The poem has three themes: reflection, regret and hope.
What motivated you to write this poem?
I was reflecting about last year’s global events, where I as a writer could contribute with a written word on acceptance and nurturing of human diversity.
How long have you been writing poetry?
I have been writing over ten years. It has been a journey and still is of continuous learning through participation in events and contests, studying available materials and reading others’ works. The latter took sometimes as I didn’t wish to be influenced in my writing style. In time, I realised that I can be authentic while reading and listening to other poets.
If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
It would be Beatrix Potter, for her knowledge in mycology. I would involve her as an illustrator too. We would chat about the sequel of my picture book ‘Lamellia: The Kingdom of Mushrooms’. The story is about high advanced mushroom society, who found a human baby alone in the forest. Their king decides to adopt it and orders Lamellians to use their abilities to care for it.
What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?
I have submitted my works before. What I said then and remain so is, I like the idea of using different media channels to portray my work, especially because I don’t enjoy making public appearances. So your platform is perfect for me to co-share the skill of writing and performing with someone else.
Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?
I have published books on fantasy/adventure/educational tales with moral lessons. In the published portfolio is also a novella and anthology of thoughts. For anyone interested to
know more, I am giving free books to visitors on my website.
What is your passion in life?
Writing is and concurrently a tremendous courage. The courage to – expose thoughts in public, accept rejection, accept criticism, make mistakes, resolve own problems, find own style and keep writing. As long as it is a passion and I place no limits to my imagination or not allow rules to distract me, I will never run out of a desire to write.
Waking up in early morning hours and having a dreamlike inspiration. What is inspiration? Having lots of fantasy and starting to realise it and to handle it can change your life 🙂
What motivated you to write this poem?
Following fantasy and dreams and looking for ways to ‘make them real’ is a great motivator for our lives. This poem depicts how I have started the year 2016 – to the end of the year I have found my reality. I am a poet and this is the path for me.
How long have you been writing poetry?
I have written poetry from ‘91 to ‘98 but showing it only to friends and school mates. I have started to write again 2013.
If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
Lady Gaga – I have had a crush on her music lately, loving ‘Marry the night’. Good music needs also good lyrics.
What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?
I find it a great idea! Some years ago I have seen something like this on TV and liked it. Such performances are refreshingly attracting more people to arts and to poems.
Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?
I write short stories, one of them ‘The calm river’ was submitted in autumn 2016 to a publishing contest and is now available on my Facebook Page (would love if you can link to it! http://bit.ly/dora-calm-river)
What is your passion in life?
I am a professional dreamer searching for my Self – the biggest adventure nowadays.
If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?
I wished to share the life of one lost to the world
Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?
I have written 4 non-fiction books, a number of short stories, I have written, produced and edited the “Profiler” magazine, five feature scripts and one short.
What is your passion in life?
To do all I can to prevent suffering and starvation of the populace (including animals) and protect children.
I read the newspaper article about the stepmother and grandmother running this poor child to death. I knew someone needed to speak for her and for others who are the victims of abuse.
How long have you been writing poetry?
I started when I was about 8 years old and I have about every poem or verse I have written since then.
If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
Mother Teresa. Her love, patience, and wisdom have always inspired me.
What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?
I had planned to create it in multimedia myself, however, my diabetes resulted in cataracts, a hearing loss and nerve damage to my hands. While I do plan on creating the piece in multimedia, I wanted to get this piece out there and share it. I felt that a professional actor would give it the emotions it deserved.
Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?
I write verse, poems, and inspirational articles. On the quirky side, I write prose about the Walking Dead, at my blog: http://twd-coda.tumblr.com/. I used to play the piano long ago (started in 2nd grade) and used to be an illustrator.
What is your passion in life?
I am a creative. It is part of everything I do, and everything that I am.
Most of my writing is very emotional and heartfelt. Some even consider it dark. I struggled to explain “the why” in my first YouTube Video entitled “My Child” which was about the Haiti tragedy. When I posted My Child, the reason of why I share my writing, became clear: Sometimes, sorrow must be shared ~ so that we can feel as one, mourn as one, heal as one….
Eventually, I want to create a multimedia channel called Voices Silenced, and be a voice for those who are unable to tell their story.
It’s about catharsis. Waking up. These things move me not kind of stuff. Whether it’s external b.s. or internal b.s. If we don’t learn to let go and stop being our own worst enemy, we don’t change. If we keep failing the same tests? We keep getting thrown back into the same place, only to be tested over and over again until we learn to let go and stop being slaves and victims to circumstance and bad habits. Only I can do that for me and only you can do that for you. Join me. It’s a cleansing.
What motivated you to write this poem?
I can’t control how they’ll respond. I hope they enjoy it and that they connect to it and to me in some way that is meaningful to them. I’m trying to connect with them. Whatever floats their boat when it comes down to it. If it doesn’t resonate with some, that’s okay too.
How long have you been writing poetry?
In elementary school when I had to for a project. Very sporadically since.
Do you have a favorite poet?
I’m not a real learned reader of the greats. Coleridge’s Kubla Khan because it’s so powerful. Describing the indescribable. It’s powerful, beautiful, terrifying and enigmatic. He was brilliant. I like things that are contemplative. With music, there’s too many to mention. Maynard James Keenan, Roger Waters and David Gilmour’s lyrics make me contemplate their meaning, and I like that. They are sublime.
What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?
Sounded like a cool idea. Get it out there.
Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?
Just finished a major revision of my first novel-length manuscript. Wrote a script and shot a short film based on the manuscript (Cuckold Picasso- there’s a trailer on youtube, cuckoldpicasso.com and IMDb).
What is your passion in life?
My family, my writing, and making sure I’m doing things that inspire me. I didn’t for a long time and my quality of life was not what is in today. I began writing seriously two years ago. It changed my life.
It’s meant to be internalized: Learn from life’s lessons. Don’t repeat the same energy-draining and futile cycles that put you back where you started every time. There’s a different way. Don’t resist life which can seem tumultuous on the surface and in the external, and don’t be a slave to voices of fear posing as you in your thoughts to guide you. Don’t stay in your comfy shallow end where you are barely alive. Plunge into the deep waters i.e. Life to find the peace beneath the chaos, exposing the lies on the surface. The chaos will pass over you like a wave you dive beneath. It’s hard to swim out into the water when you try to run through breaking waves or jump over them. Dive underneath them and let them pass over you. As a metaphor for life, when you do this, life doesn’t have to be such a struggle. As the apostle Paul said “But none of these things (his troubles) move me .”
He’d had an epiphany. The bolt of lightening striking down a water spout – which is a terrifying sight- a tornado reaching from the ocean to the skies is symbolic of a channel. I put “Lightening Rod” in parenthesis because the subject in the poem gets hit with a powerful realization from beyond. He becomes conducive to getting hit with a powerful charge of Light when he swims into the deep waters fearlessly.
How would you like people to respond when they read or watch your poetry reading?
However they want. If they really get it, and each section deals with different internal struggles, that’s awesome. Most people won’t, but some part may speak truth to them whether they totally understand why or not. It’s a contemplative poem, meant to be internalized. Even a poet, speaking for myself, doesn’t always know what their poems ultimately mean, nor does the wisdom in their poems reflect their ability to be an expert at practicing what comes through in the process. So I’m as much a contemplating reader as anyone else. I just happen to be the channel this one came through.
How long have you been writing poetry?
Everyone writes poems in class when they are children. I was very good at it as far as winning best in class or being sent to some conference when forced by a teacher to write it. I only use it now when I am procrastinating writing my novel or as a warm up to writing it. I am speaking to people who think you have to be some bookish kid who wrote in journals from the time they were in diapers to pursue writing. If it’s a calling it’s a calling. If you have talent you have talent. We can a hone our talents for sure.
I never did any of that with poetry, though a novel is a different animal which requires help and guidance. A nagging voice to write never left me and so I finally decided to shut the voice up and pursue it. I don’t work at it (poetry) it’s just something that comes very easily to me. I don’t put any effort into becoming a master poet. Some people can paint without effort or play the piano brilliantly without formal lessons or practice. I can just do this for reasons I can’t explain. It’s natural.
Do you have a favorite poet?
Honestly I don’t read a lot of it. My life philosophies are very similar to Coleridge and Emerson. I love Kubla Khan though I haven’t a clue what it means and neither does anyone else. It just says something true I can’t quite grasp. And I love that. It hits me. Whoever truly wrote the Emerald Tablet, that is an epic deep poem someone could spend a lifetime studying. Isaac Newton and many others transcribed that thing. It resonates with Truth.
And let’s not forget music. Pink Floyd, especially for me, wrote beautiful and contemplative lyrics. Philosophical. Bob Dylan is a poet. The ideas in lyrics and the beat and melody of a song often directly influence poems like this. Without a particular Pink Floyd song, I wouldn’t have written this poem. I sort of spun it off tangentially from one word of a song. So don’t forget the lyricists who are poets and the musicians who they are in synch with. A lop of rappers are amazing poets as well.
What influenced you to submit to WILDsound and have your poetry performed by a professional actor?
Sounded fun. I saw that WILDSound would accept poems for free, they’ve written phenomenal reviews for a short screenplay of mine “Cuckold Picasso” which is a short film on the festival circuit doing quite well. I was curious to see how well I measured up with others who submit poems. I have a confidence, not a cockiness, about writing skills. I was testing their validity haha.
Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?
I’m revising my first novel. I wrote the 128k word first draft in ten months last year. I’ve written a short film script (it’s a film now) and I will write a feature film based on the novel when I’m finished with it. And yes, I used my poetry in the short film which I did not expect to do. And I love that, and they are the best lines in the film. It’s not a short film thats a poem reading. I worked a couple lines into the dialogue and it adds a powerful creepy element to a disturbing scene.
What is your passion in life?
Seek out and do that which is a little scary for me. I want to connect with people through my talents as a writer, poet and filmmaker. To communicate things that resonate universally. I want to connect to the Almighty. Last year, writing my manuscript, I realized that writing brought me closer to God. My novel is very dark, my short film is dark. But there is always a light there. Writing a novel involves a lot of trust especially when you’ve never done it. Staring at a blank screen and trusting that something will come through is critical. So it’s spiritual for me, even if I’m writing about horribly violent things. Things I’m dragging into the light subconsciously then consciously. Poetry is very much like that.
I’m not the source of any of it, it’s the truth. The best thing for me is to stay very humble and grateful when I get 500 pages when I wasn’t sure if I could write 50. Once the ego gets in the way, and I start thinking it’s me, I’m toast. That’s a personal philosophy. That’s when people experience writers’ block. I feel no pressure because my well-spring of creativity is eternal. Humility and gratitude are the keys.
So in life it’s connection (human and spiritual) and a strong desire to stretch the boundaries of my God-given talents. He planted the seeds. It’s my job to listen and act on my instincts. The little voice that tells us what to do. We need to listen to our gut more than our heads. Poetry helps me do that because it is very impulsive and I never set out to make some statement. I just write a line that is unrehearsed. Very simple. That it builds from there. The line doesn’t have to make sense either.
How would you like people to respond when they read or watch your poetry reading?
I want them to feel the rythms
and emotions of the poem as its a beautiful description of love and sentiments.
How long have you been writing poetry?
A year and half.
Do you have a favorite poet?
William Wordsworth and
William Shakespeare etc.
What influenced you to submit to WILDsound and have your poetry performed by a professional actor?
I believe that WILDsound is a very good platform for all of us, as every poem can be converted to a beautiful song so it would be so nice to see it as through.
Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?
POETRY FESTIVAL. Submit to site for FREE. Submit for actor performance. Submit poem to be made into film. 