Poetic Voice (and the Breath of Good Intention) - Essay by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

 

Poetic Voice (and the Breath of Good Intention)

 

                              The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  

                                                                   It is the source of all true art and science.  

                                                                                                          --Albert Einstein 

In the beginning was the word and it was borne on the breath of Spirit. Just how that spark of spirit is born within us, how it is nurtured by our impressions, sculpted into phrases, how it is shaped-- its rhythm and language-- remains unknown. At what moment does it slip from our lips, does it flow as a river from our hearts, ink from our minds. How exactly does it unfold on that brilliant horizon, that full moon of revelation.

 

Like any good messenger, the word falls away once it has delivered the meaning. It is the beauty of the meaning that resonates and endures. And, while all writing is a testimony of the human condition, poetry has the potential to awaken in us that dream which is most deep and profound. Who among us does not wish to realize a dream. Are we not all dreams realized—the dust of memory, the stuff that dreams are made of, the same DNA that we share with the stars? Are not all words born of imagination, illumination. Yet, poetry, unlike prose whose light is more direct, doesn’t spell everything out. It’s light, also reflective, is more indirect. We seem to glean meaning from it on an intuitive plane As in a condensation not unlike the conversion of a liquid to a vapor, it is a distilled wisdom.

 

Poetry is, after all, translation. It translates the same language to a new language… offers another way of saying the same thing, keys into associations and remembrances using metaphor, imagery, rhyme and rhythm. Like music, it evokes and is both familiar and strange. It is a key that opens a portal to the unconscious and helps us to understand on some scale without fully comprehending. Each of us holds remembrances, emotions, feelings hidden in darkness; developed and created as in a photographer’s darkroom destined to be born into light. Eager to be given a name. Some of the most obscure phrases can unlock the unconscious mind offering us a glimpse of light that might otherwise remain veiled. And, thus, poetry reigns in the world of the visibly Invisible. I am reminded that stars still shine even when we cannot see them.

 

Paradox is like that--neither this nor that—it both enlightens and obscures… remains in some way a mystery. Its strength is its vulnerability. The most powerful of words are airborne on the fragile breath of spirit. There is something so magical about language, especially in that moment when we connect with word's meaning --when everything is in alignment--the meaning of the word, the breath of good intention, the willingness to be open. There is a kind of holy synchronicity that occurs. It' s very much like being in a sacred space and receiving communion. This feeling which unites all people, no matter what our belief. Vibration—that which we, like meteors, fall short of putting into words.

 

As we invent through the vehicle of the word, we ourselves are reinvented by the word . In the beginning was the word... and with it came the SOUND! The sound of creation. Every time we utter a word-- be it spoken or written--we are recreating the world , our world--inspiring change and transformation. We have only to find our voice.

 

In bygone days I believe that there was more of an intention to write something beautiful. I think we’d all like to write something of beauty, but what is considered beautiful is evolving while it remains the same. Today, there is more poetry that is confessional as we want to better understand ourselves and the world around us. And, in these modern times, we are a little less inhibited and feel more free to express ourselves. We are also ever-aware of the possibility of being censored. Remember poor Federico Garcia Lorca. Nonetheless, we continue to strive to write something meaningful, something that imparts truth and, if one is fortunate, something that imparts wisdom. But, in order to effect change through language, it is important to be authentic, to originate, to present that which is no longer familiar so that one is forced to look through new eyes. Sometimes just by changing the order of the words one becomes more conscious and is able to see the world through another perspective. I recall what e.e. cummings said in one of my favourite poems of his : i thank you God for most this amazing day –that’s the first line... and the last two:

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

 

Sometimes, I like to think… now the eyes of my ears awake, now the ears of my eyes are opened. What would it be like to be that mindful?! To have that much empathy! One of the things poetry does for you is to put yourself in someone else s place. It nurtures empathy and compassion. This is badly needed in the world and no small thing. Everyone has a voice that needs to be heard.

While I love the written word on the page, I am reminded that intonation was our first language and am moved by the sympathetic vibration of the spoken. Both celebrate language and the human spirit. I also believe it is important to try to reach people, to speak our truth, to move people to change, I believe we can lift our voices towards that end--lift our spirits. There is something so elementally transformative about language-- when it comes alive.... and people, as well, in the creative process. How, when it is sounded through the instrument of the voice and the human emotional cadence and timbre, it opens so many windows and doors within.

Like most of you, I am drawn to attempting to solve the why and wherefore of Life's meaning. I want to know!! haha. Please tell me where the sky begins... and where it ends. Most of us have the desire to catch a glimpse of light, the familiar in the Unknown.  Perhaps, there is only ever a very thin horizon which separates us from one another The words communion. communication. community come to mind. What is communion other than finding a oneness, a wholeness , a witness. A connection.

 

Word is an extension of thought and expression—a good part of what makes us very human . Trying to connect to people, to meaning effects healing and change. Even when we are standing still we are still moving and wishing to be moved... to get somewhere. And, if you don't image (imagine) a place for yourself somewhere on the Large Screen of life, in the Larger Picture, you get left behind. That's why they call it Moving Pictures. For life is not a dead noun but a living verb. Love not just love, but loving. Loving is Everything. You may go a thousand miles and get nowhere… or never leave your room and yet traverse an entire Universe. The more significant home we carry is within our hearts-- love, kindness, a sense f humor. The humility to accept the challenge of darkness, to transform and be transformed. Perhaps, we are not so unlike word, itself ---the light we are buried in?

 

We are kept in the dark about so many things, whether for political reasons, personal or other unknown . Dark knows we are afraid of it. Wants only to be loved. Why not consider Dark our darkroom and give birth to ourselves? Turn negatives into positives by developing our perceptions. Be more capable of change and experience ourselves as being moved from fear to love. There is something about the duty of caring for the soul and realizing its potential. Humanity. It is one of the reasons I write, one of the reasons I go to listen to others. To you. I can't wait to hear your voice--what you have to say, to sing, next from your minds and hearts. Baring one's soul takes courage, but it is one of the most transformative experiences one can have. Be it written or spoken, whether from near or far, no matter who you are, we may all take comfort in the knowledge that we go our separate ways together. May we do it mindfully... and with grace.

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko was first introduced on the BBC and to the literary world by the legendary James Meary Tambimuttu of Poetry London–-publisher of T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Henry Miller and Bob Dylan, to name a few.  his death, it was his friend, the late great Kathleen Raine, who took an interest in her writing and encouraged her to publish.  A nominee for the Pushcart Prize, The Best of the Net, and a former San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion, she is widely published. Her work has appeared in (among others) XXI Century World Literature (which she represents France) and Maintenant : Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the recipient of two grants: one from Poets in Need, of which Michael (100 Thousand Poets for Change) Rothenberg is a co-founder; the second—the 2018 Generosity Award bestowed on her by Kathleen Spivack and Joseph Murray for her outstanding service to international writers through SpokenWord Paris where she is Writer/ Poet in Residence.  Her selected poems On the Way to Invisible is forthcoming in 2024.

Poetry Essay - Geranium Pots and Keys and One Poem by Margaret Kiernan

 

Voice for the Wolf

-First person POV

 

Desolation, measured odds

wind cries through ravines

spring floods gain impetus, echo

to the city markets

Eco banter

with Hedge funds.

 

Hunted fleeces long-ago

when men got mine put down

 our odds of survival

were estimated

 now rising heat and melted floes

leave out consent.

They are afraid to wear my coat.

 

Going higher above the canopy

to my abode

I contemplate

centuries of extinction

it runs back to now.

Survive to fail is not my call

fur traders have gone home

 to their Gods

yet the axe persists.

It is a pen.

 

Whooshing eagles fly up mountains

wavering in flight

like weary commuters going home

their feathered wings carry

above the wrung-out

sedition of governments

 uncoordinated’

with natures choirs.

Essay Poetry

Geranium Pots and Keys

by Margaret Kiernan

 

Those days long gone of un-locked front doors and keys left beneath the Geranium pots are now almost forgot. People would say they never happened. Not in their country anyhow. They hadn’t a front door.

As children we did call unannounced to say howdy to our unrelated Grandmothers at their houses. We brought them news. Asked questions. Were noisy too.

Those days before families took their aged and placed them with strangers. Taken out and placed in residential uncaring homes. No outsiders allowed in to mingle without a hullabaloo of paperwork to say who you are, checks and balances or police permit requirements. Are they locked in or are we locked out? Can we get her out, that lady that sits forlorn beside the window and looks at walkers move along the river path? Have her closer?

Remember the age of Myths and Druids. Living out silence into grey stone walls. When people knew God from within. The memory of knowing and its peace. Then bushes thrived, wedged into rocky soil. Beauty may have started with nature, or not. Humankind being part of it, chipped into the balance, arrived at Power, while ethics was gone on a sabbatical to somewhere. Perhaps loaned out. Tensions on shifting grounds.

That piece of land with road frontage became the demand. Raged about in brown envelopes and in the road-train to Bally-go-lightly. Sheltered in the Corporate Tents.

Where had beauty gone, why did it leave, now it was all curlicues, that bitter turned down mouth without a smile. Politicians and small-bit players  standing hours in the  rain, queue to meet the dead, at least say hello to the next of kin.

In 2019’ the plague arrived to assist the career politicians, for then they could leave condolences on- line, keep the two-metre distance, no handshakes. Before the vaccination card show-down. Before the leak of mica from cement. Keep that distance, things are tumbling down.

History comes in layers, colour coded to separate. Remembering remains a faulty thing. What gets left out, or what’s put in?

Days of climate retribution have arrived. Collaboration and mutual assistance are the currency of survival. Butter mountains will drop away, there will be those that say they never were such mountains. Butter found in ancient bogs is well documented.

Housing estates on water-planes ought not be allowed those directives are now saying. Stamped in official legalese and twenty- seven E U  stars. The bogs are to be preserved. Water must find its own level.

The sun will allow us warm through. Storytellers will speak their truths. Glimpse the dawn and rest our elbows upon a gate, gaze at pastures full of flowers. Take time to live, reflect on who we are. The resistance has passed. Now the mood is let us get to the task. The beat of the Heart never more pro-found.

 

Margaret Kiernan is an Irish author and a Best of The Net Nominee for Creative Non-Fiction Award, 2021 and, 2022. She writes fiction, creative non-fiction, essay, memoir, and poetry. She has had poetry and prose published in hard back, in e-book and, on-line, also, in literary journals and magazines. She has multiple short stories and poems in anthology collections and cultural publications.

The Arts Council of Ireland awarded her a Professional Development Bursary, with Westmeath County Council Arts Office, 2021.

The following lists the places she is published in:

 

Live Encounters Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The Ekphrastic Review.

The Galway Review, Wildfire Words/Frosted Fire, The Irish Literary Times,

Tim Saunders Publishing, Black-lion Press/Cathal Bùi/Belcoo Poet,

The Blue Nib Literary Journal, Writing In a Woman’s Voice Journal.

Wilderness House Literary Review and Press.

Pendemic.ie Journal-covid nineteen collection,- archived at University College Dublin.

Poet-Head.Wordpress.com.( Collection in Women Poet’s in Ireland, Live archive at The National Library of Ireland Dublin 2 and at University College Dublin, Bellfield, Dublin )  

The Write Life Literary Magazine, Arc Magazine. India, Outlookindia.com,

Red Fern Review. Civic Leicester poetry, Corncrake Literary Magazine.

The Burrow Literary Journal & publishing press, Brave  New World,

Visual Verse, Bath Flash Fiction, Dragonfly Haiku Poetry Journal.

The Daily Haiku, Sand Journal Magazine, Vox Galvia, Galway Advertiser broadsheet.

A New Ulster, Literary Press.

 

Margaret writes with Over the Edge on Thursdays advanced poetry workshop/reading group at Galway Arts Centre. Facilitated by Mr Kevin Higgins, Poet.

She is a member of Ox Mountain Poets, Sligo.

She is listed in the Index of Contemporary Women Poets in Ireland, 2020.

She holds a Degree in Arts in Humanities in Advocacy from Sligo Institute of Technology.

An International Degree in Business Management, from Sheffield University and Technological University of the Shannon.

Her background is in Advocacy in Human and Social Rights. She is a Democracy activist.

Margaret has completed courses and workshops in writing, for prose and poetry. Tutors in poetry include,

Annemarie Ni Churainn, Martin Dyer, Colm Keegan, Monica Corish, Moyra Donaldson, Anne McMaster, Noel Monahan (Master Series), Kevin Higgins, Dr Arthur Broomfield.

Tutors in prose includes, Jan Carson, Claire Allan, Anne McMaster, Conor Kostick, Carlo Gebler, Malacai O’Doherty, Lynda Kirby, Ciara Doorley and, Susan Millar Dumars.

Margaret has four grown-up children. She lives in Westmeath with her dog Molly.

She paints in Watercolours and acrylics and has the following interests. Nature, philosophy, astrology, gardening, music, spirituality, archaeology, and historical heritage.