“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, “This is what it is to be happy.” Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
THE POETRY ARCHIVE “extends an open invitation to you to participate in the upcoming OPA ANTHOLOGY of Poetry 2019 “SPIRIT OF NATURE”. The expected date of publication of this Anthology is 10th JULY 2019. We’ll be really obliged if you would contribute to this anthology with at least three poems along with your current profile picture. You can also add your short Bio written only in 3rd person narrative. Submission of poetry to our mail address will be considered as the explicit confirmation of your permission to publish your copyrighted materials in OPA ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY 2019. Please do send your contributions attached only in one single MS-WORD file with your mail at the earliest.”
Deadline: 10th June 2019
The email address for this ANTHOLOGY is opa.anthology@gmail.com
* .pdf file is not acceptable!
Thank You,
The Editorial Board:
Our Poetry Archive.
Thanks to German poet Aprilia Zank for sharing this lead with us. You can read some of Aprilia’s wonderful work here on The Poet by Day:
THANK YOU to Dilys Wood, Anne Stewart, and Myra Schneider for including me in Second Light Live Featured Poets for May with my poem One Lifetime After Another. The other featured poets with whom I am honored to be included are: Angela Croft, Clare Crossman, Fokkina McDonnell, Jenny Hamlett, Lynne Wycherley, Mimi Khalvati, Pam Zinnemann-Hope, Sue Wood and Vivienne Tregenza. Great little collection for your evening read and my apologies to Anne for not catching her email announcement until this late date. Second Light Live is the website for Second Light Network of Women Poets (UK). SLN publishes fabulous anthologies and “ARTEMISpoetry” one of my fave poetry magazines.
Poet and writer, I am a former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently, I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read byNorthern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
An interview of Dr. Aprilia Zank, poet, artist and lecturer for Creative Writing and Translation in the Department of Languages and Communication at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, by Dr. Jernail Anand, poet, writer and an established name in the field of education, philosophy, and spirituality. Originally published in Galaktika Poetike “ATUNIS” and shared here with both Aprilia’s and Dr. Anand’s permission. Enjoy! It’s rich.
LIFE, POETRY, ART and the WIRED UNIVERSE
ANAND: Zank, how do you look upon yourself essentially. Do you consider yourself a poet or a teaching professional who is conscientiously touched?
Dr. Aprilia Zank
ZANK: I consider myself a many-faceted humanist. I graduated university as a very promising professional, but I did not hesitate to put back my career ambitions for a while for the sake of child raising and education. Transmitting humanistic values to young generations, whether your own children or your students, is possible through both writing and teaching poetry. I was lucky to have the chance to do them concomitantly. Being a poet myself has been an optimal prerequisite for a better understanding of the creative process, and enabled me to select the most appropriate manner of approaching poetry in class.
ANAND: Let us know how you stumbled into poetry. Is there any parental legacy behind your interest?
ZANK: My affinity to poetry and literature dates back to my school time. I was fortunate to enjoy a thorough education both at school and at home. My parents’ professions were not very poetic, they were both judges, but they held literature and art in great esteem. We had a considerable collection of books at home, which offered me the possibility to get an early contact with universal literature. Furthermore, my mother, who had an amazing memory, used to recite poems and quote prose fragments from the most various books and authors. Thus, the challenge was early there for me to try and find my own poetical voice.
Dr. Jernail Anand
ANAND: You are a multi faceted personality. How do you align one aspect of your personality with the others? Don’t you think they overlap at times?
ZANK: My range of interests is indeed very wide. To my main occupations, teaching and writing, I must add my passion for photography, which I experience as a form of art and a most creative act of deciphering the world. There is poetry in photographic images, as well as pictorial effects in verse. I am pleased to say that many of my photos have been awarded in various competitions, and several have been used for poetry book covers or have served as prompts in poetry workshops, or paired with poems in various publications. Further hobbies are travelling, gardening, dancing – to mention just a few.
ANAND: Can you define the role of the poet today? Is it enough that they pour out their art and heart, or do you find a political angle to whatever is being written? Is everything that we write political? Can an author be neutral in a wired universe?
ZANK: There are two main points in this question. The first relates to what T. S. Eliot called the “turning loose of emotions”, a poetic attitude which I absolutely reject. I think there is too much “I” and too much “heart” in the poetic scene, virtual as well as real. Nothing against sentiments in poetic creations, as their denial would contradict the very essence of poetry, but there is too much raw, metaphorically unprocessed feeling in today’s verse. There can be no poetic originality where there is no filtering of emotions through stylistic refinement. That is why many poetic voices sound very much alike.
As for the question whether poetry and politics have anything in common, I must say that being political or not is a matter of definition. Nobody is completely apolitical. Even non-involvement with politics can be an attitude of either rejection and refusal to comply, or tacit agreement to what is going on. Happily enough, there are many poets who overtly challenge social and political issues. Nevertheless, in the same way in which many people nowadays are more concerned to take selfies than to capture the reality around them, a great number of aspiring poets have both ears open for the sighs of their own hearts more than for the cries of humanity.
ANAND: If I say all art, poetry included, is autobiographical, will you contradict my statement? Can you imagine a toy of clay without the presence of clay in it?
ZANK: Each act of creation emerges from a complex interaction of factors which shape one’s personality – it is therefore autobiographical to a certain extent. But no true creator of art or poetry will remain trapped in their own shells. It is the ability to transcend one’s personal feelings and experience in order to reach a dimension of universality that makes art viable and everlasting. Here again I must quote T. S. Eliot with his famous line, “Let us go then you and I”, which points to the “oneness”, to the synthesis of author and reader. Basically, we walk similar ways, we have the same needs and longings, and often enough similar victories and defeats. But then what makes a poet different from one who pens his or her bits of life in a dairy? It is precisely that particular skill of turning personal emotions and experiences into original but generally applicable patterns with which the readers may fully or partly identify and recreate themselves.
ANAND: You are an artist also. How are a poetic work and an artistic creation different?
ZANK: They are only different in the materials used for the end products. The impact, both spiritual and aesthetic, on the receptor can be comparable to a large extent. It is a common place to say that you can paint with words, or tell stories with images and colours. One talks of visuals in poetic lines, as well as of the poetry of photographic or painted images. And of course we can extend these observations to music, too.
ANAND: What are your views on feminism? Is it essential for a woman writer to write against their menfolk? How can you reconcile feminism with home?
ZANK: Feminism is a word of many shades, depending on the time, place and intention of its use. I am not a programmatic feminist. When necessary, I am a combatant against injustice, abuse, exploitation in all domains. I speak up on behalf of children as well as of adults irrespective of gender; I am also active in animal protection. And when wrong is done by men, I raise my voice against those particular men, not against menfolk as a whole. Unfortunately, women are still underprivileged in many cultures, and I am positive you know it better than I do, so they need lots of loud voices to bring about the necessary changes for fair chances and equal social acceptance.
ANAND: Most of poetry erupts out of a broken mindset and the major role in it is played by love rejection, dejection and disruption in marital affairs. Who after all is at the centre of your poetry?
ZANK: There are indeed many examples of literary geniuses with distorted mindsets, but this is in no way a must for brilliant creative works of any kind. Marital, or more often extra marital dramas, also play a role, but when literature focusses on this alone, it is not, in most cases, truly great art. As far as I am concerned, it is not about who, but about what is important in poetry. Love? Again, it depends on the semantics of the word. There are tons of poems and anthologies dedicated to love – one must wonder why, with so much love around, there are so many conflicts in the world. Maybe precisely because most people keep rotating around their one-and-only own self, with no intention or ability to look beyond and above it, to cast a glance to other realms of human love and life, or even further, to other issues of this poor blue planet with its multitude of problems. And, back to your question, there is no central concern in my poetry, but the attempt to explore and feature as many facets of our existence as possible.
ANAND: Every author exhales a feeling of half fulfilment. What more do you think you wish to accomplish?
ZANK: Basically, artists of all kinds are never content with their accomplishments. But then neither are scholars, scientists, educators, even honest politicians. There are many things I would still like to do, foremost activities in collaborative projects with poets and artists from around the world. My experience so far has shown that these intercultural exchanges are most enriching in every respect: not only literary, artistic and scholarly targets are met, but also the cherishing of great humanistic values such as friendship, peace, harmony within the mankind and in people’s relationship to nature and environment.
ANAND: How do you react to the idea of virtual literature? Can it be considered literature proper? How you relate it to the futuristic projections of literature?
ZANK: I think there is no such thing as virtual literature, not yet anyway. Literature is always real, only the new media of transmission are different. More and more literature reception happens in the virtual space with its amazing availability and visibility. But, as I have already stated in a previous article, it is precisely this easiness of accessibility that renders the encounter with e-media contents accidental, fugitive, and often enough perfunctory. Will we from now on write with this awareness in mind? Will the cyber-space engender new stylistic and aesthetic dimensions? Let us hope that we will live to see it. I think there is no point in trying to solve the quandary whether the virtual world with its social networks are a blessing or a curse. Living without them has become unthinkable, so why not make the best of it. The possibility to display our work and creativity here, to enjoy borderless visibility and access, and to have the chance of getting feedback from the most unexpected corners of the virtual but also of the real world is priceless.
DR. JERNAIL S. ANAND is the author of two dozen books in English poetry, fiction and non-fiction, Dr. J. S. Anand is an established name in the field of education, philosophy, and spirituality. Born on 15th Jan., 1955, he hails from village Longowal [Distt. Sangrur,Punjab, India]. He got his school education from the best schools in Ludhiana, the highly industrialized city of Punjab, famous for its hosiery and cycle parts industry. He was a student of famous Govt. College, Ludhiana, during his graduate studies, and he did his M.A. in English literature from Punjabi University, Patiala, securing 2nd position in the University. His doctoral thesis, submitted to Panjab University, Chandigarh, was on “A Comparative study of Mysticism in the poetry of Walt Whitman and Prof. Puran Singh”. Dr. Anand is an educationist, an able administrator, a talented writer, a novelist, a poet, and a philosopher, who is a multi-dimensional personality, particularly, in view of his interest in Saving the Earth. He planted around 20 thousand saplings in and around Bathinda. He has also delivered lecturers on Spirituality, Human Rights, and Moral Values. “We are inheritors of the wealth of this earth and this sky, and it belongs equally to us all” – Anand
DR. APRILIA ZANK is a lecturer for Creative Writing and Translation in the Department of Languages and Communication at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, where she received her PhD degree in Literature and Psycholinguistics for her thesis THE WORD IN THE WORD Literary Text Reception and Linguistic Relativity.She is also a poet, a translator and the editor of two anthologies: the English–German anthology poetry tREnD Eine englisch-deutsche Anthologie zeitgenössischer Lyrik, LIT Verlag, Berlin, 2010, and the anthology POETS IN PERSON at the Glassblower (Indigo Dream Publishing, April, 2014). She writes verse in English and German, and was awarded a distinction at the “Vera Piller” Poetry Contest in Zurich. Her poetry collection, TERMINUS ARCADIA, was 2nd Place Winner at the Twowolvz Press Poetry Chapbook Contest 2013. Aprilia Zank is also a passionate photographer: many of her images are prize-winners and several have been selected for poetry book covers.
DR. APRILIA ZANK is a lecturer for Creative Writing and Translation in the Department of Languages and Communication at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, where she received her PhD degree in Literature and Psycholinguistics for her thesis THE WORD IN THE WORD Literary Text Reception and Linguistic Relativity.
Aprilia is also a poet, a translator and the editor of two anthologies: the English–German anthology poetry tREnD Eine englisch-deutsche Anthologie zeitgenössischer Lyrik, LIT Verlag, Berlin, 2010, and the anthology POETS IN PERSON at the Glassblower (Indigo Dream Publishing, April, 2014). She writes verse in English and German, and was awarded a distinction at the “Vera Piller” Poetry Contest in Zurich. Her poetry collection, TERMINUS ARCADIA, was 2nd Place Winner at the Twowolvz Press Poetry Chapbook Contest 2013. Aprilia Zank is also a passionate photographer: many of her images are prize-winners and several have been selected for poetry book covers.
Living more and more trapped in cyberspace (statistics can attest that we spend daily more hours in the virtual than in the real world), we may at a certain point be inclined to demonise it, but the fact of the matter is that the virtual space does offer us an unparalleled range of opportunities. Through it, I have been bestowed the privilege of coming into contact with a large number of amazing personalities from various fields of culture and creativity, among whom I am happy to mention Dr. Jernail S. Anand, an Indian poet, philosopher, teacher, educator, to name just the main aspects of his proliferous career.
Dr. Aprilia Zank
Due to both my profession and my passion for literature and art, I had been familiar with creative people before the Internet, but it was the sort of closeness which one finds in the seclusion of libraries, museums, university halls and the like. With the new generations ‘born’ with notebooks, tablets or smartphones in their hands, the encounter with knowledge or creativity acquires new coordinates. The notion of reception needs to be reshaped and reconstructed. What sounds like self-evidence at first view needs though critical questioning. Do we really experience and process literary and artistic contents in a new way in the virtual space? Does it make a difference if I hold a paper book in my hands, or if I read it on a screen, or is its impact on me the same? Perhaps we need indeed to pay new consideration to Marshall McLuhan’s declaration that “the medium is the message.” Extensive research is necessary, and scientists of all domains are busy attempting to transmute their findings into relevant statistic data, but beyond all scholarly devices are the unique literature and art recipients with their particular premises for the reception and processing of literary writings and of works of art.
My encounter with Dr. Anand has taken place – so far and I hope it will change soon – in the virtual space only. I have had no opportunity to meet him in person, yet I have the feeling that we are good old friends. Furthermore, we both belong to a tremendous network of friends and friends’ friends who are in a permanent and immediate encounter and exchange of information, opinions and critical views. For there is no denial of the fact that accessibility of all types is practically borderless in cyberspace. A sheer number of readers can and do access Dr. Anand’s poems, essays and philosophical work in bits or as full books on the Internet. This unparalleled intercourse occurs within our beloved social networks in which communication is possible at any time, from every place and with everybody. But what sounds like a tremendous achievement in general and a huge chance for writers and artists in particular comes at a price. It is precisely the easiness of accessibility that renders the encounter with e-media contents accidental, fugitive, and often enough perfunctory. Under the ‘burden’ of the stupendous offer we are confronted with in cyberspace, we race from stimulus to stimulus in a feverish attempt to absorb as much information as possible. Under these circumstances, we run the risk of being superficial in our assimilation and, accordingly, far from optimal in our response.
Dr. Jernail S. Anand
Dr. Jernail S. Anand
Now, Dr. Anand is a renowned personality with a remarkable retinue of followers and admirers who always search for his presence and newest publications in the virtual world. And he does indeed regale them with exquisite poetry, thought-provoking quotes, or deep-reaching philosophical musings. The readers’ response is there, but it has evolved into a new language, semiotic to a great extent. We use ‘like’, ‘love’, ‘angry’, ‘sad’ and more signs to save time, or in the best case, we type ‘excellent’, ‘profound’ ‘congratulations’, to attest due consideration. Can this be a satisfactory type of feedback? On looking at Dr. Anand’s literary items shared the day I am writing this article, I spot a poem titled “HOW POOR IS THIS LIFE”. A quick analysis reveals that a response is there: 23 readers have liked and/or loved the poem, two have provided comments of one and of four words respectively, but that is about all. I miss some, to my mind, almost compulsory remarks, e.g. a reference to the Eliotian echo of the lines:
I write so much yet the feeling … of half fulfilment stays.
or a few words of appreciation for the exquisite metaphors below:
I could not digest the winds I could not drink the seas
The poet further complains about the unsatisfactory living we are trapped in:
Life! How poor you are!
It is, of course, the spiritual poverty he is is weary of, a recurring theme in Dr. Anand’s writings and a major potential starting point for a debate among the readers of the poem. Decay of traditional values, lack of genuine communication with one’s own kind, failure in the attempt to connect with God – it is all there craving for introspection and deliberation. But here, too, things seem to be doomed to fail to meet expectations:
Things remained half loved Hence half lived.
Is there any chance left for mankind to find its way back to primeval joy? In the poem “JOYS PAINS”, Dr. Anand emphasises the inextricable duality of joy/pain by using stylistic devices such as capitalisation and the juxtaposition of words with no punctuation, thus almost creating a proper name with a single ‘signifié’. The last three lines convey one more cry-out-loud testimony of the shallowness of inter-human relationships in a world devoid of true communication:
Nobody listens to the shrieks Which issue from silent lips Coated with red smiles
A look at the feedback on these major issues present in the poem reveals a poor echo to such a challenging piece of writing: a few semiotic ‘likes’, a ‘sad’ sign, and a positive remark illustrated by a line of the poem. No truly deep consideration offered to major existential questions posited in other poems either. Weirdly enough, this is by no means lack of appreciation or interest, since Dr. Anand is well-known as one of the most widely acknowledged contemporary Indian poets and philosophers. It is rather a peculiar aspect of the nature of reception in this kaleidoscopic world which is the virtual space. Aside from the already mentioned fast-paced character of this medium, which urges us to move on and on to the next items of interest, further components come into play or better said interplay among its users. Visibility and transparency, which per se are positive features of the virtual space, may become inhibitory under the realisation that people ‘can read your mind’ when you express your ideas, opinions and the like on various issues. Direct comparison with other minds can occur, with an uncertain outcome. A reason for many to refrain from a too obvious display of their own facets of spirit or intellect.
Luckily, Dr. Anand’s prolific work has been extensively and skilfully dealt with by scholars who have assuredly taken more than a glance at his literary and philosophical writings. For there is no doubt that thorough reading and rigorous research is still being practised, even in our high-speed world and in the fugacious virtual reality.
Summing up, I think there is no point in trying to solve the quandary whether the virtual world with its social networks are a blessing or a curse. Living without it has become unthinkable, so why not make the best of it. The possibility to display your work and creativity in it, to enjoy borderless visibility and access, and to have the chance of getting feedback from the most unexpected corners of the virtual but also of the real world is priceless. And in this respect I am grateful to have had the opportunity to meet the tremendous personality of Dr. J. S. Anand in this scintillating world. This notwithstanding, I am of course looking forward to an early encounter with the man in person.
– Aprilia S. Zank
October 12th, 2017
Munich, Germany
DR. APRILIA ZANK is a lecturer for Creative Writing and Translation in the Department of Languages and Communication at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, where she received her PhD degree in Literature and Psycholinguistics for her thesis THE WORD IN THE WORD Literary Text Reception and Linguistic Relativity.She is also a poet, a translator and the editor of two anthologies: the English–German anthology poetry tREnD Eine englisch-deutsche Anthologie zeitgenössischer Lyrik, LIT Verlag, Berlin, 2010, and the anthology POETS IN PERSON at the Glassblower (Indigo Dream Publishing, April, 2014). She writes verse in English and German, and was awarded a distinction at the “Vera Piller” Poetry Contest in Zurich. Her poetry collection, TERMINUS ARCADIA, was 2nd Place Winner at the Twowolvz Press Poetry Chapbook Contest 2013. Aprilia Zank is also a passionate photographer: many of her images are prize-winners and several have been selected for poetry book covers.
DR. JERNAIL S. ANANAD is the author of two dozen books in English poetry, fiction and non-fiction, Dr. J. S. Anand is an established name in the field of education, philosophy, and spirituality. Born on 15th Jan., 1955, he hails from village Longowal [Distt. Sangrur,Punjab, India]. He got his school education from the best schools in Ludhiana, the highly industrialized city of Punjab, famous for its hosiery and cycle parts industry. He was a student of famous Govt. College, Ludhiana, during his graduate studies, and he did his M.A. in English literature from Punjabi University, Patiala, securing 2nd position in the University. His doctoral thesis, submitted to Panjab University, Chandigarh, was on “A Comparative study of Mysticism in the poetry of Walt Whitman and Prof. Puran Singh”. Dr. Anand is an educationist, an able administrator, a talented writer, a novelist, a poet, and a philosopher, who is a multi-dimensional personality, particularly, in view of his interest in Saving the Earth. He planted around 20 thousand saplings in and around Bathinda. He has also delivered lecturers on Spirituality, Human Rights, and Moral Values. “We are inheritors of the wealth of this earth and this sky, and it belongs equally to us all” – Anand
THANK YOU to Dilys Wood, Anne Stewart, and Myra Schneider for including me in Second Light Live Featured Poets for May with my poem One Lifetime After Another. The other featured poets with whom I am honored to be included are: Angela Croft, Clare Crossman, Fokkina McDonnell, Jenny Hamlett, Lynne Wycherley, Mimi Khalvati, Pam Zinnemann-Hope, Sue Wood and Vivienne Tregenza. Great little collection for your evening read and my apologies to Anne for not catching her email announcement until this late date. Second Light Live is the website for Second Light Network of Women Poets (UK). SLN publishes fabulous anthologies and “ARTEMISpoetry” one of my fave poetry magazines.
Poet and writer, I am a former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently, I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 