Poetry sin fronteras: Francisco X. Alarcón featured @ “Kritya”

From Kritya, Journal of Poetry

Of special interest to all lovers of poetry, but especially to those of you that submitted to the fifth edition of the Andrés Montoya poetry prize (best of luck!), Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize judge, Francisco X. Alarcón is the featured “editor’s pick” poet at Kritya. 

This edition of the Indian international poetry journal features six poems by Alarcón: “Deep Song,” “Night,” “Lightning,” “Leaf,” “Poetic Manifesto,” and “Let Us Be Gandhi.”

“[E]ach poem is an act of faith/ in the power of the Word/ a flower passed / hand to hand” declares Alarcón, staying true to his conviction that in times of social and environmental crisis, poetry can be a transcendent agent of change, of understanding and healing. And staying true to his simplicity of language and imagery, Alarcón pushes his readers to make imaginary assaults against the sterility of the impossible, against all the ugliness of repression and to envision a place where poems teach us to “never be bullets

but true healing hands

pressing bleeding wounds

run[ing] away from lions

and eagles, always content

to be butterflies”

But not everything is sheer resistance there are moment s here too of playfulness, poems that refuse to be corralled by the workings of the rational mind.  In the poem “Lightning” Alarcón leads us to a realm of intuition and sheer imagination where land becomes sky, where light and darkness intertwine and transcend the limitations of their own elements, where no rational answers exist but rather a reflective surface where we can contemplate the mystery of life:

Lightning

sky
rooting
on the land

a tree
of light
in the dark

lasting
an instant
an eternity

announcing
a celestial
drumming

FOR MORE POEMS CLICK HERE AND HERE.