LIKE THE BIRDS ON THE WIRES
As I walked I would occasionally
Look up, up at the sky, up where
The birds ruled, home there to the
Lucky, those who can move in the
Blink of one eye.
This time though the view was kind
Of different; the birds had all
Congregated, like musical notes on
A line, along the telephone wire that
Keeps us in touch with the outside world.
It was then I thought is that how
Leonard Cohen came up with the
Wonderful lyrics to 'Bird on a Wire'
By looking up, up at the sky, drawing
Inspiration from a natural phenomenon.
FALLING DOWN THE STAIRS
There were times when I would live
A life, a wild time, and would often
Find myself falling down those stairs
At the last resort out of my mind,
Always always out of my mind and
Late at night as that was when this
Beautiful gift always got me best
And sometimes it would be 3-15
In the morning and I’d be falling
Down those damn stairs out of
My damn mind feeling like a cat
At the end of his ninth life.
LIKE THOSE OLD DAYS (with my radio on)
I sit here tonight and it
Almost feels like the old-times as
My radio builds up to one of the games of the year
As old footballers talk of teenagers
Turning up to training in brand new
Shiny Mercedes-Benz as I sit here
Writing a life so far removed from
Their gilded existence it just goes to
Show you how capitalism has gone so
Terribly wrong…
BIOGRAPHY
Bradford Middleton was born in south-east London during the summer of 1971 and won his first poetry prize at the age of nine. He then gave up writing poems for nearly twenty-five years and it wasn’t until he landed in Brighton, knowing no one and having no money, that he began again. Ten years later and he’s been lucky enough to have had a few chapbooks published including a new one from Analog Submission Press entitled ‘Flying through this Life like a Bottle Battling Gravity’, his debut from Crisis Chronicles Press (Ohio, USA) and his second effort for Holy & Intoxicated Press (Hastings, UK). He has read around the UK at various bars, venues and festivals and is always keen to get out and read to new crowds. His poetry has also been or will be published shortly in the Chiron Review, Zygote in my Coffee, Section 8, Razur Cuts, Paper & Ink, Grandma Moses ‘Poet to Notice’, Empty Mirror, Midnight Lane Gallery, Bareback Lit and is a Contributing Poet over at the wonderful Mad Swirl. If you like what you’ve read go send a friend request on facebook to bradfordmiddleton1.
Diaphanous, disingenuous
Parsed in the Planck intervals of me,
diaphanous, is it not you?
Yet impossible, disingenuous
this dichotomy: thirst
after the conjurings of sentience?
Parsed in the Planck intervals of me,
is it not you, ineffable ?
And yet the flood tides of rage
toss me over on the waters of life;
Gulf between eyes shut and open -
chasing after the web of thoughts;
Parsed in the Planck intervals of me,
is it not you, ineffable?
Who do I call, dear presence,
when called to act by the world,
true to my being and becoming?
Impossible this dichotomy:
diaphanous, disingenuous, ever
Dear electricity, what are bulbs to you?
Dear bulb of light,
what is electricity to you?
Do you like it in your corner
beaming in your shine, or
in a chandelier
adorning the nights?
Dear chandelier,
what is electricity to you?
Do you like it in your throne,
brimming in your shine, or
in a celebration
of glory lights?
O celebration,
what is electricity to you?
Do you like it in your vestal
ornamentation
of sundry occasions?
Ever humble unknown
flowing through the veins
this elixir of life that lights up
lamps, chandeliers -
one indivisible borderless,
yet bringing a hundred
filaments to celebration:
Dear electricity,
what are bulbs to you,
chandeliers and celebrations?
Darkness, darkness again
Night goes back to night, darkness darkness again,
no one cares for daylight now, when tears and stars
fill up the lakes shiver sharing in our grief,
where we sit in longing for one last time;
Desolation goes back to desolation, ingratitude
ingratitude again, our homes too unbeautiful,
Little, too freckled to house your poise,
steps that measured out the vast;
Silence goes back to silence, unfathomed
grief grief again, our hearts too frail for your love,
this hour of separation, we break our bangles
uninterrupted by the beat of the dhak;
Inconsequence goes back to inconsequence
mundane mundane again, that you must come
despite us being us, darkness darkness here:
light devoid of light and life devoid of purpose,
Everything goes back to everything
rudderless rudderless again, boatwoman,
who will to sing to us of the journey
to the fjord of wisdom, past the gulf of the dark?
Night goes back to night, darkness darkness again,
desolation goes back to desolation, ingratitude
ingratitude again, silence goes back to silence,
unfathomed grief grief again, inconsequence
goes back to inconsequence mundane mundane
again, everything goes back to everything
boatwoman, rudderless rudderless again -
just a prayer of longing, for one more glance
Prabhu Iyer is an Indian poet writing primarily in English. A scientist by training and practice, Prabhu weaves his quest of truth, beauty and goodness into his verse. An avid student of poetry, he is inspired by the spirit of the romanticists and transcendentalists, while also being influenced deeply by figures of the avant-garde, drawing upon such movements as cubism, surrealism and magical realism in the sense of gesamtkunstwerk or ‘total art’. He is also an ardent fan of popular lyrical poetry as manifested in the variegated Indian devotional, musical and film traditions. Prabhu’s work has appeared in anthologies and poetry journals including the PLT and long-listed a couple of times for the prestigious Erbacce Prize for poetry. He has published two volumes of poetry, ‘Ten Years’ exploring the themes of love and loss, while ‘The Hermit’ is a surrealist collection of poems. He is also working on releasing a collection of Haikus collated over many years, especially during the COVID lockdown. https://www.amazon.com/Prabhu-Iyer
My Voice
I am Deaf.
My fingers speak.
A coiffed paintbrush in my grasp,
my voice streaks turquoise and magenta
across a parched canvas.
Vowels coo through thirsty linen.
Click-clacking keys with my mother tongue,
I chew hard consonants
and spit them out.
Sour, a scathing sonnet can be at dusk.
Fingertips pave slick exclamations,
punctuated by nails sinking low into clamminess.
I sculpt hyperboles.
Kelly Sargent is an author and artist whose works, including a Best of the Net nominee, have appeared in more than forty literary publications. A poetry chapbook entitled Seeing Voices: Poetry in Motion is forthcoming (Kelsay Books, 2022). A book of modern haiku entitled Lilacs & Teacups is also forthcoming, and a haiku recently recognized in the international Golden Haiku contest is on display in Washington, D.C. She serves as the creative nonfiction and an assistant nonfiction editor for two literary journals. She also reviews for an organization whose mission is to make visible the artistic expression of sexual violence survivors.
You can find her at https://www.kellysargent.com/
KEYS IN A ROW
Perhaps someone
will play a melancholy
keyboard piece as I am
leaving, and, stopping
to listen, I’ll have a vision
of what is to come if I
linger, if I walk up
to the player, wait,
then ask some pertinent
question with an eager
mien, the seconds gone
when I would have been
outdoors in the clear,
the moment interrupted
with a careless insufficiency,
the scattered patterns
of my life converging
into a broken string,
a clappered wheel
on which the hours
tick and dance to
their inoperable end
***
to be released from a long
slow slough, much of it
impenetrable like the circle
of a dream manifest as reality,
frightful and avoidable,
a bag in a corridor laced
with shadows and squalor,
which the mere eye of me
is afraid to undo
***
moving through
the veins, a fire-
ball with dim
obbligatos and
dark copper
bangs, like old
radiator pipes
when the steam
hammers at high
velocity into their
joints, warming
the room and
almost waking
the sleeper from
his sleep
***
here in this morning’s morning
self-forgotten sullen twang
comes a star gilded and silver,
climbing still like the pine
branches tipped with needle-
frantic green, yes, caught
like a tiny chip on the great
waist of some spectre surface
emerging into the dissolving dark.
LANDSCAPE IN FALLEN LIGHT, WITH CHILDREN
Just an unimportant place,
radiant and ordinary,
deserving the utmost scriptory,
with golden quags
up to the knees,
the sun blotting the lough
like streaks of silver haze
settling in a quay.
No need for a raveled sky
of quizzical significance,
the wrangling heads
foundering in the streets,
questing the unending sop
of memory and imprecation
to put life into the big words,
immiserating the ivory dungeon,
as one antinomian calls it,
reduced to bah, to babbling ooze,
slightly ecstatic now and then,
what is preserved
when meaning is deflated,
page after page, of invisibility,
of pity for hope lost
in hell’s sunken bolgias,
or the faces strapped
to the skullbones
of the starving young.
NOW THEN, THE OPEN EYE
August’s close
but I already feel
the solitary cold,
a sleepless place
and zero of the night,
like an infinitive
without an end
and half reluctant
to begin. But solitude
is just a postlude
to the now where all
the wrongs set in,
a moment’s atom
out of kilter,
out of being true,
where finally the heart
may intermit its beat
with careless equanimity
or grave abandonment
like a nimbus
with its watery crystals
of deep ice,
washing the sorrows
from your face,
from all the lineaments
of being you.
VERISIMILITUDE After a passage from a novel by Virginia Woolf
Somewhere in the middle
I recall a brewer’s cart
and the genial narrator
describing the gray horses
that had upright bristles
of straw stuck in their tails
like sprouting plumes
above the small brown daisies
peeping from their haunches’ clefts.
And a woman, seeing
this slipstream brook
of burblings through her mind,
immediately brightens,
and sorrow drops away
like a feathered colander
sifting the prismatic richness
of her life, kindling with equine
pleasure an infinite hubble-bubble
of mysterious commotion
out of the pernicious flurries
of gone time, a lollop on horsetail
streams with straw-thatched coronets,
whimsical and vagulous,
like sea-green sprites,
bedraggled by happiness
and blessed with silly dreams.
PROBLEM, SOLUTION, ETC.
Her academic pedigree
was impressive--Swarthmore,
Columbia and the Sorbonne.
But toward her hundredth year
she confronted her biggest source
of perplexity and vexation,
the state of being weary
and restless through lack of interest,
and began her day
with crossword puzzles,
then the game shows on TV.
Did she return to these
as the day continued to impair
itself by attrition?
Ramakrishna used to rebuke
card-playing oldsters—
Had they nothing better to do
on the verge of their greatest change
of outward form or appearance?
Are crosswords any better?
Should Kurtz have done puzzles
in the dark, filling words into a pattern
of numbered squares in answer
to correspondingly numbered clues
to prevent facing the abyss
before him, the memories in him?
What is a six-letter word
for a painful emotion
compounded of loathing and fear?
Bio: Originally from Ukraine, Askold Skalsky has published poems in over 300 online and print periodicals in the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, mainland Europe, Turkey, Australia, and India. He is the recipient of two Individual Artist Awards in Poetry from the Maryland State Arts Council, and is the founding editor of the literary magazine Hedge Apple. A first book of poems, The Ponies of Chuang Tzu, was published in 2011 by Horizon Tracts in New York City. He is currently at work on several poetry projects, including a poetry cycle based on Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons. A book of poetry, Shapeless Works of Partial Contemplation, is due to be published by Ephemeral Arts Press in November.
it was not the arc of a star-
Boat tail grackles wove a river of possibilities
where each scar became eye, it was not a song
of our grandmothers from beyond pines,
buried in flesh, bone close, blade thin, what must be
carried, weight of singing, of the gone, an edge,
tasting of blood, navel oranges, pie lemons,
calamondin, an incandescence living
in my flesh, glyphs of their own light, their own
life, divination begins with my shoulder blade,
another bone tossed on the pile, a pyre
stacking itself into a ceremony of absences,
without moonlight desire floats with owls,
glide path of palms, asphalt, gravel, we are such,
an aggregate laid down for the passage of others,
so many carcasses trundled into pavement,
with the random divination of bird tracks,
as day burns, we burn, as ash reveals, stars
unfold, as stragglers croak their way out
to the rookery, we remain cindered, land bound,
a reliquary of unattained salvation, a singing
whittled down, stacked fatwood desiring flame,
all our dreams arrive here, shore of burning,
songs mangrove verdant, tangled in drifts of shell.
-Dog has a pumpkin head-
it was the season of rhymes,
pig killing, wood burning, whiskey,
you said your brother wouldn't care
who I was, true enough as he only spoke
to the dog and the stove, his back porch
navel oranges, kumquats,
cabbage palms, a bougainvillea blood
dark flowering, eating canned peaches
fished from a cooler of tall boys,
you said I was good enough for your bed,
the back of your bike, biscuits at your kitchen
table, second drawer in your dresser, ''Sit,
so listen, there's no redemption,
just atonement, and there's no end to that."
Sour gum flowering gathered
up into honey, we chewed the comb
as if adopted by bears, living off
saw palmetto berries and grubs,
or the other flesh,
thorn of my tongue, word pierced,
we are without, not of, not
within time, hinged sky, a mollusk
drying out between tides, barnacled
wind bent, current woven, taste skin,
taste wind, taste salt, how blade manifests
a dream life, tongue balanced, taut with lace
of scars, a sargassum float of entanglement,
small crabs, sea turtles, it was the season
of arrivals, no hint yet of the horizon
closing upon us, the other fruit
ripening on the tree, absence
overtaking, hand
over fist.
-Pithlachascotee River -
Some Sunday she said from the kitchen to the breezeway,
"Suffer not a witch", left before dinner,
walked to the landing, where possibilities
survive immersion, current relentlessly flowing,
took the skiff downriver, followed a creek
into the mangrove, abandoned habitation, learned
tide, names of wind, to thatch with palmetto
to polish the blade, circular motion of sharpening,
stone of susurration honing the heart, hatchet of tongue
riving chunks of fatwood to feed hands of flame, cupped
with each evening, there is a singing on the breeze,
a litany of pollination, a triumph of flowering,
night fills my ears as sparks of fireflies float
over the verdure of burning, praise laced
with woodsmoke, wave summoned tide
manifests this form, an expression of sea,
a liver of possibilities, a cloud filled lung,
breath of a thicker atmosphere, ponderous
flight as form reveals itself to sky.
Sun folded away in its blue coverlet, you cannot drink
from this broken cup of sky spilling moon, skillet on the fire, clouds stack on the horizon,
spoonbill stretching wing
into shade, egrets lifting over mangrove, we lived
for a while on black coffee and bacon, shouldering
a river door wind walks through, trailing night and a glory
of stars, we gathered the taste of names, memory is flesh,
trees speak of it, questioned which half holds the spoon,
which half lifts the bowl, which eye is on the horizon,
weather coiling beyond curve of sea.
As fireflies are shards of air cracked by lightning,
we name ourselves that sea may know us,
salt tasting salt, coiled into wave of remembrance,
the whistle and click each song must pass through
to reach open water where emerald shimmers
into cobalt, lifting such light as we can from all this
broken, edges balanced on fingertips, a divide between
what glitters and what sinks quietly, some days my dress
is burlap, sometimes a hank of sea borrowed
from wave, tide uncoiled from one hand the other dipped
into river, filtering a current of unintended sorrow,
where the gone has lifted onto breeze, silence feathers
its nest beneath tongue, magnolia opening slowly
with morning or question swallowing word, sometimes
I am spoonbill, head down wading, a roseate flowering
in an unnamed forest striding into darkness, sometimes
there is a face in the mirrored waters, sometimes
it is mine, sometimes a voice, wave lifted, sometimes
we speak but the voice is never mine, face of water,
voice of wind, a sound from the edge of all things.
Peach Delphine is a queer poet from Tampa, Florida. Former cook infatuated with what remains of the undeveloped Gulf coast and blackwater rivers.
A fucked up life
living in Zurich to work in a small town
working in a small town to live in Zurich
everything for
a small retirement benefit
everything for
tomorrow´s future
every single morning the alarm o´clock
the train leaves at 6.09
the train leaves at 6.09
teaching three modules when the rest of teachers
teach two
wishing to change that
and as the cuckoo, open your beak,
open your beak, but nothing changes
getting up again
taking the same seat at 6.05
sleeping on the same train seat
on the way to work
sleeping standing
on your way back
to yawn at the wrong timing
to yawn at the wrong timing
getting to the small town exhausted
getting back to Zurich more than exhausted
knowing that today is a piece of gold for
the retirement benefit, the retirement benefit
the precious golden retirement benefit
cooking not so much ´cos the lack of sleeping
DON´T DREAM
DON´T DREAM much
DON´T DREAM
DON´T DREAM much
a fucked up life
a fucked up life
living in Zurich to work in a small town
working in a small town to live in Zurich
having a reduced future for
a little retirement benefit in Switzerland
having a reduced morning
to sleep or not to sleep
to sleep or not to sleep
never dreams, never dreams
sleeping on a train, sleeping on a train
but never do it, but never do it in class
Can´t- get - out, can´t get out, can´t get out
from the clock, from the cow,
from the knife, from the cheese
from the Swiss fucking snow,
fucking snow,
can´t get out
from fucking Switzerland
from fucking Swiss
white clean tyranny.
Vera Moreno
from The broken bodies´ fitness center
César Simón Poetry Award 2019
Una vida jodida
vivir en Zurich para trabajar en un pequeño pueblo
trabajar para vivir en Zurich
tener una pequeña pensión,
para el día de mañana
cada mañana el despertador
el tren sale a las 6.09
impartir tres módulos cuando el resto imparte dos
querer cambiar,
y como el cuco, abrir la boca
levantarse de nuevo
sentarse a las 6.05 en ese tren
dormir sentada
dormir de pie
dormir en el tren de ida
dormir en el tren de vuelta
bostezar a destiempo
llegar al pueblo exhausta
llegar a Zurich exhausta
sabiendo que el día cotiza en bolsa o en la pensión
cocinar poco por el sueño
NO
soñar
una vida jodida
vivir en Zurich para trabajar en un pequeño pueblo
trabajar para vivir en Zurich
tener un mañana reducido
una pensión pequeña en Suiza
tener una mañana reducida
dormir o no dormir
dormir o no dormir
en el tren sí, en clase no
no-poder-salir
del reloj, la vaca, la navaja, el queso
la nieve
Vera Moreno
Poema procedente de el gimnasio de los rotos
Premio de Poesía César Simón 2019
Vera Moreno (Madrid, 1972). A multifaceted writer, teacher, rhapsodist, and cultural activist. She loves performance and videopoems.
She holds a Master Degree in Artistic, Literary and Cultural Studies from the Autonomous University of Madrid; and a Sociology and Political Sciences Degree from the Complutense University of Madrid. She also did Women´s studies at Utrecht University in NL.
In 2013 she was recognized as a New Voice by the feminist publishing House Torremozas (Madrid). Vera Moreno was published by Amargord publisher in a double poetry book called The whole orange (La naranja entera) in 2016. Three years later, she won the César Simón poetry reward at the University of Valencia with the poems book called The broken bodies´ fitness center (El gimnasio de los rotos). Next year a new book is coming.
Some of her texts and poems have been translated into Dutch, Esperanto and English.
As a cultural activist she created in 2001 a innovative cultural radio space of one minute lenght called Europe for Culture on Europe FM national radio station. In 2012 Vera Moreno designed and coordinated participative literary events called Literary Moondays (Lunes literarios) at the Rivas city hall – centro cultural del ayuntamiento de Rivas, and co-founder of the poetry channel on youtube Poesía a domicilio / Poetry delivery, with the great Dominican poet Rosa Silverio (2021).
A fucked up life
living in Zurich to work in a small town
working in a small town to live in Zurich
everything for
a small retirement benefit
everything for
tomorrow´s future
every single morning the alarm o´clock
the train leaves at 6.09
the train leaves at 6.09
teaching three modules when the rest of teachers
teach two
wishing to change that
and as the cuckoo, open your beak,
open your beak, but nothing changes
getting up again
taking the same seat at 6.05
sleeping on the same train seat
on the way to work
sleeping standing
on your way back
to yawn at the wrong timing
to yawn at the wrong timing
getting to the small town exhausted
getting back to Zurich more than exhausted
knowing that today is a piece of gold for
the retirement benefit, the retirement benefit
the precious golden retirement benefit
cooking not so much ´cos the lack of sleeping
DON´T DREAM
DON´T DREAM much
DON´T DREAM
DON´T DREAM much
a fucked up life
a fucked up life
living in Zurich to work in a small town
working in a small town to live in Zurich
having a reduced future for
a little retirement benefit in Switzerland
having a reduced morning
to sleep or not to sleep
to sleep or not to sleep
never dreams, never dreams
sleeping on a train, sleeping on a train
but never do it, but never do it in class
Can´t- get - out, can´t get out, can´t get out
from the clock, from the cow,
from the knife, from the cheese
from the Swiss fucking snow,
fucking snow,
can´t get out
from fucking Switzerland
from fucking Swiss
white clean tyranny.
Vera Moreno
from The broken bodies´ fitness center
César Simón Poetry Award 2019
Vera Moreno (Madrid, 1972). A multifaceted writer, teacher, rhapsodist, and cultural activist. She loves performance and videopoems.
She holds a Master Degree in Artistic, Literary and Cultural Studies from the Autonomous University of Madrid; and a Sociology and Political Sciences Degree from the Complutense University of Madrid. She also did Women´s studies at Utrecht University in NL.
In 2013 she was recognized as a New Voice by the feminist publishing House Torremozas (Madrid). Vera Moreno was published by Amargord publisher in a double poetry book called The whole orange (La naranja entera) in 2016. Three years later, she won the César Simón poetry reward at the University of Valencia with the poems book called The broken bodies´ fitness center (El gimnasio de los rotos). Next year a new book is coming.
Some of her texts and poems have been translated into Dutch, Esperanto and English.
As a cultural activist she created in 2001 a innovative cultural radio space of one minute lenght called Europe for Culture on Europe FM national radio station. In 2012 Vera Moreno designed and coordinated participative literary events called Literary Moondays (Lunes literarios) at the Rivas city hall – centro cultural del ayuntamiento de Rivas, and co-founder of the poetry channel on youtube Poesía a domicilio / Poetry delivery, with the great Dominican poet Rosa Silverio (2021).
Muñoz Sanjúan Cantos : & : Ucronías
Collages de Miguel Ángel Muñoz Sanjuán a partir de su libro Cantos : & : Ucronías (Calambur 2013). Animación, Guadalupe Grande. Dirección: Juan Carlos Mestre.
EXODUS & CIA
Dibujos de Miguel Ángel Muñoz Sanjuán a partir de su libro :Memorical-Fractal (Calambur, 2017). Realización y animación, Guadalupe Grande
Luz Pichel, Tra{n}shumancias
Video poema de Guadalupe Grande a partir del libro Tran{n}shumancias, de Luz Pichel.
«Poemas del Mediterráneo» con Guadalupe Grande
Sanse, ‘La Ciudad de la Poesía’, llora la muerte de Guadalupe Grande
I HAVE A DREAM
Videopoema de Guadalupe Grande sobre fotografías y texto de la autora.
JARRÓN Y TEMPESTAD
Poemas visuales y texto de Guadaupe Grande.
“Hotel para erizos” de Guadalupe Grande 23 May 2016 Guadalupe Grande presenta dos poemas inéditos.
Guadalupe Grande was born in Madrid in 1965. She has a Bachelor degree in Social Anthropology. Published poetry books: El libro de Lilit, (Renacimiento, awarded the 1995 Rafael Alberti Award, 1995), La llave de niebla (Calambur, 2003), Mapas de cera (Poesía Circulante, Málaga, 2006 and La torre degli Arabeschi, Milán, 2009), Hotel para erizos (Calambur, 2010) and Métier de crhysalide (an anthology, translated by Drothèe Suarez y Juliette Gheerbrant, Alidades, Évian-les-Bains, 2010).
As a literary critic, she has published in cultural journals and magazines, such as El Mundo, El Independiente, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, El Urogallo, Reseña and others.
In 2008 she was awarded the Valle Inclán grant for literary creation in the Academia de España in Rome.
In the publishing and cultural management areas, she has worked in institutions such as the Complutense University of Madrid Summer Courses, Casa de América and Teatro Real. Currently she manages poetical activities in the José Hierro Popular University at San Sebastian de los Reyes, Madrid.
***
Guadalupe Grande nació en Madrid en 1965. Es licenciada en Antropología Social.
Ha publicado los libros de poesía El libro de Lilit, (Renacimiento, Premio Rafael Alberti 1995), La llave de niebla (Calambur, 2003), Mapas de cera (Poesía Circulante, Málaga, 2006 y La torre degli Arabeschi, Milán, 2009), Hotel para erizos (Calambur, 2010) y Métier de crhysalide (antología en traducción de Drothèe Suarez y Juliette Gheerbrant, Alidades, Évian-les-Bains, 2010).
Como crítico literario, ha colaborado en diversos diarios y revistas culturales, como El Mundo, El Independiente, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, El Urogallo, Reseña, etcétera.
En el año 2008 obtuvo la Beca Valle Inclán para la creación literaria en la Academia de España en Roma.
En el ámbito de la edición y la gestión cultural ha trabajado en diversas instituciones como los Cursos de Verano de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, la Casa de América y el Teatro Real. En la actualidad es responsable de la actividad poética de la Universidad Popular José Hierro, San Sebastián de los Reyes, Madrid.
No hubo tiempo para hacerle el homenaje que merecía y que hubo que posponer a 2021 por las medidas sanitarias. Ayer, de forma repentina, fallecía la poeta madrileña Guadalupe Grande, directora del Centro de Estudios de la Poesía José Hierro de San Sebastián de los Reyes, una tragedia inesperada que el municipio lamenta profundamente.
Pinceladas biográficas
Nacida en Madrid en 1965, hija de los poetas Francisca Aguirre y Félix Grande, y nieta del pintor Lorenzo Aguirre, Guadalupe Grande creció entre versos y pinturas que marcarían su trayectoria.
Licenciada en Antropología Social, comenzó su andadura como poetisa, ensayista y crítica literaria, publicando los poemarios “El libro de Lilit” (Premio Rafael Alberti, 1995), “La llave de niebla” (2003), “Mapas de cera” (2006) y “Hotel para erizos” (2010); además de antologías, traducciones, ensayos y reseñas literarias.
En el ámbito de la edición y la gestión cultural trabajó en diversas instituciones, mientras, desde los primeros años 2000, se mantenía al frente del Centro de Estudios de la Poesía (CEP) José Hierro de Sanse.
Defensora de la educación en las artes y humanidades, desde el CEP hizo todo lo que estuvo en su mano para volver a situar la poesía en primer plano: con actividades y talleres abiertos a toda la población y especialmente a la gente joven, dando continuidad al programa televisivo Tertulias Poéticas en Canal Norte, con la promoción de los Premios Nacionales de Poesía José Hierro y de Poesía Joven Félix Grande, y con nuevos proyectos, algunos de los cuales germinaron digitalmente durante el confinamiento y esperaba relanzar en los próximos meses.
La reinvención del CEP
El pasado mes de marzo, con la entrada en vigor del confinamiento, Guadalupe Grande tuvo que reinventar la actividad del CEP para dar continuidad a la labor de divulgación de la poesía que se hace desde él.
Así, el presente curso arrancó con el lanzamiento online de varios talleres que se han mantenido hasta entrado el mes de diciembre. Y en otoño también se empezó a consolidar la iniciativa #PoesíaEnCasa, un espacio surgido durante el confinamiento y que ella misma editaba -recuperando poemas recitados por sus autores del archivo de CNTv-, para el que proyectaba la grabación de nuevas entregas con poetas de varias generaciones, iniciativa en la que la acompañarían los poetas Óscar Martín Centeno y Pepe Ramos; contenidos para revitalizar “La ciudad de la poesía” en la que nunca dejó de creer.
También la poesía visual, de la que Guadalupe Grande era un magnífico exponente, figuraba entre sus planes para el próximo curso. Y con ella, el homenaje a su vida y obra que no pudimos llegar a hacer y que dejamos pendiente.
