Hope an Oil Painting by Ulrike Rowe
Voices de la Luna
A Quarterly Poetry & Arts Magazine
Tuesday 15 June 2010
Volume 2, Number 4
A Letter from the Editors
Mo H Saidi and James Brandenburg
The editors of Voices de la Luna believe poetry heals and the arts advance our quality of life. Therefore we have encouraged youth and adults keen on writing poetry to release their untold feelings and emotions in this form of literary art. As Sandra Cisneros said in a recent interview to be published in the 15 June issue of Voices, “I enjoy writing poetry. When I am about to tackle the characters facing emotional and social issues, I write fiction. To debate social issues, I write essays, but poetry is more of a personal matter for me. I sit behind my desk, release my feelings and emotions, and write poems.”
Now we are reaching out to new audiences. We have gone to the Lighthouse for the Blind and interviewed some of their dedicated and proud blind workers, such as Ernie Arce, a 22 year old who works as a general assembler. We have visited homeless people under the Commerce Street Bridge near the Bexar County Detention Center, including a 25 years old pregnant woman. We have conducted a workshop for youth and senior citizens at Bihl Haus on Fredericksburg Avenue, where we highlighted the healing effects of poetry and the relationship between medicine & art. We continue to experience that poetry and arts bring soothing and encouraging results, even among underprivileged and deprived people and among those with disabilities and emotional problems.
The therapeutic effects of poetry, painting, and music are especially valuable after devastating events, such as natural disasters and wars. Writing poetry about their grievances, by expressing their grief in letters, and by composing music, helps people purge themselves of pain and suffering and thereby transport painful events from the present into memories of the past. To write an elegy about the loss of a dear one, the poet immortalizes that person, and the memory of that person acquires beauty and sweet love. As Dylan Thomas says in his most popular poem, “Do not go gentle into that good night.”
We believe poetry and arts are undying elements of life, and by advocating these aspects and characteristics of the human soul, Voices de la Luna is serving an important role in the community. Even in the gravest of times, we celebrate poetry and arts in San Antonio and Texas as a way of eternalizing our human values.
http://www.voicesdelaluna.com/reviewsbooks.html
http://www.voicesdelaluna.com/healingarts.html
http://www.voicesdelaluna.com/poetrydreams.html
http://www.voicesdelaluna.com/spokenword.html
http://www.voicesdelaluna.com/selectprose.html
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