Poetry Rules

Summer comes as a blessing, It is definitely the season in which I manage to come to terms with my creative side. I write, I read, I watch movies and I try to soak in as much art as possible. Since last June I have read more books than I'd thought I might be able to. Here is a list of ten I have been reading or am currently reading. They are all novels or short stories collections. Indeed I love my poetry, but I tend to read more poetry during the rest of the year! 1) John Claude Smith , Riding the Centipede ( Omnium Gatherum , 2015) Riding the Centipede is John's debut novel. I was curious to read it, as I have always enjoyed his writing. John loves his winding tours into the weird and this is indeed a ride, but I strongly encourage you to give it a spin. Here are some of the ingredients: a private investigator, a Hollywood socialite, a ghost choosing to Ride the Centipede to the ultimate experience, William S. Burroughs, Marylin Monroe, Frida Kahlo's lost paint...

It seems I am writing poems again after being on a hiatus. I am not one of those writers/poets who sits at the desk and starts writing. I cannot force myself to write, if I do, I will end up writing a poem without "voice." I always "struggle" with my Muse. I realize many consider the Muse unnecessary to write. Many believe that writing comes from hard work only. True, but then I guess I must belong to a different breed of writers. I love the act of creation when it happens, but I also know that I can't open my notebook, stare at the blank page and fill it for the sake of filling it. Writing comes to me. It is a gift. Something triggers my imagination and words pour on the page.  And, I hardly ever edit my poems. When they come to me, they are "perfect." Or, so they seem to me. Humbert and Lolita made their appearance in the first poem I wrote a few days ago. I was thinking at how, as much as I love Nabokov , I detest his novel  Lolita . I must confes...

Just Like When Hadrian Wrote Poems hidden in the Maritime Theater - his room of his own - quill in hand on the artificial island surrounded by waters rich in carps, reflecting the marble colonnade, fighting his sporadic moods and talking in Greek and Latin to his two Muses, skipping the occasional stone on the pond of his writing, reflecting on life’s end with the lucidity of his ink. Animula, vagula blandula Hospes comesque corporis Quae nunc abibis in loca Pallidula rigida nudula, Nec, ut soles, dabis iocos… It’s that flow of his writing I feel today waking in me amidst the yelling cicadas and the twisted olive trees in his Villa in former Tibur, walking along the statues mirroring themselves in the Canopus. There is Mars on the warpath, shield in hand and there winged Mercury  almost ready to soar with the local iridescent dragonfly. Headless Venus winks her eye  to Antinous’ head drifting ...