Poetry Unites People 

 …..

1. Eva, your poetry combines the richness of Greek tradition with a contemporary style. What inspires you to maintain this balance between the past and the present?

1..E.p.L . Thank you for this question. In Greece everything is music, from our language to the way we feel or leaving.

Poetry and every art is in our DNA. So I feel when i write that i am opening a door to the past and I go in.

I read many poets and I like when I discover a deep meaning and Many doubts about life in their poems.

I don’t know if i write poetry, but I express my feelings, my thoughts trying to keep my dignity, my respect for my past and share my ideas for the future.

I believe that Poetry will always unites people.

A poet wrote

The Angels they understand each other because they speak with poems..

2. Is there a specific moment in your life that shaped your love for poetry?

2..E.p.L. Poetry is in my life since i came to this world.

I started write words and phrases very young.

There is always an occasion to write wishes in gift cards

and give it to family and friends.

Even if i did not believe that I write something extraordinary, friends told me that my poetry had something divine…and philosophical 

3. How would you describe your poetic process? Do you have a particular ritual or technique you practice while writing?

3..Ep.l . I pray when I write.

It’s a connection with what is existing beyond the humanity

I write from my heart and need to have a clean and happy mood, so i can write and express my thoughts.

Words are like energy…

When we put them in the correct order they create miracles.

4. Your poems often explore themes of love, death, and identity. What does love mean to you in the context of poetry?

4..EPL. Love is like poetry.

Death is poetry also

I believe the most important subject in all poems is about love. We get married, we write poems. We fall in love, we write poems.

Sometimes, we can’t share our feelings, we write poems.

We want to have attention from our beloved, we write poetry. Love is energy also.

We have so many words, we can put them all together and create amazing poetry.

In Greece, there is such a beautiful Poem dedicated to love it’s called Erotocritos, and is written in 12 syllables.

He became a song

He became a play theater.

It is really beautiful poem

Love, makes everything existing. We breathe with hope and love.

It’s very important to write about love because we educate also young generations to live with love.

5. To what extent does Greek social and cultural tradition influence your writing? Do you aim to write for a local audience, or does your poetry have a universal tone?

5..EPL. As I mentioned before, Greeks they write. It’s exist in our DNA. We have very important poets from the ancient Greek time, 

Sapho the Greek poetess and after Sikelianos, Seferis and Ritsos. I had the opportunity to study them in school and after I discovered and read more poems, but for me by chance, I go inside the universe and my poems are reading by the people in abroad.

My poems are translated in 20 languages and I have cooperation with Vietnam, China, Mexico.

This is the greatness of Poetry.

6. Your work is marked by deep emotional intensity. How do you find the balance between emotion and artistic form in your poems?

6…EPL. I am a very sensitive person. I like truth, justice, honesty .

I like to show my real personality in my poems.

I like to inspire people

I don’t find the balance.

I stay true in my life and in my Poetry.

A poet is an artist but is a human being so I choose to feel free and put all my love and hope in my poetry.

7. Many of your poems address the theme of death. How does your personal philosophy of death reflect in your written work?

7…EPL. I started to write more poems after the death of my father. My father was my best friend and my inspiration, he was always very proud of me and telling me to follow my dreams no matter what is coming in Life.

When he died from cancer, I tried to heal my pain, writing poems and dedicated to him.

I still write poems for my father and I feel close to him.

I don’t believe that people are dying and disappear.

I believe that the  souls exist in light, in a parallel world and they love and protect us 

I am a Christian and I respect our custom about dead people. We have a Life with meaning but we must have a decent death also.

POETRY can heal  pain and has the power to give us strength and also open our mind to several ideas and thoughts, just by reading a Poem.

8. How do you perceive postmodernism, and do you believe it has an impact on your poetry?

8..EPL. I consider my poems as surrealistic or spiritual poetry 

I read poetry in several languages and I like Rumi, E.E Cummings and Jane Austen. Also, I like Kerouac and Beatnik poetry.  I am inspired from life and the quotidian life, but I have my own rhythm and opinions about life.

I don’t think that we find anything similar to postmodernism.

I like to spread messages of freedom and peace in my Poetry.

9. In the contemporary world, how do you think poets can contribute to social change and be engaged in their communities?

9..EPL. Poets, they must be free from any political party.

We need to have solidarity and respect each other.

Only through respect and love we will contribute to prepare a better future.

It’s sad that in my country, literature and poetry are not inside the schools anymore.

I strongly believe we can create a person with open mind and with dignity only by art and special, poetry.

So, we must engage by ourselves and create circles or forums where we can read and discover more poets. 

I believe in plurality in literature and in justice.

Everyone has something to write and he can share his personal experience and give a solution to a problem.

We need to act with poems.

10. What are your future literary projects, and what can you share about them? Is there a particular theme you’d like to explore in the future?

10..EPL. I have been contacted by a Polish person who has asked me to support his project.

So I became a Global Ambassador of the Rosetta Voice project, we try to translate the Polish Lokomotyawa poem in several languages and i am really excited about this.

I started also my second literary online magazine with Pakistani friends and I continue to support and publish poems from all over the world, with my project POETRY unites people, a project that I have created since 2010 and the goal is to unite people through Poetry.

My project is based in respect to whole culture and publish the poems from several countries so we can discover more thoughts and ideas on how other people see life.

I promote Peace and happiness.

And of course, i will continue to write poems…

Thank you so much for this interesting interview and your support

Wishing you success and happiness

EVA Petropoulou Lianou 

Official candidate for Nobel Peace Prize 2024

International poet

Founder of the project POETRY Unites people

Presidente, Mil Mentes Por Mexico association International

Global federation of leadership and high intelligence

Mexico and Greece

JUSTICE: OPA YEARBOOK 2025!

Contest sponsored by Our Poetry Association.

Is justice an utopia? Yes, it is an elusive concept. Both power and money can play a decisive role to achieve it. Without which, justice remain beyond the reach of the poor. What about the poets? How best can the poetic languages dive deep into the abyss of the moral dilemmas and ethical challenges that justice raises? How can one preserve an optimal balance between mercy and punishment? And the eternal battle between injustice and justice! I want to curate all these observations and the insights of the poets around the world regarding this elusive concept of ‘Justice”. 

Yes, the theme of the OPA Year Book 2025 is JUSTICE!

Please send only one poem written on the theme, “Justice” along with your short BiO with Country of Origin written in 3rd person narrative. All in English. A recent profile picture of the author is necessary, without that no poems will be published. 

The email address of the poetry submission for the upcoming OPA Year Book 2025 is: opa.anthology@gmail.com

Last Date of Submission: 30th April 2025

Probable Date of Publication of the OPA Year Book 2025: 10th July 2025

*** .pdf document or file will not be accepted!

We congratulate the first 60 poets participating in this year book, whose poems have been selected for publication. 

Pen fee

There was a commotion in the village,

A message spread.

Our neighbor Mashrab brother

It’s a great piece of writing.

Taralibdi dovrugu,

Across seven neighborhoods.

Even this in the city

Everyone who walked said.

Then go to the publisher

Print your work.

To the money from it

Take a dry bag.

Umida Haydaraliyeva  Bahromjon qizi.

 Student of “B” grade of 8th creative school named after Erkin Vahidov, Margilan city in Uzbekistan.

The philosophy of life through mathematics

Some people say that mathematics is a difficult subject, while others find it boring. However, in reality, mathematics gives us hope that there are solutions to problems in life, just like the examples in mathematics. I also have to say that mathematics is the greatest motivator for people because the numbers in mathematics start from  0 and go to infinity.

To those who say mathematics is difficult, I would recommend that they try to engage with this subject a little more sincerely. Some young children may struggle to learn mathematics because of textbooks. For example, in elementary school, it is taught that a smaller number cannot be subtracted from a large one. However, in higher grades, it is taught that a smaller number can be subtracted from a large one, but the result will be negative.

Moreover, we can say that some current textbooks are also becoming complex. I  find that some mathematical topics and examples reflect human interpretations. Parallel lines never intersect, and in this, I see people who, no matter how many hours, months, or years pass, will never be together. Tangent curves, on the other hand, intersect only once and then part ways for life paths as if nothing had happened. In solving trigonometric equations and inequations, we are given an interval, within that range and discard the unnecessary ones. I compare this to making decisions in life.

However, our faces, fingers, hands, feet, and body structure -all of these are based on the “golden ratio”. The golden ratio is not typically covered in textbooks, but I will explain it briefly and simply. If you pay attention, you`ll notice that people tend to sit not in the exact center or the very edge of a bench, but somewhere between the center and the edge. This is the first example of the golden ratio. Another example is your face: if you observe closely, the distance between your nose and eyes your eyebrows and eyes, and the length between your two eyes, and the length between your two eyes are all proportional to the golden ratio. In general, I can say that life is mathematics, and even the simple things in our lives are mathematics.

***

man is a fire

every time I burn with shame when I see a bird pecking at bread crumbs at a bus stop

children’s bread and milk are poured from heaven onto the rain earth

minced meat at the meat market screams

***

in the morning I watched fish bones on the shore

autumn crying to the crunch of ears and bones

the heart turns inside out in the hope that aluminum birds

also fly home from warm countries after wintering

***

platinum night in the back of the head

who breathes rose petals into the crown of the cemetery?

perhaps this is another hanged or unborn brother

maybe it’s a local jesus

maybe it’s mom who smiles with raindrops

it would be nice if it was someone good

but black and white don’t exist

there is only a synthesis of colors

it would be nice if such an abstract love corresponded to a non-abstract world

and at night a cemetery emerges from under the pillow

and flowers dream of growing not for the sake of mourning ribbons

the night goes on a journey

morning will never come

***

I press a laptop key unknown to me and hope to summon the spirit of the deceased grandfather in this way

what you do not understand: the life of the elderly is death

I would like to live forever but I’m too poor for that

I would rather not love but I need to fill the void inside my chest

I would like to be an inanimate object but I move like a worm

I’d rather live like a worm with no limbs so I wouldn’t be forced to take death in my hands

my grandfather promised to play with me after work and didn’t come back

the cast-iron milk of the night covered his eyes

after lunch it is very dark outside

***

my feet are stones

I step on the leaves by force

I feel a crunch under my feet

whose bones turned out to be leaves?

why is the tree silent?

why does the bush not wave its branches with its hands?

whom I trample under my sole on the way to death?

I Remember

I remember the Winter of 2011 when a group of local poets visited Bernadette Mayer at her home in Nassau.

I remember how cold it was.

I remember the only heating source in the converted open school house living room was a pot belly stove.

I remember thinking no one had cooler anecdotes of New York City poets from the sixties and seventies than Bernadette did.

I remember she spoke of her friend Joe Brainerd’s book I Remember.

I remember the deserted St Croix, Virgin Island beach my mother and I used to visit when we lived on the island.

I remember how I felt when I heard The Rockefellers were going to build a resort hotel on the site.

I remember thinking that Ferlinghetti was going to live forever.

I remember thinking I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

I remember watching the Brooklyn Dodgers play the New York Giants on the first TV we ever owned.

I remember having the mumps and my cousin coming over from next door to make sure I got chicken pox also.

I remember seeing every prewar western every made.

I remember seeing hundreds of noir classics.

I remember seeing King Kong eleven times in one week on The Million Dollar movie.

I remember my cousin saw it thirteen times.

I remember watching the Joe McCarthy House of Unamerican Activities hearing live on TV and, while I didn’t know what they were all about, not really, I thought McCarthy was a bully and a dick.

I remember my mother hiding a copy of Tropic of Cancer in her secret desk drawer and sneaking looks at it when she was at work.

I remember not getting what he was writing about but that it was dirty.

I remember she had a copy of This Is My Beloved also but she didn’t hide that book away.

I remember reading that all the way through when I was like ten and thinking the fireworks he described were pretty cool.

I remember how cool the black and white the fireworks display at the beginning of Manhattan

was the first time I saw it.

I remember that one of my cocktail waitress saying she saw the movie and it sucked.

I remember she said “…and it wasn’t even in color.”

I remember knowing how to read when I entered first grade at the Catholic school in Christiansted.

I remember I was the only one who could read in first grade and how much the nuns loved me.

I remember how it felt  to be the only non-Catholic in Catholic school.

I remember the first time I read, I Remember.

I remember the baseball game in 1965 I took my girlfriend to see.

I remember there was a centerfield to home to second base triple play in that gam and how she said, “That was a nice play.”

I remember that was the first time it had ever happened in a major league baseball game and it has only happened one more time since.

I remember I still loved her anyway no matter how unimpressed she was.

I remember the first major league game I took our kids too and missing three innings when Jose Cruz hit me on the cheekbone with a high foul ball while I was yelling, “I got it, I got it.”

I remember I would have been blind in my right eye if I had been wearing my glasses.

I remember they wanted me to go to Flushing General.

I remember a nurse telling me once if you have a choice between going to Flushing General or Bronx General and dying, die.

I remember burning my hand when I accidently hit my hand on the pot belly stove that Bernadette asking me to stoke.

I remember it hurt for weeks after.

I remember reading the memoir of Pasternak, I Remember.”

I remember seeing selections from Roman Vishniac’s, A Vanished World, at the State Museum of New York at Albany and crying.

I remember reading poetry at the reading Against the End of the World just down the block from the State Museum.

I remember seeing an exhibition on the Atomic Bomb age at the museum and seeing my first Laurie Anderson work for art, “The Singing Brick.”

I remember writing a poem against the end of the world called the Singing Brick.

I remember it was in a musically themed, against the end of the world book of poems called, Stop Making Sense.

I remember the first poem I ever published in sixth grade, in the mimeo class reader, The Fledgling.

I remember the poem was a pastiche of the song Old Dan Tucker.

I remember duck and cover drills in Centre Avenue Elementary School.

I remember how stupid they were given how close we were to New York City and how many huge glass windows there were in all the classrooms.

I remember the poem I published in the group photo/poem book commemorating our trip to Bernadette’s house.

I remember the title of my poem was, “Emergency Drills, Centre Avenue Elementary School, East Rockaway, N.Y, 1958.”

I remember the first time I saw Throne of Blood in grad school.

I remember the first time I saw Hiroshima Mon Amour in grad school.

I remember the first time I saw the Japanese movie, After Life.

I remember seeing four Brooklyn Dodgers home runs in a row.

I remember we didn’t get the foul ball that Jose Cruz hit me with.

I remember torrential rain on a tin roof on St Croix.

I remember playing spin the bottle and never being kissed.

I remember the high school psychologist telling me I should practice Rorschach inkblots so I could take her test.

I remember refusing to take the test because I thought it was stupid and I didn’t see anything suggestive in those blots.

I remember her telling me I second guessed myself all the time.

I remember her telling me I should trust my instincts because my first thoguht was almost always the right.

I remember how useful an observation that turned out to be.

I remember every two weeks for three years in the nightclub trying to guess which of the new band members was the drummer.

I remember I was only wrong once.

I remember thee guessing game as a process of elimination until you found the crazy one; he would be the drummer.

I remember seeing my first Bergman movie.

I remember seeing Last Year at Marienbad three time in four days in grad school.

I remember not paying attention in my first psychology class lesson in college on the Stanford Binet test.

I remember the teacher trying to make an example of me by giving me the block test graduating in difficulty as the numbers increased starting at six of ten.

I remember I did six, seven, eight and nine as fast as she could put them in front of me.

I remember how stunned she was.

I remember not mentioning having taken that test less the three years ago along with every other test they had on offer.

I remember the summer I first heard Leonard Cohen’s song, Suzanne.

I remember seeing the photo exhibit Requiem by the photographers killed in Vietnam at the Eastman House not long before 9-11.

I remember that exhibits was as quiet as a funeral and all the people who were crying at it.

I remember it was how I felt when I finally got to see The Wall in DC.

INTERVIEW WITH JOHN P. PORTELLI, February 2025

John P. Portelli is a Maltese-Canadian poet and fiction author, and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. Besides 11 academic books he has published 10 poetry collections, 2 collections of short stories, and a novel. His literary work has been translated into English, Italian, French, Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Romanian, and Spanish. His collection Here Was was short-listed for the 2024 Canadian Book Club Award. He lives between Malta and Toronto.

1. Please share your thoughts about the future of literature.

For me literature is an essential part of being human. Its future? I am not a fortune teller! But I am afraid that the ultra capitalist and individualist mentality of our present way of living, to me, does not augur well for a healthy future for literature. For example, it is getting even harder to sell poetry books, and publishers are feeling in the pinch. But there will always continue to be literary authors. Whether they will be appreciated is another story.

2. When did you start writing?

I started writing poetry when I was 16 years old. My initial interest was in poetry and essays.

3 .  The Good and the Bad. Who is winning nowadays?

It depends in which area of life?  In general, however, I think we are on the verge of a new fascist period in the West. When I read authors like John Dewey and Bertrand Russell who wrote about the conditions in the West in the 1930s, unfortunately I see lots and lots of similarities to what is happening today. Unless you are part of the dominant conservative “culture” people are marginalised. Colonialism is still alive and strong! God help us.

4. How many books have you written and where can we find your books?

I have written 11 academic books, 10 collections of poetry (some published in translations), 2 collections of short-stories, and a novel. Some of my work is available from Amazon, others from Horizons Publishers in Malta and Word and Deed Publishers in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.

 4. The book. E books or hardcopies of books. What will be the future?

I think some people will still prefer hard copies of books. Given my weak eyesight, I prefer hard copies.  But more and more people are used to reading on line. For me, as long as people read, that is fine.

5. A wish for 2025?

True and lasting peace in the Middle East. The Palestinians do not deserve what they have been going through since 1948! And this wish does not mean I support Hamas.

6. A phrase from your book or a book you like?

“The opposite of a civilised society is a creative one”. Albert Camus from his essay “Summer in Algiers”.

7. Recent and future publications?

In 2024 I have edited a collection of poetry in Maltese on Gaza. And also I published a collection of poems with Ahmed Miqdad, a poet from Gaza. The profits from the sale of these two books have been donated to Gaza. I am now also editing a collection of poems in English by international poems on Gaza and Palestine. Again, the money from the sales of this collection will be donated to Gaza. The book will be published later this year by Horizons in Malta and Daraja Press in Quebec.

Thank you so much.. …. EVA Petropoulou Lianou Author Poet Greece