Poetry from Christopher Bernard

Black and white photo of Vivian Maier holding an old-school camera. She's in a collared long-sleeved top and a straw hat and in a city near tall buildings.
By Vivian Maier, Her Undiscovered Work, Fair use.
The Purity of Vivian Maier


Vivian D. Maier (1926–2009) was an American photographer whose work was discovered and recognized only after her death. During her lifetime she took more than 150,000 photographs. She is not known ever to have shown them to anyone.

No hail to fame, not even a shy
nod to sharing, it would seem.
Just her own small delight;
the tough love of light.

A photograph? 
Not a serious thing
when she was young and taking,
as they say, pictures:
mere proof of fact,
magnet for fashion magazines,
hook on the local newspaper stand,
damning piece of evidence,
tool for advertising,
and glamour’s sinuous liar;
captive in a web of shadows,
bare, brutal, impossible
almost to deny.

The only one invisible,
the photographer,
capturing reality
in a little black box.	

Maybe that was why
Vivian Maier, governess,
lover of children, 
caregiver, one of the
perpetually invisible,
slightly awkward
with her black magic box,
took all those photographs—
the crowds, the streets, the mansions,
the disillusioned sidewalks,
the phantoms of the alleys,
the secrets blazoned to every sun,
the hands, the faces, the entire world—
in secrecy and stealth even
the shadow of herself;
the ephemeral caught 
in amber—
to capture, to master,
in pure little rectangles of joy
with her invisible eye.

_____

Christopher Bernard’s book The Socialist’s Garden of Verses won a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award and was named one of the “Top 100 Indie Books of 2021” by Kirkus Reviews.

Essay from Z.I. Mahmud on Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossein’s feminist sci-fi novel Sultana’s Dream

Black and white image of Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. Woman in a sari and headscarf.

Women Studies and Women Writings: Sultana’s Dream

Examine Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s feminist speculative utopian fiction “Sultana’s Dream” with textual references and critical perspectives.

Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream is a hallmark experimentalist avant-garde Bengali Renaissance story-telling of magical fantasy and surrealistic utopian fiction, chronicling the documentary testament of women’s revolutionary envisionings toward salvation from patriarchal misogyny within the cosmos of western colonialism. Sister Sara’s acquaintanceship is a blessing of that silver lining foretelling of women’s rights’ movement awareness campaignings throughout the post-futility of egalitarian feminist microcosmic world in Ladyland. As a pioneering forerunner of womens’ literature, the then authorial narratorial personae is considered as a heretic, heathen, pagan, agnostic and sceptic idolatress for her groundbreaking canonical narrative, “Sultana’s Dream”.

Sultana’s exploratory adventure of the utopian wonderland of a promised land of New Jerusalem unravels the audacity and resoluteness of Her Royal Highness’s sovereignty and integrity. The Queen of the swargiya’s boldness, fierceness and aggressive traits are lionized for emerging triumphant victor transcending predatory perpetrators in the visages, masques, personages and imagoes of imperialistic masculine feuding lords. Banishment of zenanas and patronage of mardanas satirically extrapolates the decline of male authoritarian dominance and subsequent uprising of the female reign to throne. This subversion of power polity is a swashbuckling spectacle and furthermore witnesses dilapidation of crumbling hierarchies upheld by traditional conventions of the then milieu. For instance, the domiciling of police commissioners and magistrates into the boudoirs underscores the core essence of female utopian officialdom that doesn’t peremptorily trials lawsuits at the expense of innocent residents of the city of naivety and gullibility. Hence, Sara’s repartee to Sultana’s conspicuous persiflage entails transcendental philosophic humility and altruism, “It is our religious duty to love one another and to be absolutely truthful.”

Despite veiling purdaah of pardanashin culture, women of aristocracy and elitism exhibit unsurpassing charisma in juxtaposition to their countervailing counterparts as showcased by the stalwart public intellectualism/educationalism and iconoclastic socio political treatises of the authoress. Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s memorial engraving of Sultana’s Dream enmeshes her modernistic and realistic perspectives of femininity to meteoritic and nebulous phenomenological transformation in the era of scientific revolution and technological progress. This is starkly evident in the embellishments of the accolades and laurels achieved by the Headmistresses and her legion of distinctive comradely school girls in establishing the hall of fame solar and hydroelectric power projects energy schemes. Collective welfarism of the cooperative society is fostered by the solidarity and fraternity of the utilitarian feminist utopia. Restoration and reformation policies abolishing stereotypical obsolete gendered expectations limelights the contributory significance behind the crusade of the wave of feminism that was published in the then The Indian Ladies Magazine Madras (1905).

In this fairyland masculinity is emasculated because of the castration threat [penis effect] and commodification of femininity by the male gaze is thus dismantled. Hence voyeuristic perspectives of masculinity are inverted aftermath of fetishization and libidinization of the masculine objects of feminine subjectivity. The extradition of male in the mardanas have secluded them in a mirror image of the traditional culture of purdah. Effeminacy of men have transformed the role of the women as lionesses and tigresses captivators of “veteran mannish” through male enclosure enchantment. The male characters are deprived of their autonomy and agency through demasculinization and the female characters are overpowered with their calibre and intellect. “Solar ovens, rainwater harvesters, water balloons and pollution free hydrogen aircrafts” are exemplary facets of the ecocritical feminism harboured by the clairvoyance of the Queen of Ladyland: “We dive deep into the ocean of knowledge and try to find out the precious gems, which nature has kept in store for us. We enjoy nature’s gifts as much as we can.” Koh-i-Noor and the Peacock Throne are prospects of metaphorical power relations, power polity and power dynamics that the Ladyland’s Queen disavowed but avowed passive resistance and peace mongering with a consortium of mardanas.    

Further Reading, References, Podcasts and Endnotes

Chapter Title: Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880-1932), Women’s Political and Social Thought, An Anthology, Hilda L. Smith and Berenice A. Caroll, Indiana University Press 2000.

Wikipedia Reading

A Brief Textual Analysis of Sultana’s Dream, Sudeshna Majumdar, Assistant Professor of English, Rampurhat College 

Behind the Scenes – Sultana’s Dream

Fabian&Fred

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Poetry from David Sapp

Lazy Cat

Lazy cat, you’re napping

In the sun again as if its June,

But in the center of the road,

Playfully flopped over the yellow line.

I can tell you’re a nice cat, black,

White paws and throat, pink nose.

I’m sure you rub legs, curl on laps,

Beg for a string, a fish, a saucer of cream.

You belong to the old woman in this house

Or the little girl in that house.

At first, I pass by: “That’s too bad.”

A neighbor’s car swerves;

A truck straddles your repose.

I pick you up and you’re not

Stiff yet. Blood on my gloves,

I set you on the curb, hoping

Loved ones will discover you,

Knowing someone will grieve

And surely give you a proper

Burial in their backyard.

The Granary

The granary stood

Leaning unassuming apart

From the barn and dairy

Painted the same red

As the machinery shed

Now fading more

Wood than pigment

Each a singular

Pungent redolence

Hay milk grease

The granary aroma

Was autumn and burlap

Plowing planting

Worry fruition

In its polished ribs

Boards slippery with chaff

The way the wheat

Sifted sliding over

Your palms was soothing

Familiar and primordial

An instinctual assurance

Essay from Brian Barbeito

Sojourn Scenes

Seagulls with their wings open gathering on pavement with warehouse like buildings and cloudy sky in the background.

There was a series of balloons, three, that the wind blew in. They were black balloons w/the number seven on each. I wasn’t sure what they meant, but felt they were auspicious and on the side of positivity. Then I saw three number nines and felt the same way. But, I couldn’t tell for certain what the repeating numbers meant as I wasn’t a numerologist or highly into numbers to begin with. 

Black and white photo of barren trees in the winter with a dusting of snow.

I saw a lady that reminded me of another lady I had once made fun of unfairly. I was immature and words had hurt the lady’s feelings but the lady either forgot or forgave me or buried it as she didn’t act as if it happened when I heard from her much later. That and one other thing were the only two things I worried about karmically. The other was that I had injured a hockey player and he was taken away in an ambulance. But it wasn’t done intentionally though several people thought it was. I hit him, which was allowed, but it the other injury was not done on purpose as he just fell on a bad angle. He turned out to be alright. I was glad for this. Those two things had happened practically another life ago as they say, yet they had bothered me. Other than those two events I felt clean, but like the numbers, it wasn’t possible from where I was standing to know for sure. 

Tree with twisting empty branches with green foliage in background.

You can’t always see the spiritual ledger. It is interesting that ledger also means a demarcation stone upon a grave because perhaps it not until we have a stone ledger that we can in the life review according to the canon of such experiences, see more accurately how our actions and words really affected others and the universe. 

Young middle-aged white man, bald, with black reading glasses, a small white beard, a gray coat over a red flannel top with a white collar.

I was low monetarily. The group in front of me was affluent and just exuded it. You can tell through intuition and life experience those who try to come off that way versus the actual.  When they left they forgot a purse leather green, the same colour as the jade some of them wore. Nobody noticed and they weren’t doubling back the way some people do when they realize they forgot something. There is about a five to ten second window you have to remember something is amiss before you have officially forgotten something. They were definitely leaving. I picked up the purse and went out the same door and called them back as they were getting into what looked like a new and definitely a tricked-up-decked-out high end SUV vehicle. 

‘Someone forgot their purse,’ I said, ‘holding it up.’ 

They came over and thanked me and took the purse. I returned it because it was the right thing to do. I went back to my seat in a booth, for booths are perhaps one of the greatest things ever created, and looked up through the adjacent window watching them leave. 

Text in blue ink on white lined paper reading "The the the moon bird sun poems. Poems. Poems. The the the walking world tarot poems. Poems. Poems. The the the angel dream pastoral poems. Poems. Poems."

At a field there were streams cutting through like a water swath. I paused and stared at them, admiring the movement of water. I thought of Herman Hesse and his book. I had two copies of the famous work, but had given away the better, newer one. My old one was tattered and torn, plus coffee got spilled on it at some point. I didn’t know what that meant either. A large woodpecker that had been alighted in a nearby tree took off and I was frustrated that I had not had my camera out. Yet, I still admired its flight and the silhouette it made against the afternoon winter sunlight. 

Golden sunset with the sun behind a tall conifer tree. Street with streetlights and a SUV going down the street. Power lines and streetlights.

I kept going around there. In the distance were train tracks but a train rarely as far as I could tell went by. There were large holes in the wall, the hillside, for the water to go under. It was a fine juxtaposition of water that appeared black against the snowy white sides. And then distant parts of the stream tumbled down a few feet in two places, bragging up its bits like cold clear and white flames and also many spark look a likes as if from a some giant sparkler. 

Indoor table with a houseplant with green leaves, a doorway and lamps, and stationery with a red heart.

I went by a bookstore, an old used bookstore that I used to patronize. Proper gems could be found there and for inexpensive prices. Books were like treasures. But the store was gone, replaced by a work-wear store. The vests and coveralls mostly beige and black, stood looking back at me from the windows. It was as if the bookstore had never existed. Though on the outskirts of town, the perimeter purlieu, it had been a wealthy town, but didn’t have a new or used bookstore. I guess the world had changed.

Large seagull aloft but landing on pavement next to a seated gull, wings and tail feathers outstretched. A fence and storage canisters in the background.

So I headed back home and did chores, prosaic, mundane things, sometimes glancing out the windows as I moved about. There was nothing besides a puzzle on a dining room table, an old piano, and a painting on the wall. Also a bookshelf and coffee table by the couches beyond. The hardwood floor was weathered by time but had character and was still passable. I had never been a huge fan of the neighborhood or its dwellings, but it was clean and quiet and that counts for a lot. It was better than many other places. That view to outdoors didn’t hold a lot. A fence handsome that I had stained with a brush and roller, a good privacy fence as they called it, with lattice work up top that was not too plain and not too gaudy either. Snow was on the ground. It had been a long and cold snowy winter. I hoped the earth and sky really were pregnant with spring. A shed storing summer chairs and a table. On its door, there were two Ontario license plates and two Virginia ones. The first couple were from 1973, the year and place I was born, and the second set 1972, the year and place my beloved was born. Other than that, mostly just old barren branches waited out there, stoic and alone. 

One day with some luck, spring would finally start for myself and for them. 

Closeup of a bouquet of red roses and white baby's breath.

—-

Poetry from Chimezie Ihekuna

Chimezie Ihekuna (Mr. Ben) Young Black man in a collared shirt and jeans resting his head on his hand. He's standing outside a building under an overhang.
Chimezie Ihekuna

Nature’s Blessings

The sun’s unparalleled beauty of illumination at day…

The moon’s complementary brightness at night…

The earth’s peculiarity of revolution…

The water’s outstanding universality…

The wind’s timeless motion…

The Fire’s power of flaming warmth…

The plant’s unique culture of adaptability…

The animal’s lifestyle of survivability…

The loving relationship among all planets…

The monitoring positions of the stars…

The accommodating stance of the skies…

The Reality of humanity’s consciousness…

sum up to Nature’s Blessings.

(G)

The Other side of Nature’s Consciousness

              (i)

As I gazed the length and breadth of nature’s creations,

i saw the upper and lower identities of its limitation.

I asked, “Are my eyes seeing the right vision?”

A voice whispered: “That’s your perception”

“Perception?!” became the wondering question

When I took a closer look at all of nature’s variations,

my consciousness took to the following observations:

The upper identities of nature’s limitations are positives

The lower identities of nature’s limitations are negatives

As I treaded the path of understanding in carefulness,

the same voice opened up: “ Welcome to the other side of nature’s consciousness”

                                                       (II)

“First”, the voice said to me, “I will explain the upper identities”

I excused my lame senses

to listen to the voice’s tenses

“The sun has all available energy varieties…

The earth and all her inhabitants use its power to build their edifice

The plants use the energy in their guises and give humanity a life-hold as a sacrifice. But…”

“But what?” I asked, wanting to know in eagerness.

It said: “Welcome to the other side of nature’s consciousness”

(iii)

“Now to the other part, these are what I have to say” the voice sounded

“The sun’s power had been so wrongly illuminated

that the earth’s inhabitants were destroyed

The knowledge about Nature had been negatively reversed

that the earth became hell-revisited

The plants consequently became poisoned

that man became what animals on-preyed

The LIVE of nature had been made to be dependent on EVIL committed.

that it would be impossible to tell you the uncomprehend!”

“What is it?” I hastily asked.

“The other side of Nature’s consciousness” the voice replied.

Author Jacques Fleury featured at the Boston Public Library

Social media promo photo with text about the event of the left and a circular photo of a young middle aged Black man in sunglasses, a black coat, and a red shirt standing next to a selection of books on a wooden bookshelf.

Haitian American Author Featured at the Boston Public Library’s Greater Roxbury Book Fair in Association with Savor the Square!

Ok, folks! Here are the photos from my highly anticipated (well at least by me!) Book Fair celebrating authors of color (BIPOC) and My book “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” was selected by the Boston Public Library to be featured for Haitian American Heritage Month along with Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month at the Roxbury Branch of the Boston Public Library! I met so many talented authors, storytellers, motivational speakers, wonderfully quirky book lovers! I met the woman whose mother founded the Caribbean Carnival in Boston! And one author, who has a center named after her, will be inviting me to an academic symposium for activists and authors at Boston University! Did I forget to mention that…I SOLD OUT! But uh…hmmmm….I’m very humble about it of course…

Thank you ALL who showed Up and showed ouT! Merci beaucoup!😅💜

LInk to my page on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/…/Jacques…/author/B00JL4CZQS…

The Boston Public Library is featuring my (c’est moi Jacques Fleury) prose and poetry book:

“You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self””

for national Haitian American Heritage Month! I was selected among celebrity authors and books published by major publishers like HarperCollins who tout many New York Times

Best Sellers! A great honor as an indie author to be acknowledged by mainstream audiences and literary intelligentsia! Here are links below.

Hope you check out my books from the library, buy them at your local bookstores (if you’re in Massachusetts: The Grolier/Harvard Bookstore/Porter Square Books etc…) or on bookshop dot com (to support indie bookstores) or amazon or just STOP BY where I will have my own table with ALL four of my books for a book signing!

Springing from the Roxbury community’s deep connections to books and literacy, The Greater Roxbury Book Fair will spotlight 21 local and BIPOC authors and feature story time for children, panels, workshops, and local author and literary organization exhibitors, community vendors, food, music, and most of all: fun! There’s something for every reader—from kids to adults, comics readers to poetry aficionados—at the Greater Roxbury Book Fair.

Young middle aged Black man in a white collared shirt and blue patterned tie, sunglasses and a black vest, holding a copy of his book You Are Enough at an open air book fair.
Silhouetted figure leaping off into the unknown with hand and leg raised. Bushes and tree in the foreground, mountains ahead. Book is green and yellow with black text and title.
Jacques Fleury’s book You Are Enough: The Journey Towards Understanding Your Authentic Self

Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and a literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self”  & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of  Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc…  He has been published in prestigious publications such as Wilderness House Literary Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Litterateur Redefining World anthologies out of India, Poets Reading the News, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at:  http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.–

Poetry from Shamsiya Khudoynazarova Turumovna

Young middle aged Central Asian woman with short brown hair, reading glasses, a floral top and brown jacket.
Shamsiya Khudoynazarova Turumovna

ITS NAME IS LIFE …

You falter,

Longing bears the weight of pain…

Yet Love—eternal—soothes the strain,

As solace knocks upon your door,

And joy leaves traces on your shore.

Its name is Life:

Victory waltzes

With sorrow and bliss in fleeting embraces.

Ruins of your heart, once lost in despair,

Find comfort in moments of hope laid bare…

Like a bird, you spread your wings,

Within, transformation sings.

You rise, embrace purity’s grace,

Unshaken—Freedom echoes in space!

As if all your dreams take flight,

Drifting like clouds so white,

Until Spring’s flowers kneel in delight,

Greeting you with colors bright…

Shamsiya Khudoynazarova Turumovna (February 15, 1973) was born in Uzbekistan. Studied at the Faculty of Journalism of Tashkent State University (1992-1998). She took first place in the competition of young republican poets (1999). Four collections of poems have been published in Uzbekistan: “Leaf of the Heart” (1998), “Roads to You” (1998), “The Sky in My Chest” (2007), “Lovely Melodies” (2013). She wrote poetry in more than ten genres. She translated some Russian and Turkish poets into Uzbek, as well as a book by YunusEmro. She lived as a political immigrant with her family for five years in Turkey.