The Best Poem
The most efficient way to write a poem
Is to find another poem and take out the heart.
Leave the other poem where you found it bleeding out.
If it were efficient it would have survived
like the catfish deserting a sinking ship.
After it has sunk, they crawl about the bottom
chewing on the rats and the hands
that didn’t get out.
That is natural selection.
The best poems are the poems that are here.
They persevere through merit.
They go to Burning Man to find more truth.
Shelley has built a Byronic hedge fund
of virtue and innovation.
It stands naked and peeing in the night of wisdom.
And where its urine spatters test scores rise
like manly locks shaking in the storm of cost benefit analysis.
This is the poem that ate your heart.
This is the poem whose heart was eaten.
We need less blood and more Human Resources
if we are to go into the dark of genius
and emerge with the light of anthology.
Heart. Because of you, misfortunes have no end, Where you are, danger lies close or distant. Cast away deceit, turn back and repent, For on Judgment Day, there will be questions to answer.
I envy those without a heart, They don’t burn, don’t love, and don’t even die. How can they? For they have no heart. But me? I have a thousand hearts… Yet still, something feels incomplete.
Some have hearts, but they’re lifeless, dead, Even if torn apart, no blood would be shed. Inside them, parasites hum their tune, Even a dog wouldn’t eat what’s thrown to it soon.
Are there such people in life, I wonder? Yes. Don’t you see? Look closer, further. Those who sell conscience and homeland for gold, With no compassion, their hearts are cold.
The heart — a delicate, unique creation, It cannot be left unguarded, not for a moment. Close your eyes briefly, and it might be led astray, Even by desires for the unworthy in the fray.
Shoxijahon Urunov — student of Bukhara State Pedagogical Institute
Maria Teresa Liuzzo was born in Saline di Montebello Jonico and lives in Reggio di Calabria (Italy). President of the Lyric-Dramatic Association ”P. Benintende” – Journalist – Publisher. Chief Editor of the literary magazine ”LE MUSE” – Essayist – Lyricist – Literary and art critic – Director of Public Relations – Translator – Opinionist – Writer – Doctor of Psychology – Leibniz University Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. – Professor of Philosophy and Modern Literature – USA. – Correspondent of ”IL PONTE ITALO – AMERICANO” – USA – ”NUOVA CORVINA” EUROPA – (Hunedoara) – Collaborator of ”ALB-SPIRIT” TIRANA (ALBANIA), ”Gazzetta Nazionale” (Tirana). ”Perqasje” (Tirana); ”Gazeta Destinacioni” (Valona – Albania); ”Dritare” and ”Albania Press” (based in Rome); ”Atunis” (Belgium – Brussels); Alessandria Today (Italy); ”EZGULIK” – Bukhara (UZBEKISTAN) dir. Obid KOLDOSH.
Maria Miraglia is a poet, essayist, translator, and peace activist. Her commitment to human rights and peace activism is evident in her long-standing memberships in Amnesty International, Ican, and the International Observatory for Human Rights. She is Vice President of the World Movement for the Defense of Children) – Kenya and the founder of the World Peace Foundation.
Dr. Miraglia’s influence on contemporary literature is significant. As a cosmopolitan Italian writer, her academic curriculum is impressive, placing her among the stars of the literary world. She is a founding member and Literary Director of the Pablo Neruda Association and a member of several editorial boards of international literary magazines;
Member of the International Writers Association; Member of the International Academy Mihai Eminescu; Honorary Member of United Nations of Letters; Poet Laureate 2018, WNWU; and World Poet Laureate and Golden Medal 2020 – Xi’an, China; Miraglia writes in Italian, English, or both languages. Her poems have been translated into over thirty languages and are prominent in over one hundred anthologies worldwide.
Miraglia is a writer with considerable skills. She has an exquisite imagination; her style is lucid, transparent in thought, philosophical and meaningful in substance. She can skillfully intertwine emotions and creativity, philosophy, logic and reason, giving her poems an air of new beauty. She expresses her broad humanity, magnanimity, aesthetic abilities, delicate sensitivity and concern for global peace and harmony. Her originality makes her a truly brilliant writer.
Dr Miraglia Maria Antonietta Literary Director of P. Neruda Founder President of WFP. Member of the European Academy of Science and Arts- Salzburg
………
Interview conducted by
Eva Petropoulou Lianou
Please share your thoughts about the future of literature.
Literature has always held fundamental importance in developing societies, and it seems right to recognise poetry’s merit as the first means of spreading knowledge when writing did not yet exist. With the advent of printing, access to culture became more manageable, but even today, masses of individuals are not granted this privilege. Culture is the only tool that can facilitate social mobility, improve economic conditions, and provide a better quality of life. However, in many areas of the world, young people are not even given access to basic education. This is especially true for women, who remain subjected to a slavery that is not only economic but also intellectual, depriving them of individual choices.
The Good and the Bad. Who is winning nowadays?
I was born in a Catholic country where the belief in an individual’s struggle between good and evil has always been present. Beyond Catholic thought, historical facts tell us of a world in which struggles have prevailed, a world in which wars have continually devastated entire countries and created tears and death. And even today, the media inundates us with news of the same type that sometimes makes hope difficult. This does not mean that we should give up, on the contrary, we should increasingly commit our forces so that men can live in harmony so that the idea of justice does not remain in the pages of the codes, and there is a better distribution of wealth.
For this to happen, everyone must be allowed compulsory education without gender distinction. Only knowledge can help people make better choices in every social sector. I want to address a cry for help to intellectuals so that they become champions of a rebirth of consciences. It is easy to make the responsibility of conducting public welfare fall on the people in power. We must also ask ourselves who put them in that position and why. The masses have tremendous power that they may not realize.
How many books have you written, and when can we find your books?
Twenty-one of my poetry anthologies have been published, mainly in Italian and English but also in Arabic, Telugu, Hindi, and many other languages. I have enjoyed translating some of the most appreciated contemporary authors. My poems are also in over one hundred anthologies in various Italian and international magazines and have been translated into over thirty languages.
My books can be found on Amazon.
The book. E-book or hard book. What will be the future?
I wish for any form of diffusion of books, even though I prefer the paper form. I can read and reread a text, mark it, and consider it a personal object to take and take again over time.
A Wish for 2025
I am a woman of peace. Some international organisations have kindly wanted to give me the honour of being an ambassador of peace. It is in this role that last year I presented, together with a group of various authors, in the council hall of the municipalities of Assisi, a city universally recognised as a centre of peace, the book “Give Me Peace – Anicia Editore.” Peace and harmony between peoples require education in welcoming and accepting diversity, yet schools in all countries forget education in goodness and beauty. Young people are induced to compete, not collaborate, which is one of the attitudes we should work on.
A phrase from your book
…………..
women and men on earth
in holy silence
for the massacre and horror
could sense the fear
of the little martyrs
of the human foolishness
hear their cries
imaging the violated bodies
the tears of their mothers
their eternal mourning
From Martyrs of Human Foolishness – Coloured Butterflies
[Saying anything and getting caught is not a literary virtue, it is an unliterary activity. The best in literature are things which spin the words and images round and round and the reader has to shoot an arrow into the eye of the floating fish, looking at its image in the water. [Draupadi’s Swaymbara] ]
Dr Jernail Singh Anand
Broken lines which carry sophisticated ideas are not poetry, unless they evoke emotions which blend disparate elements of experience into a unified whole. The final feeling should not be of a broken experience, but a unified entity, whispering to the soul. If the poet does not whisper to the soul, it lacks in essentialities.
When we talk of a common subject like love, on an extensive scale, is the broken heart of a poet so important to the world? Is it important to tell the world how it was broken and where its splinters are lying? Does the world expect such lavish wastefulness from the poet? If poets are irrelevant to the world today, it is precisely because they sing of their personal sorrow, and sing too much, which fails to connect with the mass mind.
Metaphor as a smoke-screen
Is it important to postpone finally saying something and trying to find metaphors, so that abstract images could say, what the poet is so scared to say in plain words? A metaphor is not always an adornment. In these politicis-ridden times, most of the times it is used as a smoke screen.
A poem’s message is like a needle to be found in a chaff store. The poet talks loosely about clouds, flowers, rivers, oceans, moon. – good images, and sometimes soothing too, but the message… Oh, I am sorry, does the poet have any message to convey? Or just to fiddle with words, images and enjoy and make the reader enjoy his word patterns, which have expertise in not saying anything. Saying anything and getting caught is not a literary virtue, it is an unliterary activity.The best in literature are things which spin the words and images round and round and the reader has to shoot an arrow into the eye of the floating fish, looking at its image in the water. [Draupadi’s Swaymbara]
So difficult it is to find the meaning of a poem. And finally, if the reader says, “the poet says this” agains there are eyebrows. It is not the poet, it is the poem that says something. So, the text says, the poem says, … this is the fad. The poet has nothing to say. He only put some words together. Forged some images. Which are now lying before you. Try to read into them and say what you find them say.
A post-modern reading of Paradise Lost can be rewarding. Let us forget what Milton has to say about “to justify the ways of God to man”.. The invocation becomes absolutely irrelevant in which he invokes the Muse to let him sing of the disobedience of man which brought death in the world. How can Milton dare to utter these words? It is all irrelevant. Leave invocation. Let us move straight into the text.
Love for the Workshop
If text is our focus, we can go beyond Milton. The message has no significance. What is important is the text, and using the text, bring a staircase, stepping down into its interior, let us move in the dark chambers of Milton’s mind. What he says, has no relevance. What he did not say, is important. Move in.
Everyone who enters this talisman finds something different and challenging. So, that is our study of poetry. Finally to put out a broken spectacle because, a verse, if we take the words to enter into the poets mind, will take us into a factory area where tools are lying scattered. Are we interested in the workshop or the finished product? I think entering a sweet seller’s pantry cannot be a rewarding experience. Better to enjoy the sight of the silver-covered sweets, and still better, to taste a few of them, and praise the sweet maker, rather than de-kneading the flour and sugar that went into it and following them from which mill the flour came and from which factory, the sugar came.
Bio:
Dr Jernail Singh Anand, President of the International Academy of Ethics, is author of 170 books in English poetry, fiction, non-fiction, philosophy and spirituality. He was recently awarded Seneca Award by the Academy of Philosophical Arts and Sciences Bari. [Italy -19/10/2024]. He also won Charter of Morava, the great Award by Serbian Writers Association, Belgrade and his name was engraved on the Poets’ Rock in Serbia. He was awarded Doctor of Philosophy [Honoris Causa] by the University of Engg and Management, Jaipur. Recently, he organized an International Conference on Culture, Values and Ethics at Pune. His most phenomenal books are Lustus:The Prince of Darkness [first epic of the Mahkaal Trilogy]. And Philosophia de Anand, a work of philosophy which has under one roof, ten of his philosophical works. [Email: anandjs55@yahoo.com Mobile: 919876652401[Whatsapp] [ethicsacademy.co.in]
To the black letters of recorded time, which boils in fame.
To the prayers of bullets, mother
fired when age first brewed the wine
of maturity upon my lip.
My soul is a remainant of solfas,
Carving notes in this arm eaten by the
Virgin fangs of Needs.
Whenever we withness the harmonic weaving
Of flame on wood, we shall wear our anthems
Like skin,
For that black boy opposite our hut
Has learnt to recite the slogan of success
Where fear and failure brew dreams
upon the podium of regret.
An Igbo writer, a member of hilltop creative arts center, a lyrical poets who writes about the constant changes of emotions. My works have been published on synchronized chaos, poetry parliament, and my poem (virgins pride) and (symphony of love) was shortlisted in the 2023/2024 annual nature poetry contest.
