Kenia's Wednesday Challenge

A beast in winter,

a plant in spring,

an insect in summer,

a bird in autumn.

The rest of the time I am a woman.

I like it that English allows me to get to know the works of many wonderful poets and writers worldwide I would be unable to read in their original languages. Including this great woman's I bring you today: Vera Pavlova.

A tentative bio:

caught fireflies,

read till dawn,

fell in love with weirdos,

cried buckets of tears

for reasons unknown,

birthed two daughters

by seven men.

Born in Moscow in 1963, she's another literary genius alive, a genius with a musical soul. She graduated from a renowned academy, specializing in the history of music. She started writing poetry when she was 20 and she was first published when she was 24 years old. So far she has written 15 poetry books, just one of them has been translated to English: If there is something to desire, I got mine from Amazon.

Writing down verses, I got
a paper-cut on my palm.
The cut extended my life line
by nearly one fourth.

I broke your heart.

Now barefoot I tread

on shards.

What I like most about Vera is that she writes with such delicacy and powerful imagery about being a woman, about women's issues and feelings, and lives.  

Another poet came into being

when I saw the life of life,

the death of death:

the child I had birthed.

That was my beginning:

blood burning the groin,

the soul soaring, the baby wailing

in the arms of a nurse. 

Besides books, she has also experimented with non-traditional ways of disseminating her poetry, such as SMS-messaging, postcards, video clips, and audio books. One of her poems was selected by the Poetry in Motion program and was displayed as a poster in subway cars in New York City and in Los Angeles buses; it was also issued as a bookmark by the Poetry Society of America. Isn't it wonderful?!

Let us touch each other
while we still have hands,
palms, forearms, elbows . . .
Let us love each other for misery,
torture each other, torment,
disfigure, maim,
to remember better,
to part with less pain.

Here's a video of Vera at Wellesley College discussing poetry and being adorable, together with her husband Steven Seymour, who happens to be her translator. 

CHALLENGE:

Today's challenge may sound a bit crazy but I hope you can still find it enjoyable. I like the idea of poetry that moves, instead of sitting on shelves inside books. What I ask of you is  to write a poem to the world. You can address it to mankind, or to a more specific subject: your children, your parents, a neighbor that is kind toward you or another one who's unpleasant; a workmate, a boyfriend/girlfriend you lost touch with, a passerby, the woman who works in the shop around the corner. 

Write it as a message you'd like this someone to get and then think of a way to get it through. You can write it on your walls, or hang it on the fridge, you can make it a postcard and send it to that someone (I'd love to get that!), text it to a friend, take a photograph holding it, cross-stitch it (Awn! Can't explain how much I'd like to see that!), chalk it on your sidewalk, staple it to a tree, write it on the sand at the beach or simply write it on a small piece of paper and hand it to the addressee. Oh, please, do take pictures of whatever you decide to make!

Don't forget to link back to this Garden. Happy writing my dear ones!