Phoenix New Life Poetry, Summer 2015, No 57

PHOENIX NEW LIFE POETRY
SUMMER 2015 No 57

Phoenix New Life Poetry is the voice of Phoenix Poets, an international co-operative friendship network of artists and writers worldwide, rather than a commercial literary journal and is open to all contributors.

Co-founding poets: David Allen Stringer & Dr. Emmanuel Petrakis, Members of the “Planetary Council” of “The Universal Alliance” (“Phoenix New Life Poetry” is a project of “The Universal Alliance”)

OUR VISION

“Culture” is, anthropologically and strictly speaking, a definition of the whole of the Way of Life of a Society, not only of a marginalized or sanitised and unchallenging corner called “The Arts”. Since my childhood, in the 1950’s, the “community integrity” of especially Western society, of the “extended family” and the creative, self-reliant village/ neighbourhood has progressively disintegrated with our many competing and isolated egoisms. “The New Renaissance” is about much more than a literary-artistic movement but for the overall healing and reconstruction of our societies and their planetary environment as an interactive whole.

Almost all the elements of this much needed socio-economic and cultural re-creation have emerged in the spiritual, new age, natural health, community-creation and green movements since the 1960’s & 70’s: however, poetry and the related Arts (such as Music), liberated by surrealism and rock-n’-roll, from traditional conventions in the 1950’s & 60’s, since those decades of early promise, appear to have been either neglected, ghettoised or to have become ‘stuck’ in the ‘ranting’ or cynical ‘negativity’ of knowing what one detests, but not knowing what one, more positively, values & aspires to.

In our magazine we will not react to this by seeking to ‘escape into a romantic faerie tale’, but will seek to strike a wholesome balance between ‘angry protest’ and the beauty-&-beatitude of our divine creation that many lose sight of amidst crises, poverty & suffering! Now, however, in this dawn of the promise of the New Millenium is re-emerging the inspiration for the New Renaissance movement in poetry, music and literature as currently manifest in The Partners Writing Group (based in Middlesex, England), together with our own, as above, with initial input from Shelley’s Hellas and Blake’s Albion. We, here, reach out, to the rest of the World, for your participation.

Visionary prose writings can be included, at our discretion, as extracts, in our “Reviews” section and we will, also, be able to use visionary paintings etcetera, as visual contributions to our pages via the Computer-scanner, with poetry as our priority. Thus, we welcome poems on such themes as:

Peace, Freedom, Social-&-Political Justice, Social Comment, Spiritual, Psychic & Religious Experiences, Communing With The Creator & Creation, Healing Prayers & Invocations, ‘New romantic’ Interpretations of Classical Myths & Legends (e.g. those of ‘Orpheus’ or the ‘Holy Grail’) or whatever be your own dream!

All styles are welcome. There are no set limits on the length of each poem. What matters is their motivating spirit!

Poets are invited to send in, with their work, a concise profile of themselves, their concerns or their autobiographies and, if they so wish, we can add their addresses to their work, as printed, should they seek to be contacted by sympathetic souls!

We are especially interested in News and Information about Community Projects that involve Education-for-Harmonious Living or shared Artistic Creativity. We, also, welcome free-exchanges of journals or of mutual publicity, by arrangement, with other ‘cultural periodicals’ such as feel that they share the essential spirit of our initiative. Choice poems in other languages (French or Greek) can be translated if we feel that they are of merit, otherwise poets in other languages (e.g. Russian) will, themselves, have to make their own translations of their work into English to their own satisfaction.

Postal Subscriptions Inc. p & p: U.K £14, Europe 35 Euros Beyond £30 ($50 U.S.) or equivalents*. Cheques & Money Orders payable to “The Universal Alliance”, Postal Orders to David Allen Stringer. The US $ rate has been increased to make up for changes in the $-£ exchange rate. For a single issue only, send us one quarter of the total annual subscription, as above indicated. Euros & dollars can be best paid by sending currency notes, registered mail to prevent costly bank Charges.*Due to recent increases overseas postage rates, with the abolition of “printed paper rates” by the British Post-Office!

Any profits made will go towards “The Universal Alliance” to help us with our communications and other support for our poorer brothers & sisters in Africa, Asia & elsewhere and other projects. Free copies can only be made available, otherwise, to those who undertake to copy the magazine to pass on to others, with the prior agreement of we, the editors. We wish to share our inspirations: but it must remain financially viable! Such Profits have been rare and have usually gone towards covering the cost of following issues, together with any donations that help offset the cost of FREE COPIES overseas.

Contact address: (International) David Allen Stringer, Editor, “Phoenix New Life Poetry”

Flat 5, Cobbs Well House, Place Rd. Fowey, Cornwall PL23 1DR U.K. Tel: (00 44) (0) 1726 833334 Email: uni.alli@btinternet.com

Web: www.universalalliance.org.uk

Please enclose, with M.S.S. by post, as appropriate, S.A.E./I.R.C.’s or send them by email. We do not pay and do not run competitions as our purpose is not to satisfy the artistic egos of individuals, so much as to help draw together those with whom we can work creatively towards our common, cooperative ideals.

SUMMER 2015 Editorial
Art, Poetry & Literature as Status Symbols.

Our hierarchical Societies have been riddled and rotten for a long time, with a plethora of diverse status symbols, “status” being best defined as the ‘have nots’ in any field looking up to its ‘haves’, something placed on the image of any ‘successful’, ‘creative’, knowledgeable, rich or powerful person by others, however sincere, heartfelt or genuine their expressions or go-getter achievement. All such statuses carry with them various forms of ‘privilege’, in the case of the Arts, an ‘artistic and lifestyle licence whereby they can do what ‘ordinary people’ often feel forbidden or inhibited from doing, be it the aristocrat with a harem of mistresses or the ‘scandalous behaviour’ of famous authors & painters.

This is the rich side of the coin, sadly, the poor side of which (‘heads I win, tails you lose’) is the inbuilt inferiority-complex of ‘ordinary people’ that they could ‘never be good enough at being creative’ themselves. Of course, anyone who feels inspired to write a poem, like every mother giving birth, at the moment of (pro)creation, feels extraordinary however ordinary the generality of their life. Biodata of poets rarely paints the broader, more humdrum background –one of my most lyrical love poems lives on, but not the fact that I was working to survive on a factory production lines in those times. Thus, in creating, every poet or artist transcends the limitations of their material times, often to be lost in oblivion, so achieving that valid ‘cosmic’ status of a kind of immortality amidst the transient dust of the mortal, an achievement that does nor need the false masks or façades of any outward social status!

Image becomes all, and such masks block any real appreciation of what the artist or poet are trying to communicate as a person. In religion, the example of Saints (& Jesus Christ himself) has become, for many, not so much something to aspire to, but as an excuse for remaining imperfect sinners, riddled with ‘original sin’ (contrary to Christ’s own teaching)!

Many feel inhibited from exploring boundaries in poetry because ‘some one else does it better than they do’ and rarely move outside a ‘safe, copied style’, even as in politics, many citizens shrink back from their ‘democratic responsibilities’ because the ‘governing Party elite’ ‘knows how to deal with such things better than they do’ and rarely do anything but “vote” ‘their leaders’ into power, in a time-set way.

This is unfortunate as it blocks a wider and more democratic creativity in society as a cultural whole, especially when poetry is the most democratic of art-forms, requiring, as means, only pen and paper!

“Name Status’ produces crazy distortions of value, for instance, graffiti is usually seen as ‘vandalism’ (except when it has been done by Banksy when it becomes revered as worth a lot of money!)

So, in coming to read our Phoenix, try to come to it as if you were from another culture (or Planet?) jusr as each work has been written, as it is, without any preconceived expectations of what poetry is supposed to be, even as I first discovered the thrilling bardic delights of verse, as a small child, in my Rupert Bear annuals, loving the art of it’s story illustrations!

Wordsworth wrote about the Lake District because he loved it. He did not do it for an audience who expected ‘Culture’ (even if he was free to do so because he had a ‘private income!). This shines through his stories as when one reads the poem I always loved – Michael the Shepherd. Every true ‘blues’ song is my or someone else’s personal life-blues, with or without guitar), it is NOT a concoction whereby one can become part of a fashionable trend (as with many, later 60’s and 70’s, bands!). Just listen to The King, Elvis Presley’s own songs and know the man within, as he is feeling, beyond the, in many ways tragic and sad ‘rich rock-star on a pedestal!

Indeed, there are those ‘clever works’, borrowing life as ‘Art’, with all those manicured rules of rhyme, rhythm ,metaphor, assonance and alliteration ); some of these, if one sees beyond the sophistication, are hollow shells & facades. Yes! One does transcend one’s self whenever one creates imaginatively, rises above and transmutes more mundane existence, in one’s own soul and self-worth and fulfilment! Anyone who does so can be extra-ordinary as well as ordinary at some time, even if there is only one.

Anyone can pick up the skill to write ‘verse’ (and claim status from it as ‘becoming a poet’) and one can, in theory, compose verses on any subject (as I once composed the entertaining lyrics for a musical satirizing the Leeds Urban Motorway Programme in the 1970’s! (shades of Andrew Lloyd Webber?). This I see as but a preparation, for deeper expressions of one’s own Inner mind & soul, something we can all awaken and have, once we turn our senses inward, away from seeing everything in the outward, material world as social status. This is the farce of the whole idea of a ‘Poet Laureate’ as the ‘Mount Olympus’ peak of some hierarchy of status in Poetry! So what if one can manufacture verses about anything from the Queen’s birthday to England winning the World Cup? What if, often shallow, audiences are willing to pay you to entertain them with your instant-coffee poetised wit? In World War, my merchant seaman father manufactured innumerable Valentine Sonnets to sell to sailors & troops on troop ships: the only one’s that came from his heart were those he penned and sent to my mum. To him I owe much of my gift.

Sadly, his poems ‘got lost’ to me when mum died!

Namaste – David Allen Stringer

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