Literary Revelations is thrilled to let you know that Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems by C.X. Turner and James Welsh is now a #1 Amazon Bestseller [Haiku & Japanese Poetry]. We made to #1 in several hours after the launch. Thank you to those who supported us,
Thrilled to be the publisher of this astonishing book.
Literary Revelations is proud to let you know that Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems by C.X. Turner and James Welsh is now live on Amazon. The book is a superb collection of haiku and senryu. Please read the Amazon description and check out the book.
Amazon Description
Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems by C.X. Turner and James Welsh is a spectacular collection. From every page the beauty of haiku and senryu poetry jumps, inscribing itself in the soul of the reader with color, sonority, melancholy, grief, and love. Water, clouds, memories, do not only mark chapters. They become the real soul of the book. The transitory nature of haiku and senryu – with their delicate and ethereal qualities – is magically transformed by the authors into permanence. That is no easy thing to do. C.X. Turner and James Welsh create a world of splendor and depth that will forever mark those who read the book.
The book showcases seven wonderful sketches done by C.X. Turner. You will find beauty and great substance in them.
Building Sandcastleshas received plenty of advanced praise:
Bryan Rickert, Editor: Failed Haiku Journal of Senryu, President: The Haiku Society of America writes: “With both broad brushstrokes and intimate details, these two poets paint the beautiful experience of their haiku worlds.”
Joe Woodhouse, Editor: Wales Haiku Journal states that: “In one breath tender and poignant, in the next stark and arresting, this collection of short poems is a journey of discovery through an evocative series of moments in nature. It is an exploration of that yearning to glean meaning from the chaotic lives we all lead.”
Roberta Beach JacobsonEditor, Cold Moon Journal and Five Fleas (Itchy Poetry) tells us: “Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems, the stunning new collection by C.X. Turner and James Welsh, is a must-have for your shelves. These thought-provoking haiku and senryu left me breathless.”
Literary Revelations is proud to publish this unbelievable poetry collection.
Hello Everyone. Literary Revelations is proud to let you know that Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems by C.X. Turner and James Welsh will be released August 11.
Please return to this space for more updates.
Amazon Description
Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems by C.X. Turner and James Welsh is a spectacular collection. From every page the beauty of haiku and senryu poetry jumps, inscribing itself in the soul of the reader with color, sonority, melancholy, grief, and love. Water, clouds, memories, do not only mark chapters. They become the real soul of the book. The transitory nature of haiku and senryu – with their delicate and ethereal qualities – is magically transformed by the authors into permanence. That is no easy thing to do. C.X. Turner and James Welsh create a world of splendor and depth that will forever mark those who read the book.
The book showcases seven wonderful sketches done by C.X. Turner. You will find beauty and great substance in them.
The book has received plenty of advanced praise:
Bryan Rickert, Editor: Failed Haiku Journal of Senryu, President: The Haiku Society of America writes: “With both broad brushstrokes and intimate details, these two poets paint the beautiful experience of their haiku worlds.”
Joe Woodhouse, Editor: Wales Haiku Journal states that: “In one breath tender and poignant, in the next stark and arresting, this collection of short poems is a journey of discovery through an evocative series of moments in nature. It is an exploration of that yearning to glean meaning from the chaotic lives we all lead.”
Roberta Beach JacobsonEditor, Cold Moon Journal and Five Fleas (Itchy Poetry) tells us: “Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems, the stunning new collection by C.X. Turner and James Welsh, is a must-have for your shelves. These thought-provoking haiku and senryu left me breathless.”
Literary Revelations is proud to publish this unbelievable poetry collection.
Foreword
There has never been a collection of short poems and haiku that stirred so much beauty and so many emotions in my soul like Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems by C.X.Turner and James Welsh.
I want to be clear from the beginning. There is always a certain degree of disparity between the consciousness of a poet and reality. C.X.Turner and James Welsh fill that gap with intricate feelings, fragrances, colors, flowers, birds, and memories, until we do not understand anymore where dreams stop, and reality emerges.
The delicacy of their word and sound impregnates every poem.
around a bend on a woodland path the chime of bluebells
river walk— the gentle weeping of white peony petals
Make no mistake. Their poems are not only delicate and breathtaking in imagery. They are also philosophical. Moreover, the authors steer clear of “fixing” feelings. They live the good and the bad, a remarkable move in a world in which commercialism and slogans bombard us every day; a world that denies an entire repertoire of human feelings to replace it with the today’s socially engineered state of “happiness.”
weeping cloud I don’t try to fix melancholy
a grieving friend love, blown from a candle in the wind
C.X.Turner and James Welsh transform the impossible into possible. They transmute the physical world into a world of magnificent beauty and depth that will forever mark those who read them.
Literary Revelations is thrilled to present you with the wonderful work of C. Jean Downer. I hope you enjoy the feature. Have a great week ahead everyone.
Bio
C. Jean Downer is a poet and novelist formerly from the US Southwest now living in the Canadian Pacific Northwest with her wife of twenty years, their two fabulous teenage daughters, two lazy dogs, and three chill cats. She loves to write poetry, especially short form, with work featured in journals and anthologies, including Hidden Childhood, Wounds I Healed, Autumn Moon, Modern Haiku,Heron’s Nest, Presence, Wales Haiku, Akitsu Quarterly, Failed Haiku, Canada Haiku Review, and numerous others. Downer also writes traditional detective fiction with a magical twist. She’s a self-proclaimed expert in the genre with thousands of mystery books, television episodes, and movies to her reading and viewing credit. Even her family refuses to watch mysteries with her unless she promises to zip it.
Her debut, Lies Are Forever, A Sloane West Mystery is available for pre-order and will be released on December 19th, 2023.
Years Later
Her summer scent escapes my memories sun-kissed mornings sugar sands nights of salt and sweat ocean’s ebb and flow within our fingertips. Into days and nights softer, quieter, evening snow white blanket meadows hothouse peonies unfurling our love familiar and complete.
Pandemic House Guest
I apologize out loud for the annoying fly buzzing in the house.
I named her Alice after she appeared through a tear in the screen door.
She hangs with me like the necklace around my neck with my daughters’ names.
The one I will only take off when they eat enough to be whole again.
The one I rub between my finger and thumb and pray they desire to live again.
So please don’t ask me to swat Alice dead, not in this year full of so much sadness and death.
Short form
after all this death waiting for her to smile daylilies
uncovered in a dried-up stock pond upright boots
Lies Are Forever – released on December 19th, 2023 – blurb
Ex-New York City cop turned private investigator Sloane West’s penchant for Irish whiskey isn’t assuaging the worst month of her life. Her mother recently died, and her ex-best friend and ex-girlfriend have sent her an invitation to their upcoming nuptials.
Thankfully, a solicitor arrives and distracts her faster than a night of drinking Jameson neat with news that Sloane has inherited her late grandparents’—whom she didn’t know existed—island estate.
When Sloane refuses her inheritance, the solicitor encourages her to at least visit her mother’s birthplace. Eager to discover her magical roots and a birthright her mother hid, Sloane agrees. As she’s finalizing travel plans, a man kicks in her door and turns a gun on her, but Sloane kills him with her unchecked magical strength. Now she must figure out who wants her dead.
On Vancouver Island, Sloane delves into the mysterious and deceptive lives of her suspects. And as the attacks on her and her newly found coven intensify, she must choose whether to embrace her power as a protector or flee from her birthright.
Hello everyone and welcome to Literary Revelations. We are thrilled to bring you an interview with Fulvio Caccia, a contemporary Italian poet, novelist and essayist. The interview was conducted in French by our wonderful collaborator Virginia Mateias. We hope you enjoy this gorgeous feature.
« La poésie n’est pas un exercice narcissique, mais un instrument de la connaissance de la pluralité de notre être »
Fulvio Caccia
V.M : Qu’est-ce qui vous a initialement inspiré à vous consacrer à la poésie en tant que moyen d’expression créative?
F.C : 1. Je pratique plusieurs genres littéraires, mais la poésie est la première forme que j’ai utilisée. Pourquoi ? Sans doute parce qu’elle est la forme élémentaire d’où toutes les autres procèdent. La poésie permet l’expression du moi sans médiation, sans l’artifice d’une narration ou d’une contextualisation. Le rapport à l’imaginaire se fait directement tel un sismographe qui enregistre les vibrations de notre subjectivité. Ce qui lui confère sa puissance au sens propre et figuré. C’est de cet infracturable noyau de la nuit intérieure que s’élance la parole comme un geyser. Cette nuit, c’est le « non-poème » comme l’aurait nommé mon ami, le poète Gaston Miron. Il est ce bloc d’obscurité qu’il faut frotter contre la pierre de sa propre singularité pour faire advenir l’étincelle de la parole.
V.M : Si vous aviez la capacité de transporter vos lecteurs dans le monde de l’un de vos poèmes, quel poème choisiriez-vous et pourquoi ?
F.C : De mon recueil « Ti voglio bene » paru cette année auprès des éditions « La feuille de thé », je retiendrai le dernier poème. Pourquoi ? Parce qu’il conclut le combat amoureux, thème et fil rouge de cette rapsodie métisse qui fut longtemps le titre de travail de ce long chant. Il en constitue l’apothéose. Le « non-poème » et le « poème » s’affrontent au sens propre et figuré. De cette lutte, de ce corps à corps symbolique entre le « je » et le « tu », surgira le Nom du poème enfin advenu, la déclaration d’amour et le nom du lecteur qui se sera reconnu dans ce combat contre l’Ange, son double.
V.M : Y a-t-il des thèmes ou des sujets spécifiques que vous explorez fréquemment dans votre poésie?
F.C : Les thèmes récurrents sont scandés par les titres de mes recueils. Dans Irpinia, j’explorais mon rapport à la mémoire de l’immigration. Car Irpinia renvoie autant à l’arrière-pays de Naples où est né mon père qu’au navire qui nous a conduit jusqu’au Canada à l’orée des années 60.
Scirocco, nom de ce vent du Sahara, évoque l’impossible retour dans la patrie de l’enfance, le paradis perdu. Aknos, qui m’a valu le prix du Gouverneur général du Canada en 1994, chante l’imaginaire libéré d’un rapatriement : celui de la mémoire originelle et du temps qui n’est plus chronologique, mais « messianique », mon propre temps qui m’inscrit symboliquement dans ma nouvelle patrie et ma nouvelle famille. La chasse spirituelle convoque un thème antique qui est aussi le madrigal de l’Ars nova : la quête. Italie et autres voyages l’exemplifient. La Péninsule est revisitée non plus comme « pays natal », mais comme figure du voyage initiatique : ce qu’il fut pour nombre de personnalités ! De Montaigne à Freud. Enfin Ti voglio bene vient clore ce cycle en dévoilant le nom de la démarche qui anime tout rapport authentique aux autres comme à la littérature : l’amour.
En fait ces thèmes n’ont cessé de se croiser et de se recroiser dans mon travail poétique depuis quarante ans.
V.M : Avez-vous des rituels ou des habitudes spécifiques qui vous aident à entrer dans un état d’esprit créatif ?
F.C : Je n’ai pas de rituels particuliers ou du moins consciemment. Les pages manuscrites s’accumulent et finissent par constituer une masse critique à partir de laquelle le déclic se fait. Ce déclic peut prendre du temps et provient de la répétition.
V.M : Si vous pouviez avoir une conversation avec une figure historique à travers votre poésie, qui choisiriez-vous et que lui demanderiez-vous ?
F.C : Dante sans doute peut-être aussi Rabelais. Ces pionniers anticipent de ce qui deviendra la poésie italienne pour le premier et le roman pour le second, ils ont une surconscience du nouveau rapport au langage qu’ils sont en train d’instiller et que leur époque leur impose. Ce sont déjà nos contemporains. C’est d’ailleurs pourquoi ils marqueront leur langue de leur sceau. On parlera de la langue de Dante, mais aussi de la langue de Rabelais même dans ce cas Molière lui aura damé le pion. La question que je leur poserai c’est précisément celle-là : aviez-vous conscience de votre modernité ? Mais je connais déjà leur réponse !
V.M : Pouvez-vous partager un exemple d’une expérience particulièrement mémorable ou difficile qui a influencé votre poésie ?
F.C : Une expérience mémorable demeure la mort de mes parents. Ils sont décédés à un âge relativement jeune, laissant la famille que nous étions alors désemparée. Je leur ai rendu hommage dans plusieurs de mes poèmes… Soudain, ma mère dans ce terrain vague à Florence/ au centre du vortex et des enfants qui jouent/Que fait-elle sur sa petite chaise de bois ? /Pourquoi ne lève-t-elle pas la tête pour me regarder ? /Silence ! Elle lit les lettres de son frère/Elle lit les lettres d’Amérique ! /Que racontent-elles ? Dis-moi/Que chuchotent ces mots, cailloux semés tels des bonbons sur le chemin du Songe ? /Que voit-elle donc entre les lignes du récit tant de fois imité ? /Tant de fois exulté/Le grand voyage vers la fortune ? La déroute du mensonge ? /Ah ! Ces illusions qui incendient les coeurs, embrasent les émotions/Partir, recommencer comme si de rien n’était Rien. /Rien. Ce n’est rien/.
V.M : Quel rôle pensez-vous que la vulnérabilité joue dans la création et la réception de la poésie ?
F.C : L’expression de la vulnérabilité dans la création poétique est également la condition nécessaire de sa réception. L’une ne va pas sans l’autre. Elle constitue l’autre facette de ce « faire » qu’est la poésie. Ce n’est pas un hasard si dans le « Vulgaire illustre », son art poétique, Dante choisit la figure la plus vulnérable qui soit : le nouveau-né. C’est la langue populaire qu’il boit avec le lait de la mère qui deviendra pour le poète la quête par son « dolce stil novo » pour son thème de prédilection : l’amour. Amour de la langue et amour de l’être aimé se complètent ainsi. Dans la foulée du nouveau paradigme chrétien — dont la figure fondatrice est aussi un nouveau-né —, que se déploie le concept de « nouveauté » et ensuite de modernité dont il est le fondateur. Cette notion s’appuie sur la conscience de sa propre vulnérabilité et, plus en amont, de la vulnérabilité de la condition humaine qu’il s’agit d’exprimer. Cet aveu de faiblesse peut cependant paraître intolérable à certains, avides de pouvoir. C’est pourquoi ils auront tendance à vouloir la nier et ne retenir que la force dans leur vocabulaire, affirmant de la sorte leur… faiblesse.
V.M : Avez-vous des conseils pour les poètes aspirants qui cherchent à développer leur art et à trouver leur voix unique ?
F.C : À la manière de Rilke qui le conseilla à un jeune poète, il convient d’être attentif au mouvement de l’âme et le mettre en relation avec l’âme du monde. La poésie n’est pas un exercice narcissique, mais un instrument de la connaissance de la pluralité de notre être. Il faut aller à l’essentiel et « remettre sur le métier », comme le disait Boileau, pour enlever tous les artifices et ne conserver que la voix pure, distincte et claire.
V.M : Pouvez-vous partager des projets ou des collaborations à venir qui vous enthousiasment ?
F.C : La démarche bien comprise d’un écrivain comme de tout bon citoyen implique de marcher sur deux jambes : le personnel et le collectif. Parmi mes projets personnels, notons deux autres manuscrits de poésie terminés. Le premier s’intitule Actualité, il évoque la permutation du temps long de la poésie et du temps court de l’actualité, le second Âme amère, s’ouvre et se conclut par une sextine, forme poétique médiévale, et renvoie par assonance au premier monde de l’amour dont on se détache. Je suis également romancier. Au printemps prochain, je publie La passe, un roman psychologique qui est aussi une enquête policière sur la mémoire et la place que l’on occupe et que l’on permute. La répétition est un autre roman manuscrit sur l’immigration d’Afrique notamment. Enfin il y a les Enfants de l’Algorithme, un roman sur le temps. Enfin j’ai deux essais en préparation sur la littérature et le politique.
Côté initiative publique, j’ai cofondé il y a près de 40 ans à Montréal, le magazine transculturel Viceversa. En France, j’ai fondé et dirigé l’Observatoire de la diversité culturelle dont le site de référence, combats-magazine, continue d’être animé par mes soins. Je préside actuellement Linguafranca, un collectif international d’écrivains, de traducteurs et de chercheurs dédié à la traduction et à la réflexion sur les conditions du nouvel espace numérique. Je suis membre du CA du Pen club français.
Literary Revelations is happy to bring to you the poetry of Cindy Georgakas. I hope you enjoy it.
Bio
Cindy Georgakas was born in San Francisco, California and she is the author of Re-create & Celebrate: 7 Steps To Turning Your Dreams Into Reality. The book’s foreword was written by Dr. Cherie Carter Scott, New York Times Bestselling author of If Life is a Game, Here are the Rules. She was voted Author of the Month at Spillwords Press NYC on April 2023 and on October 2022 one of her pieces was voted Publication of the Month.
Cindy is a co-author of #1 Amazon Bestseller, Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology edited by Gabriela Marie Milton (Literary Revelations, 2023) and Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women (Gabriela Marie Milton, ed. EIF, 2022). She is also a Treasured Contributor to MasticadoresUsa (formerly a monthly contributor from 2021-2023).
She lives nestled in the trees of a small community about 40 minutes south of San Francisco with her husband and some animals. She is a life health coach, and a craniosacral therapist who draws inspiration from her daily interactions with clients, friends, her 4 children, nature and animals.
Her website is Uniquely Fit.net. Cindy can also be found on her blog, The Unique Times with Cindy on WordPress, and on social media: Instagram @ahamoments, Twitter and Facebook.
bruised
Bruised, thin skinned Oozing Like this peach I bite into. Sweetness drips down my chin as I try to save face.
Tears bittersweet as I say goodbye, never knowing why.
Like the peach, relationships have a shelf life. Often misunderstood living under our skin, festering and bubbling under the surface.
Love hurts. There are no quick cures but the love you once had is yours to savor.
If you once loved, you will love again.
The chill of the season leaves us dormant to go inside and hibernate to do our inner cleaning. clear out the cobwebs that remain.
Healing takes time as we grapple with our inner demons giving them some space to learn and grow.
But spring will come in time. And when I’m ready, I pick the peach of my dreams at the exact right time. and eat it in delight as the juice drips down my chin once again.
In summer I basque in the sun as the slithering snake sheds its skin. as do I, ready to move on.
And this is the cycle of life, as I learn to be a little more discerning in my choices and grow thicker skin.
Dream or Reality?
I sit in anticipation of your call patiently waiting, my heart vapid with silence that tells it all.
The internal desire to push through the cracks and cut through this appendage of pain has left me befuddled and lonely.
I wake to an empty glass on the nightstand and an open window, no note of goodbye.
I see the trace of a shadow colliding with a star dimly lit merging into the horizon and the fog of my breath on the window,
tracing the words.
I love you,
I’m so sorry.
No words can explain the inexplicable feelings of your disappearance. And no length of time will take away the pain,
but through the tears of silence,
my heart remains filled with liquid pearls as my lips kiss the windowpane and I say goodbye, smashing the glass through the pain, fractured, and torn.
Light filters in from under my door as the fog lifts and I awake to your arms enveloping me, caressing the pain with the scent of your cologne in my hair in the soft covered feather down chair.
I hope everything is going well with you. In early August Literary Revelations will release Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems authored by C.X. Turner and James Welsh. The book has received plenty of advanced praise some of which you can read here. It’s a marvelous book. It comprises haiku, senryu, and several splendid sketches by C.X. Turner.
Below please find a short foreword I wrote for the book.
featured image: Water by C.X. Turner (included in the book).
Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems – Foreword
There has never been a collection of short poems and haiku that stirred so much beauty and so many emotions in my soul like Building Sandcastles: A Book of Short Poems by C.X. Turner and James Welsh.
I want to be clear from the beginning. There is always a certain degree of disparity between the consciousness of a poet and reality. C.X. Turner and James Welsh fill that gap with intricate feelings, fragrances, colors, flowers, birds, and memories, until we do not understand anymore where dreams stop, and reality emerges.
The delicacy of their word and sound impregnates every poem.
around a bend on a woodland path the chime of bluebells
river walk— the gentle weeping of white peony petals
Make no mistake. Their poems are not only delicate and breathtaking in imagery. They are also philosophical. Moreover, the authors steer clear of “fixing” feelings. They live the good and the bad, a remarkable move in a world in which commercialism and slogans bombard us every day; a world that denies an entire repertoire of human feelings to replace it with the today’s socially engineered state of “happiness.”
weeping cloud I don’t try to fix melancholy
a grieving friend love, blown from a candle in the wind
C.X.Turner and James Welsh transform the impossible into possible. They transmute the physical world into a world of magnificent beauty and depth that will forever mark those who read them.
Robert J. W. is a poet and writer from Morgantown, WV that is known for his work about mental health and memory. He has been writing poetry for 20 years now. He has frequently published collections with Alien Buddha Press (including Dusty Video Game Cartridges and Bed of Bones) as well as being featured in several of their zines and anthologies. He enjoys listening to music, meditating, reading, and hanging with friends. You can find him on Facebook @robertjwwriter as well as Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Tumblr, and Threads @robertjw4688 and Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/Robertjw4688\
The Seconds Between
I don’t like seasons. I like the borderlines, the
seconds between spring and summer, summer and autumn.
I’m comfortable in nature’s indecision for her emotions are extreme as the
war that aches in my third-eye from time to time.
I Just Really Like Aerosmith, Okay?
Rainy summer day, listening to Aerosmith. Toys In The Attic.
Literary Revelations is thrilled to bring you two poems by Katy Santiff. I hope you enjoy them.
Bio
Katy Santiff has written poetry in various forms all her life. A fan of meter and rhyme, she loves lines that hypnotize the reader with their sound. She believes in densely packed poems, preferring them to be mouthfuls when read aloud. A lifelong Marylander, she loves waterside living. She lives in Central Maryland, above the Chesapeake Bay. Her poetry has been published by Spillwords Press, Uppagus, Vita Brevis Press (where she received two “Editor’s Choice” republications), and several of her poems were included in four of Vita Brevis’ Poetry Anthologies.
Again
Is this what it takes to love me? A sense of fear, or self-protection? Because I’m inherently dangerous, a risky self-expression or stipend, or depression? Well that’s quite alright. I’m accustomed to being left. It’s disproportionate, but being alone has become a second home, for me, for now. And I will be alright. Sure, the day things waken in the night and night things dimmen in day-light, but I will be alright.
When
And when the gods came down, they just rifled through our things, and they read through all our letters, and they smelted down our rings. And when they left, they took our heaven, but they left us how to see. And I always dreamt of them, then. Have they ever dreamt of me?
G. Lynn Brown is a published writer of poetry, short stories, and flash fiction. Her short story, “Hangry,” was nominated publication of the month at Spillwords.com (May ’23), and another story, “The Reason Caramels Make Me Cry,” won Fictionette’s Short Story Star Entry Prize (April ’23). Her other work can be found at Paragraph Planet, Rejection Letters, and Vine Leaves Press, among other publications. She is a contributing author at FridayFlashFiction.com. Her writing is a passion she loves to share with others. Originally from New Jersey, she currently resides near Cookeville, Tn.
Somniphobia
Midnight’s peal rattles the silence Toss and turn Can’t fall back Legs twitch Arms flail Where’s the Sandman? Darkness envelops the night Bogeymen step from the void Dance around the bed Laugh and point Where’s the Sandman? Their laughter louder Heart racing Cold sweats Can’t take anymore Where’s the Sandman? He’s on the floor The Bogeys snuffed him Nightmares prevail Sleep is no more
Insanity Plea
The moon is my friend, and so is the storm. The darkness is my light, and it keeps me warm. My tears are the laughter I forgot to let out. My nightmares composed of the things that I love. My daydreams are mirrors of what never was. My heart, she cries for my sanity. My lips, they pray for clarity. And I, I can’t help but wonder, was it the madness that made me love you, or did loving you drove me to madness?