Catena Poetica: An International Collaboration by Flor Aguilera, Joyce Brinkman, Gabriele Glang, and Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda
$14.99
If technology means any set of skills, methods and processes that help humans carry out their goals, then it should also be possible for us to think of poetry as a form of technology. How else to explain how the words of those who lived and wrote hundreds of years ago still offer their potent magic and understanding to us today? An amazement: that we can enter into this bright chain of conversation, ranging back to when our “[a]ncient ancestors wondered who/ carried the sun” and “called it forth/ from the darkness of its hiding place.” This is exactly what poets Flor Aguilera, Joyce Brinkman, Gabriele Glang, and Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda do in this international poetic collaboration called Catena Poetica. Following in the tradition of collaborative poetry such as renku or renga, they add their own distinctive shapes and sounds. Back and forth, between Mexico, the US Midwest and East Coast, and Germany— in these poems they circulate the warmth of color and spice, the mysteries of music, water, and clouds. What comes to us is more than the well-made thing: it’s alchemy.
–Luisa A. Igloria, author of Maps for Migrants and Ghosts and Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser; Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 2020-22
Reading these poems we sense the cycles of seasons and natural sceneries. We see visual snapshots enlarged by subtle words and reflections. Still-life contemplations that narrate our own mindscape.
—Dr. Helmut Haberkamm, author of Frankn lichd nedd am Meer
In Catena Poetica, four voices unite in a shared vision of form, theme, and music. Readers encounter folk artifacts from Andean charangos to guqins, or artists and composers ranging from Mondrian to Couperin, but the poetry’s essence is firmly rooted in nature—a tribute to the poetic tradition that brought forth this original form. Traces of distinctive imaginations, geographies, and cultures course throughout, and yet the aggregate reflects one aesthetic light “in its irresistible wholeness.” This compendium reminds us why collaboration is so essential in our multifaceted world.
–Jessica Reed, Author of World Composed
Description
Catena Poetica: An International Collaboration
by Flor Aguilera, Joyce Brinkman, Gabriele Glang, and Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda
$14.99, paper
978-1-64662-741-7
2022
Indiana Poet Laureate Emerita Joyce Brinkman and Virginia Poet Laureate Emerita Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda authored this collaborative chapbook with German-American poet Gabriele Glang and Mexican poet Flor Aguilera. The four poets also wrote a book of modified kasen renku verse, Seasons of Sharing (Leapfrog Press, ©2014), with Japanese poet Kae Morii and French poet, Catherine Aubelle.
Ilona Duncan –
Sublime poetry collection
Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2022
An International Collaboration, Catena Poetica is an exquisite book of poetry. Renowned American poets Joyce Brinkman and Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Mexican poet Flor Aguilera and German-American poet Gabriele Glang, have combined their extraordinary talents and multi-faceted cultures to compose five sets of poems titled “Color,” “Spice,” “Music,” “Water,” and “Clouds.” Each set introduces a mythological figure. There is the winged Iris, goddess of rainbows, Hercules, the Greek adventurer, Kokopelli, the Native American flute player, Mazu, the Chinese goddess of the sea, and Yahweh, the god of the Israelites.
Color, Glang suggests, derives from chaos, and might lead to Fernweh, the German painful longing for faraway places. Color brings sapphire waves, Alpine snowdrops, the American goldfinch. Spice leads to Tutankhamun’s tomb, Spanish sunshine, and the heart of the Andes. Music creates Christmas Carols, the tango, and blackbirds’ concerto grosso. Water means monsoon rains, a plunge down Acapulco’s canyon, and surfing waves. Clouds, destructive and lifesaving, rule over the earth.
Catena Poetica is a sublime poetry collection to be read over and again. Each poem speaks to the soul, touches on the divine, and embraces nature’s splendor. Read the poems slowly, take in their colors and flavors, feel the water, hear the music, uncover words.
Stephanie P. (verified owner) –
The idea for this collaboration was brilliant; the execution of the collaboration, exquisite. From the beautiful examples of alliteration, through the poetically luscious descriptions and examples of each of the five subjects, to the images the artists painted in our minds – the results to the reader are nothing short of joyful. These wonderful women weave their words as though they were all sitting in a room together, jointly knitting a warm blanket. The only thing that might top reading their work would be to hear them in person, sharing their talent. Written word is beautiful; spoken word divine. I know because I’ve had the privilege of hearing two of the four poets in person.