Short Love Poems Biography
source(google.com.pk)['The Coming Of The Poem -
A poem has got to be born
It cannot come out when you want it to;
It must be born.
When you want to make a poem you cannot make it,
But when you do not want to make it, it comes'
By Gillian Hughes, aged 8.
From 'Those First Affections, an anthology of poems composed between the ages of two and eight.']
About my poem “I Thought about you”.
“I Thought about you” came to me when I was sitting alone in bed one night trying to write poetry. It came to fill the empty space next to me. My wife was in her home country awaiting the granting of a visa to return and live with me. (We had met while she was holidaying on a tourist visa.) Because of the intense drama and uncertainty involved in our separation I had been thinking about her constantly during the whole of this time. I was very lonely, very desperate and I had come to believe totally in the potential of words.
P.S.
About my poem “The Witch Doctor’s Son”.
My local newspaper was running a Short Story Contest. They wanted short short stories of exactly 50 words (not including the title) . I decided to enter the contest and sat down to write my 50 word short short story. After about 45 minutes I had completed a short short story of which I wasn’t happy with but which satisfied the 50 word criteria. I was tired and walking out of the door of my room when I had the feeling I had to write something. I sat down and wrote “The Undertaker’s Widow”. It came out fast and in one draft and at exactly 50 words. That was much better than my first attempt, and I thought I was completely happy with it. As I was halfway out the door again another feeling that I had to write something came to me. No words, just the feeling. I sat down and wrote “The Witch Doctor’s Son”. It came out fast and in one draft, and, as with “The Undertaker’s Widow”, without any changes and at exactly 50 words. “The Undertaker’s Widow” is about my mother, and “The Witch Doctor’s Son” is about my father and myself. I was a young man and my father was very ill and near the end of his life when these prose poems were written.
“All my writing is a completion of the work my father started”.
P.S.
About my poem “If I Say”.
“If I Say” is about the hard words “I Love you”. As Charles Bukowski wrote in his poem “Confession” – “….the hard words I ever feared to say….”. It’s about beginnings and endings and about poetry itself and what it means. I’ve always thought of a poem as a beginning, as Walt Whitman wrote in “Song of Myself” – “Beginning my studies the first step pleased me so much, ….. I have hardly gone and hardly wish’d to go any further, But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs”. What I’ve always sort in poetry is truth. The style of writing, or the “beauty” of the poem itself, means nothing to me. Only the beauty to be found within the words.
If I Say
Doesn’t it change
The course we’ve taken
If I say
I Love you?
Doesn’t it mean
The end of what we had
If what we had
Was a beginning?
The poem is about moving from poetry to prose. From the beginning to what’s next. All done by the words “I Love you”, if those words are said. It’s about the potential of words and their impact on our lives.
P.S.
About my poem “Wish Upon”.
“Wish Upon” is a rhyming poem and I felt, as I was writing it, somewhere between prose and poetry. The inspiration behind the poem is expressed in the last line, “Let our Love guide the star”. When my wife and I were yet to find security in our relationship, when the height of intensity in our Love for each other coincided with the greatest insecurity, I felt that what we were going through was not limited to us and our experience but was universal, and that elemental forces were at play. Furthermore, that the decisions we made, the faith we kept, influenced those forces. That they were watching us to see what we would do.
P.S.
About my poem “Within Your Eyes”.
“Within your eyes” is about discovering that my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. It was written in response to some unkind words written about her on a poetry website. It is a rhyming poem and took five days to write. With many stops and starts. I knew there was a truth there, but it wasn’t until about a year after I had written the poem that I realised that truth myself. The poem led me to what my mind had no hope of understanding on its own.
P.S.
About my poem “I Have Not Forgotten You”.
This poem builds to an ending that emphasises what had preceded it and accelerates from there. “For in truth you are rare/Each thought I have spare”. Thoughts of my wife, and our time together, occupy each thought I have ”spare”. She is indeed rare to be everywhere.
P.S.
Peter Stavropoulos – I am a Greek-Australian Poet. The inspiration is Greek, the context Australian. I came to poetry when all else failed. It wasn’t an escape it was a means to finding meaning in life and it was a surrender. Through poetry my life has been greatly enriched. I have been writing poetry for over twenty years and I am happily married with two beautiful daughters.
When I write I let the words lead me. I try to learn from my poems and from what I feel. This, I believe, is ultimately spiritual. I hope you like my poems.
Thank You,
Peter Stavropoulos.
“At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet”-Plato
S.D. Stavropoulos – It is difficult to write about S.D.’s life because it isn’t fiction. Since meeting her I have become aware of aspects of my life that I didn’t know existed. She is a little lady with a big heart.
I have been witness to many events that can only be explained with reference to the Bible. The devil has tried to destroy her (and me) but here we both are.
All of S.D.’s poetry was written in a period of about two months when she was forcibly separated from me, her husband, and we were waiting on bereaucracy and red tape to reunite us permanently. For the first time in her life she had found love, then it was taken away from her for no one knew how long.
P.S.
A quote that rings true for us is from Martin Lurther -
“Christ is an astounding king, who instead of defending his people, deserts them. Whom he would save, he must first make a despairing sinner. Whom he would make wise, he must first make into a fool. Whom he would make alive, he must first kill. Whom he would bring to honour, he must first bring into dishonour. He is a strange king who is nearest when he is far and farthest when he is near”.
God bless all poets,
Peter and S.D.
['Beginning my studies the first step pleas'd me so much,
...............................
I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any further,
But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs'. - Walt Whitman.]
No comments:
Post a Comment