Setu 🌉 सेतु: France

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Hélène Cardona (France, Spain, USA)

Exclusive: European poetry: Curated by Agron Shele

Hélène Cardona (France, Spain, USA)

Poet, actor, and literary translator Hélène Cardona was born in Paris and raised all over Europe before settling in the United States. She earned her MA in American literature from the Sorbonne, where she wrote her thesis on Henry James. Cardona is the author of the bilingual collections Life in Suspension (2016), called “a vivid self-portrait as scholar, seer and muse” by John Ashbery; Dreaming My Animal Selves (2013), and The Astonished Universe (2006). David Mason describes Cardona’s poetry as “liminal, mystical and other-worldly,” adding, “this is a poet who writes in a rare light.” The book was included in The London Magazine’s alternative poetry list for 2015, which hailed it as “simultaneously rapturous and lucid.” Cardona’s luminous poetry, hailed as visionary by Richard Wilbur, explores consciousness, the power of place, and ancestral roots. It is poetry of alchemy and healing, a gateway to the unconscious and the dream world. Stephen Yenser calls Life in Suspension “a terrific and singular achievement,” and Joanne Harris declares it deeply spiritual, “a tour de force of language and phonetics.” Exploring language and the psyche, Cardona discussed her poetry in a 2014 interview: “The poem is a gesture, an opening towards a greater truth or understanding. Art brings us to the edge of the incomprehensible. The poems, in their alchemy and geology, are fragments of dreams, enigmas, shafts of light, part myth, and part fable.” Cardona’s translations include Birnam Wood (by José Manuel Cardona, 2018), Beyond Elsewhere (by Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac, 2016), recipient of a Hemingway Grant; Ce que nous portons (Dorianne Laux, 2014); and, with Yves Lambrecht, Walt Whitman’s Civil War Writings for WhitmanWeb (2015). She has also translated Rimbaud, Baudelaire, René Depestre, Ernest Pépin, Aloysius Bertrand, Maram Al- Masri, Eric Sarner, Jean-Claude Renard, Nicolas Grenier, and Christiane Singer. Cardona’s work has been translated into 16 languages. Her work has been translated into 16 languages.

How God Thinks Is Surprising

My mother and I are two swans intertwined.

We show the world stage our connection, our closeness.

The bond never fades. God is director of the play.

We’re part of each other,

a continuation of movement, dance, beauty.

Together we form a whole, a heart, an angel.

Our core holds a plate to be filled with life.

We create and celebrate every reason,

the symmetry of our truth a vision, an offering.

We invented time.

The more we make it disappear,

the closer to God we grow.

I understand the nature of plants,

living off the land and rain.

I used to be a flower.

I like morphing into an animal,

devouring who I was.

The earth never fails me.

From Life in Suspension (Salmon Poetry, 2016)

Musica Eterna

We have fallen into the place

where everything is music.

—Rumi

Are we always more fascinated by the legend?

What if myth meets you en el camino, healer

in the heart of compassion, peacemaker

smiling its message on piano keys, dusting

the bookcase of life, whistling

follow your pen, be a song?

I blow wishes into the universe, celestial

cape, matrix to subdue

demons and possess truth.

Surprised by my lunar earth nature,

inhabited by ancient forests,

I molt into flying serpents,

pelicans touching wings,

magnets of expanded vistas,

a crest crowned by doves,

in its center the caduceus

entwined identity, magician’s score,

water weeping out of hands.

Setu, August 2019

Athanase Vantchev de Thracy (France)

Exclusive: European poetry: Curated by Agron Shele

Athanase Vantchev de Thracy is the author of over sixty volumes of poetry in both classical and free verse, covering almost the entire spectrum of prosody.
He has produced a series of monographs and a doctoral thesis on ‘Light Symbolism in the Poetry of Paul Verlaine’. Athanase has also written, in Bulgarian, a study of the great Epicurean patrician Petronius (Petronius arbiter elegantarium), the favourite of Nero and author of the Satyricon, and in Russian, a master’s degree dissertation on ‘Poetics and Metaphysics in the Work of Dostoevsky’. With his extensive knowledge of the ancient world, Athanase Vantchev de Thracy has devoted numerous articles to Greek and Latin poetry. During the two years he spent in Tunisia, he produced three successive works on the two Punic-era Tunisian cities, ‘Monastir-Ruspina: the Face of Light’, ‘El-Djem Thysdrus: Fiancée of the Azure’ and ‘The Mosaics of Thysdrus’.
During extended stays in Syria, Turkey, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Morocco and Mauritania, he was deeply impressed by his encounter with Islam and spent long years in the study of the religious history of the East. Athanase is a laureate of the Académie Française, a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Brazilian Academy of Letters, the Academy of Higher Education of Ukraine, the European Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters and the Academy of Udmurtia (Russian Federation). He is Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria and of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, laureate of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a member of French PEN., a member of the Société des Gens de Lettres de France, and the Maison des Écrivains et de la Littérature, President of the international movement Poetas del Mundo and a Universal Ambassador for Peace (Geneva). He has been decorated with the highest honour of the Bulgarian state, the Order of Stara Planina. His poetry has been translated into 28 languages.

Two Short Breaths
to Máša Halamová

1.

Always the fresh
sparkling waters of the stream
at dawn,
the beating heart
and the sonorous grammar
of the blue tits’ song!
And this gentle golden light
of the buttercups
filling the soul with joy.

2.

The white anthuriums
in the crystal vase,
the burning consonants of the air
and your delicate hands
intimate with my dreams.
On the bright white cloth
the red fire of some apples.
And I remain calm and motionless
in the face of the day!

Twilight Emotion

‘Wi' lithsome heart I pulled a rose
Full sweet upon its flowerin' tree
And my false lover he stole my rose
But ah! he left the thorn wi' me’
Robert Burns

This evening, at twilight,
sitting on my veranda,
above me the chorus of an army of sparrows,
I read your wonderful poems,
my tender brother in poetry,
my very dear Robert Burns.

And it was the ebb and flow of the universe,
the unscrupulous currents of destiny,
bright hearts and burials,
the injurious circle
in which your brief existence was enclosed,
of which you sang so loudly!

And then a twilight emotion
took hold of my soul
and rid my heart of its inertia!

O, the vertical chronology of the days:
the permanence of waters,
the incision of children’s cries,
the blazing fury of poppies,
the monotonous ardour of the summer
in its crimson tunic,
the wild brightness of the air
where the smiles of familiar
things gleam,
the space where hope begins
and desires that come alive
in a moment!

O the perfect clarity
of your verses,
these dark clouds
clinging to the rough skin of time!

The poignant truth
in the hard labour
of your Scottish ancestors!

O my brother in Poetry,
how dear to my soul
are the sweet desolation of your poems,
the brilliant colours of your dreams,
the renewed fervour of love!

Ah, this trembling emotion
in the heavy undulation of the hours
and the purple eddies of dusk!

Impetuous Beauty of the Night
to Elizabeth Canori Mora

The bewitching song of frogs
playing with the brooch of the moon
in the green waters of happiness!

Shining circles of forms defined
by the graceful dance of shadows!

The mauve mist
gently extinguishes
the light from windows!

The incandescent quiet,
the indecipherable space
the night bringing virtue to words!

Cantors and Chartists carrying censers,
young naviculars,
the tutelary God of joy,
pleasant resoluteness of sudden inspiration!

And our childish names, my Angel,
writings in smooth red ink
in ancient parish registers!

O this immortality breathing
in our frail breasts!

Setu, July 2019

Manuel Renaud

Manuel Renaud is a French musician and poet. He writes lyrics and excels in playing various musical instruments such as the guitar, bass, ukulele and mandolin. He also teaches guitar, bass and singing. His passion for poetry originated when he was at school. At the age of 14 he was awarded a prize at school for his outstanding achievement in French language. The prize comprised of Les Oeuvres Complètes d’Arthur Rimbaud (The Complete Works of Arthur Rimbaud).
When he was much younger he was much influenced by British pop music. This roused his eagerness to learn and understand English. So, firstly he wrote lyrics in English and French. Then afterwards, he seriously started writing poems and still keeps writing regularly.

Authors A-Z

Bernard Perroy

Bernard Perroy was born in Nantes, France in 1960 and currently lives in Sologne.

As from 1988, he works both as poet and religious brother linked to the Catholic Church.

He is the author of 15 poetry books including Petit livre d’impatience (Petit Pavé Publishers), Une Joie Tremblante (Solem publishers), La Nuit Comme le Jour (Nouvel Athanor publishers), Trois Miniscules (La Porte Publishers). He has also co-authored three poetry books with R.Koraichi entitled Coeur à Coeur, Une Gorgée D’azur and Je N’ai D’autre Desir, published by Al Manar publishers. He has collaborated with various artists and participated in various exhibitions. His works are also regularly published in various literary magazines and journals such as Arpa, Friches, Recours au Poème, Diérèse, Cahiers du Sens, Texture, 7 à dire and Cahiers de la rue Ventura.

Bernard Perroy can be contacted on Facebook and on his blog.

Authors A-Z

Ximena Gautier Greve

Ximena Gautier Greve was born in Santiago de Chile in 1944.

Schooling: Graduated Psychologist　Master Degree (University of Chile); PhD Social Psychology and Psychopathology (University of Paris VII, France); DEA Experimental Psychology (University of Paris X, France).

Interpretation Higher Degree Piano (University of Chile); Master of Musicology (University of Paris VIII, France); Fully-qualified Teacher of Education Musical and Choral Music (Ministry of　Education, CAPES, France)

Profession: Clinical Psychologist; Music Therapist in Special School for Intellectual Disability; Teacher in High School and University.

Now she is retired and is dedicated to poetry.

Publications: Several books of Poetry; books on Psychology of Music and one book about Clinical Psychoanalysis. Selected in many anthologies in Spanish, French and English.Several digital e-book format.

XIMENA GAUTIER GREVE (No comprehensive bio-bibliography).

French - Chilean Poet, established in France. Psychologist and pianist. She writes her first poems at seven years old. At the age of thirthteen, she published "Poemas de ruta" prefaced by the Chilean poet Juvencio Valle, and surprises Latin American review with her lyricism. At sixteen, she published "Dagaug, exaltation of a teenager," prose-poem (in Santiago), foreword of the literary critic John de Luigi and prolegomena from Armando Salas GAMARRA ("The Sun", Cuzco, Peru); Homer BASCUÑAN(magazine "Athena", Santiago); and Alfonso SOLA GONZALEZ, Argentinean poet.

"Duerme Pablo", poetry, (1964) .with letter-preface of Juana de IBARBURU, Uruguayan poet. Poetry recitals in Santiago, Mendoza, Buenos Aires, Paris. Participant in Folk Art Fair (Santiago Forest Park against the stems of the Mapocho river), with greatest literary figures of Chile. Before 1973, several Poetry Awards. Piano Award at University Artistic Festival (Santiago, Chile,1970)

Professor of Psychology of Music and Psychologist in the Faculty of Music (University of Chile)　; Professor of Psychology of Learning and of Educational Psychology in the University of Heredia (Costa Rica). Psychologist, music therapist and teacher working for the National Education in France.

Selected in the Anthology of French Poets (paper), directed par DESFORGES ANDRE, in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012.

LAST INTERNATIONAL PRIZES　:

First Prize of Poetry in the Mediterranean Festival, award of United Poets Laureate International in the World Congress, Larissa, Greece, 2011. ( With poem «　Let us laugh comrad　»)

First Prize of Poetry, award of United States representation at Writers World Union for Culture, Ecology and Peace, 2016. ( with poem «　Albertina　», to Alfonsina Storni)

Poetry Award and publication in International Book "XIII PUENTE DE PALABRAS - 2016", granted by Poetry Contest MercoSur. (With poem «　Tupac Amaru Kondorkanqui　», poetic narration about fallen of last survivor Inca)

BIOBIBLIOGRAPHY OF XIMENA GAUTIER GREVE

©　 Efectos de un entrenamiento ritmo-auditivo en el desarrollo motor del niño. Tesis de Grado para el título de Psicólogo. Universidad de Chile. 1972.

©　 Apprentissages très précoces des sons - L'initiation au piano des tout petits. (Mémoire Maîtrise ès Musicologie (Master)　Université de Paris. 1993.

©　 Le Complexe de Dionysos. Mémoire de 3ème cycle. Doctorat Psychologie social et Psychopathologie. Université de Paris. 1992.