Author: Mekael

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2008-11-03

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 1462836860

Mekael participated in an event where select Poets were invited to join in a group Poetry Reading. This event which was founded and hosted by a small group of Poets in Zurich, Switzerland, is called the ‘Read and Seed’ charity event, which works to benefit the arts and culture community, as it desires to heighten the exposure of Poetry to youth. Mekael had the opportunity to read some of the poems from his new collection, ‘The Road to Damascus’, and he said that, “I was humbled by the response and air of welcome that I received. This event is a wonderful venue and as it grows, it is going to be very impactful.” After reading some of his work, the audience was able to ask Mekael questions about his Poetry, and his thoughts about the worldwide artistic culture in general. The following is an account of that exchange. Audience: “What motivates you to write Poetry?” Mekael: “I am truly inspired by living, and I love to watch and study people. I am positively affected by the interactions that we share. The more I see and learn, the more I want to tell the stories of those interactions through my Poetry.” Audience: “What’s the greatest lesson that you’ve learned so far, in your study of these exchanges?” Mekael: “That it’s great to be open, and to have an air of welcome, true welcome toward one another. Mankind is so very communal, and we desire nothing more than to be a part of something greater than ourselves, and being members of the family of man, provides us with this opportunity. In America, we speak to everybody. If a person walks by us without saying hello, we become affected by that. Since traveling through Europe, I love the fact that in the languages native to each land, I hear people greet one another.” Audience: “What do you think a Poet’s role is, in regards to the world’s artistic community?” Mekael: “Poets are storytellers. We have both the responsibility to create the transcendable works that captures the truths of life and living, and we have the awesome duty of parlaying those truths, regardless of time and happenstance, into one of Poetry’s various forms of expression and creative definitions or type. As an American, more specifically an African American, some of my experiences are going to first, be different than those of non-African Americans on many levels, and at the same time, my experiences are going to be different than those of most Europeans who are not people of color. The reality of the differences in these experiences, provides the subject matter for my Poetic works, and it provides the power in the color of my Poetry. It is this spectrum of color, that makes Poetry the phenomenal art form that it is. Poetry makes it okay that these different experiences occur, because once these experiences have been placed into a Poetic type or style, we all, regardless of where we were born, and regardless of our race or ethnicity, will be tied together by the bind or bond that Poetry creates, in the same way that music bonds us.” Audience: “Who are the Poets that inspire you?” Mekael: “I love the styles of the old standards, great Poets like, E.E. Cummings, Yeats, Frost, Lorca, Rimbaud and Thoreau. I am directly affected by the styles of T.S. Eliot, Oscar Wilde, Sylvia Plath and Carl Sandburg. But too, I am definitely a student of the African American greats like Maya Angelou, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Amiri Baraka, Haki Madhubuti, Gwendolyn Brooks, Mari Evans, Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez. Then there are my peers who are amazingly gifted Poets that I admire, Poets like Gina Loring, Black Ice and Asha Bandele, but my all time favorite Poet is Langston Hughes.” Audience: “Why did you choose the title ‘The Road to Damascus’?” Mekael: “In metaphor and story account alike, Paul experienced an amazing moment that changed him for the better, his “Conversion”, his conversion to Christianity, which for him, dictated that he become a servant b