An International Journal of Poetry, Poetics and Visual Arts
FOUNDER , PUBLISHER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF : DEBASISH PARASHAR MANAGING EDITOR
: ANTARIPA DEV PARASHAR
New Delhi-World advaitamspeaks@gmail.com
Advaitam Speaks Literary
Founder, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief : Debasish Parashar Managing Editor : Antaripa Dev Parashar. E-mail: debasishparashar87@gmail.com advaitamspeaks@gmail.com
Published by Debasish Parashar New Delhi, India.
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FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
We have faith in poetry and visual arts. Advaitam Speaks Literary journal is a baby born out of that simple faith. We have just started our journey and we don’t know many things. We are learning everyday and we shall keep on learning till the end. We don’t strictly adhere to any political ideology, but we believe in listening to everyone. That does not mean that we are indifferent to the socio-political, cultural, sociological and economic changes happening around us. We appreciate everything creative and constructive. We don’t appreciate hate mongering, although we do appreciate constructive criticism using the powerful tools of poetry and visual arts. We believe that as poets and artists we dream, and we love. Above all, we see and we do. We are thankful to our contributors who have shown their faith in us. We are thankful to our readers and well-wishers from different parts of the world. We hope that our enthusiastic contributors and readers accept the Volume 2 Issue 2 of Advaitam Speaks Literary journal with love. Thank you. Debasish Parashar, Editor-in-Chief, ASL journal.
Advaitam Speaks Literary
THE TEAM
Debasish Parashar Founder, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, Advaitam Speaks Literary.
Antaripa Dev Parashar Managing Editor, Advaitam Speaks Literary.
OCTAVIO QUINTANILLA
Octavio Quintanilla is the author of the poetry collection, If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014) and the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of San Antonio, TX. His poetry, fiction, translations, and photography have appeared, or are forthcoming, in journals such as Salamander, RHINO, Alaska Quarterly Review, Pilgrimage, Green Mountains Review, Southwestern American Literature, The Texas Observer, Existere: A Journal of Art & Literature, and elsewhere. Reviews of his work can be found at CutBank Literary Journal, Concho River Review, San Antonio Express-News, American Microreviews & Interviews, Southwestern American Literature, Pleiades, and others. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas and is the regional editor for Texas Books in Review. He teaches Literature and Creative Writing in the M.A./M.F.A. program at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas.
Parting There was a time I had no word for darkness, and so I said, darkness. I had no word to say devotion, and so I said, Two sons grieving one mother. A time came when our parents sat under a tree and cried for us, their sons on their way to a new country. When I try to return to my boyhood, sometimes I end with my head on my mother’s
lap.
Migrations
When my father lost his memory, he went on remembering he was lost. I’m in a desert, he said. Now I’m in a river.
He was always in another country even as he sat on the sofa. Where am I? he would ask the news reporter on television.
When he slept, his eyes went on seeing—
The ceiling cut into pieces like cake by the streetlights. The strange woman leaning close, watching him sleep.
Loneliness
As a boy, I’d climb trees, reach into nests birds
would leave unattended. I’d fill my hand
with small eggs, and often one or two hatchlings
would stare at me from behind the sprigs.
There were times I wanted to take them home,
keep them as my own, raise them, imagined their beaks
would one day open to call me, “Father.”
HADAA SENDOO
Hadaa Sendoo (b.1961) is a poet and translator of international renown. He has lived in Ulaanbaatar, capital of Mongolia since 1991. He has won awards for poetry in india, the USA, Canada, Greece, China, and Russia, including the Mongolian Writers’ Union Prize. Since 1989, he has published 15 books of poetry. Sendoo’s recent collections of poems include “Sweet Smell of Grass” (in Persian 2016), “Aurora” (in Kurdish 2017), “Mongolian Long Song” (in Georgian 2017), WENN ICH STERBE, WERDE ICH TRÄUMEN (in German-Mongolian bilingual 2017), "Mongolian Blue Spots" (in Dutch,2017), and " A Corner of the Earth"(in Norwegian 2017). Sendoo Hadaa’s influence transcends national and ethnic borders and he is recognized as a great poet of the 21th century. In 2006, he founded the ground-breaking World Poetry Almanac, which he continues to edit. From 1998, he is a member of the Mongolian Writers Union.
100 million light years of a dream I know I myself Will have turned a page I will stay in place And the body will Officially bid farewell to the soul Then go back to the grass The world has suffered too much, like me but I wish you’ll meet a good man And believe that love can always warm The cold on earth If you sing out sounds, they should be like Mongolian folk songs Sadness without weeping. And my epitaph, it’s destined to remain in my lines of poetry Hypocritical inscription; it, too, cannot be compared with a few lines of tears Of the wanderer who returns home In the years of sorrow afterwards I will still stand as a tree in the wind If night is filled with lightning, thought is such as the house of God If freedom is bread, a poem is as pure honey
Rewriting it With a broken tip of the pen my tears write grief in July And years, like dust raised by horseshoes no matter whether I live or commit suicide are all like a flaw that becomes a poem Today, I rewrite it For this drop of blood on my finger and the world's trembling ink are like the morning dew – a condensation of my luck
Daybreak
At daybreak, when you came Dewdrops were birthing too The paling sky brought forth quivering life
I wait for my warhorse, he’s bolted I’m left walking barefoot Through the towering stillness of the night
BELINDA SUBRAMAN
Belinda Subraman has been writing poetry since the 6th grade and publishing since college. She had a ten year run editing and publishing Gypsy Literary Magazine (last century). Six of those ten years were from Germany where she was a Bohemian outcast among officer wives. She edited books by Vergin' Press, among them: Henry Miller and My Big Sur Days by Judson Crews. Forthcoming from Unlikely Books: Left Hand Dharma: New and Selected Poems.
In Just One Corner of One Room in My Mother’s House
A clown hangs by the neck above four boxes of Kleenex, a six inch ceramic Santa, metal adjustable skates from the 1950s, a twelve inch Barbie in a hand crocheted dress beside a closet door so full of all that is feared could be lost, it cannot close.
Inheritance
We’re bubbles of energy in meat suits collecting heaps of metal, crippling countries for oil refusing to believe we’re killing the earth, all for the glint of gold, fat numbers on a screen that is ours temporarily then passed on along with dying land to our children who hate us because we didn't not love anything including them, enough.
Karnatik Classical: Thyagaraja Krithis
The Indian man parts his lips. He is garbling. He is humming. He is ah-ing, licking the air passionately.
The music is hard. His fingers stiffen. A woman dances with her long neck. He begins to dance with his.
The unknown tongue says everything as in the beginning of all creation.
Sitar, voice and dance become one. Bare feet burn until a string breaks, a voice cracks, the dance stops.
But nothing is ever the same. The creation goes on to become something else then something else again
until 5,000 years later an American in Texas projects its profundity too simply
and all you can think of is sex.
CHANGMING YUAN
Changming Yuan is a 4-time Pushcart nominee and author of Chansons of a Chinaman (Leaf Garden, 2009) and Landscaping (Flutter Press, 2014). He holds a PhD in English, tutors, and co-edits Poetry Pacific with his teenager poet son Allen Qing Yuan in Vancouver. Recently interviewed by PANK, Yuan’s poetry appears in 709 literary publications across 27 countries, including Asia Literary Review, Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, LiNQ, London Magazine, Paris/Atlantic, Poetry Kanto, Salzburg Review, SAND, Taj Mahal Review, Threepenny Review and Two Thirds North.
AtmAn (in the ScArlet Letter)
Confused with dAo, Amazed At AlA, As we ApproAch Jesus, or meditAte About SingulArity
Why does it hAve to explode?
With no big bAng, could we hAve evolved Within A pArAllel universe, or Without time?
Defining Art
An artwork is:: so did Duchamp so demonstrate: A human story:: a proposed interSubjective reality: (to be):: shared By the community: it can form::
The larger: the community: the greater: And more valuable ::the artwork; which May:: (or may not) have a: Physical shape:: in the first place:
Like Alba: Bible: country: company Capitalism:: his disgusting fountain and all: other Stories told:: or retold: including the very snag Finding its way:: from Fraser River: to this very line
MARIANNE SZLYK
Marianne Szlyk edits The Song Is... a blog-zine for poetry and prose inspired by music (especially jazz). Her poems have appeared in of/with, bird's thumb, Cactifur, Mad Swirl, Setu, Solidago, Red Bird Chapbook's Weekly Read, Mermaid Mirror, Epiphanies and Late Realizations of Love, and Resurrection of a Sunflower, an anthology of work responding to Vincent Van Gogh's art. Her full-length book, On the Other Side of the Window, is now available from Pski's Porch and Amazon. She invites you to stop by her blog-zine and perhaps even submit some poems: http://thesongis.blogspot.com
Cleaning Out Mother’s House Pull out the papers. Plunk them down. Pick them up one at a time. Wince at the weight of paper, at the weight of words. I remember the Vietnam Vet sitting with us on cracked leather chairs as the other students passed through on their way to morning classes in economics, calculus, chemistry. He told us all that Nixon had done for him, for his family. I remember the EPA, the place where I used to work, checking for the shift in tense, subject/verb disagreement, comma splices. I remember the day Nixon died. I watched video of him playing the piano, playing the same songs that Dad used to play. Online I see headlines about impeachment, words chipping at the wall between us and the future. The talking heads on Mother’s TV slap me back into the present. Her hands like a grandchild’s piece of pottery rest in her lap. Her feet in Velcro sneakers do not reach the bare floor. She rarely speaks, to me anyway. I have to throw out these papers. Empty this house of more than just paper. Empty my mind for what’s to come.
FRANCISCO MUĂ‘OZ SOLER
Francisco MuĂąoz Soler is a Spanish poet with and extensive work published in countries like Spain, Mexico, United States, India, Peru, El Salvador and Venezuela. His poems have been translated into English, French, Italian, German, Romanian, Arabic, Assamese and Bengali. His poetry is intimate and full of fine sensitivity that invites reflection. His lyrical self offers us testimony of existential dilemmas and shows us an ethical commitment to the existence of otherness in the search for expression. His poetry is universal poetry that embraces the thirst for justice, peace and flies the flag of love. His work is included in various anthologies and in more than a hundred literary magazines. He is the organizer of the Plenilunio Poetic Cycle of Malaga
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Mรกlaga
Golden light in spring stillness under sky-blue horizon bathed in calm sea people who enrich their scopes network of enchanments and flowers as a baptized paradise it is my craddle and in her my Mรกlaga I live.
I Choose The Kiss My Father Gave Me
I choose the kiss my father gave me, that afternoon, on the first birthday his fifth granddaughter in new house my brother Juani, that kiss spontaneous and deep, full of hopes, of detached feeling of love, sincere paternal affection.
These tokens of love are left me which nourish my saddlebags in my transition to an uncertain fate.
Eight days before his death.
Where Are You, Dad I know you were not in that languid and absent body.
A Picture Of My Father And My Son
A continuous dialogue with absent full avatars holding my life, a constant coming and going to nowhere trying to cling to something or why, now with my father in the picture He is holding my son in my arms Proud keeping our future, with him I speak of the things we never said we the hidden intimacies that may not exist trying to make sense of the empty set in stone.
BRIAN A. SALMONS
Brian A. Salmons lives with his wife and children in Orlando, Florida, where he writes and occasionally performs at open mics. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Eyedrum Periodically,Man in the Street Magazine, NonBinary Review and CherryHouse Press. He is the host of @BrianAndTheNight, a poetry podcast on Facebook.
Doaku
(Translation of and response to Amir Hamzah's "Doa Poyangku".)
All my ancestors, the same questions with hope I offer the pluck of harp, it is Paradise's the slap of tambourine, it is Heaven's
It is a moment and it was also a moment. Shudder at the moment: it shows its making generations ago
all my ancestors are only every thing the drummers sounding through voice the hushed voice of hallowed flute
You think how different other lives how carefree seem lives. You can't tell any one: God, beloved, descendant, reader of music. not really—you can't tell, practicing contentedness in the mirror, holding your toothbrush in great doubt, closed mouth cloaking fangs: No one can tell. Practice being it to make it a practice of being it fake it until you make it be fake. Make be.
Swat at the mind's itchy palm think of nothing else. Not this this frivolous kill of love, this is not a thing—a promise despoiled
Now,
tambourine under fingers my slap-dance arouses a yearning. Trying to trace the crescent of bells, drums, at the song's climax I praise my lover.
A slip. All of this. Off-beat. Cleaver in hand I dice stifling carrots carrying the was-moment. The stakes are higher with a kitchen weapon and you're not there in the crescendo Bell and drum, the ring and the thud and the pluck and the slap to Praise Allah and angel
oh gawd
Pity my heart, my true. In my heart there's no joy. Dancing fingers are just prayers but my heart is cleaved through.
Fingers do the cancan at my heart. I clap hard
—my prayer.
Final Earth
a haibun for Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-2017), after his "Final Faith"
Turn without fear of "the last great poet". He still trolls your beaches, combs kelp for tropes, brushes the lashes of your closed lids. In that putrid wrinkle Babi Yar, he finds the corpses. He raises a red flag. A polished forward step toe just over a line time to prove he is a mountain, one of your craggy vertebrae. Just one.
Turn unloath to the amaranthine soldier crawling your skin, the occupation no more innate than nation. He, too, is: poet, parent, progeny. Tepid in all endeavors, potato eaters more noble than princess, that tired dream. A rabbit in a boa, both now asleep, dreams of carrot hunting.
Turn to us with mercy mild, tell us to spy the enemy patriot's to find enmity's traitor, the apple of your Pond. This hereafter already there is their final Earth.
The soldier's firearm floats away. By the safety, a dragonfly rests.
RANKO PAVLOVIC
Ranko Pavlović (1943) is a writer, poet, essayist, literary critic and playwright. He writes for children and adults. His poems and short stories were translated into Italian, Polish, Hungarian, English, Romanian, German, Dutch and other languages. He has published seventeen collections of poems (Bones and Shadows, Core, Hunting, The Powder of a Poet, Monk Sonnets, Between Two Blanks,etc.), sixteen collections of short stories, five novels, two collection of essays, a book of literary criticism and ten radio dramas for adults, eighteen collections of short stories for children, six collections of poems for the youngest, a novel for young people, a dozen texts for children's theaters and about twenty radio plays for children. He has won many awards. He received The Ivo Andric Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. He recently received The Gordana Todorovic Award for the best manuscript. He lives and works in Banja Luka, Republika Srpska.
Hunting
We used to hunt grasshoppers and butterflies, Just to have enough play in the meadow ‌
... Then we started to hunt rabbits and roebucks, Just to gorge ourselves and to survive,
Then we started to hunt foxes and wolves, To stop them hunting our rabbits and roebucks,
Then we hunted other hunters, To stop them hunting our quarry‌
... So we started to hunt ourselves, He who starts to hunt will never be able to stop
Everything In Its Own Place
Everything will finally come in its own place: Nightingale on a poplar branch barely covered with leaves, Bee on a first flower of primrose, Sunbeam on a clear dewdrop Awake on a still not blooming bud.
Everything will finally be placed in its own place: Smile on a freckled face of a sleeping child, Maidenly wish in a smell of a bouncing apple, Headless rhyme in harmonious verses Of a poem that has no beginning.
Everything will finally settle down in its own place, Only my being will be far away, Searching for a point where essence is shivering, Only my thought will be on a path Where feet do not touch the ground.
CLAUDINE NASH
Claudine Nash's collections include The Wild Essential (Kelsay Books, 2017) and Parts per Trillion (Aldrich Press, 2016) as well as the chapbook The Problem with Loving Ghosts (Finishing Line Press, 2014). Her poetry has received numerous literary recognitions including Pushcart Prize nominations and prizes from such publications and organizations as Artists Embassy International, The Song Is..., and Thirty West Publishing House among others. Internationally published, her work has appeared in a wide range of publications including Asimov’s Science Fiction, BlazeVOX, Cloudbank, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and Dime Show Review. She is also practicing psychologist. Website: www.claudinenashpoetry.com.
Unbecoming I shall start this day by engaging in an act of unbecoming. I shall begin by awakening my ears to the sound of stretching. Next, I will peel away the voices not of my making and expose a self that waits within. I will lend it what breath I have for now. Though the sun has not yet risen, I will bathe its skin in light, I shall allow the universe to pour into its most minuscule cells and spin inside. With any luck all this whirling and light-tossing will create a vastness that will dislodge the truest parts of me.
These pieces shall swell; I shall not stop this. For some indefinite period, I may be enormous and small at the same time, I shall strike a balance. I shall untangle this self from the day’s business and feel something in me float and vibrate. I will rise up and make far more effort to resist the dark.
KARIUKI WA NYAMU
Kariuki wa Nyamu, a Kenyan poet, radio playwright, children’s writer, editor, literary critic and teacher, earned a BA in English Language, Literature and Education from Makerere University, Uganda. His poetry won the National Book Trust of Uganda (NABOTU) Literary Awards 2007 and Makerere University Creative Writing Competition 2010. He is published extensively both in print and online. He recently co-authored a Children’s Poetry and Short Story Anthology titled When Children Dare to Dream which won Babishai Niwe 2017 Haiku Prize. He is presently pursuing a Master of Arts in Literature at Kenyatta University, Kenya.
Let’s Start On At Them Let’s start on at them for pocketing funds remitted for Children’s vaccines as polio knocks future of Afrika down! Let’s start on at them for drugging motorists one after the other claiming that the living cost is now hill high! Let’s start on at them for redirecting trucks ferrying relief maize to their warehouses as ravages of drought skeleton old to young, specially in the North! Let’s start on at them for the gang rape of teen girls two days after presidential amnesty! Let’s start on at them for allegedly purchasing arm chairs worth hundreds of millions as our children sit on heaps of earth, under trees of thorns! Let’s start on at them for differing on the need to procure dialysis machines in all Referral hospitals only to witness a full Bunge* hours later, when proposing for their pay rise! Let’s start on at them without traces of fear or favour Yes, let’s start on at them!
*Kiswahili word for parliament
Confessions Dear Kanisa, I know, you’ve for long, dismissed, the tittle-tattle that, I want, that man’s wife! Well, today, I just want to, set the record, straight, by pronouncing, it’s true! Fine, now that you’ve known, bother not, defending me, specially, when you’ll be, called upon, for enquiry, thus, I just wanted to, disapprove you, and shock you, a little, by announcing, that, even the kid, she’s carrying, in her womb, is my work! By the way, I’m all set, for broadcast, in fact, as I pen this, the Press is, at my doorstep, and when cameras roll, I’ll mince not, my words; I’ll say, how I bewail, that, this thing, was never, mine wanting! But anyhow, I’ll confess that, it’s great, to see her images, cloud my mind, all days, for my heart, possesses her; for sure, she’s my breath! Imagine, without her, I feel, a void in my heart? Well, I understand, you’re now, muttering ‘Bloody fool! Fat-head! Are you nuts?’ Anyway, never you mind, for I know, I’m okay, upstairs. Nonetheless, Now that, I’ll have to be, summoned, to the cathedral, when I reach, I’ll deny not, for I know, I’m at fault. But I’ll just, tell them, point blank! That whenever, I ponder further… my heart, skips a beat, as I do nothing, except, crave for, that man’s sweet of heart. Anyway, never mind, for even heaven knows, I’ve never, compelled her into it! Kanisa, today, when I tell you, I’ve for long failed, to have power, over this thing I feel, You’ll think, I’m kidding, but I know I’m, without doubt, not! Oh damn this feeling, that budded, in the terrain, of my heart, in I don’t know when! And further grilling, will confirm, how I dread it, Thus, I even, dread myself! But, what should I have done… to put off, this disconcerting thing? Anyhow, call me all sorts of bloody fucking names, But hey! Who on earth are you to judge? Lots of love from Fr Dautti
HUGUETTE BERTRAND
Huguette Bertrand is a French-Canadian poet and editor living in Qc, Canada. She has published 37 poetry books. Her poems were also published in many poetry journals and anthologies in Canada, France, Belgium, Libanon, U.S.A., Wales (UK), Romania, India, etc. and on many websites the last 20 years. She takes part in poetry readings, book shows, and exhibition of her poetry on photos in QuĂŠbec and in France, conduct of workshops in Canada and France. She is the representative of the international movement Immagine & Poesia in Canada and editor of anthologies for this said group. Website :
http://www.espacepoetique.com/poete/poete.html
Wikipedia : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguette_Bertrand
Break And Bricks
Break all the walls down to let dreams come out from the wilderness of memories hidden behind closed doors
Break all the walls down to let the flowers grow and all the trees also fragrance and colors will spread on the landscape of wounded minds laying on the canvas of dusty times
Let's take the bricks of walls and build houses with open doors to let in the wind blowing words healing with peace on hand all living dramas on lands
MENDES BIONDO
Mendes Biondo is an Italian journalist and writer. He published his works on emagazines all around the world. He is the Editor-in-chief of the cultural blog RAMINGO! along with Elena Bello. More info here:https://ramingoblog.com/.
No Man's Land
this land is full of corpse buried by their parents by their lovers by time and weather this land is full of trees standing like tombstones silently watching each other waiting for raining no one goes in this land to bring a flower to cut the grass to cry vengeance for their loss this land is a place of peace with the only sound of the wind singing about spring coming and forgiving all the rest
To All My Fellows Gods Asked A Pledge
who paid with one eye who lost an arm who was crippled who gave love to death
gods asked me for time and how many arms and legs and eyes I would have given rather than the time
they gave me back to you undamaged but old and tired
it was the greatest sacrifice that made them laugh so long
ANITHA DEVI PILLAI
Anitha Devi Pillai (PhD) is an applied linguist and teacher educator at National Institute of Education (NTU, Singapore) where she teaches courses on writing pedagogy and writing. She has predominantly researched and published several research papers based on empirical data on writing and literacy practices and contributed articles to local newspapers. In her spare time, Anitha loves to incessantly doodle poetry and short stories on whatever captures her fancy at that point in time. Most of her musings generally have had only one audience: her rather discerning and hard-to-please teenage son, who is convinced that he is her guide, mentor and father in this lifetime.
FORGOTTEN
Each time there is much less of you to hold and to cherish, or just to watch my heart reflected in your eyes until there is nothing to watch at all. He too sat by the door, waiting for your footsteps hoping for a shadow from dusk to dawn. His heavy eyelids dropped to a slumber. They had to -his heart and soul seeping out. It had to be stopped. “Sleep, my forgotten one, sleep; your heart is showing in your eyes.�
The Pint In The Ring
She was a curious creature a rebellious one to boot. I knew the blows in the ring were not going to keep her down. Blow after blow she rose and fell. Fighting tears I think Losing track of jeers and cheers. They mattered not. She was a pint in the ring facing her maker with no fear. I know not how it will end But she fights a good fight. Tomorrow you will whisper her name in awe not in jest.
LINDA IMBLER
Linda Imbler is the author of the published poetry collection “Big Questions, Little Sleep.” She has also been published by deadsnakes.blogspot.com, behappyzone.com, bluepepper.blogspot.com, buckoffmag.com, Fine Flu Journal, Bunbury Magazine, Blognostics, Nailpolish Stories, Broad River Review Literary Magazine, Mad Swirl, Ascent Aspirations: Friday’s Poems, Unbroken Journal, The Voices Project and GloMag. Linda’s short stories have appeared in Fear of Monkeys, Danse Macabre, and Mad Swirl. Online, she can be found at lindaspoetryblog.blogspot.com. Linda, a writer, a yoga practitioner, and a classical guitar player resides in Wichita, Kansas.
When That Old Bridge Falls Down We’ll crawl up from the everlasting, dense dark through a veiled hole, friending shadows and rocks in a bid to connect with who is now left. When that old bridge falls down. When war is done, when some forms of flesh have survived transmutation, how we now appear, pale and bestial, will be at odds with what is swirling within our beautiful hearts. When that old bridge falls down. To see what’s crumbled, this brave new world, our inheritance. To know that to rebuild will take new action, new thoughts. To feel inside, that underground days must come to an end. To no longer look at others as if a wide river divides us. To understand bridges are meant to be links, not scaffolds used to stage rifts. When that old bridge falls down.
Royal Salvation A smiling face, within these silver walls, the newly crowned Queen, steps from her dais, exits out the flung open egress, glides along lily strewn paths, and comes to meet her king. Together they visit gardens filled with reason, both antiquated and fresh, to salvage hope, a chance for peace before the world could go dark
ZVONKO TANESKI
Zvonko Taneski (1980) is a Macedonian poet, literary critic, translator and university professor, living and working in Slovakia. In 2007 he defended his PhD. thesis from “Theory and history of Slovak literature” at the Department of Slovak Literature and Literary Science on Comenius University in Bratislava. He now works on the same University as an associate professor on Department of Slavic Philology in Faculty of Arts. Author of six books of poetry: "Opened doors" (1995, Kuboa), "The Choir of Rotten Leaves" (2000, Matica makedonska), "The Ridge" (2003, Magor), „Chocolate in portfolio" (2010, Blesok), "Necking without warranty card" (2012, Kočo Racin) and "Waiting history" (2016, Antolog). His poems has been translated into numerous languages and published in the national literary periodicals, as well as in the foreign. In the year of 2013 he has received a Golden medal "Poet laureate" from the Axlepin Publishing in Manila (Philipines) and in year 2015 he has received а high Plague for wholesome poetry the Rector of Varna University on festival "Slavic hugs" in Varna, Bulgaria.
Is it possible? Can my literature professor give me her juvenile poetry to read?, it’s bound to embody subtle motifs, I want to know why she’s given up the occupation now maybe I’ll even discover it. Or could we have a talk about the planned Umberto Eco course, about promise, about help, about mystique, about ambiguity? May I assist in her PhD thesis as an inspiration, as a worm, as an anxiety, as turmoil, as a streak of coffee over a written line? Can we consult European literature about it – why we’ve found each other at the same place, at (n)one time, like kid-mathematicians solving a linear equation? May we then give Mathematics a broom so it can brush off all equations and leave us at a duel to challenge each other in verse? Language could then take a break. Is it possible?! (Translated by Jovana Stojkovska)
I Wanted To Write I wanted to write you a poem to strip you of all the metaphors, metonyms and epithets, so that you be the naked truth, official and recognized by the authorities as a conclusive proof in self-defence I wanted to write you a message to describe you descending towards me with a collected look, without looking round in case you’re being followed by anyone untamable or indecent I wanted to write you an e-mail, to arise in your virtual tenderness, and spend the ’ntire night lonesome in front of a running monitor so that my eyes don’t burn out in the dark before they get to see you in person after a longer while I wanted to write you a letter, to reward you with mercy so that you have it in reserve or in surplus whenever you forget to smile when greeting I wanted to write but I’ve changed the plan. So I further continue to want. (Translated by Jovana Stojkovska)
ALISA VELAJ
Alisa Velaj was born in 1982 in Albania. She has been shortlisted for the Erbacce-Press Poetry Award in 2014. Her works have appeared in more than eighty print and online international magazines. Her poetry collection With No Sweat At All will be published by Cervana Barva Press in 2019.
Herb Of Shiver Clear will be the sky, when bone and breath will rest in one: neither bone against breath, nor breath yonder the bone. You will be watching with some ashen eyes, where no memory of waterfalls flows from, and, without the least doubt, will believe that this is the forgetfulness of the herb shivering in the mountain breeze even when His breath hasn't yet arrived. Man, you won't afterwards know where to find the bone!
(Translated from Albanian by Arben P. Latifi)
Gone are the Gardens of Babylon I expected from you no more, no lessthan what you could, O drifter between two serene, infinite banks. Upon every sunset, I'd be fulfilled with the oceans, and would traverse the birds' unmarked freeways on wings of seagulls. Love would always be there, with all the fancies born of acquatic azures, and no cloudiness would outlast the Mediterranean clouds, for I'd simply ask of you neither more, nor less than what you could. Winds would pollinate our memory with dawns-to-be, allowing us no time to sweat it for more. Boyfriend, lover, husband, yet, never a son of clear horizons, which never claimed to close out on your egotismeven when abloom like the Gardens of Babylon! What else could I ask of you, when even the cactuses' pride had already moved on to a new homeland...?! (Translated from Albanian by Arben P. Latifi)
VLADIMIR ALEKSANDROVIČ BABOŠIN
Vladimir Aleksandrovič Babošin (1958) is a Russian poet, translator and the editor of Невская формула journal. He is a retired colonel, an assistant professor at the Military School, a PhD in philosophy in technical sciences, a correspondent member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and Arts. His newest book is My Serbian Anthology (Моя сербская антология 2018). He lives and works in Saint Petersburg.
Lovers
You're silent again ... but you could at least Wave. It's probably cause we both know. Only afterwards our words are like a gift What it was, what will be while we are talking. Love is always, always with the truth, Not to feel pressed we did not promise it to us, Just a thought like a miraculous light lace That ties us carefully. And the New Year's Snow Storm, Will blow again on the road a long way And our beds cold like a snake If you're just an elusive dream.
Our Enchantresses
To ask a woman for her age is shameful! A real man, believe me, always knows that, She is beautiful like when cherry blossoms wildly, Or when she's mature as fertile autumn. To ask a woman for her age is unnecessarily, Because she always wraps a veil of a secret. Both dressed in rags or solemn, Beautiful even when no one sees her eyes shining.
To ask a woman for her age - this is madness, Because these numbers mean nothing to anyone. To her husband, maybe, just for the sake of, To the rest - beauty is unknown. And therefore, be silent in front of her beauty, But do not hide your excitement. During all her age guess only the enchantress For such will always be your wish.
(Translated by Danijela Trajković)
ALICIA MINJAREZ RAMĂ?REZ
Alicia Minjarez RamĂrez is a Poet, Translator, Singer, University Professor and Broadcaster for Radio and T.V. She was born in Tijuana, Mexico. She is an internationally renowned poetess and author who has won numerous awards including the EASAL medal by the European Academy of Sciences and Letters 2018 at Paris, France. Awarded "Pride of the Globe" WNWU, Kazakhstan 2018; Awarded "Universal Inspirational Poet", Pentasi B. World, India 2017; Winner of a special mention and a medal in the International Poetry Prize NOSSIDE Italy 2015, recognized by UNESCO. She was awarded with the IWA BOGDANI Albania Award, 2016. Her poems have been translated into: English, Albanian, French, Cameroonian, Arabic, Azerbaijan, Turkish, Chinese, Taiwanese, Portuguese, Polish and Italian and published in more than 50 International Anthologies, journals and magazines around the world.
Absence
You left Like rain After destroying The bare countryside. Below the leaves Your name Flying with the wind Foreseen the verse, It's useless tessitura Upon the unpropitious Yesterday. I still don’t understand The seven letters Building Your absence. It’s not dark yet… And the language Of the sun Is no longer the same.
It Rains‌ A longing breeze tries to show itself, like nostalgia migrating up in the air. Water permeates my body. Your breath fills in the context. Longing secrets that the wind shakes up in the offing, then nothingness. I walk behind upon the moisture left by the drops under the branches. Birds get detached from their nests, looking for the promised shelter. Church bells ring, outside the night interrupts. I long to dry off the rain, like those birds besetting park trees in the evening. The stillness of your eyes invades me‌ Ecstatic wings, paralyzing their flight. At my silence’s feet.
ALLEN FORREST
Allen Forrest is a writer and graphic artist for covers and illustrations in literary publications and books and the winner of the Leslie Jacoby Honor for Art at San Jose State University's Reed Magazine for 2015. His Bel Red landscape paintings are part of the Bellevue College Foundation's permanent art collection in Bellevue, WA. He lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Allen Forrest / word count: 273 The Letters He wrote his brother asking for money, the letters were poignant, authentic. He illustrated them with drawings. The brother looked forward to the letters even though he was supporting him: the older who could not hold a job. He became erratic, fiercely unconventional, after the heart breaks: the women, the Borinage, the Church, father, not happy with his son's lack of progress. Few friends, difficult temper, people tired of his arguing.
Scandalous – living with a whore who modeled for him. Frequently moved, a voracious reader, spoke several languages. The attacks came, they put him in a sanitarium, still he painted and wrote the letters to his brother. The letters, filled with wondrous descriptions: the docks in Antwerp, a white horse in black mud, the smoky walls of a warehouse, the mysterious bug-like Chinese girl quiet as a mouse, Arles, a ruined abbey on a hillside covered with holly, pine and grey olives he hoped to paint. The letters kept coming and in them there would be the mention of funds, of getting just a little more, so he could afford the paint, canvas, brushes, paper, turpentine. The brother collected his paintings, he tried to get buyers interested, but to no avail. The letters, the record of an artist's journey, like his fantastic paintings, swirling with the passion of life, undulating with colorful character, the brother could live another life in those letters. The letters, a testament to creation. News of the accident came, he was seriously injured. The brother went to see him one last time at his bedside. Then he was gone, the man who wrote the letters.
DANIEL CALABRESE
Daniel Calabrese is an Argentinian poet born in Dolores city, Buenos Aires province. Lives in Santiago de Chile since 1991, where became involved with the poetry and literary life of his adopted nation. Among his collections of poetry, one must mention such titles as La faz errante, which won the Alfonsina Prize, and Oxidario Prize from the National Arts Fund in Buenos Aires, as well as his book Ruta Dos, winner of the Prize Revista de Libros in Chile. Anthologies of his work were published in Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay, Colombia and China. Translated partially to English, Italian, chinese and Japanese. Daniel is the Founder and Director of Ærea, an annual review of poetry and translation.
The drowned one I want to make clear that it wasn’t on a river but in the soil itself that I drowned. The only river I carry in my memory is a shudder, a tremor where little things sink to the bottom though they never completely disappear. Sometimes, they sink before the river flows past. And their call for help always comes too late.
Love returns What is over still goes on. The love that ended returns. Because everything that carries blood or music sooner or later starts again. But beware. My flesh knows you, my fingers have already walked one hundred times over the sleepy light of your body. And it’s not water but thirst. It’s not enough to stab a knife into the sky to unleash a storm.
HANNIE ROUWELER
Hannie Rouweler (Goor, 13 June 1951) has been living in Leusden since the end of 2012. Her sources of inspiration are nature, love, loss, childhood memories and travel. In 1988 she debuted with Raindrops on the water. Since then about 40 poetry volumes have been published, including poetry books in translation (e.g. Polish, Romanian, Spanish, French, Norwegian, English). She attended five years evening classes in painting and art history, art academy (Belgium). She published a few stories (short thrillers); is a compiler of various anthologies and poetry collections. She is a member of the Flemish Association of Poets and Writers (VVL).
My Zen TV
I was traveling late last night. Seen a lot and it was incredibly beautiful! Despite the newspaper reports I left at home the world was breath taking, peace and quiet almost divine and the water glistened over the small waves to the beach. The palm trees were delightfully slightly curved in sun glow as I had seen them before on bounty islands. It was overwhelming, the beauty, and we all enjoyed it. We are with five women on board, the sailing ship is anchored in a bay. Provided with food and drinks, we buy from the locals. We get fish out of the water, the captain sits in the wheelhouse, she sailed earlier tramping, wild voyages. I drink a sip of water that is on the table, open the book, with almost every wave to my feet I look up, seeing how everything fills in. The day, the hour, the story, images.
Polynesia (πολυ = many, νησος = island, so many islands) is one of the three large groups of islands in the Pacific that make up Oceania alongside Melanesia and Micronesia. Roughly it forms a triangle with New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island as corner points. The total land area is around 294,000 km² on a water surface of more than 50 million km². In total there are more than 1000 islands that belong to Polynesia.
How Do I Come Home Again
After seeing mountains with a blue haze above tops in the morning, young dew on grass like countless pearls slowly evaporating in the morning sun, the broad line of the horizon above polder soil which represents my homeland, in the sky foam heads floating from the coast. After slow days that represented nothing in which a child is standing with a jump rope, hoop around her waist, round stones to be picked up along the side of the road and lays them on the windowsill as a collection of valuable treasures. Dreaming of warm hands in the afternoon on your back, your shoulders pushed away in deep pillows of desire and passion. Then silence. After walks in forest areas with open spaces, lakes, deserted ponds, with in the meadows cows grazing along a ditch. Sitting on wooden fences with dangling legs coming loose from the ground. Dusty, sweaty from strange areas, new experiences, new found words in my handbag, suitcase, lost it all and again back in the night, in the day. That's how I want to come home.
MIA LECOMTE
Mia Lecomte was born in 1966 and now lives in Rome. Poet, author of children’s books and plays, among her most recent poetry collections are Autobiografie non vissute (2004) and Terra di risulta (2009). She is an honorary member of the French Association “Confluences poétiques.” Her poems have been translated and published in Italy and abroad, in poetry magazines and anthologies, including Italian Poets in Translation (John Cabot—University of Delaware 2008). She is creator and member of the International “Company of Women Poets” (Compagnia delle poete: www.compagniadellepoete.com), a theatre group made up of foreign poets living in Italy that stages plays involving the superimposition in poetry of languages/cultures and different artistic languages. She is also a critic and editor in the field of comparative literature, especially as regards the literature of migration. She has edited the anthologies Ai confini dei verso — Poesia della migrazione in italiano (2006), Sempre ai confini del verso—Dispatri poetici in italiano (2011) and, with Luigi Bon- affini, A New Map — The Poetry of Migrant Writers in Italy (2011), and she frequently lectures on this subject in Italy and abroad. She is on the editorial board of the bi-annual journal of comparative poetry Semicerchio and of various online literary sites, including the trimonthly El-Ghibli, dedicated to the literature of migration. She is a contributor to the Italian version of Le Monde Diplomatique.
Brothers They all come here they meet in the square in front press in at the entrance jump up on the boundary wall climb the window bars even come into the garden reach the roof the balconies clutter up the windows The come every day each one every new year they don’t want to introduce themselves of course they’re not here to stay they only return hour after hour shaking from the foundations shielding sight every least noise Home is what at times remains the traces of the siege food clothes scraps of paper when suddenly unpredictably it’s empty all around for an instant they stop returning
Action Replay
The falling man makes us laugh that’s why he concentrates on the void stretching between the two ends of his step the falling man always makes us laugh if in his hand he holds something then he can never lay it down The falling man prepares to make us laugh with all the times he’s said and hasn’t said it’s easy now I’m falling so the man constantly falls because a falling man makes us laugh and falls again terrible because laughing defines man
MYSTI S. MILWEE
Mysti S. Milwee is an internationally published Synesthesia artist (she paints to music), and poetess from Southside, AL. Her works have widely appeared in numerous magazines, e-zines, anthologies, and tours and have been used in academic studies and ministries across the US and abroad. Her collaboration #PaintingToBorgeet with internationally acclaimed singer/songwriter Debasish Parashar to his Borgeet “Pamaru Mana” has received global recognition and numerous publications in India, Italy, and the US. She has also collaborated with internationally acclaimed British Composer Keith Barnard in London, United Kingdom, to his organ music “The Universal Harmony of Light” and Pop Artist Jonathan Joel (Nashville, Tennessee) to his debut song “Mascara”. She is a former musician herself. She is a member of several well known music and art societies, music and writing collaborative teams, and groups including: ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers); Art & Music International Group; Songwriting and Music Production Group; The Stellar Society: Writers, Poets, Filmmakers, and Artists; MADE-The Society of Music, Art, and Drama Education; Arts, Music, Literature & Humanities Group; Music of Other Dimensions Group; Native Music Blessing and Prayer Group; ASPS (Alabama State Poetry Society); Writers Anonymous; Alabama Writers Conclave; and many other groups, societies, and organizations across the US and abroad. More of her awards, publications, interviews, etc. can be found at: http://www.mystismilwee.wordpress.com MSM-ART: http://www.facebook.com/pages/MSM-ART/178157392288070
Inked Heart
Dipped in pretty poison scarred my heart with the needles that penetrates my skin. Ink drips fluidly into tears of hope. I'm human I break down; my flaws, my imperfections.... refusing to sink into red ink.
Illusion of Confusion Your mirrored deep dark laugh displaced me in confusion; how it made me feel drunk and trapped by your tone of voice wrapped in a web of your control my body shutters in a trance of emotion; as if I am losing my mind; sudden dry gulps of intensity grasps at my throat as if suffocated by the hands of demons. Oranges, watermelons, and cherries drop Bust open on the floor! My veins dismembered; the blood of innocence, colors of caution, and seeds of my thoughts scattered across the floor. My mind slowly returns to reality complete silence as people stop for seconds – to stare; my mind races to escape embarrassment and no one steps in to help – as my lips tremble with fear and nowhere to run, but to face the ghastly mirrors that creates vague images that lingers on my soul – an illusion of hell.
SERBIAN POETRY IN TRANSLATION
POETS IN TRANSLATION BY DANIJELA TRAJKOVIĆ
Danijela Trajković is a writer and translator from Vranje in Serbia. She has published a number of short stories and reviews and has just completed a post-graduate thesis on social and gender roles in Wuthering Heights.
OBREN RISTIC
Obren Ristic (1960) is a Serbian poet, short story writer and anthologist. He graduated from the Faculty of Economics. His poems were published in numerous literary magazines and included in several collections and anthologies. Most recently he has been included in Eight Centuries of Serbian Poetry / Von A bis Z (2017) translated and edited by Johann Lavundi. His poems have been translated in several languages. He received awards Zmaj Ognjeni Vuk (2010), Milan Rakic (2010) and Zlatna struna (2011). He is a member of The Association of Serbian Writers. He has published the following books of poetry: Ponder Over Impressions (1996), In the East, in Serbia (2002), Upset are Holy Warriors (2006), The Lord is a Great Bard (2009), Wreath to the Creator (2009), The Barbarians of Tomorrow (2015). He lives and works in Eastern Serbia.
http://istokakademija.wixsite.com/obrenristic
The Barbarians of Tomorrow If I were to build castles and stone towers Here I would bring ancient masters In the centuries past forgotten Those ones the only skillful to predict
My intentions, the right measure The precise angle Of sunrise and sunset and the position of the moon Opposite infinity in the foam, air by air, stone On stone. Only they will be told who
And how will inhabit future settlements, those Houses of Heaven. And whose bride will lose Her virginity with the abysmal foundations
For only they will be able, the ancient masters, Winds of wild to subjugate and summon New sunlight. Those barbarians of tomorrow.
TIMACUM MAIUS1 TIMACUM MINUS2 Warriors, knights and many armies, horses and mules loaded, graceful flocks and beasts on the holy way Timacum Maius - Timacum Minus as the bird migration trail.
We saddle a horse for the Great Mayor, We put new festive clothes on it for new hikes - despotic. The spears and shields a forge makes In Baranica in Eastern Serbia.
Who knows how many towers have fallen until now. In front of the open city door we stand proudly at the end of the century in line for the Communion or at a great festivity we leave.
The shepherds bow with gentleness the flock does not move amid the beauty and tranquility of the saints. Here is where we should build a church! Mayor, it's time for the monastery!
1 2
Archeological site in the village of Nisevac, near Svrljig, East Serbia. Archeological site located in Ravna, East Serbia.
ANA NIKVUL
Ana Nikvul is a Serbian poetess, playwright and writer. She has published four collections of poetry and has received many significant rewards. Her poems are published in many journals and included in anthologies. She lives and works in Mladenovac, Serbia, where teaches the Serbian language.
After the exhibition
when in the mirror I see you instead of myself then that’s not day from those you keep silent about when I cross my legs while I drink coffee and I read the story about sleepers who wake up from the sea then I must have fallen asleep in the last verse of unwritten poem about the air in your room as you move towards the kitchen window to open it because you cannot breathe from the density of thoughts in which you cuddle me as the actor performs his farewell performance finally ready to go to his life and act nothing
What I didn’t say while playing the blues
you led me I led you we led each other to support ourselves the rain was dropping into the washbowl we were kissing a girl was playing a harmonica and drinking beer while eye swallowed by some various former and failed characters from the scene we were kissing I thought that my heart was going to burst out of luck I thought gosh this ship sails really good I thought he would put his hand on my pelvis to fertilize me I thought I was the streets drunk beer drunk the desires drunk death drunk which I buried for at least five days I felt that a future day was coming under my skin we met in it we terribly lost control too we are getting to the past which is now to fix our mistakes and sins against God we went to church to light on tears that we spilled with force so we filled the whole church with them then the wind blew and cleared the ashes on which it was more possible to write than to walk oh my darling where we were together alone on the way while we constantly and forever loved each other over the wall
SAŠA RADOJČIĆ
Saša Radojčić (1963) is a Serbian poet and philosopher. He has published six collections of poetry and is a winner of many prestigious rewards in Serbia. He holds PhD in Philosophy and works at University of Arts in Belgrade.
Light white dresses
quite an ordinary room actually nothing is happening. a young woman sitting by the window she holds a folded book on her lap.
she turns around or the one who watches her moves. her eyes are brown
but a little bit swollen like she was crying. nothing is happening yet except that she rises holding the book in her hand moving the curtain with the other hand. it’s day outside and it's light. she sighed and tightened the book on her chest.
there is no title on the covers warm colors of the eyes of the woman but it must be poetry. because what else would cause the tears in the beautiful eyes of the young woman in light white dresses?
Amo Quia Absurdum
I still love them
young woman near the window with a book in her hands
and tear in the eye
and that cheerful who presses flowers among the sheets of the dictionary
and the serious one who writes a letter all becoming text between them and me love and words
or it's the other way around words and love
the only justification the only reasons
ZORAN PEŠIĆ SIGMA
Zoran Pešić Sigma (1960) is a Serbian poet, writer and editor of Gradina journal. He has published eight collections of poetry, four of prose and two plays. For his work he received many rewards. Translated into several languages. He lives and works in Niš, South Serbia.
A Bed of Books
It's comfortable like cresset for incense
until everything is burnt there is no luck
there is no smell there is no sacred curiosity
the past is always naive like yellowing photography of missed good intentions the present
never harder time
just to survive to the first future until the first turn into a dream
in this bed we cover ourselves with soft covers we embrace the pillow in which pleated naughty stories rustle
The World is an Infinite Black Mattress
The world is an infinite black mattress on which small gray beings jump occasionally God angry calm down you are going to destroy the springs! and for some time the small gray stains keep quiet like naughty scared kids until God enters the other room
BORIS JOVANOVIC KASTEL
Boris Jovanovic Kastel (Trebinje, 1971), considered by literary critics the most important Montenegrin poet of Mediterranean origin and prominent name of Mediterranean poetry. He has published a number of collections of his poetry. He won the Nosside World Poetry Prize, awarded under the auspices of UNESCO’s World Poetry Directorate in Reggio di Calabria (2011). He was editor of the Montenegrin literature review Ovdje (2000-2003). He published his essays in the Montenegrin daily news Pobjeda, for many years. His poetry was translated in Italian, English, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Albanian, Ukrainian and Slovenian. He has received many poetry prizes including Mediterranean lion (1998), Knight of poetry (2001), Literary feather for the best book of the Year (Croatian Literary Society, 2016) and Knievni branovi (Literary encounters in Struga, 2017). Boris was selected as one of 30 poets of the world for The VI World Poetry Festival in Calcutta (India, 2012).
Confidence I don't trust the sea anymore it did not witdraw before us to the wine bottle of the antique shop or the aquarium of Peter the second Orseol, nor has it without reasoning flooded us, glittering and murmuring it plays kolo* without a leader, to a hundred year old circle and bacchanals with a Lovćen fary it lights.
* Montenegrin folk dance
The Banned
She rushed to the sun long ago and it celebrates or burns down. They make me forget her, but I can't because the sun is still rising above the Mother of Jesus in Perast where in the cell surrounded by the senses of panihidas by the stormes and turnkeys I hear the burning of the eagle
at the carnival of merchants. I survive by biting my nails and I secretly drink diluted urine, by the fish skeleton I engrave the genealogy of gentlemen and haiduks of cut veins. Excuse me the lady of Montenegro, I read and remember you – banned to the promise of sandy covers.
A Palm Tree
In the night of the first day of summer from a museum of the southern museums the Neptune's spear was stolen, a young palm tree was broken from a tree lined path without an end. It is the second night of summer, I am the witness – a spineless and hunchback person.
(Translated and edited by Vladimir Sekuli)
ROMANIAN POETRY IN TRANSLATION MIRCEA DAN DUȚĂ
Mircea is a poet, film scientist and translator, editor of the Levure Littéraire cultural platform(France-USA-Germany) and Quest literary magazine, producer, organizer and moderator of cultural events in the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Romania. He writes his own poetic creation in Czech.He published two poetry books: Landscapes, Flights and Dictations (2014, Petr Štengl Editions, Prague), Tin quotes, inferiority complexes and human rights or Married, no strings attached, selling dead born girlfriend (mention: worn-out) (2015, Petr Štengl Editions, Prague), now preparing two new titles: They don´t speak Polish in the realm of death and Regular client of the pub At the Land of the Rising Sun. His texts are also published in numerous literary magazines, anthologies and reviews in the Czech Republic and abroad.
He translated a lot of authors and books from Czech and Slovak into Romanian (especially poetic works and theater plays, but also novels and short stories). He is also translating from English, French, Polish and Slovene into Romanian and from Romanian, English, Slovak and Polish into Czech. He also put together and translated the first two anthologies of contemporary Czech poetry in Romanian (2015, respectively 2016) and the first anthology of contemporary Czech theater (2016) after the fall of communism. He belongs to the Czech section of the PEN Club and also to the Romanian one. From 2015 to 2016 he coproduced and co-moderated the Reading Poetry literary evenings and now is coproducing and co-moderating the series of readings and literary programs Poetry in the Front Room. He also cooperates with the Poetry Festivals FIP Bucharest, FIP Jassy and Transylvania in Cluj. He is also the moderator of the PEN Romania Literary Evenings that started in April 2018.
The Cannibals
I fed on you, for as long as there was something left to eat. In fact, I somehow sensed you would not be here for long. Now they are eating me And I have to be glad of it. For as long as there is food for them, It means I´m still here. But you can no longer be aware of this.
(Translated By Judit Antal)
The Wave
I was coming out of Tesco's and I saw her on the other side of the bridge. She was as beautiful as ever. I waved at her and called her name: Cześć, Kasia. But she kept going. Maybe she didn´t see me, didn´t hear me or didn´t understand me. Or maybe in the realm of death they just don´t speak Polish.
(Translated By Judit Antal)
ADRIAN SUCIU
Adrian Suciu is a cultural tramp, a vagabond in spirit and a literary hooligan. So amazed to have a biography that he forgot it. He has written too many things for somebody who dreams to write the silence. Hadn’t he published books and hadn’t he received diplomas, a bunch of trees would be still alive. Adrian is a Member of the Ash Collectors’ Association and of the Union of the Music Composers for the Deaf. Hopelessly in love with Poetry, which he has never touched and he has never cheated on, neither with women nor with wine.
The Gifts We Should Not Give To Women
A woman can build a house with a single brick. That’s why we don’t give bricks to women: the construction industry would go bankrupt. A woman can create a country with happy people on a thread of sand. That’s why we don’t give threads of sand to women: there would not be enough kings to rule all the countries. A woman can rewrite God with a pen. That’s why we don't give pens to women: everything we know would be upside down. The body would go to the sky and the soul in the ground, where it would be happy like a butchery knife that has mercy.
Lonely Things
You can’t but come from a beautiful town, from a street between two oblivions. There one can hear endless shadow factories packing lonely things. We talk about them as if sowing sand in the desert. Us, the most fulfilled widow and the merriest orphan. We talk to silences in houses without paths, when the sun won’t come out and the moon goes on waiting. The sky is darkening with words and the blood riverbed is draining. And your hands are so clean that you can wash water with them…
(Translated By Nicoleta Crăete)
The Rags Doll
Nobody is good at love and death. Proof being that man’s illusions about love are identical to man’s illusions about death. We have been combing the rags doll for a lifetime and we expect it to say: mother! What you say is to be understood by you alone, in your good days. Or not. But following your loves and your deaths deserted cats and bricks remain who would long to be windows. Only your prompter calling lasts within the cemetery of the unknown heroes. Bring your rags doll with you outside, just tell her mother!
(Translated By Nicoleta Crăete)
Nicoleta Crăete
Nicoleta Crăete was born on 11th September, 1980, in a small town from Romania, Motru. She has won numerous prizes, mainly for poetry, including 1st prize in the poetry section and the festival trophy at the Literature Festival Moştenirea Văcăreştilor in Târgovişte, 2nd prize at the Poetry Festival Costache Conachi in Tecuci, the special prize at the Poetry Competition in Craiova, Tradem, Horia Vintilă prize for prose at the International Competition Vis de toamnă in Urziceni, 1st prize at the Poetry Competition Tudor Arghezi in Tg.-Jiu, in the section Bilete de Papagal, 3rd prize at the National Literary Competition Avangarda XXII in Bacău, so on. Her debut volume, “The woman with a body of wax”, appeared in February 2019, at the Grinta Publishing House, Cluj, in the collection Poezia 9, as a prize in the manuscript section of the International Poetry Festival from Sighetu Marmației. Her poems have been translated into English, Czech, Spanish, French, and Arabic. She has also taken part in many literary events and festivals, across the country and abroad, among which, the literary tour in Prague and Modra, in December 2018. She is also a translator,
Enlightened Poem
fear has sat down at the basis of the world to take a rest above its head some ants were smashing seeds one two seven nine
but here is how from the right ear a religion has risen bearing long legs the middle worshippers would worship her the left worshippers would worship her as well even the worshipped ones would also worship her and too much concord would have been there in the world hadn’t it been
but there is how from the left ear rage was growing up from final moods floods wars the right worshippers would worship them even the worshipped ones would also worship them
you just hold me the candle so that I could write
overturned dream
love is a scaffold where we sleep whereas our sleep has a sight towards birds
don’t make yourself a cradle from a watered woman’s hair a bird has built a nest in it so it could die
you are to plant it the next day and you will know that you know nothing that you know while reading on the bodies with your blinded hands
all you are left with is to tie the trees face down so that the earth should mirror them when calling you with a strange name
open poem
I closed
the doors windows waters gases lights cars walls houses days nights dreams wounds pits streets errors schools hospitals diseases factories churches governments planets frustrations anguishes phobias shades zippers words so that I could laugh by myself
I took a man at random from laughter did I take him and threw him to the world so that he should find out that the evil there is it’s not exactly how it is
VISUAL ARTS LIDIA CHIARELLI
Lidia Chiarelli was born and raised in Turin (Italy), where in 2007, she founded with Aeronwy Thomas the Art-literary Movement: Immagine & Poesia. Lidia’s passion for creative writing has motivated her to write poetry and she has become an award-winning poet since 2011. Her writing has been translated into more than 20 languages and published in Poetry Reviews and on websites in many countries. After visiting the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2010, Lidia was inspired to create installations similar to Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree, hanging poems and art cards on the trees. Lidia Chiarelli has exhibited her “Poetry&Art Trees”in Italy and abroad. She is also an appreciated collage artist. http://lidiachiarelli.jimdo.com/ https://immaginepoesia.jimdo.com/
RENEA WYATT
Renea Wyatt is a middle aged single woman, mother of one. She began doing abstracts, just after she had created the group, Photographic Art from RAW to Abstract. She has been a photographer most of her life, from Kodak 110 to 35mm. Now she shoots exclusively with her Galaxy S6 Edge, and will be getting the new S9+, with a huge upgrade to the camera.
