WAVERING SHADOW

WAVERING SHADOW

ANGEL MICHAEL

seeking shelter

under the golden wings

of Angel Michael

a prayer away now

whispers the moon in cloud

 

 

--R.K.Singh

POET OF THE MONTH

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Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), whose real name is Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, was born on 12 July, 1904, in the town of Parral in Chile. His father was a railway employee and his mother, who died shortly after his birth, a teacher. Some years later his father, who had then moved to the town of Temuco, remarried doña Trinidad Candia Malverde. The poet spent his childhood and youth in Temuco, where he also got to know Gabriela Mistral, head of the girls' secondary school, who took a liking to him. At the early age of thirteen he began to contribute some articles to the daily "La Mañana", among them, Entusiasmo y Perseverancia - his first publication - and his first poem. In 1920, he became a contributor to the literary journal "Selva Austral" under the pen name of Pablo Neruda, which he adopted in memory of the Czechoslovak poet Jan Neruda (1834-1891). Some of the poems Neruda wrote at that time are to be found in his first published book: Crepusculario (1923). The following year saw the publication of Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada, one of his best-known and most translated works. Alongside his literary activities, Neruda studied French and pedagogy at the University of Chile in Santiago.

Between 1927 and 1935, the government put him in charge of a number of honorary consulships, which took him to Burma, Ceylon, Java, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Madrid. His poetic production during that difficult period included, among other works, the collection of esoteric surrealistic poems, Residencia en la tierra (1933), which marked his literary breakthrough.

The Spanish Civil War and the murder of García Lorca, whom Neruda knew, affected him strongly and made him join the Republican movement, first in Spain, and later in France, where he started working on his collection of poems España en el Corazón (1937). The same year he returned to his native country, to which he had been recalled, and his poetry during the following period was characterised by an orientation towards political and social matters. España en el Corazón had a great impact by virtue of its being printed in the middle of the front during the civil war.

In 1939, Neruda was appointed consul for the Spanish emigration, residing in Paris, and, shortly afterwards, Consul General in Mexico, where he rewrote his Canto General de Chile, transforming it into an epic poem about the whole South American continent, its nature, its people and its historical destiny. This work, entitled Canto General, was published in Mexico 1950, and also underground in Chile. It consists of approximately 250 poems brought together into fifteen literary cycles and constitutes the central part of Neruda's production. Shortly after its publication, Canto General was translated into some ten languages. Nearly all these poems were created in a difficult situation, when Neruda was living abroad.

In 1943, Neruda returned to Chile, and in 1945 he was elected senator of the Republic, also joining the Communist Party of Chile. Due to his protests against President González Videla's repressive policy against striking miners in 1947, he had to live underground in his own country for two years until he managed to leave in 1949. After living in different European countries he returned home in 1952. A great deal of what he published during that period bears the stamp of his political activities; one example is Las Uvas y el Viento (1954), which can be regarded as the diary of Neruda's exile. In Odas elementales (1954- 1959) his message is expanded into a more extensive description of the world, where the objects of the hymns - things, events and relations - are duly presented in alphabetic form.

Neruda's production is exceptionally extensive. For example, his Obras Completas, constantly republished, comprised 459 pages in 1951; in 1962 the number of pages was 1,925, and in 1968 it amounted to 3,237, in two volumes. Among his works of the last few years can be mentioned Cien sonetos de amor (1959), which includes poems dedicated to his wife Matilde Urrutia, Memorial de Isla Negra, a poetic work of an autobiographic character in five volumes, published on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, Arte de pajáros (1966), La Barcarola (1967), the play Fulgor y muerte de Joaquín Murieta (1967), Las manos del día (1968), Fin del mundo (1969), Las piedras del cielo (1970), and La espada encendida.

Always by Pablo Neruda

I am not jealous
of what came before me.

Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!

Bring them all
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone on earth
to start our life!

Pyrokinection: A Poem by R.K. Singh

Pyrokinection: A Poem by R.K. Singh: Golden Reward   With sudden twists and turns popping up each new day life still awaits intrigues through meandering pathways I ...

DYING SUN

How does it matter

I remember or forget

the nights or lights

that stand still

in the dense fog

nothing visible

nor audible

the thundering planes

touch the ground:

it’s all game

of guess and vague

everyone

everything

even the tick

of the clock

this freezing hour

redolent of

crumbling echoes

I can’t divine vision

or loom up certainty

to mock follies

of dying sun

--R.K. SINGH, India

2013 INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE

SPLENDORS OF DAWN POETRY FOUNDATION

2013 INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE POEMS

TITLE:  I  AM A CHERUB

            I am cherub.                                                                                                                                                                                A winged child of peace. A new seed.   A voice.  A footprint.Sowing seeds of peace deep within.                                                                                                                                                                                                     

             Peace, that I be free.                                                                                                                                                                                                           

                         Peace that you be free.                                                                                                                                                                                   

                                   Peace that the world be free.

TITLE: COLOURS OF HEAVEN

Above the unpurged colours of heaven,we heard the peace song boom like sun-beams,                                                                                                                                                        spreading calm to drunken beats, and  a dance beyond the barns.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

TITLE:   PEACE ASLEEP

Peace has walked into sleep dauntless.Every shots, shouts and shame stab the dawn. In the drunken heart there is much foul data.The vain, vanquished and vandals cross old souls to purge our steps dead,as the mother of pain finds a nest.

TITLE:   WHO ARE YOU PEACE?           

Who are you?Who are you peace? Gloriously incomplete.The sky has not vanished like clouds, yet all path make the path where the sun and moon walk off each other.Broken trees, broken streams and broken birds,sit on pews here and there, singing to no one.Through the trenches. In the trenches season after season our arms have nothing left.                                                                                    Our minds sat here. Our minds sat there. Our minds sat everywhere.

Pilgrims in just about everything sang to no one.We saw tomorrow go into it with fire.                        Fear kept mosquitoes indoors aged and dreary.Everything, everyone, and everywhere flee from truth and beauty, row by row, round by round, it rains heavy fire.With being becoming being, we heard the souls voice back and forth.                                                                                                                         Our minds sat here. Our minds sat there. Our minds sat everywhere.

Our feet were as old as the sky when chaos walked into wrath.Our eyes listened to soaring sounds sucking just about everything, everyone and everywhere flee from truth and beauty,                 Tomorrow came frozen row by row, round by round, it rains heavy fire.                                         Brilliant anthills, walk past all plummet’s sound harmoniously. Yet a silent thunder burst. Souls with minds pregnant like the world drowned. Drown in being like clouds. Their scent blooms with flowers.                                                                                                                                                                         Our minds sat here. Our minds sat there. Our minds sat everywhere.

The trains ran fast and left smiles behind. All path match to fit all steps to heaven, where angels talk. A sacred whole.Who could with them?   Where is the part?  Where is the whole?                                  What a hot wind embracing us.When the dawn comes, who may own it? 

Some of the Spoken-word/Performance poetry by Young Splendors at  Accra Mall on 21/09/2013.    Poems written by: Ayo Ayoola-Amale esq.Muse of Poetic Harmony in Africa.                                                                                                    

Copyright2013 Splendors of Dawn.

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WE MOURN THE DEATH OF A POET & STATESMAN RIP PROF KOFI AWOONOR

PROFILE: Prof Kofi Awoonor, POET & WRITER

The Late Prof Kofi Awoonor

Kofi Awoonor was born on the 13 March 1935 in  Wheta,Ghana. He was a Ghanaian poet and author whose work combines the poetic traditions of his native Ewe people and contemporary and religious symbolism to depict Africa during decolonization.
He wrote his first poetry book while at the University of Ghana.  His first poetry book, Rediscovery. like the rest of his work, is based on African oral poetry.
He managed the Ghana Film Corporation and founded the Ghana Play House. He studied literature at the University of London. While in England he wrote several radio plays for the BBC.
He wrote his book titled This Earth, My Brother, and My Blood while he was in the USA. Awoonor returned to Ghana in 1975 as head of the English department at the University of Cape Coast.  Awoonor was Ghana’s Ambassador to the United Nations (1990 to 1994).