Maja Milojković was born in 1975 in Zaječar, Serbia. She is a person to whom from an early age, Leonardo da Vinci’s statement “Painting is poetry that can be seen, and poetry is painting that can be heard” is circulating through the blood. That’s why she started to use feathers and a brush and began to reveal the world and herself to them. As a poet, she is represented in numerous domestic and foreign literary newspapers, anthologies and electronic media, and some of her poems can be found on YouTube. Many of her poems have been translated into English, Hungarian, Bengali and Bulgarian due to the need of foreign readers. She is the recipient of many international awards. “Trees of Desire” is her second collection of poems in preparation, which is preceded by the book of poems “Moon Circle”. She is a member of the International Society of Writers and Artists “Mountain Views” in Montenegro, and she also is a member of the Poetry club “Area Felix” in Serbia.
Judge Santiago Burdon offers his new collection A Charlatan’s Aphorisms for review. Please contact us if you’re interested and we’ll put you in touch with him for a copy.
This is a Best of Collection of both past and new poetry by Judge Santiago Burdon. They were selected by dedicated readers and past publishers. Some have appeared in his books “Not Real Poetry” and “Tequilas Bad Advice Poetry With the Worm.” Judge Santiago Burdon’s poetry is a sophisticated slap in the face. The imagery induces you to clear your throat and shift your weight from one side to the other. Santiago doesn’t waste his words in an attempt to make you comfortable. As a poet he delivers defined grit and structured devastation. He speaks in the language of gasoline fumes and stale cigarette smoke. Always honest and fearless, never apologizing. Know that I am a fan.”
(Jack in the box popping out on the cover of Santiago’s book)
Now for our second October issue, The Shared Human Imagination. In this issue, we look to and draw upon our own creativity and love and that of the many who came before us.
Diana Magallon crafts visual poetic pieces on the movement of the ocean. Dilnura Qurolova highlights the importance of ecology and environmental awareness. Brian Barbeito probes the worlds within worlds in out-of-the-way corners within nature.
Raquel Barbeito’s visual art stylizes nature-based images. Kylian Cubilla Gomez’ photography presents images of cultivation, humans carefully sharing space with and working with the natural world.
Otayeva Dinora highlights the dignity and importance of the teaching profession. Rayhona Sobirjonova offers up praise for a respected teacher as Saydinqulova Elenora Olimovna presents solid life advice in the form of a letter to a friend and classmate. Barnoxon Ruxieva celebrates Uzbekistan’s well-developed education system, in particular its Barkamol Avlod children’s schools.
Bardiyeva Dilnura evokes the poetic beauty of the Uzbek language. Charos Toshpulatova outlines the importance and unique value of sign language. Abduvahidova Farangiz compares and contrasts physical books and e-books. Nathan Anderson describes the finely crafted musical language of Sanjeev Sethi’s poetry collection Legato without a lisp.
In a piece of literary analysis, Z.I. Mahmud discusses how Philip Larkin’s poem Whitsun Weddings depicts social and ecological changes in England after the First World War.
Mark Young probes an imagined world in a fresh set of his “geographies,” digitally altered photos integrated with visual art. J.D. Nelson peers at the edges of his world through a fresh set of monostichs. Jim Meirose sends up a quirky story on pleasure and its aftermath. Jake Cosmos Aller depicts a fanciful wild night whirling and drinking through the solar system.
Fhen M. speculates on how the element of mystery attracts us to Magritte’s paintings. Soren Sorensen shares a sunset image and a metallic melting clock, perhaps Dali-inspired.
Stephen Jarrell Williams sends in gentle vignettes of hope and faith while Mahbub Alam describes love as one of humanity’s lofty aspirations.
Mesfakus Salahin considers his psychological complexity and fallibility in light of a great love that leaves him humbled. Duane Vorhees reflects on memory, love, and the ironies of life. Lan Qyqualla draws on history and memory in his poetic vignettes of love and connection. Ivan Pozzoni orates in English and Italian on human history, love, beauty, and tragedy.
Michael Robinson speaks to the peace he found through a relationship with Jesus.
Xavier Womack offers love and respect to a spiritual mother figure embracing the world. Leslie Lisbona reflects on the death of her mother and the empathy she finds through a classic novel and the broader human imagination.
Holy Henry Dasere laments some universal struggles of young womanhood as Graciela Noemi Villaverde highlights women’s determined struggle for equality and safety. Hilola Abdullayeva discusses ways to psychologically support people recently released from jail and prison.
A. Iwasa reviews activist and anti-fascist professor Josh Fernandez’ memoir The Hands That Crafted the Bomb as an exploration of how to take youthful brash exuberance into adulthood. Dr. Jernail S. Anand warns us about the danger of words to ignite hatred and violence, how the computer keyboard in the wrong hands can be more dangerous than a bomb.
Ahmad Al-Khatat’s poetry evokes sorrow over the loss of love and human experience as well as life in wartime. David Sapp speaks to how ordinary people react to global tragedies as Alexander Kabishev continues his grisly tales of the brutality Russians suffered during the siege of Leningrad. J.K. Durick explores new poetic ways the world could end.
Eva Petropoulou encourages the world to choose peace and tolerance as Daniel De Culla urges the world’s people to end the shameful tradition of hate. Mykyta Ryzhykh laments environmental destruction, war, and a personal heartbreak in his poetry. Pat Doyne pokes fun at Donald Trump’s style and ethics in her poem of warning.
Jacques Fleury urges us to get beyond our fear and welcome the “other,” those unlike us. Bill Tope’s poems highlight the pain children went through before we understood learning disabilities and neurodiversity.
Childhood is a time of adventure and wonderment. Isabel Gomez de Diego’s photos show a small child experiencing new spaces: a ship preserved on land with a carved mermaid on the prow, a park train with a red caboose.
As we grow, we try new things, sometimes get disappointed, learn, and move forward. Panijeva Dilnavo Shukurvna celebrates the youth of Central Asia and expresses her wish for her generation to thrive and triumph. Rukhshona Rasulova urges brave and dedicated work towards our goals. Orzigul Sherova highlights the importance of motivation in reaching one’s goals. Alex Stolis’ poems draw on addiction as a motif and speak to waiting, hoping, and being stuck.
Dilbar Koldoshova Nuraliyevna’s poetic speaker reflects on how her heart and intentions were pure, even if her goals did not work out.
Maja Milojkovic encourages us at any age to embrace blessings in our lives, with the understanding that they are temporary.
We hope that this issue will be thought-provoking and a blessing in your life.
Bardiyeva Dilnura is a student of the 7th grade of the creative school named after Ogahi. She was born on January 11, 2011 in Kosmabad, Khiva. She is a participant of the Hippo Olympiad and various Olympiads. At the same time, she is the author of several poems.
David Sapp, writer, artist, and professor, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawingstitled Drawing Nirvana.
I walked briskly west to 40th and Sixth to catch the F train home to Queens, where I lived with my parents. It was already dark and cold even though it was only 4pm, early for me to be leaving the bank, where I had worked for six years, since I turned 24.
In the station, there were a lot of people on the platform. An empty train arrived, and I got a seat. Commuters hung over me, so I bent my head down to my paperback copy of Wuthering Heights. It had been my mom’s favorite book when she was a girl. I was midway through, engrossed in the story of Catherine and Heathcliff.
I loved imagining my mom young. It wasn’t difficult, even though I came late in her life. We had so many black-and-white pictures from her youth in Lebanon, where I could tell she had lots of friends and was clowning in almost every shot. In one she hung upside-down on a metal bar; in others she was skiing, swimming, and sticking out her tongue.
In junior high, I used to think that if somehow my mom and I were classmates, she wouldn’t choose me as a friend. I would run through every possible scenario where we might become friends and turn over in my bed with a sinking feeling that it could never happen.
In school I was bookish and had only one or two friends. We wondered how we could become like the popular girls, but it seemed out of our reach.
My mom was popular even at age 66. She had many friends. She oozed charm and wit. Maybe it was because she was my mother, but I saw her as the vibrant center of any gathering. I admired the magnetism in her.
The subway car screeched to a halt as someone stepped on my black ballet flat. I looked up. It was my mother.
She never took the subway anymore. When I was a teenager, she was nearly choked in the turnstile by a mugger trying to grab her gold chain, which wouldn’t break. Instead she drove a Caprice Classic with velvet blue seats.
I couldn’t believe I was seeing her under the florescent lights of the subway car, amidst the advertisements for clear skin and hemorrhoid creams. She wore dangling earrings and looked glamorous. She seemed out of place, out of context in her stylish coat and high-heeled boots.
“Mom,” I said, loud enough for many to take notice.
“Lellybelle!” she said with a smile that embraced me.
I stood up, grabbed her arms, turned her in coordinated baby steps, and placed her in my seat. “What are you doing on the subway?” I asked
“My car broke down on 57th Street,” she said, brushing her brown hair out of her face.
She had been at a bridge tournament that day with her friend Mireille. She played all kinds of card games and was good at them. As we headed home together from the Forest Hills subway station along 108th Street, she told me that when she was walking down Lexington Avenue, she was overcome by perspiration, so much so that she went into a coffee shop and got napkins to wipe down her panty-hosed legs. “That’s weird,” I said. “Maybe you should go to a doctor.”
“Don’t be ridiculous” she said.
Instantly I stopped being ridiculous. We made a right on 68th Drive and were finally home.
Two days later, my mother collapsed.
That night as she was dying on the floral couch of our house, my sister, Debi, cradling her until the EMS arrived, I was on the subway. The trains were delayed. I got out at my exit; the air was arctic, my boots crunching on the snow, my breath visible in the night sky. Walking along 108th Street, I hopped aside as an ambulance went by, lights flashing and sirens wailing. I didn’t know it was racing down side streets to save my mother. I came home while they were trying to get her to breathe. A machine was doing it for her, and the ambulance took her to the hospital, but she was never able to wake up and breathe on her own. Four days later, declared brain dead, the apparatus was unplugged. For those four nights, my brother Dorian stood vigil at the foot of her bed.
Dorian and I left the hospital and made the arrangements at the funeral home and cemetery for a burial in the morning. That night, I fell into bed exhausted and depleted and finally went to sleep. I dreamed I was in bed with my mom having coffee. We were in her bedroom, which for some reason was on the first floor instead of the second, and we were wearing our nightgowns. Her gold bangles chimed as she lifted the cup from the saucer to drink. The doorbell rang. It was a couple, friends of my parents, a box of pastries in their hands. “Who was it?” my mom asked. “Valley and Marco,” I said and showed her all the goodies as if we had won a prize. As I was climbing back into the bed and getting settled for a grasse matinee, the doorbell rang again. “What’s going on?” my mom asked. I shrugged, ran to get the door to find more of her friends, and then got back into her bed. But as I snuggled next to her, smelling her smells, I realized that her friends, whom I’d known all my life, had looked at me with pity.
After the funeral, the friends who had populated my dream came to our door. It was the first night of the shiva. The friends had food just like in the dream, but my dream had been kinder.
I didn’t pick up Wuthering Heights again until the shiva was over and I had to go back to work. On the subway that morning, seated on the hard plastic orange seat, I opened the book to where I had left off.
The next chapter was the funeral of Catherine. I gasped. How had I stopped reading just before that point? Catherine saw Heathcliff again and was sick with regret. But I didn’t expect her to die. The shock of it made me cough out a sob. I closed the book and gathered myself. My mom was gone, brutally taken from me, like an excision. Here I was on the train, after an interruption of 10 days, going back to the mundane advertisements overhead like nothing had happened. But I had changed. I didn’t know how to be. I didn’t know how I was going to continue my life without my mother in it. I wasn’t ready to read a book and be in the subway. I wished I could look up and see her again, right there, stepping on my foot. My mom was in the hard cold ground in a cemetery in Queens, snow already covering her grave. The finality was savage.
My stop was next. I got up to leave the train, and with one last searching look, I stood clear of the closing doors.
Sanjeev Sethi’s latest full length collection of poetry, Legato without a lisp, is a work of exemplary fullness. A fullness of language and of intention. Comprising a collection of works rendered by a poet sure of his abilities and expression, it comes in its sheer robustness into an era marked by frail superficiality. Legato without a lisp is projected in its fullness to stand apart from the mere apparitions of art, those things that shout but barely speak, that garble as they scream with nothing to say. This is not at all in their company. This is a work solid and tangible.
It begins at the level of the line. Each feeling fully formed as though pulled from some remarkable ether and yet each line comes together, cobbled together with striking unity. Poetry born both together and apart. ‘Menarche left its mark/on your left leg’ – from Adolescence and ‘The meter of mederation fails/to direct my dinghy. A sneeze’ – from Effectuation are two such examples. This language, while transformative in its solidity, is not forceful, not violent but inviting, wise and open in its delivery. At times it almost comes like a sermon, Sethi pronouncing from his pulpit, tome in hand, somehow quiet yet booming. A gentle tone from an angel megaphone. A sound that does not speak with reluctance but with vigour.
All this is not to say that it does not have its moments of playfulness and humour. When the humour does come it comes with wit and with a sense of play that eschews the tired figure of the overly serious and dull artist. In passages such as ‘In Meatspace, we meet slices, too’ – from Rifeness, Sethi shows he’s not afraid to have fun. So too in the exemplary rhythms of the poems. They roll by on the gentle musicality, freely played with but always disciplined enough to not crumble into sing-song emptiness. You never get the manipulative feeling of being dragged into another’s song but feel compelled to sing along with Sethi’s gentle tune. ‘Do you know of anyone who dickers/with destiny? Meet the unsexed who,/like everyone, breathe some/more, and leave without a forwarding/address – from Olio, illustrated Sethi’s mastery of the rhythmic form.
The poems themselves are concerned with the movements of life, the chronological and the appreciative frozen moments where lyric poetry of this quality is born. At times political, at times gently instructive, at times traversing memory that concretes the past rather than descending into sentimental nostalgia. This shapes a world removed from attempts at the homogeneous universal and into the individual. The abstraction of the personal, the subjective waltz of place and time. One gets the feeling that Sethi has a mind for pondering the small moments of life and taking from them something entirely individual. These are not the rehashed platitudes of the churned out postcard poignancy of so much modern poetry. These stand alone. When Sethi writes lines like ‘Mortality forwards its memo,/through a long-lost friend./Senectitude wrests my mentor/and I am quietened by lines left by him;/as an impulse larger than me/chooses to triturate my ego’ – from Au Revoir, you sense his authorial presence in each utterance. He is not interested in the familiar, only in what he can grasp from life through his art.
Legato without a lisp is a book well worth the time. As an art object, it stands as a physical structure against the tide of so much that withers and falls, weak work created with so little thought apart from the on-trend and the easily consumable. Work that it is made to be quickly exhausted and disappear. Work that has no physicality and cannot stand. Sanjeev Sethi has here created a work that wishes to stand, that demands to be remembered. What more could one ask?
Nathan Anderson is a poet and artist from Mongarlowe, Australia. He is the author of numerous books and has had work appear widely both online and in print. He is a member of the C22 experimental writing collective. You can find him at nathanandersonwriting.home.blog or on Twitter/X/Bluesky @NJApoetry.
