(May 2003) Page 2
(May 2003) Page 2
 ROBIN HISLOP OUZMAN A great deal of my life has been spent out of England, where I was born and spent my childhood in Lyme Regis. I lived in Scotland, which was my mother's side, and take the name Hislop, as writer's name from her family. Two years ago, I returned from Spain where I had lived as an EFL Teacher and translator, and prior to that I had travelled extensively in the East and spent years in Scandinavia. In Spain I participated in the organisation of bi-lingual poetry readings and have worked on the translation of a number of Spanish and South American poets into English as well as collaborated renditions of English to Spanish, Margaret Atwood for example. I have been to Spain several times since my arrival to the British Isles. Fortunate enough to receive small bursaries which have enabled me to develop a project of translating a contemporary poetry anthology written by Spanish female poets in 1985, that is just after the transition to the so called democracy, the work is entitled Las Diosas Blancas. Some of these translations I submitted earlier this year to the British Literary Translator's Award East Anglia University. Hopefully I will start on a project in collaboration of compiling and translating an anthology of James Stephens, contemporary of Joyce and Yeats better known for his Irish Celtic Fairy Tales and The Land of Youth. Perhaps it will inform to say that the most important influences of his work apart from his Celtic heritage were Blake and Madame Blavatsky's Theosophist movement, which Yeats introduced him to, that makes him particularly interesting to me, in the tradition of Gaelic revivalism, in which he was an important protagonist. At the moment I can't think what else to say about my life as a poet, except that I am influenced by ancient symbolism and contemporary forms alike and write quite prolifically but mostly only poetry, also to confess that when I do write short narrative forms I am tempted to the absurd, I suppose because variety and the personal take over and the need to look on the funny side of things no matter how tragic becomes adamant, whether one likes it or not.
I had 5 poems published in April 2003 and 5 to be published for May at:
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RIDING THE BEAST © Robin Hislop Ouzman 2003 |
 RICHARD VALLANCE About Richard Vallance Born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, March 11th., 1945, Richard is a member of AuthorsDen, under his family name, Richard Vallance Janke. A graduate of Wilfred Laurier University (1968) and The University of Western Ontario (MLS), he is fluently bilingual in English and French, and reads Spanish and Italian, ancient Greek and Latin well. He wrote his first poems at the ages of 17 and 18, in 1962-63. For years, Richard wrote mainly in the field of Library and Information Science. At Chicago, in October, 1983, he won the $1,000 Data Courier Award for Excellence in Online Published Papers for an article in Online, Vol. 7, no. 5. Poetry: While he wrote some 200 poems before the age of 47, since then Richard has composed over 1,500 poems. His first published poem was, “Lasts the First Light”, in Arts and Literature Review (Canada, 1972). In 1998, he published his first full book of poetry, A Quilt of Sonnets: Forty Four Familiar Poems, Ottawa: Providence Road Press, © 1998. 56 pp. ISBN 1-896243-07-x. In February, 2001, Richard founded his first poetry discussion group, Describe Adonis, for sonneteers. We have since grown to 10 poetry, art and digital photography groups, which you may find at our discussion forum: la nouvelle Pléiade = The New Pleiades ©. Richard's poetry page is Poesie’s laissez-faire Faire Foire, a clearing-house for poets from nations like Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and the Netherlands. PLFFF features sonnets and contemporary poems, updated quarterly, a links page to sites of other poets, and grants the monthly Prix laissez-faire Faire Foire Award . PLFFF is a member of Phenomenal Men of The Web: Arts & Humanities . Richard is the Editor of 2 Canadian poetry E-Zines. These are advertised monthly at the end of The Vallance Review in Poetry Life and Times. In the Winter of 2003, a third E-Zine, Kawasaki Zen Haiku, will be a showcase for haikuists. Since September, 2001, Richard has been the poetry reviewer for Poetry Life and Times, which features the monthly Vallance Review. He is also regular contributor to the same E-Zine. Richard is also often featured with the U.S. Amerindian E-Zine, Autumn Leaves. CD-ROM Books:1. The New Millennium Dawn Anthology (Kedco Press): 10 of Richard's poems were included in Millennium Dawn: an Anthology of Award Winning Fantasy Stories, Poetry, Novels etc., Kedco Studios Press, Las Vegas, NV, © 2002 ISBN 1-878431-38-2. 2. Richard’s latest CD-ROM book, Canadian Spirit Voices, © 2003, ISBN: 1-878431-44-7, is in its final pre-publication stages, and will be published by Kedco in the Spring of 2003. You may view a summary of the book here: Pre-publication Notice. To contact the author, please e-mail: Richard Vallance (Yahoo) (for inquiries on our poetry discussion groups) – OR – Richard Vallance (Activator Mail) for poetry-related inquiries or submissions to our Canadian E-Zines). |
A WILLO-O'-THE WISP © Richard Vallance, 2003 |
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Jan Sand in New York
JAN SAND, poet and illustrator from New York, is a regular contributor to Poetry Life & Times and the newsgroup alt.arts.poetry.comments. A great deal of his work is about animals, or science fiction. Recently Jan was published by Kedco Studios Artist Profile Press, on their latest CD ROM e-book, "A Way With Words (Poetry Real and Surreal), which also includes complete books by Dale Houstman, Sara L. Russell and Keith Gabriel Hendricks. Jan's illustrated book on the CD is called "Wild Figments And Odd Conjectures", which is also sold separately, in a limited-edition "single" CD.
To see an illustrated article about Jan's poems, visit the November '98 issue of Poetry Life & Times, and scroll down past the Editor's Letter. He also has his own poetry pages on Charlotte's Web at Artvilla.
Men went down into the mines, Out to the fields, pressed to labor Side by side in tasks so simplified, Monotonous, continuous, neglectful Of capacities to feel, to taste, to smell, to see, To think upon the nature of the universe, All mechanical, over simplified, to convert Men into machines. But now The hammer and the knife Have come alive themselves. Inexorable, their hunger to invade Where men had thought to dominate. Crystals shiver into consciousness, Mild impulse magnified to thunder’s lightning Strikes deep into tender flesh. Once integration sought conversion Of men to robots. Currently The force that drives the world Has delved past men to induct Robots into humanity. THE DRUMMER © Jan Sand
The blood is a merchant traveler, Packs of knicknacks on his back, Wheeling, dealing with the hungry cells, Selling oxygen, nourishment And delightful hormones full of rapture To entertain the populace. He moves to the drumbeat of the heart To carry myths and folktales from the lungs Of unimagined outer reality Deduced from the qualities of air. Journey’s end, weary, half poisoned, He drags himself through the cleansing machinery Of kidneys and of liver And back to the soughing of the windy caves of the lungs. Sits and rests and drops his CO2 And listens to the whispers of outside magnificence. Only from catastrophe comes revelation when, Before the final curdling death The blood can feel the chill of outside air, Sense the heat of Sun, perhaps, The cold round Moon and the quills of starpoints And murmur to himself. “If only I had known.” THE OLD KNOW TERROR © Jan Sand
They shake their doll of death In our face, monkey chittering Of assassins, their theatric breath Sour scented to send sanity flittering. But that long shadow of the real thing Is stronger than their chicken clown. We old live each day in its cold threat. That grim monster will take us down When our due time will be met. There will come nausea and pain. Muscles will falter and fail. And we shall grit our teeth again And, shaking, rise to hail One minute more of sound and light And love enough to make a jewel Of that particle of time still bright That glistens with the minds duel With the night. Their hysteric shreiks Have no commerce with reality. Every second of our remaining time reeks With one rigid commonality. We shall each die without exception And hope the final stroke be swift, Be total and without perception Of the donation of that final gift. SQUARE ONE © Jan Sand
Today. Now. This minute. This cutting edge of time. This sack of memories and all in it. That’s where we start. Where the past and present part. That’s everything. And it’s always new. The result of all outside. And you. From this combination, Incremental continuation Constructs the rest. The mind’s finger indicates The azimuth, the elevation. Of course it soon relates To that junkbag from the past And the viscerals the sinew From which you are constructed. Better let it bubble, let it stew. And there you go When you are done. Back at square one
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