Posts Tagged ‘Salvatore Ala’
Sweet Gratitude
“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”
~Albert Schweitzer
The Place for Unhappiness: Interview with Bulgarian poet, Peycho Kanev
I am part of the Balkan tradition. All of these dark memories are part of me, they are inside my blood, inside my mind. They dwell inside me. And, of course, they become part of my poetry, too.
Read MoreThe Primordial Dreams of Aron Wiesenfeld
Many artists enter the dream world, but few can so inhabit it as to give us not only its semblance but the meaning of the dream. Wiesenfeld’s genius lies both in the interiority of his figures and in the exteriority of his dreamscapes.
Read MoreA Poet Talks About Fatherhood
It happened quite naturally. I liked to quote lines of poetry for them. Once when we were visiting the Atlantic coast and watching the waves crash and the sea spray spouting up, I quoted a favorite line from Hart Crane’s poem, “The Dance”: “what laughing chains the waters wove and threw.” My children never forgot that. Several years later when looking at another wild body of water, they would remind me of that same line.
Read More“Find Yourself by Serving Others:” Interview with Sam Hamill
I think the burden we bear as artists is often a burden of privilege. We’ve “made it” to a place wherein we can search for art or discuss the meaning of being or search our own souls for the sweet sad music our angels make. Understanding how lucky we are to have the opportunity to make art of our speech, for whom shall we speak? The song of the self soon grows stale, while the songs of engagement bind us and poultice our wounds and open our hearts to the world. Chuang Tzu lived in a harsh cruel world and yet had the courage to dream he was a butterfly.
Read More“All I Want Is to Be Opened” Interview with Joseph Fasano
“A poem might end up looking terribly mysterious—I hope it does—but if it’s resisted baring itself, it’s failed. Fragmentation and ellipticism may be aesthetic strategies, but resistance isn’t. All I want is to be opened.”
~Joseph Fasano
In Pursuit of the Sublime
Many of the sights and sounds we’re subjected to in our society are harsh and disturbing. Psychologically and spiritually toxic. Scenes of cruelty, vindictiveness, ugliness and pettiness saturate the media and poison the mental atmosphere. I like the fact that I am sending out into the world images, pictures, little visions, that may do a tiny bit to counteract all that and communicate a sense of beauty, gentle humanity, grace, even holiness. It makes me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile in this sad, sad world.
Read MoreSamuel Peralta: The Physics of Poetry
“A poet looks at the world a little differently from others, and so does a scientist. I am very fortunate to be both. I find beauty in the cosmological consequences of dark matter, as much as I do in the written and spoken word. I appreciate the beauty in Heisenberg’s principle as much as Matisse’s economy of line. I’m probably one of the few poets in the world who literally dreams about tensor equations.”
~Samuel Peralta, physicist and award-winning author of Sonata Vampirica
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