In a world haunted by the echoes of what was lost, presence lingers in absence and memory is etched into every stillness. Shadows speak louder than voices, and silence becomes a vessel for all the questions too heavy to ask. Time stutters through forgotten wars and empty rooms, while fragile gestures—watering a barren plant, floating a paper name—reveal the quiet ache of endurance. Nothing shatters outright; instead, things unravel—light, language, even the self—until what remains is the soft breath before a storm, the quiet no one names, but everyone carries.

WHAT THE SILENCE HOLDS

<Vo Thi Nhu Mai>

1/

A bird circles above the ruins

as if sketching a name, it once knew

but cannot pronounce.

The wind holds the walls upright

only long enough

for a child to pass through.

The silence is not absence

It is the weight of unasked questions

left at the door of every house.

Someone or no one

has taken the weapons

and buried them in a field

where no one remembers to search.

Before the first word

a shadow knelt.

It did not pray

It did not ask to stay

It simply pressed

its whole being

into the space

between heartbeats.

2/

The window was not broken

It just forgot

how to hold the light.

You asked me a question

with your back turned

something about staying

Or maybe abandon.

The clock kept time for a war

no one remembered starting.

And still you kept watering

a plant that never grew.

I folded my name into a paper shape

and set it afloat on the floorboards.

Somewhere under the house

a slow leak was learning

how to become a river.

There were footsteps upstairs

No one was home

Only the dust, and a song

that wouldn’t stop

forgetting its own melody.

If a silence opens its mouth, who listens?

If you survive, but your shadow doesn’t

what walks beside you?

There is no anthem for the unbroken

Only this: the hush before thunder

that no one calls a promise.

VO THI NHU MAI

http/vietnampoetry.wordpress.com

– Date of Birth: March 18, 1976

– Hometown: Quảng Trị, Vietnam

– Current Residence: Dianella, Western Australia, Australia

– Occupation: Primary school teacher in the public education system of Western Australia

– Education: Master’s in Education, Master Degree in Literature

– Roles: Poet, translator

– Work History:

– 1998-2003: English teacher at Ngô Quyền High School, Châu Đức, Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu

– 2003-2010: postgraduate studies at Edith Cowan University (ECU), WA

– 2006-2016: Taught at Dryandra Primary School, WA

– 2016-present: Teaching at Maylands Primary School, WA

– 2015-2022: Volunteered at Hùng Vương Vietnamese School on weekends and successfully secured government funding for school activities twice.

teacher, poet, translator

As a primary school teacher with over twenty years of full-time teaching experience in Western Australia, following five years of teaching at a high school in Bà Rịa Vũng Tàu.

In addition to being a poet with numerous published works, my poetry was selected for inclusion in a book as part of a 2023 English poetry competition in Western Australia, organized and curated by WAPOET.

Several of my poems have been set to music and performed across various districts within the country.

I am also an advocate for promoting the works of fellow artists, often designing, presenting, and writing prefaces for their literary collections.

I frequently present bilingual poetry readings at cultural festivals organized by the Vietnamese Women’s Association in Western Australia.

Poetry Collections:

• Reflections on Poetry (Poetry, Women’s Publishing House, 2010)
• Beyond the Vast Ocean (Poetry, Literature Publishing House, 2011)
• The Fairy Tale Garden (Poetry, Writers’ Association Publishing House, 2015)
• Let the Day Be Short (Poetry, Thuận Hóa Publishing House, 2022)
• Oh, that’s true, I am waiting (Poetry, upcoming publication)

Vietnamese-English Translated Works Published in Recent Years:

• Bilingual Poetry of Võ Quê
• Bilingual Poetry of Nguyễn Thanh Kim (published in Romania)
• Bilingual Poetry of Nguyễn Quốc Học
• Bilingual Poetry of Vũ Thụy Nhung
• Bilingual Poetry of Trần Quang Đạo (published in Canada)
• Nhịp Điệu Việt The Rhythm of Vietnam, Bilingual Edition (Anthology of 307 poets from Vietnam and abroad)
• Bilingual Poetry of Hoài Thu
• Essays of Nguyễn Đức Tùng (upcoming publication)

 

The Flow

“They” say “go with the flow”

But the flow sometimes fails to follow

Perhaps because of a “Florence” or a “Frank”

Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine the

Flow flowing even if my life machine

Has mechanical mis-flows

Sometimes flows in a “Joe”

And I say, “Hey Joe, what do you know….?!”

And he knows to say “just go with the flow”

After all that is how we got here, isn’t it?

      Someone met someone and went with “the flow”

Then something          flowed              into

        Some         other thing    and “Presto!”

Here we are…

Sometimes the flow is turbo

Sometimes the flow is slow

But I know the flow is the flow

It exists on its own “gO”

It is not dictated to

Nor is it directed by YOU or for You

Like the wind it just flows on its own BLOW!

In the grand scheme of our life flow

No “Florence”

Nor “Frank”

Not even ‘Joe” who thinks he knows

Can block the blow of the flow

For the flow bows to no one you know

Despite delusional attempts at adaptations

Dismissed as delicate solutions

To inescapable life situations

Long before “Florence” or “Frank” and

Even know it all “Joe” found their very own flow

Abide in a flowy lucidity

Flow with mortality like a fraternity

Then pass it on for posterity…

So live, love and laugh on the gO!

Because it’s the only way to come into “the flow” …

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.–

Examine close reading of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale with critical perspectives and textual references.

Margaret Atwood’s masterpiece  “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a phenomenal dystopian speculative fiction of contemporary totalitarianism and authoritarianism “within Western society and within Christian tradition itself”.  Old Testamentary militarized hierarchy disempowers women’s emancipation and dismantles womanhood into the closetted fetters of patriarchalism and misogyny as encountered by the tragic handmaids Offred and Ofglen. The worldview of casually held attitudes about women is a real life problem exposition of social commentary critiquing antifeminism and gender treachery, ecological disasters like nuclear radiation and chemical pollution, civil war and political turmoil, widespread sterility/ infertility and sexually transmitted diseases (HIVs and AIDs) contagion. New England Puritanism of Gileadean microcosm is a metafictional epilogue of post futuristic dystopian society purporting to be the premise of international historical association conference 2195. “Loving neighbours while harbouring animosity for the arbitrary adversaries reflect stranding of beleaguered populace within the communion and community. Offred is otherized as a concubine and wanton woman of the preGileadean regime. Offred’s reproductive machinery emblematically symbolizes sacrificial offering as a two legged womb fertility and/or surrogacy despite her malicious victimhood vulnerable to the vicious status quo as adulteress and strumpet. Mooning and Juneing of the coterie damsels and brothel courtesans reflect the objectification of commodified property of male gaze as extrapolated by the novelist. Gileadean feminization refrain and restrain from womanizing creatures of male power fantasies. Sexuality and gender stereotyping apartheid of womanhood is subversively challenged by subalterns and marthas, Rita and Nick, harbouring solidarity with the Mayday Resistance movement. Nick is hired by Serena Joy to cuckold Offred in return of heir to eclipse sexual impotency and emasculative effeminacy of her masterly lord husband, the commandant. However, Nick embodies humanness and philanthropism through espousal of escapade for the entrapped maiden’s absconsion to Canada. 

Atwood’s feminist utopian idealism pontificates that masculine system is the major cause of social and political problems and showcases women as not only as the least equals of men but also as the sole arbiters of their reproductive functions. The novel is detrimental to Christian tradition because of being sexually explicit, violently graphic and morally corrupt. Anti Biblical teachings pertaining to sexuality and gender education are preached within the domain of The Handmaid’s Tale. However, the novel is a masterpiece of dystopian speculative fiction that espouses the exploration of “the most insidious and violent manifestations of power in Western history”.  Jezebels and handmaids are iconoclastic milestones and cornerstones of enforced sexual captivity sanctioned by the Gileadean regime. Furthermore allegorical satire of the en masse non white African Americans rehabilitation and/or en route of Jewish diasporic exodus community repatriation to New Jerusalem have been depicted by the novelist. This dystopian nightmarish speculative fiction anchors barren wives of the elite class as royalists and depersonalizes the subjectivity of the subaltern other gender as fertility machines in accord with their reproductive agencies. Moreover, segregationist and separatist abortion rights and declining birth rates in Romanian and Canadian territorial context are allegorized. The universalistically spectacular appeal of the novel distinctively intertwines interlacing of feminist survivor characters’ destinies with ideological absolutism of the tyrannical apartheid. Racial persecution and ethnic cleansing cast vulnerable survivalists as prey into the cascade of fanaticism, extremism and fundamentalism.  

Regressive and repressive state policies of conservative Gilead disfavours women’s rights movement including sapphic individuals, abortionists, abolitionists, religious sects and banishing Jews, elderly females and non white populace to the territorial outskirts of radioactive fallout colonies. As a feminist activist Margaret Atwood voices for women’s education and property power of attorney as manifested through the caricature of Mayday Resistance. Mayday Resistance is bolstered by radical feminist activist Ofglen to overthrow the republic of Gilead. However, the antifeminist traits of the novel marginalizes and otherizes handmaids as mere breeders of reproductive machinery and /or reproductive agencies. These womenfolk relegates themselves as inferior and subservient to social, religious and cosmic roles, duties, obligations and errands sanctified and decreed by state sponsored right wing fundamentalism, rigid dogmas and misogynistic theosophies. Atwood’s Aunt Lydia is a depiction of church-state sponsored staunchest pacifists passive to the women’s resistance and rebellion; vicious preachers casting as spokesperson for antifeminism and urges handmaids to metamorphose themselves in the crux of de-sexuality, impersonality, disfiguration, disembodiment and dehumanization. In contrast, Nick is a renegade mutineering legacy of handmaids through underground networking channels resulting in rescue operations of entrapped maidens. However, the novel’s mimetic impulse of the commander appears more pathetic than sinister, baffled than manipulative and almost at all times a fool personae, thus condoning antifeminism. The narrator-protagonist of Handmaid’s Tale coping, endurance and survival quest after all, transmits translucent beacon of hope and humility for the oppressed minority amidst chilling and depressive uprooted soulless existence of a misogynous regime. Atwood’s subtle transfiguration to heroic feminist survivor sly subversive and determined daring conniver overthrow coercive dungeons of the pervasive canons of Gilead’s ruthlessly dystopian tyrannical nature. “Dark realm within’, ‘cellar’ and ‘attic hiding place’ connote ubiquitous nightmarish envisionings colonizing powers imposed upon handmaid-slave dynamic identity beyond exemplar premises of pervasive canons of Gilead frontiers. Offred’s solicitous gratification with hiraeth is a phantasmal escapism from absurdity and futility and/or defeatism and paralysis of the obsolete frozen barren wasteland. The mind style narrator-protagonist voice and perception is symptomatic of traumatic events and of excluded experiences that exemplifies discourse of a socially marginalized individual more than a woman’s language. Afterall, Eurydice, the Creation- death goddess whose self-expression and self-affirmation epiphanies emerges as evanescently and enigmatically in the resurrected tomb of the buried earthy womb epitomizes Offred’s repressive state of affairs. 

Further Reading, References, Endnotes and Podcasts

Donna J. Haraway’s, 35. Introduction: A Cyborg Manifesto, Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century, Routledge New York pp. 149-181

Speculative Fiction Marek Oziewicz, University of Minnesota, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.78, Published online: 29 March 2017

A woman’s place is in the resistance: self, narrative and performative femininity as subversion and weapon in the Handmaid’s Tale by Courtney Landis, Millersville University of Pennsylvania, Repository and Digital Archive pp. 1-70

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Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale and the Dystopian Tradition’ Amin Malak, Canadian Literature Review,  pp. 1-8

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale: Resistance Through Narrating, Hilde Staels, 1995, English Studies, 76:5, pp. 455-467

‘Just a Backlash’: Margaret Atwood, Feminism and The Handmaid’s Tale, Shirley Neuman, pp. 1-12, University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 75, No. 3, Summer 2006.

Anna Keiko’s Painting in the Map of Contemporary Art

By: Rizal Tanjung

In the realm of contemporary visual art, Anna Keiko may not yet be a household name among the giants of the global art scene, but her work holds a narrative potential and visual expression that should not be underestimated. One of her notable pieces is a 50×60 cm painting that, at first glance, suggests gestural freedom and the power of color. Yet, behind that freedom lies structure, silent narrative, and deep cultural resonance.

The painting presents three compositional clusters—two vertical figures and one group in the lower right—composed of rough brushstrokes, contrasting colors, and strong textures. Dominated by black, red, yellow, and green, these form ambiguous figurative shadows: are they humans, masks, or cultural silhouettes?

This essay aims to unpack the work from various perspectives: the history of painting, relevant art movements, aesthetic theory, symbolic approaches, and the broader global context in which it resides.

—

1. Gestural Aesthetics and the Legacy of Abstract Expressionism

If we trace the history, Keiko’s spontaneous, dynamic, and emotionally charged brushstrokes have strong roots in Abstract Expressionism. This movement emerged in post-WWII America, led by figures such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning. They rejected representational forms in favor of gesture and abstraction as a means to express the soul and existential condition.

Anna Keiko, though living in a different era and cultural context, seems to inherit this spirit. Her use of impasto (thick paint application) invites a sensory perception of texture and depth, making the painting seem alive and in motion. In her hands, paint becomes more than a medium—it becomes a “body language” that speaks directly to the viewer’s senses and emotions.

—

2. Figurative Ambiguity: Between Representation and Imagination

Unlike pure Abstract Expressionism, which often forgoes representation altogether, Keiko’s work offers shadowy but distinct silhouettes. We see “figures”—perhaps human, divine, or cultural icons—yet without clear detail. This situates her work within the spectrum of Neo-Expressionism, a movement that re-emerged in the 1980s as a critique of minimal and conceptual art.

Neo-Expressionism revived the human form in raw, expressive, and sometimes brutal ways. Keiko reflects this through a subtler, more contemplative approach. She doesn’t simply paint humans; rather, she suggests their presence through shadows and fragmented forms. As if inviting us to see humanity not through physical form, but through its traces and lingering energy.

—

3. Color Symbolism and Visual Tension

The color palette Keiko employs is far from arbitrary. Black dominates as background and contour, red evokes emotional intensity, yellow brings light and vitality, while green resonates with nature. These hues are not smoothly blended but rather “clashed,” creating strong visual tension.

In expressionist color theory, each color carries an emotional and symbolic charge. Kandinsky, a pioneer of abstraction, once wrote that color is a “psychic instrument.” In this context, Keiko’s colors are not decorative, but symbolic—conveying an unspoken narrative beyond words.

—

4. Eastern Touch: Zen, Emptiness, and the Meaning Within Silence

The name “Keiko” carries a Japanese nuance, and the minimalist tendencies in her composition suggest the influence of Eastern aesthetics. Traditional Chinese and Japanese ink painting, such as sumi-e, emphasizes the importance of emptiness, space, and brush movement as core aesthetic elements.

In Zen philosophy, perfection is found within imperfection. Keiko’s painting, with its rough, unfinished forms that seem to “pause mid-thought,” invites contemplation. It speaks through silence—eschewing literal narrative in favor of a personal, introspective experience. In this way, Keiko unites the duality of East and West: the expressive freedom of the West with the meditative depth of Zen visual tradition.

—

5. Art as a Cross-Cultural Space

In an increasingly fluid global art landscape, works like Anna Keiko’s serve as vital cultural bridges. Her work does not align itself with a single tradition—not strictly Western, nor purely Eastern. Instead, it embodies the global artist of today—working across geographic, historical, and artistic boundaries.

Her painting demonstrates that art need not choose between abstraction and figuration, between the personal and the universal, or between emotion and concept. All can coexist within the same canvas, just as our world moves in ever-growing complexity.

—

6. Positioning the Work within the Contemporary Art Map

In the midst of conceptual, digital, and interactive installation art, gestural painting like Keiko’s remains relevant. Arguably, it is becoming even more vital as a form of resistance to the sterile nature of digitization. The human touch, the brush’s trace, and visual irregularity become the “honesty” sought in an era of visual simulation.

Keiko’s painting stands as proof that “painting” is far from obsolete. It is not merely a traditional medium, but a transformative one—capable of fostering contemplation, self-expression, and cross-cultural reflection.

What may appear to be a modest-sized painting holds layers of thought and complex visual intensity. It stands as evidence that abstract art is not an escape from reality, but rather a quest for meaning beyond surface representation.

Within a single canvas, Anna Keiko invites us to explore art history, dive into inner depth, reflect on color symbolism, and ultimately—meet ourselves. She is not merely an artist who paints forms, but one who transforms visual experience into spiritual and cultural resonance.

West Sumatra, April 7, 2025

ZAPOMNIANY OBSYDIAN

Możemy zrezygnować
z mięsa.

Wtedy wyciekną płyny. 

Mięso zrezygnuje
z nas

Forgotten Obsidian

We have to give up

meat.

Then our bodily fluids will leak.

And our meat will give up

on us.

CIEPŁA KREW

Ciepła 
krew

uśmierca

zew 
krwi.

Warm-Blooded

Warm 

blood

kills 

for 

blood. 

MAHAJANA

Psy smakują lepiej 
od mahajany, 
dlatego bez sensu 
byłoby utrwalanie 
w sobie uporczywych, 
niskobiałkowych 

myśli zakonnych. 

A sierść i tak ściągnie 
z podłogi nasza filipińska 
służąca, żywiąca się 
promieniami słońca, 
deszczówką 
i zaklęciami trupów.

Mahāyāna Buddhism

Dog tastes better 

than the flesh of Buddhists;

therefore, it would make no sense

to nourish oneself with persistent,

yet low-protein monastic thoughts.

Besides, our servant will remove

the fur that thrives on the sunshine,

rainwater, and curses of the dead

anyways. 

ROZSĄDEK

Zabawa empatycznych ciał miękkich 
wchodzących głęboko/płytko w inne 
ciała miękkie, półmiękkie, 
zapowietrzone? 
Coś odgryzło mu palce. 

Ale to nie są moje utraty płynów. 
Ja posiadam nadal metalową 
protezę. 
Życie prywatne! 
Tylko życie prywatne się liczy…

Common Sense

Does playing empathetically with soft flesh—

pushing, pulsing deep then shallow

into soft and semi-soft flesh—

allow in air?

Something bit off my fingers.

But I haven’t lost a thing.

I still have a metal prosthetic

instead. This is my private life!

Only ones’ private life

truly matters. 

Alisher Navoi

The world of meaning 

Grandfathers wise

Mulki Ghazal sultanis

Co-owners of the word estate

Hamsalari elga doston 

There is in him a dishonest faith

The waqfia is also verbose

The waqv lands are a place for him

Religious deanery Nizami

Guests of Iraq too

Jami, Khisrav, Nizami

Mentors of the Nawab

Ganj-polish it took from Panj

Assessment of the Turkic language

Created works

 Inthe land for five centuries 

A shelf stored

For twelve thousand bytes 

Two bytes are reaching

Mir Alisher Memorial

Long live in our hearts

Ruboians will be iodine

To our sealed minds

Babur Mirza

Bowed head gone from his land

The crow of fate after Itardi

Andijoni left behind crying

The king who was going to gather

Figus, whose heart is broken by blood

Tears that would vibrate the arches

He was waiting to be hugged by an Afghan

It should have been the King Of The Indian

Jangu-accelerated became the ruler

Made India Elga ovvoza

In science became king Beth Dawson

Boburnoma Dey laid gate

He knew him as a lion of the world

Centuries came from old moans

Midabdi hijran in homesickness

Bitmabdi stinging bat

Here are the years gone Beaver’s yodi

We are in the hearts of youth mangu toabad

The Babur generation in the land of emergence

This Beaver will not be distant only

Rashidova Shahrizoda Zarshidovna was born on October 31, 2010, in the Xo’jakon neighborhood of Qorako’l district, Bukhara region. She is currently an 8th-grade student at School No. 20 in the district and actively participates in various competitions. Notably, she secured first place in the ‘Young Reader’ competition in 2022 and 2023. She is also the winner of contests such as ‘Poetry Recital,’ ‘I Can Do It All,’ ‘My Homeland in My Words and Tunes,’ ‘Wings of Inspiration,’ ‘The Scholar-2018,’ and ‘Zakovat (Brain Ring).’

Her poems and stories have been featured in several journals, including Kindness and Raven Cage, where she consistently contributes her creative works. She is the author of books titled The Magic of the Pen, The Mirror of Inspiration, and The First Flight of a Creator.

In addition, Shahrizoda is the coordinator of ‘Aspiration’ EVH in Qorako’l district and serves as the head of the Wekelet Community organization in Uzbekistan.

The Child Cherubim

I am the undersigned hereby, the earthly human child—behold;

Does it serve me right to be the begotten so-called?! 

Hearken, the plowshares plucking my seeds, 

I wonder, ain’t you mankind aware of my little needs?! 

Nothing might heal this world of roaming crows, 

Nothing can prospect throughout my eyebrows, 

Those perpetual whirls of the war tycoon, 

Belligerently inflict a curse of my ephemeral cacophony as soon, 

I swear in the name of whom my soul rest:

The child is the father of man—call it a jest! 

There is no spacious room for promising buds to sprout, 

We have to recline in our celestial abode— cherubim, with no doubt, 

Down to those legislations that numb their voices and deafen their ears, 

Ain’t we made of stone hearts that know no fears, 

We are the offspring of today and the filament bonfire of tomorrow;

Could you believe that hoax? Hard to describe thine sorrow, 

Verily, we deserve to populate this planet under the sun, 

A rare symbol of giving without asking, we are the one, 

Let-alone that kind of limbo we dwell, 

Ain’t we are created to be subjugated, I can’t tell! 

The Lord granted the globe with our bliss and glee, 

Now, we feel doomed as nothing, a flea, 

We are those Psalms, muses and angelic chants, 

We cannot withhold that human fettering rants, 

We are mongers of peace, love, playhood and serenity, 

Inside environs of snobbery and obscenity, 

Our plea for a world free from darkness loom, 

Will there be a day when aromatic roses bloom?! 

Our candles got dimmed with a helpless wick, 

Is it high time for humanity to save before the louder tick?!!!