Essay from Diyora Abdujabborova

Young East Asian girl with dark black straight hair, a black and white velvet blouse, and a pink teddy bear.
Diyora Abdujabborova

Abdujabborova Diyorabonu Oblokhlovna

Today’s woman’s role in society

Honoring a woman and showing respect to her is one of the noble characteristics of the Uzbek people. In this sense, a lot of work is being done in Uzbekistan to strengthen the place and position of women in society. The President of our country highly appreciates the place and role of women in society, protects their rights and interests, creates the necessary conditions for our women to become knowledgeable, modern specialists, qualified professionals, and build healthy and strong families.

First of all, the birth of a healthy child and its upbringing, the protection of mothers’ and children’s health is the most important task in the constant attention of our state and society. A woman’s role in the family and in our modern developing society is extremely important. Isn’t it in the hands of us women to bring up children, make them mature, and educate young people who will contribute to the development of our country, so that every boy and girl can find their own way in the future? In fact, at present, bringing out the potential of women in our society, strengthening their role in raising a mature generation, and ensuring their active participation in our comprehensive reforms has become one of the priority directions of our state’s policy.

The basis of our life, the vision and the future of our nation will be women. Today, with her mind, knowledge and talent, hard work and enthusiasm, she shakes up the decisive areas of life – whether it is family management, state and community management, medicine, education, culture and science development. Whether it is farming activity or small business entrepreneurship, women have been performing such complex tasks effectively. Today’s woman’s knowledge, talent, intelligence, creativity and creativity are surprising the world once again.

in Boyovut district of Sirdarya region

 13th general secondary school

 Promoter of Creative Cultural Issues

Poetry by Chloe Schoenfeld

“Closet”

There is nothing

On the other side

We both know this

I am just a figment of

Their imagination

And they are mine

When they knock on the door

I pretend I cannot hear it

They walk around in the blackness

And I walk in the sun

I meet a girl at school

She tells me she remembers

What the darkness feels like

I tell her I do not

I have only ever been in

The Sun

We are friends in a way

That I have never been 

Friends before

Mom tells me that

Girls are not supposed 

To be friends like this

I tell her it feels natural

My Sun fades and

My world grows a little

Darker

I tell my Mom that

My world is dim

She tells me that

Everyone’s world is dim

I don’t want to believe her

I want to show her

The door in my room

That closes off the dark

She does not follow me there

I stand in front of the door

And I feel the girl stand beside me

I reach for the handle and

The Sun in my room flickers

The door swings open and

I see myself

He is scared and he is young

And he is me

My Sun flickers out.

———————–

Poetry from Lorraine Caputo

EVENING’S TIDE

The broad beach has disappeared
	beneath the rising tide
Faint rose tints the scattering
	clouds of this sunset

& as blackness settles
	with the song of some
		night bird, frogs & a gecko
the fiercer waves climb the steps
	of the long-gone promenade
		leaping, splashing
against that rubble
	white rip currents pulling
		into the high ocean

& the lights of distant villages
	speckle the far horizon



 
LEAVING BEHIND

I leave behind
	mothers bathing their
	naked daughters
in a growing tidal pool

& follow a narrowing path
	through mangrove brambles
	escaping far from people

I sit on this deserted beach
	the porpoise-colored sea
	rolling its rising tide
	against the black rock …

shaking off troubling thoughts
	to be captured
	by this surf,
	washed far, far away

& my Spirit takes wing
	like that piquero
	soaring over the waters
	swooping & diving …

to be like that sea
	lion pup, playfully
	plunging beneath, bobbing
	with each roll of this sea



 
TOWARDS THE RIVER PLATE
(Montevideo)
 
Paper & leaves scuttle down cavernous Saturday streets, 
few souls out in these depths.
A woman holds the reins of a horse-drawn cart,
her children staring into the closing morn.
Limp bags of cardboard & bottles hang off the sides.
 
Along Sarandi Street, artisan stalls of puppets,
stones & carved gourds, honey & fruit preserves 
in the cool shade of worn buildings.
A silver-haired man plays violin, 
his sightless eyes closed.
Case open at his feet, scattered with coins.
 
Suddenly the rhythm of drums echoes up this way
from the Plaza Constitución.
Three boys with blue & yellow tambores,
a friend with hat in hand, 
followed by a policeman herding them away
from the antique sellers beneath trees,
away from the couples dancing folklore, 
gaucho & tango in front of the cabildo,
away from the diners in sidewalk cafés.
 
Up the calle along the Central Market & Mundo Afro,
beats of a comparsa resonate       resonate.
Dark hands caress the skins while the other
grips a stick rapping       rapping, 
painted stars bobbing on the red & black drums.
 
Beyond, the River Plate flows,
bands of muddy brown, dull green, 
tarnished blue in the past-noon sun.
Down along the Rambla,
men sit sipping mate, 
thermos tucked under arm.
Families swim along the sparse-sand beach, 
bask upon wave-smooth rocks.
 
Up on the Cubo del Sur,
children pose upon a rusted cannon 
for papá's photo.
A man slits the silvered belly of a fish.
Long black rod in hand,
white cap shading his eyes & balding head, 
he baits his line.
 
& far on the horizon,
in the haze of sun & sea,
slow ships steam to other ports.

Lorraine Caputo is a wandering troubadour whose writings appear in over 400 journals on six continents, and 23 collections – including In the Jaguar Valley (dancing girl press, 2023) and Caribbean Interludes (Origami Poems Project, 2022). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. Her writing has been honored by the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada (2011) and thrice nominated for the Best of the Net. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America with her faithful knapsack Rocinante, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. Follow her adventures at www.facebook.com/lorrainecaputo.wanderer or http://latinamericawanderer.wordpress.com

Poetry from Slavica Pejovic

Older middle aged light skinned woman with earrings, light blonde hair, a necklace and a black blouse
Slavica Pejovic

You You Yes

Be enough for myself
Incomplete without her
Enough for her
And in the unknown

They sometimes call it a miracle
The metamorphosis of yours
And the buzz of a bee can't distinguish
From the silence of the hornet
I'm not at the loss site
From the cross to the cross

You turn around your axis
You are somewhere
Close

On my way to Katanga
Still to come
And you exist.

Slavica Pejović is a B.Sc. Political scientist, diplomat, writer, poet, editor-in-chief of the magazine for culture and science "Majdan". She wrote three documentary books on the history of librarianship, 13 independent collections of poetry and two joint collections. Winner of numerous awards and recognitions in Serbia, Tunisia, Romania, Italy... Her poetry has been translated into many languages: Hungarian, German, Italian, Arabic, Macedonian, Russian, Bulgarian,... French, Spanish. .. She is a member of the Association of Writers of Serbia. She lives in the city of Požarevac in the Republic of Serbia.


Poetry from Kathleen Hulser

                 

Interior 64. Chris Kelly

We love to map our lives on geometry. Work is a grid of many discrete boxes. Play is the tangent refreshing the unpredictable impulse. Romance is a Venn diagram where overlap turbocharges the heart. Friendship plots to X and Y where the point of intersection undulates in the great sine curve of closeness. Aging is an arc bending towards infinity. Fibonacci numbers shape our thoughts into graceful proportions, an echo chamber of golden ratios. The fractals of enthusiasm bump against the paisley of tenderness. Euclid and Pythagoras made the body Earth’s measure, and Nature harmonizes our internal geometry.

####

Kathleen Hulser is a poet, writer and public historian who lives in the Bronx and Connecticut, and has participated in many public art projects and activist groups as well as curating history exhibitions such as Slavery in New York and Petropolis: Urban Animal Companions. 

Essay from Shokirova Zarnigor Shuhratjanovna

Young Central Asian woman with straight black hair and brown eyes, wearing a white collared top.
Shokirova Zarnigor Shuhratjanovna

You don’t even understand your situation. What is your purpose in life? You can’t find an answer to the question. Dreams and dreams are tormenting and will not let you rest. In Miyyang’s mind, dreams are spinning like a tornado without stopping. Well, ask yourself a question…

“Who am I?” “

“Where am I going?! ”

What is the result of my life? ”

What is the end? “

You want to find answers to the questions, but there is no answer, there is no answer that satisfies you. Because you are a stone that has not yet been polished, and has hardened at the bottom of the mountain. Harsangtash. You are a harsangtash who approves as “nice” no matter who takes it in any direction. My last word! Or polish yourself like a diamond and shine like the sun on the top of the mountain. Or simply act as a “couch” to help the “future shiny diamonds” who are looking for the top of the mountain to get some rest.

 You don’t want to.

It’s not what you dreamed of, is it? Polish it, that is, change. Be a billionaire who achieves results based on a plan, not a child who wants to get what he sees. The main thing…

You are there.

You are ready to polish.

You are ready to climb to the top of the mountain and become a precious diamond that shines like the bright sun.

Are you tired?

Can’t you stand it?

Do you want to stop?

When you face such a situation, say these things to yourself!

“You haven’t found the diamond hidden in the stone yet.” You are not at the top of the mountain. You haven’t started to shine yet. Choose ! Either you will be patient and continue on your way, or you will act as a “recreational chair”…

Poetry from Pascal Lockwood-Villa

Santo Domingo In Pictures


Picture:
The world as a postcard.
Picturesque palms line the sandy beaches
The sky-blue waves lazily roll in and out
And the sun beats down hard on three gradient backs.


Picture:
The typical atomic family
sans an electron by the standards of one
one who knows that’s just out of his control at this point
So he merely grimaces and poses uncomfortably in the familial embrace he’s grown used to.


Picture:
A bare-legged gaggle of legs
each of a varying, beautiful shade
all of them loving
loving each other


Picture:
The immortal bareness of skin

kissed by Sol’s immortal rays
God might’ve made immortals of us
Had we been any less perfect


Picture:
a single moment in time
frozen in cardstock and printer ink
Now, the sun’s rays
Never seem as bright without us three together.