Friday, May 1, 2026
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY INTERVIEW
NILAVRONILL TALKING WITH
POET OF THE MONTH
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY
NILAVRONILL: Welcome to Our
Poetry Archive. Why do literature and poetry in particular interest you so
much? Please give us some idea about your own perception of literature or
poetry in general.
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY: I believe in literature
and poetry that relates to everyday people living everyday lives. Telling
stories that others can put themselves in the place of the storyteller. Even
using fantasy to give others an experience of using their own imagination.
NILAVRONILL: Do you think the primary
obligation of a poet should be to communicate with the temporal as well as with
the eternal essence of life and the universe? If so, how can one fulfill that
particular obligation?
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY: The only obligations I have are
to myself. The role of the poet is to not only reflect what’s going on in
society but more importantly within your own heart and to be a voice for
freedom and creativity.
NILAVRONILL: It is an established fact
that every poet should create his or her own poetic language as a unique
literary signature that would eventually keep him or her alive beyond his or
her time. I would like to know your personal experience in this regard, and how
can one achieve that unique literary language in his or her lifetime?
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY: I believe the only way one can
create their own unique style is to just be themselves and write about what
they feel and know. If they write with honesty, their writing should endure.
NILAVRONILL: Do you think
literary criticism has much to do with the development of a poet and the true
understanding of his or her poetry?
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY: I know others believe in
literary criticism, but I do not. I believe that poetry is a very personal form
of individual expression. I don’t believe poets can progress in their work as
much with criticism. Instead, encouragement and gentle guidance and advice
provide a more productive environment leading to a poet’s growth.
NILAVRONILL: American literature
has its roots in English as well as in other European literary heritages. And
there is also the indigenous American cultural heritage. How these two
different streams have interacted and evolved into the present American
literary tradition? I would like to know your viewpoints based on your personal
experience as a writer.
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY: I do not involve myself with
such matters. I did not gain my knowledge from going to a college or
university. Instead, I learned by observation and learning by doing. My love of
books was formed from an extensive library of books from my father’s collection.
This paved the way of me loving and reading stories including beat culture,
which to me are people living in a more natural way, involving themselves with
the natural world, striving for self-sufficiency so as not to be as dependent
on society. One more important thing in life is music because the whole world
is composed of different vibrations and sounds. These things have formed my
views on all things.
NILAVRONILL: Literature
encompasses every aspect of life, it blends the various shades and textures of
human aspirations as well as drawbacks. It also lights up the new horizons and
new dimensions of human capabilities relentlessly. I would like to know your
particular viewpoints; how do you relate all these in your own writings?
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY: I write spontaneously. I do not
plan out what I will write about at any given time. I rarely rewrite anything I
write either. I must feel inspired in some way in order to write it down.
During the Covid lockdown in 2020 I found myself hampered by not being able to
go out, see people, visit places. I must feel that spark in order to write
about anything. My subject matter varies greatly. It’s something I cannot
explain fully except to say sometimes my imagination plays a role while at other
times the human condition or what I wish existed in the world.
NILAVRONILL: Do you think society as a
whole is the key factor in shaping you up as a poet, or your poetry altogether?
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY: No, I do not believe society has
anything to do with my poetry because I am not the type to follow societal
trends or influences. I write for myself and to share experiences I feel I can
relate to with others.
NILAVRONILL: We cannot live immune to
the sociopolitical disturbances of our surroundings. How much these
disturbances make substantial impacts upon your literary self? Do you actually
respond to all these factors through your words? I mean in your poetry,
especially.
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY: Normally, I am not the type to
write about political events or unrest. Most of my writing speaks of subjects
concerning nature, love and human emotions. There are instances where extreme
injustices in the world prompt me to state my feelings about things. In those
times the situation must be so extreme, that I feel I must write my feelings
down and share them to others as a way to take a stand against injustice. The
types of subjects that would prompt a reaction from me would be needless war,
allowing hunger, greed, or the abuse of power. Although these things
unfortunately exist in our everyday lives, I choose to write more about how I
envision I want things to be. To me dwelling on the negativity surrounding us
cannot bring about positive change.
NILAVRONILL: Is it possible to put into
the words everything that as a poet you wish to express literarily? If not,
why?
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY: My wish as a poet is to make
others aware that there is a great need in this world for more love, peace,
compassion, understanding, acceptance of others, and a need to end hungry, war,
poverty, and prejudice. Anything is possible if the desire is there, as long as
you keep hope.
NILAVRONILL: How would you
evaluate your contemporaries and what are your aspirations for or expectation
from the younger generation?
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY: The artists I come in
contact with are from different groups and cultures all striving for the same
things I mentioned above. The beauty of it is that their message is brought in
diverse and different ways. My hope is that more young people see the need to
keep being creative by using their voices for the good of all, either written
or vocally. They must realize they have the power to create better futures for
themselves.
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.
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY: I find the different and diverse
voices expressed in Our Poetry Archive enlightening. I get to view different
perspectives from people with different cultural upbringings and values. It’s
refreshing to learn about different viewpoints from people from all walks of
life. I try to understand their similarities as well as their differences.
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY is a new
generation Beat Poet, award winning writer, author, nature photographer,
artist, and recipient of two lifetime literary achievement awards, and named a
Connecticut Arts Hero. Deborah is the founder/owner/CEO of the National Beat
Poetry Foundation, Inc., its Nat’l & Int’l festivals, New Generation Beat
Publications, and BeatLife Magazine. Author of several books, her short stories
and poetry are published in magazines and anthology books. She has appeared on
tv and radio interviews. Deborah is a Connecticut native and resides in
Wolcott, CT, USA.
DEBORAH TOSUN KILDAY
Cry No More
Cry me a river
While you dampen
my senses
With your
bewildering and bewitching gaze
Feel my heart
beat
While it skips
to your rhythm
And your music
penetrates my soul
You have
infiltrated my realm of possibilities
Making it
impossible for me to conceal
The torch I
carry
Holding my
steadfast yearning for you
Let’s build a
bridge
A subterranean
cavern
That connects us
Made of dirt and
dust and stone
Let us wade
through the deception
Of cobwebs
That hold
painful truths
But instead free
us
Of our tangled
pasts
There we will
meet
Freeing us
No longer
burdened
But instead
Liberated
Cry me a river
A torrent flow
Submersing me
Lubricating my
mind and body
Not a trickle
But a flood
Soak, then drown
me
With your
passions
Saturate me
Until I can’t
hold more
Unleashing us
both
In unison
To cry no more
Us In The US
Debbie Tosun
Kilday
I don’t believe
in war
I do not condone
violence
I have no guns
It’s those like
me
Who have become
targets
Of those who
kill for sport
We aren’t just
people anymore
We are the enemy
An enemy within
A corrupt man’s
sick mind
Us in the US
Those with a
sickness
A thirst for
blood
Those without
conscience
Programmed to
kill
They are out
there
Coming for you
Coming for me
They are
unleashed
Their
brainwashing
And conditioning
Is complete
There’s blood
money
For each carcass
It doesn’t
matter now
Who you are
What shade
Your name
Your occupation
Your sex or age
The more docile
you appear
May make you
Their next
target
You are exactly
Who they are
looking for
An easy target
An easy kill
In their warped
minds
Whose
conditioning
Consists
Of playing video
games
Killing
To see blood
To quench their
thirst
But beware
Violence breeds
violence
No one is beyond
reacting
When you see
them taking
One of your own
Us in the US
We are not your
enemy
You are now ours
You have shown
your face
Even though your
goons
Still are such
cowards
They cover
theirs
We know your
name
We know where
you live
We cannot allow
Any more killing
You are now
Our target
To rid Us in the
US
Of you
With no soul
You brought us
to this place
You can blame
yourself
Now you can feel
the fear
Us in the US
We now stand
together
Against you
DEBORAH (DEBBIE) TOSUN KILDAY is a
new generation Beat Poet, award winning writer, author, nature photographer,
artist, and recipient of two lifetime literary achievement awards, and named a
Connecticut Arts Hero. Debbie is the founder/owner/CEO of the National Beat
Poetry Foundation, Inc.and its Nat’l & Int’l festivals, New Generation Beat
Publications, BeatLife Magazine and Kilday Krafts. Author of several books, her
short stories and poetry are published in magazines and several anthology
books. She has also appeared on television and radio. Debbie is a Connecticut
native and resides in Wolcott, CT, USA.
ADA RIZZO
Pure Gold
(Ode to Imperfect
Women)
In the hearts of
imperfect women
beats a universe
of scars and moons,
woven from
shattered dreams
that gather
themselves again in silence,
like fallen
stars rediscovered.
They love their
bodies
keepers of
secrets,
of cycles and
storms,
of soft petals
and thorns.
They are vessels
of primal resilience,
growing strength
from pain,
rooted deep like
ancient trees.
Their hands
stitch the sky,
a fabric of
mistakes and rebirths
that wraps
itself around the world.
Their lips
whisper Respect and Justice
between the
folds of a silence that screams.
Their eyes
cradle seeds of hope
and the fire of
those who refuse to yield.
They stand firm
in Mother Earth,
feet carrying
the weight of ancestral stories,
while they dance
in the firelight of foremothers.
Their voices
rise for sisters and daughters
who break the
chains of injustice.
Imperfect women
yet dazzling
celebrating
life, their passion,
the right to own
themselves,
their embrace
defying the world’s deafening silence.
Imperfect women,
they are fire
and water,
earth and a sky
of stars
giving birth to
light and life.
They shine like
twenty-four carat gold,
souls of women
who calm every storm
and turn it into
a rainbow.
Ada Rizzo, September 2, 2025, Jesolo
Don’t Call Me A Victim
(a poem for the
women who don’t return)
They found me
with open hands,
like someone
still waiting
for a caress
that never comes.
My heart was
stitched
with fishing
line
it held against
the waves,
but not against
your voice.
You said “you’re
mine”
like one speaks
to an object,
like one claims
a body
that no longer
has a name.
But I was a
storm,
a mother, a
sister, a lover,
a word that
burns
on your silent
lips.
You extinguished
my gaze,
but I live in
the eyes
of every woman
building her future.
Now I walk
barefoot
among the stars
that resemble me,
and every woman
who falls
carries me with
her.
Don’t call me a
victim.
I am the wound
that speaks,
the bleeding
rose,
the voice that
remains.
Ada 29 Ottobre 2025
ADA RIZZO
ADA RIZZO, writer, poet, freelance
journalist, cultural promoter, Peace Ambassador, Counselor, Mindfulness
Facilitator, was born in Sicily (Italy) in 1960. Her life is built on solid
roots and traditional values. Optimistic, cheerful, curious, and creative, she
is passionate about art and psychology. She loves cooking and adores music.
After a career in sales at an American multinational company, she decided to
reinvent herself. For several years she has also been a Life Counselor with a
humanistic-relational approach and a Mindfulness Facilitator. She has been
involved for about 20 years and is currently engaged in humanitarian projects
and volunteering in Kenya. In 2021 she published her first novel, strongly
autobiographical, entitled Did I Want the Twelve-Heel?, which received an
Honorable Mention at the Intercontinental Literary Prize “Le Nove Muse.” In
2022 she published her second novel Iris Glass Wings, winner of the Alda Merini
National Poetry and Narrative Prize 2024-2025, a book that addresses the delicate
theme of eating disorders (DCA). In 2023 she published her third novel Ninety
Beats per Minute, a true story that addresses the delicate theme of heart
transplantation, for which she was awarded the Jury Prize at the International
Literary Prize Cygnus Aureus 2024. In 2024 she published Twenty-Four Carats,
dealing with the theme of gender-based violence; a work awarded at the
International Literary Art Prize La Via dei Libri, the International Lord Byron
Prize 2024, the International Literary Art Prize – to say no to violence
against women – Il Canto di Dafne 2024, National Argentario Prize 2024 &
Caravaggio. In 2025 she published The Enchantment, Emotions and Reflections, a
cross-over combining prose and poetry, aimed at raising awareness on crucial
issues such as Peace, Human Rights, Childhood, Inclusion, Gender Violence,
Justice.
ALICJA MARIA KUBERSKA
Blue Planet
I have this
image of our beautiful planet in my mind.
This blue gem
shines in the darkness of the universe.
It is a
wonderful cradle of plants, animals, people
and was
described as a paradise in the ancient stories.
I woke up
terrified when this happy dream ended.
The green lungs
of the Amazon have shrunk
and the world
suffers from shortness of breath.
The vast ocean
waters
are covered with a thick layer of plastic
and the
genetically modified plants
do not pour
seeds onto the soil.
I ask a man:
“Do you know
what it will be tomorrow?
Did you forget who you are and where you come
from?
Why did you
recant your mother-Earth?”
You keep talking
about money, profits, prosperity.
You draw the
bars and worry about future incomes.
Instead of a dot
at the end of your long lecture,
I saw one
horrible word - death.
Contemporary Man
He stands on top
of a heap of plastic garbage
and he gasps
every sip of air with difficulty.
He puts a mask on his face and he is afraid to
breathe.
The Earth's
green lungs stop producing the oxygen.
He looks with
hope into the endless black of the cosmos
in the search of
a planet beautiful like a blue gem.
In vain he wants
to escape from his family home
to abandon old problems and his own mistakes.
He still
believes in the power of money,
So he was caught
in a trap made of delusions.
He forgot that
not everything can be bought.
A drop of clean
water and fresh air are priceless.
ALICJA MARIA KUBERSKA
ALICJA MARIA KUBERSKA – awarded Polish poetess,
novelist, journalist, editor. In 2011 she published her first volume of poems
entitled: “The Glass Reality”. Her
second volume “Analysis of Feelings”, was published in 2012. The third collection
“Moments” was published in English in 2014, both in Poland and in the USA. In
2014, she also published the novel – “Virtual roses” and volume of poems “On
the border of dream”. Next year her volume entitled “Girl in the Mirror” was
published in the UK and “Love me”, “(Not) my poem” in the USA. In 2015 she also
edited anthology entitled “The Other Side of the Screen”.
In
2016 she edited two volumes: “Taste of
Love” (USA), “Thief of Dreams” (Poland) and international anthology
entitled “ Love is like Air” (USA).Next year she published volume in Polish
entitled “ View From the Window”, collection of love poems in Arabic and
English entitled “ Love like arabesque ( together with Egyptian poet Mandour
Saleh Hikiel). In 2018 she published international anthology “Love Postcards”
and her volume in Russian entitled “Selected poems”. She is a chief editor of
series of anthologies entitled “Metaphor of Contemporary” (Poland). Her poems
have been published in numerous anthologies and magazines in Poland, Czech
Republic, Slovakia, the UK, Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania, Spain, Turkey,
Argentina, Chile, Peru, Israel, the USA, Canada, India, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia,
Italy, Uzbekistan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, South Africa, Zambia, Nigeria
and Australia. Her volumes were translated into Albanian language by famous
poet and academic Mr Jeton Kelmendi, into Telugu language by famous Hindu poet
Mr Lanka Siva Rama Prasad, into Turkish by famous Turkish poet Metin Cengiz,
into Italian by famous Italian poetess Maria Miraglia and into Arabic by famous
Syrian poetess Shurouk Hammouud. She won: distinction (2014) and medal (2015)
on Nosside poetry competition in Italy, statuette in Lithuania (2015), medal of
European Academy Science, Arts and Letters in France (2018)), award of Cultural
Festival International “Tra le parole e l’ infinito” Italy (2018) She was also
twice nominated to the Pushcart Prize in the USA. Alicja Kuberska is a member
of the Polish Writers Associations in Warsaw (Poland), E- literaci (Poland)and
IWA Bogdani, (Albania). She is also a member of directors’ board of Soflay
Literature Foundation (Pakistan), Our Poetry Archive (India). She is Polish
Ambassador of Culture of The Inner Child Press (the USA). She belongs to
Editorial Advisory Board of Sahitya Anand (India) and IPA Editorial (India).
ALLISON GRAYHURST
Surrendered
In the middle -
steady, harsh waves,
salty flavoured ocean,
stranded, treading.
Love comes smiling.
It is a ghost.
Joy comes and passes by.
Purpose comes but floats by
like a jellyfish riding the momentum.
In the middle, tired of treading,
no escape, just the ebb and flow,
surging,
retreating waters. What lies beneath
makes
no difference because nothing is above
except the burning brutal sun, cloud
cover
occasionally, and only air to eat.
Skin cells, bloating. Eyes, unable to
keep
open. In the middle
of an endless abyss, all my happy days
behind me.
I hold my hands in prayer position,
arms raised over my head.
I stop struggling to not go under,
I go under and let that weight, the
peace
at last, take me down.
She
Fear is splendid
in making the body inflamed,
bloated on trepidation at the news
of many meadows burning.
She hurried and found a healer
inside herself, willing to go
the distance and forfeit
personal power for a greater
acquisition.
She understood the traveller and
the sit-at-homer as one in the same,
especially on a stormy day or a year of
upheaval.
Faith is the bullseye with no
point-marks gained
unless hit dead-centre, directing every
focus
to only that centre.
Faith is the wave to ride to the shore,
removed from other moving sources,
like wind and arm-strokes.
She opened herself to fear
not denying it but seeing it
as just another entity
under the canopy, smaller
than the giving sun.
Out
I asked to be let out
from that unwanted accomplishment.
I asked to shed my shame, my duty
and the hard-core call of doing time.
It was taken down and away from me,
along with so much more.
Guilt, and worldly bondage
also fell along with security,
along with a strange, twisted pride.
Knuckles down, hands still folded.
In my head are ghosts of patterns
dissolved
but are still haunting. Ways of being I
don’t have to
carry are dropped, but my empty arms
are stalled
in position, humbled by uncertainty.
Set free and starting over, but not yet
started,
just starting to try to etch out
different
possibilities, a solid surging
becoming.
Whiffs of passing currents,
rich aromas that entice briefly then
fade.
Whiffs I cannot capture and keep, not
now, maybe never,
let out, dumbfounded,
helpless, screaming, just born.
A Love Like No Other
Your steady love has saved me,
one more dark wave rising and you
hold my hand, staying the course,
sharing with me your glowing
inspiration,
giving me space to expose
my gruesome wounds within.
You do not flinch, or distract, but
give me room
to writhe and cry out and then you look
at me,
love in your eyes like God at my table,
offering water, acceptance,
and with that acceptance, untellable
mercy.
Every night you read to me to keep me
afloat,
to cup me in the flow of your voice
reminding me why we are here.
I think you will leave me, here
to implode in this over-a-year pit
of me climbing up to the edges, falling
back in,
collapsing on bedrock, but you never
do.
You stay and you are steady
and you are a miracle, patient, never
cursing your fate, never letting me go.
ALLISON
GRAYHURST
ALLISON
GRAYHURST
has been nominated for “Best of the Net” six times. She has over 1,400
poems published in over 530 international journals, including translations of
her work. She has 25 published books of poetry and 6 chapbooks. She is an
ethical vegan and lives in Toronto with her family.
She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com
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