Philip received his M.A. in Psychology from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. He has published five books of poetry, Mirror Images and Shards of Glass, Dark Images at Sea, I Never Finished Loving You, Falls from Grace, Favor and High Places, and Forever Was Never On My Mind. Three novels, Caught Between (Which is also a 24-episode Radio Drama Podcast https://wprnpublicradio.com/caught-between-teaser/), Art and Mystery: The Missing Poe Manuscript, and Far From Here. Philip also has a column in the quarterly magazine Per Niente. He enjoys all things artistic.
You, the only King of the whole kings of the universe
We, all will fly to you like the insects
You, the supreme authority, my dear Allah
I dream just like a dreamer
We are all born dreamers in different perspectives
You know very well and you said also
My everyday prayer to you in the Ramadan period
You must fulfill my dream
That you told to keep ready for the dreamers and good doers
I know I am a sinner
But you mercy is more than our sins
I love to be your servant following
What you have told to perform
Though we fail every time
Our deeds are so little
We are so weak and careless to our deeds
Overlooking all the mistakes
I have a firm faith in my breast
You will receive us in your wonderful, loving, unimaginable
So expected charming ‘Jannah’
When nobody can read my heart without you
I am so worthless, useless, helpless to myself
O Allah, please permit my prayer in this holy Ramadan.
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
28 March, 2025
Md. Mahbubul Alam is from Bangladesh. His writer name is Mahbub John in Bangladesh. He is a Senior Teacher (English) of Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh. Chapainawabganj is a district town of Bangladesh. He is an MA in English Literature from Rajshahi College under National University. He has published three books of poems in Bangla. He writes mainly poems but other branches of literature such as prose, article, essay etc. also have been published in national and local newspapers, magazines, little magazines. He has achieved three times the Best Teacher Certificate and Crest in National Education Week in the District Wise Competition in Chapainawabganj District. He has gained many literary awards from home and abroad. His English writings have been published in Synchronized Chaos for seven years.
Through the back door, into the nothingness of the day,
With silent steps I lose myself in the semblance.
From the tumult of the world, I slowly detach myself,
And in the deep calm, I surprise myself.
In the arms of the wind, I listen to them as they return,
Lost thoughts, like a secret fortune.
The silence comes, like a sweet call,
An eternal moment of blessing.
In the shadow of the dawn, under the clear sky,
I search for myself, a liberated soul.
With time I learn that it is not a sin
To be closer to your true self.
Lidia Popa was born in Romania in the locality of Piatra Șoimului, in the county of Neamț, on 16th April, 1964. She finished her studies in Piatra Neamț, Romania with a high school diploma and other administrative courses, where she worked until she decided to emigrate to Italy.
She has been living for 23 years and worked in Rome as part of the wave of intellectual emigrants since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
She wrote her first poem at her age of seven. She is a poet, essayist, storyteller, recognized in Italy and in other countries for her literary activities. She collaborates with cultural associations, literary cenacles, literary magazines and paper and online publications of Romanian, Italian and international literature. She writes in Romanian, Italian and also in other languages as an exercise in knowledge.
BOOKS
She has published her poems in six books:
in Italy:
1. ” Point different ( to be ) ” – ed. Italian and
2.” In the den of my thoughts ( Dacia ) ” – ed. bilingual Romanian/ Italian AlettiEditore 2016,
4. ” The soul of words” ed. bilingual Romanian/ Albanian Amanda Edit Verlag 2021,
5.” Syntagms with longing for clover ” ed. Romanian, EdituraMinela 2021.
6.” The Voice interior ” LidiaPopa and BakiYmeri ed. bilingual Romanian/Italian, Amanda Edit Verlag 2022.
Her poems featured in more than 50 literary anthologies and literary magazines on line from 2014 to 2023 in Italy, Romania, Spain, Canada, Serbia, Bangladesh, United Kingdom, Liban,USA,etc.
Her poems are translated into Italian, French, English, Spanish, Arabic, German, Bangladesh, Portuguese, Serbian, Urdu, Dari, Tamil, etc.
Her writings are published regularly with some magazines in Romania, Italy and abroad.
She is a promoter of Romanian, Italian and international literature, and is part of the juries of the competitions.
She translates from classical or contemporary authors who strike for the refinement and quality of their verses in the languages: Italian, Romanian, English, Spanish, French, German, stating that “it is just a writing exercise to learn and evolve as a person with love for humanity, for art, poetry and literature “.
SHE IS
*Member of the Italian Federation of Writers (FUIS)
*Honorary member of the International Literary Society Casa PoeticaMagia y Plumas Republic of Colombia,
*Member of Hispanomundial Union of Writers (Union Hispanomundial de Escritores) (UHE) and Thousands Minds For Mexico (MMMEX)
*President UHE and MMMEX Romania, August 21, 2021
*She had come power of attorney Vice-president UHE Romania, Mars18, 2021- August 21, 2021
*President UHE and MMMEX Romania, August 21, 2021
*Counselor from Italy for Suryodaya Literary Foundation Odisha India,
*Director from Italy for Alìanza Cultural Universal (ACU) Argentina
*Member Motivational Strips Oman,a member of numerous other literary groups at the level internationally,
*Director of Poetry and Literature World Vision Board of Directors (PLWV) Bangladesh
*Membership of ANGEENA INTERNATIONAL NON PROFIT ORGANISATION of Canada
International Peace Ambassador of The Daily Global Nation International Independent Newspaper from Dhaka Bangladesh – 2023
*Founder literary group Lido dell’anima with LIDO DELL’ANIMA AWARDS
*Founder LIDO DELL’ANIMA Italian magazine
*Founder SILVAE VERBORUM INTERNATIONAL multilingual magazine
“The sharpness of mind is never born in harmonious conditions” (Haruki Murakami).
If we look at the origin of someone’s poetry through that prism, then Umid Najjari would be its prominent representative. His literary description and narration confirm that he is a highly intellectual and artistically delicate poet. His poetry is not distant or alien and has no boundaries. His fragile written word has a mighty power of artistic creation, and this is exactly the impression given by the poems in his collection Photo of Darkness.
Umid Najjari was born in 1989 in Tabriz – East Azerbaijan Province, in northwestern Iran. After completing his studies at Islamic Azad University of Tabriz (2016), he continued his postgraduate studies at Baku Eurasia University, Faculty of Philology in Azerbaijan. As a writer, journalist and translator, he published the books “The land of the birds” and “Beyond the walls”, which stand out in his work. His poems have been translated into many world languages and published in the USA, Canada, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Georgia and many other countries. He is the winner of “Samad Behrangi” Award (2016) and “Ali bey Hoseinzadeh” Award (2019). He was awarded the “Mihai Eminescu” Award in 2022. He was awarded the International Prize “Medal Alexandre The Great” in 2022. Najjari has also been elected Vice-President of the BOGDANI international writers’ association, with headquarters in Brussels and Pristina. And he is an active member of the Turkic World Young Authors Association.
By combining life and literary experience, Najjari writes poetry that evokes inviolable sense of depth with his readers. Sometimes pointless and ungenerous descriptions reveal the essence and and let us travel from apparently meaningless to the deep meaningful, from abstraction to real stronghold of events, and by its authenticity they attract the reader to explore further through his poems and to return to them again and again.
A poet of the original style, deep in himself, does not divide the past and the present as the two different spheres, but perceives them as equally dominant and represented with the same intensity in his life.
There is no harmony between them, expressing deep emptiness and loneliness in his life:
“everything seen in a mirror is loneliness…” (the poem “A homeland as big as umbrella”).
There are many and diverse relationships present in the poem, from immeasurable love to immeasurable nostalgia.
As the themes of Najjari’s poetry, besides longing and helplessness ‘the shadow of longing enters us….sometimes the laughter is the last breath of crying’ (The Shadow of Longing), the poets draws hints of tragedy in his descriptions – ‘sad black stones in cemeteries’ (The Shadow of tree) that sometimes even have apocalyptic tones.
Night pains…
Darkness shot into his lap….
So we cannot fly …” (,, I Fire a Match”)
(implication of despair, variation of sorrow and suffering, a step curled up in despair)
…
‘a pile of fire on the cross…’
Rebellious, unstoppable restlessness of fire is a picture of eternal movement, a world full of opposites, the scene of the constant struggle of opposing forces of light and darkness….. Heraclitus)
The light is a reflection of hope, and the frequent return to a night in poems reminds us of torturous reality, and various sides of dark forces and evil fate of the centuries…
His poetry weeps over the fate of the world, over darkness, without a stronghold of posterity. In his poem The Symphony of Separation he tries to find an escape in oblivion. The lack is strong (Telegram), passing through an awareness of freedom of choice and the need to live.
The poem Absurd mentions Zarathustra, the ancient philosopher, underlining his idea of the essence of our existence represented by the constant struggle between light and darkness, good and evil.
The unequal verses and intermittent rhythm of his poetry remind us of Mayakovsky’s writing. He even mentions him in the same poem by saying: ,,The side of Mayakovsky in my body hurts’, emphasizing the lyrical creation of the suicidal instinct and near death….
Above all the poet glorifies love, in various relations, as the most important and motivating thought in the essence of our being:
‘Open your hands, protect me from the winds, keep me from drying out my eyes….’ (‘They are all excuse’).
This is just one of the possible interpretations of Umid Najjari’s individual and extraordinary poetry.
