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"Tales for The Ones in Love"

An international blog about literature, nature and hope. Here I include lyrics by Rui M. and the work of others. From 4th to 24th each month, new contributions sent to blogsnat@gmail.com are evaluated. Periodical Art contests and Critics. Thanks. Arigatou

"Tales for The Ones in Love"

An international blog about literature, nature and hope. Here I include lyrics by Rui M. and the work of others. From 4th to 24th each month, new contributions sent to blogsnat@gmail.com are evaluated. Periodical Art contests and Critics. Thanks. Arigatou

30
Jul23

Interview 2023 with Shmavon Azatyan

talesforlove

After the Nature Poetry Contest 2023, the literary magazine Tales for Love takes an interview with the writer Shmavon Azatyan who judged the poetry contest.

Interview by Rui M.

1 How do you judge a poem? Do you use specific criteria?
Poetry judging is probably the most difficult, compared to other art forms, such as fiction, music, sculpture. Of course, poetry has a structure and I can look at that and say, well, something doesn’t sound that convincing. But the structure is so flexible. In a short story, you must have a conflict, but a poem can be 4 lines and … really nothing is a MUST. I use the criterion of logic, first of all - is there any kind of logic in the poem in question? It can be nonsensical, that’s a logic, too. Is there an axis, around which the ideas in the poem develop? Other criteria are – how is that logic developed? Specific? Expressed? Does it excite me? Scare me? Surprise me? How do I feel? So, I look at the expression as well – ideas and feelings. Is there a new way of expressing these in the poem? Use of language in poetry is very important, so that’s yet another criterion. Finally, I look for a revelation, discovery and understanding of something that I may gain from the poem.

2 What is a good poem? If this is a good question to ask. Or what kind of poem should win a contest?
I try not to think of poems as good or bad. Any poem deserves to be read. Of course, this doesn’t mean whatever you write will be a poem. There are unwritten rules, also there are structures for a piece to be considered a poem. A good poem must speak to you, evoke images and tickle your senses. It must have a certain organic interrelation between form and content, sound and idea or feeling, structure and concept. It must say something new, whatever you can think of new means. Originality is subjective and varies from reader to reader. A poem must try to say more with fewer words. Still, there are difficulties in evaluating a poem. I’d use the word successful. There are poems that are hard to understand, very intellectual, political, and, or philosophical. And if you don’t understand a poem, it’s hard to say if it’s a successful piece or not.
Sometimes when it’s a difficult decision, because two or more poems are so equally well-crafted, the judge will have to be subjective and use intuition and idiosyncratic attitude to poetry. That’s why if your poem came so close to being number one or two, then you can easily think your poem could have been number one, if another judge was in charge. If your poem is not lucky to get one of the top ten, you can read those poems that got there and see how your work is different. Thinking of the next contest, keep this difference in mind. It’s possible you notice some weak points in your expression, your use of structure, your tone and handling of the theme.

3 You’re a writer yourself, and you write poems and you have been published. Do you consider the poems you judge as inferior?
No, I don’t think my poems are better than the ones I am judging. I mean, I don’t approach judging this way, that the contestants are still learning to write. Actually, I don’t know them. I understand it’s hard not to look down on these pieces, especially, I come across poems that have nothing in them to interest me as a reader. These are just ideas, jotted down on paper, they don’t have depth and associations, the constituents don’t interact with each other, and the language doesn’t evoke feelings and ideas. There’s truth in it, that when you’re judging a poem, you have this feeling that… you have gone a level higher and this is why you’re judging the poems. But if I allow these thoughts to divert my attention, that will affect my decision. Won’t be fair. So instead, I am learning – yes, I am learning from any poem, and believe it or not, some give me very good ideas about what to write and how to write.

4 How do you evaluate a poem, if you don’t understand it? Does it happen?
Yes. Writing a poem doesn’t mean you also can understand any poem. Some poems are strange to me, but I can’t say they’re not good. It’s me, not the poem. I must, then, judge this particular poem as much as I can understand. When I teach poetry writing, I ask my students to clarify what they mean by this or that phrase; when they answer, their answer doesn’t always make sense, because many times, in their mind, the beginner poets are writing an essay, but on the paper, they’re writing a poem. It takes time and work to learn to express yourself poetically.

5 Are poetry contests useful? What is a poetry contest’s goal?
Yeah, they can be. They are fun, first of all, and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. We are not building a building; we are writing poems. But this doesn’t mean that we are not serious about writing poetry. Poetry, like any art, is a way to explore reality, our emotions and feelings, our ideas and perceptions, how we understand the world we live in. It can also be a discovery, when you’re writing about an idea, but then during the process you find out other ideas. Contest is a kind of a standard by which you test your skills. It’s not just sending a poem to a contest, but also reading other poems, also getting feedback sometimes, and most important, you see where your poem is after the results are announced. Now, you should think and decide what you make of where your poem has ended up. If it hasn’t won the first prize, but it came very close, then maybe you work a bit more on this poem and send to another contest or publisher. Or don’t do anything, just send to another contest because you know it’s a success.

6 In any contest, there are very few winners and so many participants who don’t win. What is your message to those who don’t win?

I’d say, don’t take it to your heart – ever. Winning a poetry contest is not a life goal, doesn’t mean you’re a good or bad poet. It can never be a qualification. You can have three different judges; each will give you a different comment. It’s very subjective. If you don’t win, make a point to win by understanding the poem that has won. Try to see what it is in it that earned it the first place. Look at other winners in other contests. Study these poems and you will have an idea why they win. If you want, and you feel comfortable, try write a poem in that spirit, style, and along those conceptual lines. If not, not a big deal, write more, workshop your poem with somebody else, learn from your own writing. And read more poetry. You can’t make winning a contest your goal, if you want to be a good poet. Consider this: there are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people who write poems. How many poetry contests can we count? Whatever their number is, it’s impossible that they reflect the poetry writing demand. You don’t win, but I’m sure there are lots of people who read your work and tell you that’s great, and they really enjoyed it. So, you make them happy, that’s what matters.

 

Other news:

The tragedy in Greece

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/28/greece-fires-arsonists-extreme-weather

 

World Youth Day 2023 in Portugal

With an ecological approach.

https://www.lisboa2023.org/en/the-program

 

Enjoy.

07
Mai22

Interview... Shmavon Azatyan

talesforlove

In May, 2017 we were able to interview Shmavon Azatyan and obtained the following three answers that help us understand what his main beliefs are. 

Shmavon Azatyan was born in 1976, Yerevan, Armenia. He got his Diploma in English Language and Foreign Literatures at Yerevan State University (1993-1998).

 

What's your main motivation to write?

It is a natural feeling, or a desire. I haven't been taught or told to write. I get inspired by people around me, by what they do, think, how they behave and react in different situations. I like expressing my views of human nature in writing.

When and how did you feel the first impulse to write?

After I fell in love as a teenager. At that time I wrote poems. And then at an older age, I felt the desire to write fiction after I read John Updike and William Faulkner.

Do you think a writer separates life experiences from his/her writing?

A writer can separate these experiences, but it depends on what the writer wants to do with the piece in question. It also depends on what the writer writes about. I get inspired by a real-life figure and write a short story about his/her life. In this case I don't add or add very little from my lfie experiences. But I may be tempted to write about something that I was once involved in - in this case my life experience may form the basis of the piece.

Do you think that your writing helps nature conservation?

My poems about nature can. Most of my poems, in general, contain elements of nature. Some of them celebrate nature. It's hard to say if these works will inspire people to care for conservation of nature, but I hope that they will do so.

Shmavon Azatyan, 25 May, 2017

 

Here we present three of Shmavon Azatyan’s poems: “My Island”, winner of the International Literary Contest Nature 2015; and “Blushes” and “The Snowflake” (included in the poetry book “Rainbow Flavours and Other Scents” published in 2016). First, we can have a careful look into “My Island”.

MY ISLAND by Shmavon Azatyan (1976 - )

You are the heavenly island
I swim to
to be harbored
from the gloating of all world.

The sea is cold,
day is gloomy,
I’m numb -
my feelings turn frigid.
Yet you
have power on my heart.

I toil to you;
the autumn day sinks
beyond the high waters -
life draws away,
and the jump of
the blindfold lightening
speckles my anticipation.

And then the predisposition
I divine
in your manner
loses its advantage.

The time
we at last come to speech
the island has gone.

In between you and I
seas lie laden with somber skies;
only the anonymous topography
we’ve both cared to observe
is what can lead us
to one another.

Source: http://talesforlove.blogs.sapo.pt/first-place-of-the-first-international-46381
This poem seems to start with a hidden metaphor when the poet says “you are the heavenly island I swim to.” In fact, a person is compared to an island that can only exist in the imagination of the poet. Nevertheless, dispite the distance, the speaker must find that island regardless of nature’s odds - the cold sea, that can be compared with the cooless arising from the geographic distance between two people who love each other. Additionally, the anonymous topography is the unique bridge that can be able to get those lovers together. There is a very strong melancholy enfolded with hope in a better future, even if, when the lovers both get to speak together - the island has gone. As the poem advnaces, the speaker becomes a real person, and the island a non-existent object, because if the lovers are united nothing can separate them. Reality overcomes the imagination created by the speaker’s emotions.
The next poem, “Blushes”, is also a love poem, but the approach is very different. There sesms to be no place for melancholy or distance between lovers. They are there together and happy, hand in hand with the shore lights.

BLUSHES

In the violet twilight
the ocean is tender
ransacking the shore lights
that propound love riddles.

The palms’ rustling kisses
carry on the breeze and
gather between us.

The tipsy cactus harks
to the caballero
thrumming on the guitar;
the russet cheek suitors
delightfully dance with ladies;
the lone swooping jay
courts the dwindling waves,
the unsearchable zephyrs
bring the ripple of awnings.

Beneath the ogle of the horizon bow
the ocean moves and murmurs
about the myriad dreams
happening on the ocean-floor.


Your cherry lips trill out
notes that summon
blushes
from unnamed ports.

Our voices tremble.

The enchanted jay
squeaks,
and then
the word
is spoken:
it surfs the twinkling furbelows
and floats away into the placid hugs
of somnolent waters.

This poem encloses within its limits several references to natural elements, which seem to have human characteristics, for example: the ocean is tender, the palms’ rustling kisses, your cherry lips trill out and the somnolent waters. These references have a poetic objective, but also a social objective to remind people that nature is important, and we should protect her, as she is a part of our bodies. This involvement of nature with poetry in this poem and others give Shmavon’s poems an almost classical touch but, at the same time, an objective as if they were a tool to serve a certain purpose. All this is tied with happiness, because lovers are experiencing placid hugs and sweet kisses (as cherries).
On the contrary, the next poem “The Snowflake” lends us a feeling of reasoning mixed with emotions of astonishement. Lets look into it closely.


THE SNOWFLAKE

When I study a snowflake -
a hexagon with branches and limbs
linked to the centre -
I understand when it really snows in winter.

Each snowflake is unique,
and one of them reminds me of
her –
almond shaped eyes
pushing forward her lyrical nose
that graces her frilly mouth;
her penchant for the funky boots
and rainbow dresses,
from behind which
her vigor to choreograph
thunders.

And I know
why we married choreography with literature,
for it truly snows
only once in a wintertime.

When the poet introduces us his thoughts he mentions “I study a snowflake” and “I understand” - actions that we could associate with formal reasoning and even logic. But this logic takes us to an emotional momentum when he notices that “Each snowflake is unique, and one of them reminds me of her”. We can say that logic is trapped by love in between the thoughts and actions the speaker lives through, because it is a simple action emotionless that leads to a beloved person. Furthermore, “her vigor to choreograph thunders” describes the speaker’s feelings of hidden passion, which are opposite to logic. Nobody can “choreograph thunders”. At the end there is a marriage, between “choreography with literature” something that might explain why “it truly snows only once in a wintertime.” Maybe it is thanks to the fact that our life might be like an almost eternal wintertime where true love (the snow) happens only once in a lifetime.

 

Enjoy

19
Set18

Literary Contest Soon - Nature 2018-2019 - "The Nature of the Universe"

talesforlove

 

From space, the earth is a small point of blue light. We are a little big nothing, hope made alive. Of course most of us just had the chance to see this blue on television or computer screens ... or in a photograph in a book. There is, however, a strange emotion in the chest when we come across this image.
This state of mind does not bind us, however, and we are tempted to look around at the universe: at the deep unknown beyond our imagination, which imposes upon us, its colors, its chemistry, its laws of Physics, their lives.

While our action on earth makes us think, given the reactions of nature in the form of floods, typhoons and huge forest fires, the universe remains a "land" of opportunities. Even literature seems to have an obligation not to repeat the mistakes of the past; everything should be better.

The nature of the universe serves as muse for this literary contest. And even a novel by Nicholas Sparks seems to be different if thought of in this immense and cosmic context. So impossible when a love said impossible, as impetuous as life in the middle of nowhere ...

It is in this context that, with great joy, we announce the beginning of the International Literature Contest "Nature 2018-2019", which this year runs from 15 October 2018 to 15 December 2018. On 1 February 2019 are announced the pre-finalists and on the 28 February 2019 the main winners.

Can poetry survive a universe that seems so contrary to life? What do we have to say about something that is still so unknown to us? Is there any connection, any comparison, that we can make with our terrestrial reality? How can science emerge in literature in our context? All this is a challenge and makes us think. Above all, it should be seen as an action of good mood and joy: an exercise of writing among friends.
It is time to act, to write, so here is also the invitation to participate in this contest and then the conditions of participation and other details.
Everyone is welcome.
 
Details of Regulation 2018-2019:

1. Participation in this contest is free.
2. Any person from any country can participate as long as they submit work written in English.
3. Each participant can submit a poem, without limit of words, and a short story, with a maximum of 3000 words. Extra poems: 2 USD each; Extra short stories: 5 USD each.
4. The works must be sent by e-mail to Rui M. (ruiprcar@gmail.com) along with name, country, electronic contact. The subject of the email should be "International Literary Contest 'Nature - 2018-2019'". Line spacing: single spacing; Letter dimension: 12; Type of letter: Calibri; in the body of the e-mail.
5. The participating authors agree to receive e-mails in the future that have as their main purpose to advertise future literary initiatives.
6. Award-winning finalists are entitled to a digital certificate.
7. All the selected poems will be published in anthology, which will be available in PDF format (possibility to exist in Windows), with a cost of 2.5 € (payment of a donation by PayPal). Award-winning authors are entitled to a free version.
8. Author rights: authors have their rights over the works published, in order to publish as they want in any other place. The organization of the contest retain total rights over the published works in the context of the Anthology of the contest or any other Anthology or collection of Short Stories they want to publish in the future.
9. Deadline for participation: 15 January 2019.
10. Pre-finalists announced on 10 February.
11. The final results will be announced on February 28 at http://talesforlove.blogs.sapo.pt and, when possible, at http://synchchaos.com/.
12. The first one of each category will be entitled to a prize: artwork (an A4 painting) sent by mail.

Adjudicator:

Shmavon Azatian
Armenian poet and writer based in the USA and Australia.
Awarded internationally.
 
Janine Canan
American author.

Awarded internationally. 

 

Contest Organizers:


Tales for Love
http://talesforlove.blogs.sapo.pt/
Lisbon - Portugal
 
Synchronized Chaos
http://synchchaos.com/
California - USA
 
 
Main Partners:

Co-op Radio
http://coopradio.org/
Canada
 
World Poetry
http://worldpoetry.ca/
Canada

 

L.T. (California/Marin County)

 

Inspiration here:

https://www.nasa.gov/

 

pia22688.jpg

 Note: Juno

 

Here you can find the Anthology "Nature 2017-2018":

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/883858

 

Thank you very much.

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