Tag Archives: Human Relationships

Poem “After” by Brazilian Poet Martha Medeiros

18 Sunday Sep 2022

Posted by in Brazil, Poetry

≈ 41 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

Brazilian Poet Martha Medeiros
Photo Credit: Martha Medeiros Official Facebook Page

My Poetry Corner September 2022 features the poem “After” (Depois) by Brazilian poet, journalist, and chronicler Martha Medeiros, born in 1961 in Porto Alegre, capital of Brazil’s southern State of Rio Grande do Sul. With more than thirty books published, many of which have been adapted for theater, TV, and the cinema, she has become one of the most read and respected writers in Brazil.

In the 1980s, after graduating in Social Communication from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Medeiros started out as a copywriter and content creator in advertising and marketing. Her debut poetry collection Strip-Tease, published in 1985, received great success. Over the next sixteen years, ending in 2001, she published five more books of poetry. Her favored themes were love, lovelessness, and relationships.

In the poem “The measuring tape of love,” she concludes: It’s not height, weight, or muscles that make a person great. / It’s their immeasurable sensitivity.

The extensive list in the poem “What is the purpose of a relationship?” includes:

A relationship has to serve you in feeling 100% comfortable with the other person…
To teach one to trust, to respect the differences that exist between people…
A relationship has to serve for one to forgive the weaknesses of the other…
Continue reading →

“Unwritten Poem” – Poem by Barbados’ First Poet Laureate Esther Phillips

06 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by in Poetry

≈ 39 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

minister of culture appoints poet esther phillips as barbados' first poet laureate - february 2018

Minister of Culture appoints Poet Esther Phillips as Barbados’ first Poet Laureate – February 2018
Photo Credit: Barbados Government Information Services

 

My Poetry Corner January 2019 features the poem “Unwritten Poem” from the poetry collection, The Stone Gatherer, by Esther Phillips, a poet and educator born in Barbados, where she still resides. In February 2018, she was appointed the first Poet Laureate of the Caribbean island-nation.

After attending the Barbados Community College at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, she won a James Michener fellowship to the University of Miami where, in 1999, she gained an MFA degree in Creative Writing. Her poetry collection/thesis won the Alfred Boas Poetry Prize of the Academy of American Poets.

In 2001, she won the leading Barbadian Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award. Years later, the third of her three well-received poetry collections, Leaving Atlantis (2015), won the Governor General’s Award for Literary Excellence.

Phillips is a Sunday columnist of the Nation newspaper and editor of Bim: Arts for the 21st Century, a 2007 revival of the seminal Caribbean literary and arts magazine, first published in 1942. In 2012, she formed Writers Ink Inc. and, together with its members, the Bim Literary Festival & Book Fair. Continue reading →

“We Could Be Free” by American Rapper Vic Mensa

09 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by in Poetry

≈ 42 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Vic Mensa (foreground) from song video “We Could Be Free”
Photo Credit: Rolling Stone

 

In keeping with my end-of-year tradition, I feature a song on my Poetry Corner December 2018. During this year of growing division in the USA, the hip hop song “We Could Be Free” by Vic Mensa captured my attention. It’s the thirteenth track on Mensa’s first, full-length, studio album, The Autobiography, released on July 28, 2017.

An American rapper, singer, and songwriter, Vic Mensa was born Victor Kwesi Mensah on June 6, 1993, in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up in the good part of the Hyde Park neighborhood within a sheltered home with two parents, both educators. His white American mother and Ghanaian father, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, wanted their son to go to college. But the young Vic dreamed of becoming a rock star.

With adolescence came exposure to the real world outside of Vic’s gated community. In “Memories on 47th Street,” the biracial Mensa raps of his loss of innocence and the beginning of his drug use.

At age 12 I learned the difference between white and black
Police pulled me off of my bike, I landed on my back
Back to reality, oops, a victim of gravity
Where they pull you down and keep you there
Dependin’ on how you keep your hair

“I started to realize that America and the world were categorizing me as being black and all the stigmas attached to that, which would take a lifetime to unpack,” Mensa says in an interview with the Chicago Tribune.

Mensa concludes in “Memories on 47th Street:”

In a land of desperation we often turn to self-medication as a coping mechanism
Some make a living as hood pharmacists while some just inhale to remove them from hell
I watched from the window of a gated community until I grew old enough
There was no immunity from allure of the life 

Continue reading →

Hate Trumps Love

13 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by in Human Behavior, United States

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

Child pulled out of rubble after air strike - Syria

Child buried alive pulled out of rubble after air strike
Syria – January 2014
Photo Credit: The Sun

 

No, it’s not a typo error or a slip of the tongue. In this neocolonial world we live in, hate trumps love. The latest hate speech by a business-magnate-turned-politician, aiming for presidency of the world’s only superpower, is proof of this reality. What’s even more disturbing is that he has a large following bubbling over with the same brand of hate.

Exposed to different religious beliefs in my native land Guyana, I have learned to embrace all religions. But, owing to my Catholic upbringing, my first thoughts in the face of such hate speech were the teachings of Jesus. And, for Christians who celebrate Christmas, this is the perfect time to reflect on the significance of his birth.

Jesus came into this world to save humankind (Luke 2: 9-14). That was a tall order. What’s more, he had to lose his life to accomplish his mission. Considering the price he paid in taking on our humanity, Christians who accept Jesus as their savior shouldn’t take his teachings lightly. He summed up the way to harmonious human relationships in one word: love. First, love of God; second, love of neighbor as oneself (Matthew 22: 34-40). Hate nailed him to a cross. Continue reading →

“Heal the World” by Michael Jackson

06 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by in Poetry

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Heal the World

My Poetry Corner December 2015 features an excerpt from the song “Heal the World,” written and produced by Michael Jackson (1958-2009). Released in 1992, the song soon hit the top charts. During an Internet chat in 2001, Jackson revealed that he was most proud of creating this song.

During the period he composed this song – just like today – there were regions of the world at war: Afghan Civil War (1989-1992), breakup of Yugoslavia (1990-1992), and the Persian Gulf War (1991). With thousands of children wounded, left orphans and homeless as a result of violence worldwide, Jackson’s call to heal our world remains relevant today.

In the opening stanza, Jackson tackles the problem head on. The solution is simple. We can transform our lives when we make room in our hearts for love. Continue reading →