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"Following Hope" Available As An Ebook

"Following Hope" is now available as an eBook at various vendors. An internet search should reveal which ones. So for those who prefer the more portable medium, now this poetry is available to you as well! All my love to my fellow writers!

Breaking Stereotypes With Poetry

"Following Hope" (Xlibris, April 2007), my first collection of poetry, set the tone for the intentions of my career. A resounding effort to shatter the stereotype of what is expected of an Appalachian poet, the collection is a true celebration of multiculturalism, travel, and multimedia.

The poems therein are varied in make. There are multi-stanza poems, short meditative pieces, lyric free verse and melodic alt-forms. This is less the pastoral, ancestor-oriented work commonly associated with Appalachian literature and more the complex, interpretive and experimental lyrics of contemporary poetry as is being written throughout America and the Western world today.

The subjects are also more profound than might normally be expected. The predominate theme is that of betrayal on many levels, but mostly in the area of sexual violence and its aftermath. Also addressed is abandonment by a parent, by a lover, by nature and by life- real or perceived. The betrayal of the self is not left out of this equation. It is not a collection for the squeamish or those more comfortable with light verse and greeting card verse. These are serious pieces about thought-provoking, serious subjects.

But not all is dark. While not flinching from these indescribable experiences, the collection focuses on the ability of the human spirit to rise above such horrors: to always look for hope (a white bird always refers to hope), to refuse to remain victimised, to use these experiences to learn strength, and even to be able to open oneself up to vulnerability and relationships willingly and unfailingly loyally.

The photos peppered generously throughout the book reflect this positivism. Taken by Northern Irish photographer Jan McCullough, they are mostly clean youthful portraits with stunning emphasis on the eyes of the models. A few were taken by myself and these are credited appropriately in the acknowledgements section. The cover photo was taken by Jessica Marshallsay quite by accident, but what a lovely accident!

The end result is a visually pleasing book that reflects the message of the poems therein. It has received glowing reviews every time it has been reviewed. These reviews can be read at my website, (www.sabneraznik.com). Following Hope is available everywhere online- including Amazon.com and Ebay.com- in softcover format. It is also available in hardcover if ordered directly from the publisher at www.xlibris.com/FollowingHope.html.

My second collection is still in manuscript form and currently making the rounds in search of representation and/or a publisher. It's title is in a state of flux. "Whethering: shiir" was thrown out because similar titles have been used for poetry collections recently. Currently, its working title is "Habibi". It will continue the aims of stereotype breaking and take it to another level. The poems will be even more varied. There will be experimentation with syntax, concrete poetry, even shorter poems, my first attempt at blank verse, and my only attempt thus far at a performance piece.

These poems are love songs which remain interpretive in nature and, therefore, have multiple possible meanings. These are addressed to a lover, an unrequited love, God, and the exotic all at once. There will be a notes section which will translate phrases and words that appear throughout in a total of 11 or 12 different languages, some of them ancient. These notes will also help with references made throughout that shift all through the long and rich history of the Middle East. It will be a celebration of the beautiful, of music, photography, dance, love, loss, hope, Appalachia, and language. All of this climaxes in an eerily Irish sort of keening to full effect.

The photography of Jan McCullough will be featured once again, this time all alone. From the cover and on, every photo will be McCullough's work. These will be scattered more sparsely throughout. This time, the photos are abstracts of broken, rain-damped streets superimposed with artistic nudes.

I do not know when it will be available for sale since I am still looking for an agent and/or publisher, but I can assure you it will be worth the wait. The interpretations of my work given in this article are subjective and merely one way of perceiving it. I believe it is the perogative of the reader to apply it to their individual situations as it suits them.

Sabne Raznik's "Following Hope" is Available on Ebay- Signed

Since it's publication in April of 2007, "Following Hope" has sold a little under 100 copies and received glowing reviews, including the following from Irish poet Brendan Kennelly:

"Thank you for that beautiful book- a harvest of really striking poems in a really elegant creation. The language is haunting; in fact the entire book reads like a haunted, lyrical, warm, violent, wounded love-poem in which togetherness and a chilly gulf of seperation vie with each other, and hurt is inseperable from loving passion. This leads to a situation where warm intimacy and icy distance assess as they embrace.

"Fingers" is one of the most powerful poems I've read for a long time. These same fingers claw this reader's mind and imagination long after the book has been laid aside. But this book doesn't really get laid aside; it walks the streets of Dublin with me. For this I thank you and may your special magic continue to flourish. "

While my website (http://www.sabneraznik.com/) contains links to its publisher Xlibris, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble as places to buy it, Barnes and Noble no longer keeps it in stock. Amazon's policies regarding print-on-demand books, as adopted last year, has meant that while it continues to be available through them, very few are now buying it there (a strange side-effect, indeed). So I am now selling SIGNED copies on Ebay. Come by and check it out.

The Story of “Valhalla: blue”, Briefly

“Valhalla: blue” is a multi-stanza poem of well over 100 lines that took nearly three years to reach the form in which it was published.

The seeds of the poem were, first of all, the song “Your Blue Room”, originally released as being by the Passengers. The Passengers, however, was merely the members of U2 plus Brian Eno. Hence, later releases of the song attribute it to U2. It is a relatively rare track that is both a man addressing his lover and a man addressing God- a common double meaning of many of U2’s songs. The music is very atmospheric and, well, sexy. The second seed was the book “33 Still Lives” by Anton Corbijn. Corbijn’s idea of taking celebrities and placing them in very ordinary poses- so ordinary that some are difficult to recognize if not for the captions accompanying each photograph- is intriguing as well as the bluing technique applied to the photographs. Again, the over-all feel is very atmospheric, very moody. I found them both utterly inspiring. (The title draws from Led Zeppelin’s “The Immigrant Song” and all of this blue.)

But building that inspiring emotion into tangible words on paper was a painful and slow process. For the duration of the writing and revising period, I listened to little else but that one song over and over. I imbued it into the very essence of myself. Also, “33 Still Lives” was already out of print when I discovered its existence, but I knew from the sample photos from it that are posted on Corbijn’s website that the book was pivotal to the poem that sought to arise from them. A somewhat wearying internet search finally secured me a copy of the book which I would often peruse while playing U2’s cathedral-like song in my ear.

The words were stubborn. After six months of absorbing the influences in this manner, however, they began to drip forth- phrase by phrase. Originally, the pieces of “Valhalla: blue” were just that: pieces. Essentially it is made up of a series of smaller poems stitched together into this quilt-like whole. The next six months were spent writing these bits and scraps. Most of what formed in my head was not words at all, but strong images instead. It was as if my brain was taking its own photographs and then I had the challenge of finding words which would communicate these images as clearly as possible.

It was during this phase that I began an unsteady correspondence with Irish poet Michael O’Dea. I had sought him out in the hopes of learning more about the nuts and bolts of poetry, both the writing aspect and the business/ life aspect. In the end, he helped me more than I could have imagined. After one year of toil and trouble, I now had all the elements that would make up the final version. However, they lacked organization, polish, and were merely a shadow of what they would become. I was also a bit exhausted by the creative effort. With his permission, I sent a file of what I had to O’Dea.

He agreed to help me with the revising process, which took at least another six months, possibly a bit longer. One of the things he stressed were to take out as many of the definite articles as I could to facilitate flow and allow for greater variation of interpretation. He also warned against overloading the poem with too many images, a true concern when one has photographs for inspiration. The original version of the poem, all put together, was over 250 lines long. His kind admonitions and careful, thought-out suggestions halved its size. The poem “Inside” was originally part of “Valhalla: blue” but later cut out as one of the pieces that presented possible image overload. “Inside” was made into a poem all its own. Other incised pieces have been further cut and recycled only as a line or two in other poems. There is still rich material in “the outtakes”, as I call them, to be mined in future.

But image overload and an over-dependence on articles- definite and indefinite- were not the only challenges. Perhaps the greatest challenge of the work was organization. I wish I could say there is a method of organization that will work every time, but there isn’t. For “Valhalla: blue”, it was very much a play-it-by-ear enterprise. For that, O’Dea contributed some, but comparatively not much. I relied on gut feeling to tell me when the structure had become acceptable.

After about 2 and ½ years of work, the poem was all but complete. I was new to computers at this time and my computer got a virus. In order to restore the machine to working capacity, I had to wipe the hard drive. But I had not backed it up. Gone were over one hundred poems that I had written and stored therein, including another poem O’Dea had been helping me with. These have never been recovered from oblivion. That episode sent me back to paper for the majority of writing and revising. It seemed as if “Valhalla: blue” had never even happened.

Frantic, I emailed O’Dea. Did he still have a copy of the file on his computer? He did. He sent it to me and revision continued for another month or so before the poem stabilized into final form. He saved the poem from cyber oblivion so that it could be enjoyed by readers of poetry everywhere.

“Valhalla: blue” was published in April 2007 in my first collection of poems entitled “Following Hope”. It is available all over the internet in soft cover format. However, it is also available in hardcover via the publisher at http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp?bookid=36988.

---------Sabne Raznik, poet and book reviewer. http://www.sabneraznik.com; http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/64959/sabne_raznik.html