By Virginia Jamin Pasalo

 

A GOOD friend from Puerto Rico, Luz Maria Lopez, is publishing “a little book with selected poems in English” and requested me to write a very short simple blurb, around five lines. She wants me to do this because she says, I’m familiar with her poetry.  More important, I know her as a person. Despite being familiar with her work, I asked her to send me the whole manuscript. This is what I require for the writers, poets included, to be able to say a short blurb, around five lines, appropriate for their creative efforts.

Often, fellow writers ask me to comment on their work before publication. I do so, as honestly as possible, to be able to assist in some way, in bringing the book closer to the author’s intentions. Writers, appreciating a book they have read, or encountering a dilemma in understanding it, ask me, “What do you think of his writing?”

Below is a gist of a conversation I had, which reflects a glimpse of what I think.

“Maybe the reason I can’t appreciate the poems is because I’m reading the poems from a different cultural lens. I see a poet detached, I can’t feel the heart.”

“That’s what I felt. But how far do you give credit to the poet, when in the entire book there’s never ever such a connection? It’s a bestseller.”

“Not concerned so much with sales figures. Some not so good ones sell a lot. I’ve read books that were good but didn’t sell. What I like about a written work is the honesty, the integrity of the poetry, its ability to stir a host of emotions, ecstatic or violent, or calm.”

“Some poets are just monsters, haha.”

“The monstrosity lies in the disconnect. The author you mentioned for example, I have difficulty finding his heart.”

“There’s the technical craft, undoubtedly. But no, can’t feel anything.”

“But a poem is not technical.”

The technical elements may refer to rhyme, rhythm, imagery, alliteration, language, stanza, tone, assonance, dissonance and some other technicality normally required to assess form, but the most important consideration in a poem, is its soul, its heart. Some poets just ejaculate anything, and become paradigms for poetic expression, become best sellers even, and given awards, mainly on the basis of the technical aspects.

A poem is a written work of art. It disturbs, like the work of of Salvador Dali. It stirs speculation, like the sculpture of the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. A poem opens up to the intricacies of our minds and bodies, like the poetry of Mother Theresa, the inspiration for Bernini’s sculpture:

“He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The agony was so excruciating that I moaned, yet the pleasure of this excruciating pain was so overpowering that I couldn’t wish it away. The spirit is now content with nothing other than God.”

Which brings me to the poetry of my good friend, Luz Maria Lopez. In a world that is increasingly connected but in utter disconnect, the poetry of Luz reaches to the core, eliciting powerful emotions, awakening consciousness from the dormancy of the unspoken. It is never pretentious, it is honest in expressing desire, elegant and flowing in its eroticism.

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