't like and don't yet
know well, I can transmit a new reality, the desired one, enriched by my real emotions.
So, through the verses I don't put a brake on my free imagination. Through the
verses I can say what I desire and what I would like reality to be, while
always starting from my real experience in the time I live. Furthermore, it is
said that many poets have not considered poetry as a docile witness of the
real, of the existent: it claims for itself the right to subject to its laws
even the reality on which it feeds, to make that reality readable. And that's
what I try to do. Starting from my reality, from my time and arriving at a
poetry not subjugated by reality, but in osmosis with my desires, feelings and
emotions which can be different from what I perceive from what surrounds me.
NILAVRONILL: As a poet, do socio-economy and politics
in general influence your literary visions? If so how, and if not, why?
CONCETTA LA PLACA:
My poetry is born, taking into account the historical,
political, socio-economic context of my time, because these variables influence
in some way, even unconsciously, my state of mind. Politics, in general, and
socio-economics influence it in some way, but do not cage it. Because I always
try, starting from reality, as I said in the previous answer, to have my say,
not remaining tied to the conditions dictated by the contingent moment, but
trying to go beyond, expressing myself and flying with creativity and my
emotions, with my imagination and observing what is beautiful around me. My
true feeling, which is certainly slightly influenced by it, tries to be
something else, always putting my critical sense, my reflections and my
sensitivity into play. It is through poetry that I try to shed light inside and
outside of myself.
NilavroNill: Is it possible to put into the words
everything that as a poet you wish to express literarily? If not, why?
CONCETTA LA PLACA:
I believe that in poetry we should not use words that
follow their primary or denotative meaning which is characteristic of prose,
for me poetry is a widespread form of linguistic expression, which is regulated
- as well as by precise metrical norms and rhythmic and in the contemporary
world also of a free form -, above all from that poetic language which is the
art of knowing how to exploit words that evoke feelings, emotions and images,
adding a meaning to them ... therefore a large quantity of rhetorical figures,
such as, for example, metaphors, similes, anaphors, synecdoches etc…Poetry
manages to convey emotions and moods in a more evocative and solemn way than
prose does. In my first Sylloge the international poet Nurul Hoque wrote that
in my poetry I have composed a mystery behind a language accessible to all and
which at first glance seems simple, but that the second meaning of the poem and
the third poetic thought is repeatedly exposed in the text. He claims that this
must be explained, because my poetry has within it the words, the images, the
similes that give my verses an extraordinary evocative poetic style and, in
doing so, I manage to reach all readers.
NilavroNill: Do you agree with John Keats
(1795-1821) on his ardent believe, “Truth is beauty, beauty is truth”? Even if
we take for instance the war of Kurukshetra, the conflicts between Kauravas and
Pandavas, or the fall out of second world war in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how
can we manage to reconcile between those truths with beauty as promulgated by
Keats?
CONCETTA LA PLACA:
According to
the English poet of romanticism, John Keats, poetry arises from the depths of
the soul, surpasses life and becomes immortal. He argued that poetry is not
intended to convey a message to readers, but to ignite the imagination through
beauty, stimulating the five senses. The fundamental theme of his theory is the
relationship between art, death and life. Keats had reflected on the
immortality of art as opposed to the fleeting nature of life. I also partly
have a romantic vision and I firmly believe that poetry and art survive death,
overcoming the fleeting nature of life and time that flows inexorably and
overcoming with imagination (the latter is connected to beauty), a reality that
is often not beautiful, but one of death and destruction, as that of Hiroshima
or Nagasaki is considered. As time passes, life ends, physical beauty (which is
however closely connected to spiritual beauty) has its end. Only spiritual
beauty, dictated by the stimulation of the imagination with the use of the five
senses, capturing love, friendship, all the pleasures of life and poetry
itself, is the product of the art that remains. And I fully agree with this
romantic vision of Keats. A poet dies, but his poetics will remain and remain
eternal. Beauty is inherent and comes from nature and in what exists in the
creation that surrounds us and, once the senses capture it with the
imagination, this is transformed into poetry and remains eternal. He maintained
that once the senses have captured joy, it will remain joy forever. Keats'
concept therefore surpasses the aforementioned historical events of Hiroshima
or Nagasaki, where only death and destruction reign supreme. His theory and
also that poetic ability, which he called negative capability, that is, the
poet's ability to cancel his own identity to observe an object, which for him
was a source of inspiration, and the possibility of identifying with it and
detaching itself from the political, historical or social context. He argued
that in this way he is able to seek sensations and through the imagination,
which he considers more powerful than reason, a poet can see the beauty of
things and create poetry which he believed was "something absolute"
that he could overcome reality is not beautiful. So even in such a dramatic
context as the one mentioned, the poet could seek beauty through his
imagination and make poetry out of it. For him it was the only way to defeat
death and live eternally. It is what Keats did when he observed the Elgin
Marbles for hours that inspired one of his most beautiful odes: Ode on a Greek
Urn. And I partly believe that he is right, because deep down I too have a
romantic vision.
NilavroNill: Too many writers believe imagery
is an essential part of poetry. Do you agree this notion? Even if we consider Leonardo
da Vinci’s words that poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.
CONCETTA LA PLACA:
Leonardo Da Vinci said: “Painting is a silent poetry, and
poetry is a blind painting.” And how blind all the greatest poets truly seem to
grope in the dark when faced with this question, demonstrating that poetry can
do everything except explain itself. I fully agree. Poets know that words are
created for normal, everyday use, but that it is their task to transform them
into magical elements capable of creating something else, as Coleridge said
"to create an alchemy between the reader and the writer: a voluntary
suspension of disbelief”. I think that anyone who creates truly authentic
poetry cannot explain it. It explains itself to readers who capture the beauty
it contains and are moved in turn. All the greatest poets have always avoided
giving a definition of poetry. Poetry means bringing Truth and Beauty.
Illuminate the human mind, give light to the world. It is said that those who
write poetry are as if they were practicing a real battle. I think true poetry
can be considered as a liberating force that seeks beauty and elevates the soul
of the person from human misery and its limits.
NilavroNill:
Do you believe, passionately
falling in love with a particular language is essential to excel in poetical
ventures? And is it possible to write poems in multiple languages preserving
same literary quality? We would like to know your own experiences.
CONCETTA LA PLACA:
Surely a poet begins to write in his native
language, but by virtue of the fact that once written poetry no longer belongs
to us, but belongs to the world, it must certainly also be rewritten in another
language. This activity means that it is sometimes necessary to change the
perspective of how the words were inserted in order to convey well what the
poet wanted to capture with his imagination and his feelings. I often had to
translate my poems into English and Spanish and this translation activity into
two languages other than mine gave me the opportunity to highlight other
aspects of identity and perception of the world. This is because every language
carries with it cultural values and is itself the object of attribution of such
values. In bilingual writing, the inclusion of changes in perspective is
fundamental in order to mediate. It is an internal mediation and leads to two
texts: the original and its translation which, although similar, will never be
perfectly identical.
NilavroNill: Do you consider poetry as an
emotional outbursts of poet’s personal sentiments? Or is it a long journey to
realize and express the universal sentiments beyond all personal limitations?
Again, we want to understand your views through your personal experiences of
your literary life as a poet.
CONCETTA LA PLACA:
As I said before, having a romantic vision too, I firmly
believe that the world, the cosmos, nature is always a stimulus for the birth
of poetry, it continually speaks to us with small and large things. Poetry, as
Keats says, must arise spontaneously and through the senses in order to best
express one's emotions and feelings. Poetry is a human phenomenon and
therefore, poetic language is born when something from reality strikes us, a
thought or an often very strong emotion grips us. Everything can be poetry or
inspiration for a poem, even things that we have always had in front of us in
everyday ordinariness or situations and words that acquire a different flavour,
suddenly become the object of poetry, because with the imagination they
illuminate our heart, filling it with beauty and our mind so that we can
elevate ourselves. The words are therefore transformed, giving life to what is
inside the writer, concretizing their own internal reality which is filtered
with what is beautiful our imagination has captured. I often say that the poet
is a photographer who tries to immortalize that emotional reality that he has
inside himself and that surrounds him, not with a photo, but with the use of
assonances, similes, metaphors... with his own poetic language, which refers to
emotions, thoughts and feelings that thrive within the poet and becoming a
universal undercurrent, reach the hearts of all those who read. For example,
although I don't often use rhymes and a rigid rhythm, but preferring, most of
the time, the free form, with a simple language rich in metaphors, similes, I
manage to reach all readers: the most erudite ones, but even to those who are
not at all. So, from the beginning of a personal "feeling and
imagining", the poet tries to make these emotions and this feeling
universal. I have always believed that poetry should belong to everyone and
should reach all readers, communicating sensations and feelings that are common
and felt by all men.
NilavroNill: I would like to quote T. S.
Eliot, “No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His
significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead
poets and artists. You cannot value him
alone; you must set him for contrast and comparison among the dead.” We would
like to know your views in details on Eliot’s comments.
CONCETTA LA PLACA:
In the Sacred Wood we remember that we have a very
important essay by Eliot, entitled Tradition and Individual Talent, in which
Eliot defines the poet's position regarding tradition. He states that tradition
is the living set of valid works that have been written, from Homer to the
present day, and that this past acts on every sensitive writer. Indeed, he
states that the sensitive writer must "take" from this past, but not in
a servile or mechanical way: a poet must revive within himself the greats of
the past, who are dead biologically, but who, as poets, are always alive, much
more than many people living today. I believe that Eliot's statement was an
extraordinary novelty for that time (1920) and retains its value intact even
today. In poetics, in general, we try to highlight what distinguishes a single
author, originality is considered a virtue. Let us remember that for Eliot,
however, virtue lies in fitting harmoniously into the "living
together" of all the works from Homer onwards. He goes so far as to say
that art must not be an affirmation of personality but
"depersonalization", precisely in the sense of feeling part of a
larger whole. When this happens – and this is the other great Eliotian axiom –
“the present modifies the past”. Just as the past influences the present, so
the present influences the past, because every new valid work that is added to
that already existing whole imposes, in some way, a rearrangement. And therefore,
this means that we must consider tradition as something not static, not fixed,
not dusty, but dynamic and perpetually active. I believe the return to
tradition should be perceived in this absolutely lively and modern sense. Moreover,
I too do not deny the poetic traditions of the past, they are roots that cannot
be eradicated, but they remain in our culture and in our way of writing poetry
even if in this act we add modern elements of our time. I love the great Cecco Angiolieri,
Petrarca, Dante, Boccaccio and others important Italian poets, but my poems now
are in a free form and they reflect my time, while preserving the traditions of
the poets of the past, now dead.
NilavroNill: Would you consider, it should be
the goal of a poet to enlightens the readers towards much greater apprehensions
as well as appreciations of life and eternity in general? Or is it better to
write poems only to console the poet’s soul?
CONCETTA
LA PLACA:
I believe that poetry is the regurgitation of the poet's soul, which arises
from an internal emotional state of the poet himself or from an external event
or from a disturbance within him and therefore from a need to investigate his
own interiority (emotions, thoughts, repressed feelings, unknown to oneself and
to others, the fear of death, abandonment, loneliness, etc.) and, starting from
this with a specific language for poetry, a language that often hides and does
not reveal, but which allows one to understand and imagine, or which is made up
of similes, metaphors, parallels, is evocative, reaches straight, like an
underground river, to the hearts of the readers. Therefore poetry is born from
the creativity, from the thoughts and emotions of the poet, but then if it is
an honest and genuine poetry, it becomes universal poetry, for everyone, as it
tends to deepen, to explore the human soul, not only of those who wrote a poem,
but also of those who read it. The moment poetry is created by the poet it no
longer belongs to those who created it, but becomes to humanity.
NILAVRONILL: We are almost at the end of the interview.
I remain obliged to you for your participation. Now, personally I would like to
know your honest opinion about Our Poetry Archive. Since April 2015 we are
publishing and archiving contemporary world poetry each and every month. Thank
you for sharing your views and spending much time with us.
CONCETTA LA PLACA:
I find that your magazine (O. P. A.) as an Archive of World and Contemporary
Poetry, is a very interesting magazine, because it publishes poems written by
important and good poets from all over the world. Every poet, with the
publication of his or her poem or ode in your international online magazine -
considering that it represents an open window on the world, with a beautiful
international view -, through verses and his or her verses, promulgates not only
his unique style of writing, his thoughts and emotions, but also, through his
verses, his own literary origins and also the traditions of his dead national
poets with whom he has imbued himself and the origins and structure of his own
language and indirectly of one's own historical, political and social context
of one's own nation. This is a very important indicator, as this facilitates
the promulgation and the exchange of international culture. Furthermore, it
allows each poet to be able to express and promote the nuances and colours of
his own thought and culture, different from others, and allows readers of all
the different nations to grasp this cultural richness, nestled in the diversity
of peoples and countries and in the diversity of their traditions, while always
in the universal perspective of creativity and poetry itself, as this has
always sought to explore and deepen everything that is human and of all
humanity, poetry itself being a human phenomenon. Writing and publishing for
this O.P.A. magazine represents a great honour for me and I sincerely pay my
respect to the publisher NilavroNill Shoovro whom I thank very much for this
beautiful magazine, giving space and voice to many authors of the international
poetic scene. And that is really a great achievement and gift to all poets and
readers. Thank you.
CONCETTA LA PLACA: The author, Concetta la Placa, was born in Caltanissetta
in Sicily on 07/30/1960 and lives in Rome. From an early age she has always
shown that she has a creative nature. She holds a degree in administration and
management of social policies. She loves literature and poetry in general. She
is passionate about reading and creative writing. In December 2020 her first
collection of poems was published, entitled "Cosmic Love and Emotions in
the Wind". It is a collection of 55 poems, all linked by a single common
thread: Cosmic Love, which is love for the little things that surround us in
this immensity and love for simplicity, enriched only by pure emotions and true
feelings. The author has published several poems in numerous national and
international anthologies of various authors and various contests to which she
has contributed with her participation. The list of publications would be a bit
long and is therefore omitted.
My Golden Age
It always brings
back the most tender and beautiful memories to me
the memory of my
childhood,
golden age,
of carefreeness
and the magic of
dreams
with open eyes.
How many
emotions
tied, like
precious pearls,
one to the
other, from the thread of that tender age, in which amazement dwelt in my
innocent gaze, which softened even the hardest heart.
Now, in the
silence of those empty courtyards, distant echoes of joyful voices and childish
songs,
they rise in
those now abandoned spaces, where they flourish
in solitude,
between the hot and sunny walls, only red poppies.
The memory
becomes more and more vivid and my image of a child,
with a sweet
smile, reclaims those places of the past,
while a tear of
poignant emotion
rolls down my
cheek.
Today, there is
no trace of similarity from that period.
They were times
of healthy health, of pure love.
Equality and
equal opportunities still prevailed over resentment, selfishness and perfidy.
Childhood Memories
Childhood
experiences
forever lost.
It only remains,
to shine in
time,
a single track
of sparkling
memories...
Illuminating
comet of my faded memories!
The Road Of Childhood
The street of
childhood
and your old
home back then,
you carry it in
your heart,
like an old woman
and precious
map,
kept in the
chest of your heart
It's a unique
direction,
that will take
you
always there,
where they get
wedged
the emotions,
the feelings
purer
and memories
melancholy
and poignant
of childhood
THE WAY HOME
it is and always
will be
the house of the
heart.
Childhood Betrayed
A scream of deep
pain
rises in these
hours
in the
universe...
A scream to ask
help
suffocated by
indifference
and from sloth
of powerful
rulers.
They are the
ones who,
for empty honor,
they wore
only the clothes
of warmongers.
They, appear
like a indifferent men
before the
weeping gaze
and desperate
for a little girl
whose country is
at war.
She cries. She
knows
she has been
abandoned by everyone,
to the cruel history
of her tortured
people.
She knows that a
cruel fate,
will soon deliver all the other women
in the hands of
the ruthless militiamen.
They are cruel
men,
ruthless
fighters
who do not know
the mercy of God.
Her sad eyes
reveal
that, soon,
women will be hurt
in their dignity
as persons,
Yes, Their free
will
will be
overwhelmed, as females,
soon
And, like a
child,
She has already
been deprived innocence
childhood, then
ever
no one will give
her back.
CONCETTA LA PLACA
CONCETTA LA PLACA: The author,
Concetta la Placa, was born in Caltanissetta in Sicily on 07/30/1960 and lives
in Rome. From an early age she has always shown that she has a creative nature.
She holds a degree in administration and management of social policies. She
loves literature and poetry in general. She is passionate about reading and
creative writing. In December 2020 her first collection of poems was published,
entitled "Cosmic Love and Emotions in the Wind". It is a collection
of 55 poems, all linked by a single common thread: Cosmic Love, which is love
for the little things that surround us in this immensity and love for
simplicity, enriched only by pure emotions and true feelings. The author has
published several poems in numerous national and international anthologies of
various authors and various contests to which she has contributed with her
participation. The list of publications would be a bit long and is therefore
omitted.
The Fire Tree
The branches
surrounded
our little white
house.
They were full
of orange-red flowers
like flames
falling from the sky.
They would cover
the yard
like the mouth
of an erupting volcano.
I reveled in the
touch of the petals
on my naked feet
and my eyes filled
with the joyous
and exuberant display of nature.
The sound of the
water
in the nearby
streams
created a
sonorous and pleasing concert,
the perfect
music for the children.
We could see the
world
from our tiny
house
through the open
doors and windows,
the blue skies
and the falling petals
of the
flamboyant.
The flame tree
lifted our spirits,
as it colored
our lives.
I picture my
memories
and see the
matted soil,
that wonderful
carpet of flames
covering the
ground.
I soar over it
as if a magic
rug were carrying me
to that wondrous
world
of my childhood.
Busy Bee
My childhood is
full of butterflies and birds.
It escapes at
instances to the country side,
plays in the
meadows and names the creatures
formed by the
clouds, splashes in the rivers
slides on the
lakes, smells all the flowers
like a busy bee
or a fluttering butterfly.
It is a blooming
tree smiling on every bud.
My infancy is a
swing flying to the Sky,
My little hands
touching cotton candy mist
piercing crystal
bubbles floating in the air,
chasing birds
and dancing and humming
like the wild
feathered creatures above
and singing
their own songs.
It is the sound
of laughter and cheers,
storytelling and
lullabies ringing in my ears.
It is that
awesome place called home
where all of us
want to return.
Reminiscences
The scent of
wild berries
travels in my
mind.
It invades the
thoughts
with showers of
voices,
green scenery
and flowers.
The images of
grandma,
the matriarch
great grandma,
uncles and
aunts, cousins,
my brothers and
sisters,
the smile of my
mother
shining like a
comet
crossing the
open space
to land on my
pillow.
There is no
father figure.
But it does not
matter.
Happiness
encircles us
and the smell of
homemade
soups and
traditional food
impregnates the
dreams
of the
reminiscences,
awaking them in
the night.
My childhood was
not perfect,
but it carries
me away
to watch the
crops at nana`s
and happy
poverty at momma`s
while merry
raindrops fall
from my
emotional eyes.
A guardian
angel’s picture
decorated every
living room
and, believe it
or not,
it indeed did
its job.
Memories are
leaves
falling from old
trees
even if it is
not autumn
to remind us of
the good moments
of our
unforgettable childhood.
And although we
think we outgrew it
it is still
inside us.
Like a newborn,
we carry it with
us!
ZULMA QUINONES SENATI
ZULMA
QUIÑONES SENATI was born in Yauco, Puerto Rico. She studied at the Catholic
University of Puerto Rico in Ponce, where she completed her Bachelor's Degree
in Education in 1970. Has written De mariposa a crisálida (2001), La barca en
el tiempo (2005), El rostro oculto (2008) in narrative and Este sendero conmigo
(2013), Fragilidad de vidrio soplado (2018), Piel de almendra (2019) Alas de
Colibrí (2020) Gemidos de fuego (2021) Senderos en el río de la infancia (2023)
and No quiero que las flores sepan (2023) in poetry. Several of her stories and
poems have been awarded in national and international competitions and
published in Anthologies in Spain, Argentina, Greece, Puerto Rico and other
countries. She has coordinated the International Festival of Poetry and Art
Grito de Mujer in Puerto Rico for the last thirteen years.
Memories
In the
twilight’s deepening stillness
I sit by my
window and look outside
The sprawling
fields of paddy awaiting harvest,
Take me to those
fields where I roamed as a child
Like the blind,
across the Braille script,
As I move my hands
through the grooves of the past
Before me opens,
lovely vistas into my childhood!
Those days
flitted away so fast
Without leaving
much impact
But now I yearn
for the pleasures past
And loving faces
that used to peer from the drapes
The bright
silhouette of my mother’s face
Haloed by the
aura of sacred love
The stern but
loving face of my father
The guardian and
bread winner of our home
The naughty
pranks of my siblings
Whose merry
laughter made our little nest ring.
Scenes I courted
once so avidly crowd upon me
As on a tinsel
screen, in endless succession
Of the days when
my heart never knew any sorrow
And I remained
an alien to life’s pressures
As I lose myself
in the upsurge of memories
Of those whom I
shall never see any more
I loathe to tell
myself… never shall come again
The same
ecstatic joy of innocent childhood!
Retracing My Footsteps
I want to go
back to my past,
When tame
pigeons of joy nested on my eaves,
And I could hear
their crooning,
With the
sweetness of love outpouring
I want to go
back to my past,
When innocent
instincts ruled my heart,
And I ran after
every call from the woods or bush,
Mesmerized by
the whistles of the oriole and the thrush
I want to go
back to my past,
When every
rainbow and every peacock feather,
Ignited
curiosity in me as a child,
And coloured my
imagination wild,
I want to go
back to my past,
When, with
friends, I sat in the mango grove,
And savoured the
ripe juicy mangoes,
Careful not to
let the pulp drip down our mouths,
I want to go
back to my past,
When we strolled
along the sandy strands,
Watching the
wild waves' fray,
And cooled by
the kiss of spray
I want to go
back to my past,
When we had
watched at night,
A hundred
fireflies dancing around the *neem,
Wondering if
they were stars fallen from heaven’s seam.
I want to go
back to my past,
When, like
breeze, we ran over the meadows,
Looking for the
bleating lamb,
Singing in
chorus, ‘Mary had a little lamb.’
I want to go
back to my past,
When life
appears a trying test,
With ‘the slings
and arrows of an outrageous fortune’,
And when I feel
so desperately alone!
Bliss Of Childhood In The Sylvan Setting
There’s nothing
like the lovely rustic charm,
Exuded by the
far flung lush green country farm.
Where trees in
majesty sweep heaven with their crown,
And birds with celestial music, the
surrounding valley drown.
My senses have
ere long etched every sight n’ sound,
Of that
countryside wherein my childhood inextricably bound.
To those days of
bliss, I would like to retreat,
And splurge in
memories that cascade down in surfeit.
On a beautiful
day with the sun shining bright
And the white
downy clouds lazily trailing west
We walked down
to the creek to catch the silvery fish,
And waited for
them to come to the surface with a swish.
On the rocky
bank, breathless as we sat,
Looking for the
fish greedily nibbling at the bait,
We felt the
hookline suddenly going taut,
With something
from the other end pulling it tight.
Of a sudden
reflex as we lifted the rod upright
To our wild
uproar, saw a fish dangling and twirling uptight.
“Angling in a
brook on a bright sunny day
Is so much fun
for the kids”, we heard someone say.
Back from school
when homework is done,
Quickly,
gathering friends, we move as one,
To the open
ground beyond the clump of trees,
To run and play
in the evening breeze.
As black birds
wing their way across the sky,
And the ruddy
orb in the west is about to die,
When shadows
slowly shrink and shrivel
And the dusky
eve spreads a smoky veil,
Only then, demurring,
we leave our play,
Cursing the
elements that Time doesn’t stay,
Smutty and
gritty, homeward as we plough our way,
We promise once
more, we would meet the next day.
As hot summer
fades and dark clouds gather round,
When east wind
scatters dry leaves from the ground,
When elders
announce the arrival of an impending shower,
Stealthily we
plan to go swimming in the nearby river.
On stormy nights
as we lie, listening to the splatter of rain,
Over tiled roof
with the clatter of a speeding train.
How swift, we
drift involuntary to the castle of Slumber,
To be lulled
asleep by songs of magical tone and timbre!
Now, staying in
the mad rush of a steaming city
With people
surreptitiously chasing goals so petty
How I miss those
yester years that are fled
And yearn for
the sylvan paths once more to tread!!
VALSA GEORGE
VALSA GEORGE is a retired
professor from Kerala. After her successful career as a teacher, she took to
poetry. She writes on a wide spectrum of topics spanning Nature, Love, Human
relations et al. She has authored over 1500 poems in varied poetic forms which
she regularly posts in international poetry websites, reputed journals, and
literary publications. She has four anthologies in her name - Beats, Drop of a
Feather, Rainbow Hues, and Entwining Shadows - the latter two available on
Amazon.com. One of her poems ‘A space Odyssey’ has been included in the CBSE
syllabus (Rain Tree Course Book by Orient Black Swan) for the 8th grade
students in India from the year 2018. Another poem ‘My Fractured Identity’ is
prescribed for the undergraduate students (Voyagers) in Philippines
Love To Everyone
I remember my
childhood with marzipan,
skinned knees,
loud laughter
and the feeling
that the world is
a huge lollipop
that can be enough
for all the
children of the world.
I also remember
the pigeon traps which,
fortunately, we
never caught,
because the bird
is the spirit of the sky
that lives for
freedom.
Childhood has a
smile of eternity,
whatever it
touches turns into meaning.
I remember it
most
for the feeling
that the world
is a big balloon
in which I will
travel a world
full of
miracles,
smiles and the
need to give love
to everyone.
VALENTINA NOVKOVIĆ
VALENTINA NOVKOVIĆ (Serbia), graduate
philologist, poet, prose writer, literary translator. Editor in a publishing
house. Published four book of poems (Timeless 2014, Drop by drop 2018, Riddles
of Tenderness, 2020,Poems to the Heaven, 2022, which won the first prize at the
Fifth Drina Literary Meeting) and one prose book (Two hours from reality,
2020), Winner of many awards for poetry and prose as well as for translations.
The book of stories by the famous writer and translator Rahim Karimov,
"Stories for youbg people" Alma, 2019, which she translated into
Serbian, received the award for the best translated prose book in 2019 by
Literary Translators. Her verses have been translated into 16 world languages,
and the book Odgonetke nežnosti was translated into Romanian in 2022 (Leo
Butnaru translator, Timpul publisher.) She has translated individual stories
and poems of more than 300 authors into Serbian, interviewed all important
creators around the world and interviews were published in more widely read
newspapers or magazines for culture and art. Member of the Association of
Writers of Serbia and Kazakhstan, the Serbian Literary Association, and many
associations in the world. Editor and host of the forum "Literary
Conversations".
Innocence Compiled
In the garden of
youth, innocence blooms,
Childhood's
sweet melody, life resumes.
A canvas of
dreams, painted in delight,
And joy, play
and fun.
Tiny footsteps
dance in the morning dew,
Laughter echoes,
everywhere.
Don't be
surprised or wonder why,
In the heart of
a child, everything's right.
Whispers of joy
in a world so divine,
A playground of
magic, where the beautiful memories are.
Simple treasures
cherished, pure and clear,
Childhood's
embrace, a world of beauty and purity.
Through games
and tales
Each day
unfolds, a treasure to explore.
Oh, the
beautiful meaning of days unfolds,
In childhood's
embrace, innocence compiled.
A Universal Right
In the cradle of
dawn, childhood's tender grace,
A sacred space,
a realm untouched by time.
A haven for the
child, safe and free,
We must all
protect and care for him.
Rights like life
To live, to
learn, to dream with ease.
Protected from
harm, both heart and mind, or even the body.
Let laws be the
shield, a fortress strong,
Against everyone
who tries to attack childhood.
No place for
fear, in a child's heart,
If every
individual in society gave him his right.
Education's
beacon, a guiding star,
Illuminating
paths, not difficult to get.
A legacy of
wisdom, a future's birthright,
Igniting minds,
dispelling ignorance and poverty.
No cruel hand
should mar their innocence,
Nor haunt their
dreams with violence.
In the tapestry
of rights, each thread sublime,
Childhood
cherished, a universal right.
Childhood's Magic
Family and
brothers, love's endless grace,
Laughter echoed
in the halls of yore.
Memories
painted, a treasure invaluable,
In the beautiful
era, the time of unforgettable childhood.
Through the lens
of nostalgia, I yearn,
For days when
innocence surrounded us.
Siblings by my
side, a bond so true,
It still
embraces my soul until today.
Oh, the joy in
the moments we knew,
In the family's
arms, a haven to hold.
Summer's warmth,
winter's gentle cold,
Grown-up now,
those days a distant hue.
I miss the
whispers of shared delight,
It's still in my
heart, they forever renew.
The echoes of
home، childhood's magic,
In the symphony
of memory, forever strong.
TAGHRID BOU MERHI
TAGHRID BOU MERHI: She is a Lebanese
poetess, writer, journalist and translator living in Brazil. She is a
multilingual poet (five languages), writer and translator. She has authored 17
books and translated 22 books to date. She is an active member of various
literary and creative platforms and editor of Al-Arabe Today, Rainbow,
Literária Agharid, Al-Nil Walfurat, Literária, Allaylak, Al-Kalam and Awtar
Magazine. She is advisor to the International Union of Arab Intellectuals, in
the Media Authority for Translation Affairs and advisor to the countries
Al-Sham literary platform for literary translation. She is an advisory member
among ten internacional poetry consultants chosen by Chinese media giant CCTV.
She is ambassador of the team “International Cultural Salon Association”and
ambassador of Brazil in the American P.L.O.T.S. Magazin and ambassador of
Lebanon in the Association of the World Union of Writers and Artists UMEA
Portugal. Her writings are part of several national and international
magazines, newspapers, journals and anthologies. She has won many awards for
her write-ups. She is working as an Arabic language teacher for non-native
speakers.