Summer and the Poet (2012)

By now summer is in its peak. I have asked three questions to my poet friends abroad about their relationship with this hot season.

1. Is summer, with its longer days, a time which helps you to write more or less poetry? Why is this?

Teresinka Pereira (USA): For me it is the same. I am not a nature lover. I am always at my desk, winter or summer. Nature gives me allergies.

Agnes Lam (Hong Kong): Summer or winter, rest from work always help to give more time to reflection, inspiration and writing.

Arbind Kumar Choudhary (India): In summer we enjoy longer days no doubt, but it seems a donkey year for the working hours for poetry. The freshness, the fervour and the stamina that we require for our poetic purpose go over our head in the summer season. The crux of the heat that is caused due to natural disorder becomes intolerable in this strife-stricken world. As   a      result   the target  of  the  poetic  works  that   we  make  in  summer  season   goes  unfulfilled. 

Nadia Cella Pop (Romania): The seasons, with their own peculiar beauty, they awake the fantasy, but summer, due to the plenty of natural phenomena, increases its treasure when the artist knows how to observe and create an artwork afterwards. My connections to the evenings with a long twilight, in a whisper of the landscape which is calm or full of wrath captivate and send my mind to the poetry kingdom.

Sabahudin Hadzialic (Bosnia-Herzegovina): Poetry writing is a God given gift, with little bit of muse and that is not related to the any part of the year. More is related to the current mood, concrete feelings and the momentum of happenings. Sometimes, I wake up in the evening and write something, sometimes I do not write anything for 10-15 days, and sometimes every day I write. I would like to underline one of my own slogans: "It is not difficult to write. It is difficult to know how to write."

2. Is summer for you a time when you meet more poets, locally and also from abroad? How and why?

Teresinka Pereira: I live in USA. It is not easy to come here… So, I do not have many visitors. Maybe in winter I have visitors from South America who want to have snow experiences.

Agnes Lam: Not really, as most meetings tend to happen during term time when there are conferences.

Arbind Kumar Choudhary: In summer we enjoy summer vacation and go on tour of historical places and sometimes join the company with our peer groups that accelerates our poetic tirade at that poetic moment. The company of the peer groups fills our heart with intense joy to its climax. Besides we exchange our personal sentiments – be it pain or pleasure, good or bad, true or false, real or unreal.

Nadia Cella Pop: Unfortunately summer is a holiday season, so meetings are very rare. Anyhow, the poets in here are asking me to write literary comments, art chronicles or to present music recitals. Maybe these can underline my involvement in the arts’ confluence. And the goal of these might be to spread and raise the joy among people who like the arts.

Sabahudin Hadzialic: Every human being is the poet and I am meeting them every day, every part of the year, every year. We just need to wake up poet in us. A late former Yugoslav poet, Branko Miljkovic wrote: "The day will come when everybody will write poetry." That day has come: Society networks (FB, Twitter) made possible that everybody can write poetry and the people from all around can read it. To answer your question more precisely, yes, I can meet more poets, when I have money to travel to the Festivals. Only few Festivals pay for trip. Usually, it is accommodation and food. But, I met a lot of poets recently (Cyprus, 26.5.2012.) even that I did not go there: http://www.ideogramma-cy.com/event_9_poets.html. But, my poems did.

3. The link between the poet and current affairs. What do you say about this? Which were the most recent news that inspired you to write a poem?

Teresinka Pereira: I have everyday experiences for reading the news, for reading poetry books, for living the life of a human rights activist. I write all the time.

Agnes Lam: Can't help being affected by the events around the world. Most recent event that inspired me was the tsunami in Japan in 2011. it was just too tragic.

Arbind   Kumar  Choudhary: There is a vital link between the poet and the tragic incidents happening across the globe. The chequered career of the global society adds fuel to our poetic flames from time to time. One of our Chinese counterpart was jailed due to the rebellious nature of his poem that accelerated my poetic tide to go ahead against the brutal claws of the government for the restoration of the world government laden with freedom, wisdom and divine kingdom.

The ailing thought that haunts our poetic mind in this donkey year caused due to natural disorder forces us to sing the melodious songs for the peeping generations to come.

Nadia Cella Pop: For me, the current affairs are separated from the inspiration themes that come out of emotions and feelings. The current affairs remain pragmatic as always, with no influence for the written word. The loss of a beloved and special being pushed me to write a poem “in memoriam”. Of course, I’m waiting for new encounters on the life’s scale of harmonies and I will write them down in poems.

Sabahudin Hadzialic: All depends which kind of poet you are and which kind of poetry you wrote: from simple rhyme and up to postmodern equivalents to the thoughts. But, there must be the link between the poet and current affairs, depending not only on the news & inspiration but also on the social background of the poet. If he/she travels...If he/she meets different people...If he/she is educated...If he/she is gender aware..If he/she respect gay/LGBT population or not...If he/she is democrat and/or conservative...If he/she is atheist and/or theist and/or agnostic...Inspiration is wide open subject....depending on the soul of the poet...But, there is an influence of the current affairs on the poet. Concretely, recently I wrote a poem AGORA (the Greece start of the world democracy) inspired with the crisis in the Greece and in the world. It is the same all around the world, and "Greece" are all of us, but we do not know that yet. We will find out soon, because capitalism cannot exist anymore as it is. To have 1 % of rich and 99 % of poor people. Within next ten years we will have a new world order, made of liberal democrats like in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. We just need to learn from them.

Poems:                    

1. NATURE

Arbind   Kumar  Choudhary

O  Mother  Nature !

Enrapture  the  feature

Of  the  ailing  esquire

For  the  fanfare

Of  god’s  acre.

&

To  pay  the  debt  of nature

For  the   pasture

Of   the  scripture

Is  the  venture

Of  the    vulture.

2. SUMMER

Arbind   Kumar  Choudhary

Ethereal  fever

Gerrymanders  the  helper

Of  the  imposter

For the  gander

Amidst  many  a  horror

&

The  summer  fever

Fires  the  balladeer

For  the lavender

Of the  gander

On a land of  windhover.

FACEBOOK AND THE SEA

Sabahudin Hadzialic

Thirty five degrees centigrade

and my soul is still frozen.

…

The sea and the sun

are just another two excuses

to escape reality.

…

When I can’t

log into my Facebook…

Summer

Eftichia Kapardeli

Καλοκαίρι, άσπρα πουλιά

σμιλευμένες ακρογιαλιές ,χρησμοί του έρωτα

***

Κύμα το  κύμα η θάλασσα πληθαίνει

το αλμυρό ρίγος ξεψυχά  στην φωτιά του Ήλιου

***

Κορμιά φιλήδονα  που χάνονται στην αγκαλιά

της μέρας που δεν ξεψυχά

***

Σε κόκκινα δίχτυα στην άμμο του καλοκαιριού

φυλακισμένο ένα πεφταστέρι

***

Βουλιάζω στον Ήλιο,

με την φτερούγα του πουλιού τον ουρανό χαράζω

***

Ξανθοί έφηβοι ,γαλάζιοι άγγελοι, γυμνοί

στην καυτή άμμο ερωτεύονται

Summer

Eftichia Kapardeli

Summertime, white birds
sculptured beaches, oracles of love

***

Wave of the sea wave multiply
salt shivering die out in the Sun Fire
***

Sensual bodies, lost in the arms
the day that does not die out

***
In red nets on the sand of summer
prisoner, a shooting star

Sink in the sun, the sky
the wing of the bird, carve

***

Blonde teens, blue angels, naked
in the hot sand, fall in love

ΟΝΕΙΡΟΠΟΛΗΜΑ

Eftichia Kapardeli

Γεννιούνται οι ομορφιές

το όνειρο ψηλώνει

σε όμορφα βλέμματα

τα άστρα οι κατοικίες μας

άβουλα παιδιά ονειροπόλα

απείθαρχες αχτίνες που ξέφυγαν

από του Ήλιου τον θρόνο

μας ζεσταίνουν

Τα χρόνια μας στην αρμονία

ρόδα κοιμισμένα

γλυκιά η πλάνη

αέρινα τα δεσμά της

και εκείνο το αυγινό

ξεχωριστό άστρο

ξάγρυπνο στα μάτια μας

Χρυσά χαμόγελα

ανθάκια ονείρων

λάφυρα στο φεγγαρόλουστο

ουρανό του έρωτα

Λαμπρά χρώματα

όνειρα ακατοίκητα

μοιρασμένα

στων ονειροπόλων

τα ματόκλαδα ξαποσταίνουν

DREAMINGS

Eftichia Kapardeli

Born beauties
dream taller
a beautiful sight
the stars in our homes
spineless children dreamer
unruly rays that escaped
from the throne of the Sun
our warm

Our years in harmony
wheel asleep
sweet error
the bonds of ethereal
and that the dawn
separate star
awake in our eyes

golden smiles
flowers dream
spoils the moonlit
sky of love

brilliant colors
dreams uninhabited
divided
dreamers of the eyelashes
resting