What becomes man when art is lost!

The corncob has a moralist sanctuary pumped in their ventricles as a seeping moon appearing on the dimensionless sky. The acute remarks of looking for the veins which the corn holds and the hands they grip firmly on. This sourceless medium can be soughted out when the opaque sky is whipped by the mouth of jasmine-words, a great penetration is attained on vulva of the eternal abode. What becomes man when art is lost! The whereabouts of supply that nourished the soul, and paints the spirit of depressed heart to surge self in laughter. Beyond the sill of window pane I have stand waiting for the sunless rays of my soul to have a cornice of successive praises to my maker. Each time this art is done I found the art that makes me a man. The parody of life, gets exhaustive in me and I seek always the renewal of this painting as a breathe in me. There are dozen of thoughts jutting in me, and ordering the enduring contentment of sound of the night and briskly of a new day. I sighed often when the curtains of a new day unveils the opaque sky to visit my roof first, I can see the sun in the art of becoming a living everyday. Men cannot do without art and art without men weeping songs became peculiar everyday.
(c) Martin Ijir 2020

“HAPPY SATURDAY WITH AN EMINENT POET” A WEEKLY INTERVIEW ORGANIZED BY POEmarium by Dr. Nk Sharma and WRITERS’ MIRROR, ASSAM INDIA

Good Morning and Welcome dear adorable readers and members to “HAPPY SATURDAY WITH AN EMINENT POET” a weekly interview program jointly organized by POEmarium by Dr. Nk Sharma and WRITERS’ MIRROR, ASSAM, INDIA.

Today, we present an Interview with dear Martin Ijir, a poet of international repute/

Bipul Kalita:-Good Morning dear Sir. You are most welcome to our interview program.You are undoubtedly a popular poet. Our readers will be happy if you say a few words about yourself.

Martin Ijir:- I am the Second in family of six, from Nigeria. Read Economics (Education). I am a poet, a teacher, author, an activist, Editor, Humanist and a seeker of true meaning of the Light. Apart from writing I love playing games

Bipul Kalita:- What inspired you to be a poet? Who left an indelible impact on your notional-emotional outpourings?

Martin Ijir:- God inspired me, a visiting genie always tells me how to write. Although, personally as a being there are indelible notions life brings. All I do is to write them down obeying the first law of poetry as guided. I have never allowed my emotional notes to reel over my poetry instead I allow the emotional notes to conform with my genie. This conformity makes me understand the brimness in being a poet.

Bipul Kalita:- What is your conception of a poem?

Martin Ijir:- A poem is a concise, succinct and apt cadence of words in a simplistic way to reach an aesthetic perfection from ages to ages, craving for balance and harmony between universes.

Bipul Kalita:- Very nice concept, no doubt. Who are some of your biggest influences in your poetry?

Martin Ijir:- I read everyday because I am a seeker of the true essence of Christ, the one that will usher in New beginning. I can’t say I have the biggest influencer whose style of writing I followed but I have read works of the mighty minds: The Bible, Shakespeare, Flaubert, Nietzsche, Freud, Soyinka, Tagore, Kafka, Shelley, Pushkin etc. I read them at a very tender age.

Bipul Kalita:- What is the state of contemporary Facebook poetry worldwide ?

Martin Ijir:- Thanks to technology. Facebook poetry has dived into the bunker of fibre across nations, trimming cultural streaming and pigments, erasing age gaps. Facebook is a veritable tool for sharing, writing, getting read and being read, making contemporary poetry to be blossoming.

Bipul Kalita:-You are absolutely right. Hope, those critics who are demeaning Facebook poetry should realize how technology has provided an open platform for all creative minds to expose themselves on one hand, and their creations have reached their readers easily on the other.

Anyway, do you think you were meant to be a poet?

Martin Ijir:- Yes. I was born a poet, no one teaches me to write poetry. I started writing poetry at a very tender age. God destiny men, it is up to you to know thyself and embrace your calling. The breath given to my soul was inscribed in me to be a poet. Therefore, with utmost joy I am a born poet.

Bipul Kalita:-Great. As a poet, can you work anywhere or there is a fixed cell to work in?

Martin Ijir:- I work everywhere, write everywhere, as long I have my pad and if I don’t have a pad I write in my mind, stored them in an archive inside, later I transfer them into a metaphysical pad.

Bipul Kalita:-Superb. You have gone through the poetic works of globally reputed poets who are writing for different poetic groups belonging to different countries. How do you feel when sharing your views with them?

Martin Ijir:- Elated a wide distance that is cut short. Some are very profound, friendly, some dwindling, others have attained the brim of enlightenment. The brim of enlightenment is the savor offering of being a soul and being a heroic poet celebrated by your longing soul. That is why master poets are read, read and read again and again. I pray many understand the joy of being enlightened to be distinguished and reputed.

Bipul Kalita:-Very nice observation, dear Sir. Would you like to comment on the overall standard of poems of the Indian poets who are writing for Facebook groups?

Martin Ijir:- Overall standard of all poets is quite impressive. Especially poets from India, some are fiddling while others are great.

Bipul Kalita:- Please share one of your early / latest poems , preferably a shorter one .

Martin Ijir:- Here it is.

Taking a new bride

The hue in the sun glows its york green

The tainted red in the embryonic glean

Hides beneath a faithful bride

Only kings adore left prints on the shore

Quickly affections climaxes like mountain

Quickly affections strides as green

The leaves of silence turn so brown

Like hefty arms of a genomic giant

The queen bore wintry sadness

As the king left for garde-manger, insufficient tears

Life yellowish hue turns green

Breaking all love chains bonding us for years

(c) Martin Ijir 2020

Bipul Kalita:- Plato said,”At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.”

What do you say, Sir?

Martin Ijir:- Plato is right. When one is blurred by sentimental fallacy of love, pain makes him a poet, that’s an emotional notion to poetry but not innate or instinctive rays of knowing the realms in love. He ascends into an embryonic glean that buds words. Each step in love makes a makeshift of becoming a poet but not a born poet. Only a born poet touches love as love, as love on a sky, love in a soul, love sleeping on love-sheets as stars twinkling in between the abyss of emblazoned rays.

Bipul Kalita:- I appreciate your views, dear Sir, on love and on a born poet. Is your poetry subjective? To what extent does it mirror the lives of the underprivileged?

Martin Ijir:- The primary aim of my writing is to bring liberation, love, hope, faith to all without hate, prejudice or malicious pap to smear or favor any person. It holds truth as its firm post. Individual perspectives to my writing mirror the class you stratified self. I don’t believe in the word “underprivileged”; everyone is privileged, so is my poetry.

Bipul Kalita:- What should be the role of a poet against the backdrop of the present world situation ?

Martin Ijir:- To encourage, to light darkness that is glowing over us. To point and guide others with a lamp of love imbued in writing so that people will have hope of being here, and hope of thereafter. Rudiments of attaining eternity should be told clearing in a concise form.

Bipul Kalita:- What do you prefer, rhyme or blank verse ? Why?

Martin Ijir:- I don’t have a preference when it comes to my writing. My writings are in all forms because it is guided by my genie, my usual visitor tells the word, all I do is to obey and write. I never plan writing rhymed lines or blank verse. “What’s written cannot be undone” and what’s told must be written.

Bipul Kalita:- Ours is an age of experiment. How does this affect the field of poetry? Do you also experiment with your poetry?

Martin Ijir:- Yes I do, necessity and circumstances breed thinking; so this tavern needs to be exploited evenly but usually I am guided by my usual visitor.

Bipul Kalita:- What do you think about the relevancy of our Groups’ vision and mission for promoting Global Peace, Universal Love and Humanity ?

Martin Ijir:- You guys are doing a great job. I would love to thank Dr. N.K Sharma Sir for his innovative idea of bringing all sundry across the globe into one group, showing love to everyone encouraging emerging writers, making many buckling their pen. Also, I commend all team members for their teeming support in achieving this Herculean task. God bless you all.

Bipul Kalita:- You are a published poet. How many anthologies do you have to your credit so far?

Martin Ijir:- I have five anthologies, editor to three anthologies and many unpublished works. Four are poetic discourse, and one is a prose-poetry undergoing printing but thwarted due to Covid-19 lock down.

Bipul Kalita:- Great. Heartfelt congratulations too. How do you manage your profession and passion for poetry at the same time?

Martin Ijir:- Kudos to time, the mother of records, programming, utilization. My profession does not hinder my writing because I knew the importance, housed in a time. Thanks so much to time, it helps me a lot in managing my profession and poetry

Bipul Kalita:- What impresses you most about our groups and why ?

Martin Ijir:- It is constituted by well self humble personalities starting from its founder, admins and members ; team spirit makes goal-target easier.

Bipul Kalita:- Do you have any suggestions to offer to the fellow poets?

Martin Ijir:- Keep writing, keep reading and above all allow conformity with your soul.

Bipul Kalita:- Thanks a lot dear Sir for being with us this morning, sharing freely and frankly your precious views on poetry. I hope, we will meet again with new topics for discussion.

Book Review: Literal Appreciation of Elocuencia de Silencios by Francisco Munoz Soler

Appreciation of Elocuencia de Silencios

Francisco Munoz Soler delves into the drums of Eloquence of Silence with a magnanimity of words mowing the forage that held the echoes of words from fasting and feasting In them through silence. The book provides a tendency of focusing on meditations as one decipher the words that upshot from the art of silence. A therapeutic edifice of attaining enlightenment. It should be known that one must be eloquent enough in other to withstand this zephyring but warm atmospheric moisture released by the art of obeying command and writing, being provided and commended by the spirit of silence lying in a soul of an adept who becomes an initiate. He proves to be a learned adept in the field of silenceness, in this poetic discourse ” Elocuencia de Silencios”. He further broaden my Spanish quest as it opens the lines with famous lines of great thinkers and poets, like Rilke, Blake, Colinas, Szymborska etc.

The translanguagation makes one to become a rodent as it decipher the messages encased in the nut. Lines that implores my soul to master Spanish as my third working language quickly, which I am being self taught.
In order not to deviate from this appreciation of this great work written by the scenting poet Francisco, I would state categorically how the poet understands the words silence provides. In “MY SOUL HAS THE MOULD ” the lines ran:
MY SOUL HAS THE MOULD
of the horizon of its dawn
everything in me is created
in the intangible eternity
of its untouched presence in me
I grow in the absence of caresses
in the breath of the fertile transparency
of our unforgettable love.
One cannot rise above the softies of silence if there is non conformity with the waves, rising the tides in the eternity of beingness. The poet tells it as he encounters the creation innately before its physical manifestation. We that are of free spirit understand the mystery of “intangible eternity” or are trying to understand the brimness of this. I see there is no form of sentimental fallacies in this book, which most poets based their writing upon, through sublimation of material imagination. Rather, I saw the enclavement of an adept wearing the disk of an initiate through the eeries of silence. Making me recall my personal encounter. Using my words: and “I buoyed through the eeries of silence” as encountered. I fully understand the telepathic fibre released here. The poet tells the beingness created in silence.

Furthermore, in “AN IMPOSSIBLE DESIRE” he opens the harp that is held captive, when you struck the rock instead of talking to the rock, the repercussion against obeying the voice of silence is dead. Here, the poet obeys. The lines ran:
AN IMPOSSIBLE DESIRE
occupies my days
it forges a pain so sharp
that illuminates the dense night
in the hollow of my footsteps,
an impossible desire
surges with her absence,
it goes through me weaving
the silence of caresses.
An avid reader of the holy book will recall Number 27: 14 this marks the foundation, beginning and willingness of killing the egos in us. The Freudian tea that will make a savour offering to humanity and mother earth and the universe. The ability to overcome this self desire makes the poet a poet.
In ” I remember the young people of my adolescence” the poet ends the point and notions to racial discrimination and all form of humanstreaming experience globally on geometric progression. He opens and ends the lines with:
I REMEMBER THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF MY ADOLESCENCE
in their own times,
with the original colour of their hair,
.
.
.

with the turn of the page
far from all time,
I remember them as if in a dream.

Lastly, the book is segmented into five, having great themes and marvellous poems summing up “Elocuencia de Silencios” running in free verse as encountered. A story he opens at “Poets, at times” marvels me because it upholds the first law of poetry, making it easier to read through.
POETS, AT TIMES
because of their uncertainties
feel tempted to comprehend
the human condition,
they try to capture echos,
the eloquence of silence,
the radiation of kisses,
and the endless exchange of looks,
without the scientific knowledge
of going back to the origin of our souls.
One must reflect on the mirror of being here, and seek the vehicle which will board us into the abyss of our root. The origin lays the quintessentiality of a soul, our ability to forge back in a purer form makes us to gain eternal life or eternal strife, both of these eternity, none of our part dies. In a succinct and apt line I would say Soler understands how to tap to the songs of silence, diving into the stream of existence as a master, conversing with his visitor and ending his long suffering.

Thank you for this masterpiece.
With LOVE
Martin Ijir
© Martin Ijir 2020

Review of Eeries of Silence: Stylistic Expressionism in Martin’s Poetry

Expressionism in art in its clearest sense is a unique stylistic feature and distinctive color. Stylistic expression is the mother of all contemporary artistic trends. In revolutionary visions, issues, and objections, this is the moral expression. Although expressiveness exists in art, the dominance of moral expression and its manifestation is clear, and although stylistic expression is found in literature, the dominant aspect is the emergence of its moral dimension.

Martin Ijir is a Nigerian poet with extensive literary experience, through which he was able to combine originality and innovation in style in his writings, which is very difficult, and he brought us objectionary, revolutionary, and unique literature on the level of meaning and issue and on the level of style and form, especially in his collection ” Eeries of Silence ” which is a collection of horizontal narrative prose poems, and these recent practices and experiences signify unquestionably aspects of stylistic expression.

Creativity in Martin’s poems depends on achieving his goals with a profound impact on the recipient and on achieving the tremor within him through the pursuit of salvation and revolution on reality and distinct vision, and this is also achieved through stylistic expression; according to a distinct method and a message that cares about the reader. The poems would not have achieved what it had accomplished without shocking method, along with the question of searching for salvation and revolution on the ground. Martin’s poems have taught us that achieving a real and non-repeatable literary personality is that the text is expressed in two expressions, moral and stylistic, and what we see prevalent in most poets is meaningful expression, but they do not approach stylistic expression but rather write according to what the audience wants without attention to the truth that this cannot be real, and even welcomed by official cultural institutions. Rather, there must be two forms of expressionism, moral and stylistic, and this is what was actually provided in Martin’s poetry, which adopted the narrative horizontal prose poems in a distinctive style.

Literary analysis has moved from the middle of the last century to a greater accuracy in terms and concepts, and it is no longer acceptable to speak in broad terms, and stylistic criticism has succeeded, to a large extent, in crossing criticism towards scientific approach, and it became true that we describe the era of literature at the end of the century as the era of scientific literature. Stylistics has made great progress in this regard by presenting objective models and tangible material formulas for literary idea and analytical concepts, and here we will try to shed light on stylistic aspects of expressionism in poetic texts of Nigerian poet Martin Ijir.

In the poem “DUST” Martin says:

(My body dies, my spirit becomes dust then my soul transcends unto pillaging bed of refurbishment. The bequeathed sky above, whistles the work of my hands, bands of life and its enchanting buoying songs I refute to singing; will I recite on the day of my recurrence. I am single out like a simpleton upon a water floating in the sea of silence. My silver cloud turns into melee ice as I melt as dew encountering my first sun.)

We do not need much talk to refer to the expressive moral in the text as he asked for salvation and revolutionary in the title of the text and in each of its sections and the text is charged with the message of alienation and sadness and the request for change.

The poet here relied on stylistic expressions and formulas, including (narrative), as the text was based on the narrative style, and this is a distinction and contrasting to the prevailing poetic writing based on fragmentation even in prose poetry in the free poem. Also, the narrative here was not a storytelling narrative, but rather an expressive narrative with the intent of living and symbolizing and maximizing the energies of language. There is no doubt that (prose poetry), and with this force in which prose manifests itself with its techniques, is a style different from the music and formal harmony in which the prevailing poem is concerned.

In the poem ” ALONE ” he said: ( I traveled through the galaxy, in a chimera wagon, a steamy light appears like the steeds of fogs, poised in a disheveling position, my clogs pores on the shore of hydroponic merriment, this must be home, I longed long for, this must be home, no this is not a home, a voice contradicts my thoughts, I grunt upon him or is it her as they confused my intuition. The path to home is narrowed I learned. Now I am about to finish my learning and long suffering.)

We find another stylistic expressive side, which is (freshness) accompanying a sweet symbolic text and high poetic art, and this also distinguishes and contrasts with the prevalence of the modernist symbolism, which is usually characterized by estrangement, and transcendence. Also, the poet adopted the special vision of things and assets in (expressive and apocalyptic), which is a different method and distinct from the deliberative on which the written rule depends.

In ” Distance Sky ” Martin said: (I saw her stretch wings, with leathery feathers bearing my flavor of silver, so close your distancing appears. As my wings fluttered upon the musk of air, a fingertip that pierces the altar of iceberg tears our conversation. Inside me I reach what’s hidden and awaken the dust that hinders my transcending. I closed my eyes and watched the melting sun decays as dew flowing from tendrils of exaltation, a harmonious power that controls earth, elements and shell of my body.)

The poet intends to a narrative passage that is purely expressive in message and it is a model for literary expression. Such a reduced text filled with questions, appeals, descriptions, alienation and delusions, which ends with an expressive combination of certainty and legend achieves remarkable expressive distinction.

Dr. Anwer Ghani

Soul and the body

The soul doesn’t rest the body does
like the wrens the soul sings
music to the creator
Why then say rest in peace to a soul
when the journey became unstressful.

In joy does the freedom of the soul
occurs from the stained soil of the skin
the soul recall its body memories
using the experience to form new notes on lyre
may my body rest to free my soul from this hell
(c) Martin Ijir 2019

My foolish foul

I am sorry for being an unjust dust,
I am so sorry for being your word rust,
so ashame for devouring your temple,
the seat of thy holy throne.

I am sorry for betraying your trust,
I am so sorry for falling your test:
shame on me, for not following your way,
tears fill my soul as i swing away:

find a day and revamp my soul
within i implore you clean my foolish foul.
(c) Martin Ijir 2019

Art as Raiser of the Dead

Art as Raiser of the Dead
Fredrick Nietzsche

Like faded waves, so art inclined
Subliminal memories in ornamental vase
A monumental hewned from stone equates
A sculpted dust. A continuous creation of worthy verse
A devotion to an enlightened spirit.

A preservation of endless task of meditating
In return the departed spirit dance in joy
As many read the lines created in simple form
A soul is raised out of the grave of thoughts
As am found immortalized like a ghost of loved one visiting in a dream.
(c) Martin Ijir 2018

A perfect rest

If I can wash my-
self there is no need to take a
bathe for I am clean

if I will cloak my soul
there is no need to cloak my
body for I am not nude

being years I saw my
tears it drops when writing this
a happy moment

if I can count the
blood flowing inside me I
will stop it before

death do to live for-
ever as stars in the sky
weaving the still night

if I know today
i will breath my last breathe I
will dig my grave and

lie still in my coffin
as I close my eyes and
awaits an element

worthy of my interment
to set my soul free
from its prison yard

as I walk into
the serene courtyard of silence
as I rest on
(c) Martin Ijir 2018

Your love on me

Every opening bud of light
Every spire of springing grasses
Mixes with lovely birds songs
Making the vocal air happy on earth

With melodies of divine happiness
As delicate flowers tinted the air
With perfect perfume, the lofty trees
Of the forest waves their foliage as a stream

With evergreen leaves as they floss-
I come to you with empty hands
As i set my eyes upon your cross
I toil my soul upon thy path

Heal me with enough light
As i cling onto your cross
Remove this dark shadow
Award your infinite love on me
(c) Amb Martin Ijir 2018

The last word

Before dead will call, let me apologized to you
For i want to open the timeline of death
I see it as a deserving journey to unite my soul
A sweet welcoming praises into a perfect realm
Consummating songs spell my heart as charm

Let today be the last day i paint your heart black
For i shall release a rainbow as sign of my love
To illuminate the fire that sleeps within your heart
A snowball wrapped on sheets of time as even pair
A pride of lust, a pride of life, a pride to embrace death

Glued in me as the star shows the way
Happy moments end as i am flowing away
Into the pipe of a hollow path weaning my soul
A connection to the seventh heaven accelerating my soul
My tongue rolls goodbye kiss for it’s the last word in time
(c) Amb Martin Ijir 2018