Hardcover, $16.95
ISBN: 9781935462101
Poetry, 96 pages
Luminis Books, October 2014
These poems send the reader on a journey into the hidden
realm of the subconscious, where the sixth sense of knowing overwhelms the
other five.
Chris Katsaropoulos has written a collection of poems
that turn words and phrases inside out, bringing forth the intricate truths
that can be found within a frozen landscape, a lost tribe of warriors, a funeral
cortege, or a chrysanthemum weathering a drought.
The dark existential themes capture the uneven and inexplicable
nature of the human soul as it tries to muddle through a world that sometimes
seems designed to thwart every attempt to love, while at the same time filled with
beauty and overflowing with life.
GUEST POST
The
Sixth Sense of Knowing
Guest
blog post by Chris Katsaropoulos, author of Fragile,
Antiphony, Unilateral, Entrevoir and Complex
Knowing
Some recent interviewers have asked me why I
wrote Complex Knowing, and I suppose
the only thing to say is that I’ve been writing poetry for a long time, and a
few years ago started posting my poems to my blog page. After a while, I had
about thirty poems on the blog and realized that there are many common themes
among these poems and that they had become a collective work with a strong
theme of subconscious “knowing” running through them.
I had titled several of the poems Complex Knowing and numbered them,
because I was exploring the idea that the subconscious knows and understands
things at a deeper and more complex level than our waking/surface consciousness
is able to. Not that one form of understanding is better than another, but that
the subconscious mind –the soul—has access to layers of wisdom and
understanding that are not as accessible for most people in everyday life,
because our thinking is wired to analytical processing of sensory input from
the “normal” five senses. I typically write my poems and novels in the middle
of the night, just after waking, because this time affords me the most
solitude, quiet, and also, I believe, enables me to tap into the creative well
of the subconscious most directly, the deep well where the most magical,
mystical, and, ultimately, most universal understanding comes from.
So, the poems in Complex Knowing have a bit of a dream-like feel to them, as if you
have just woken up in the middle of the night, and you’re remembering fragments
of a really interesting dream that don’t quite fit together, and you’re trying
to make sense of what it means. I believe it is those kinds of visions and
dreams that provide us with the most intuitive insights we can have—the
messages that tell us what our innermost soul wants us to know.
This is what I mean by the sixth sense of
“knowing,” which is the subject I explore in the collection. I believe it’s
important for all of us to take a step back from our busy, hurried lives and
un-plug from all the technological input we receive from our gadgets and
screens, so that we can allow ourselves the quiet time for reflection that
enables us to receive these bits of knowing. Otherwise, we are missing a vast
resource from which to draw guidance and fulfillment.
Complex
Knowing – Number 4 is an example of the style of
poems in the collection; brief, lyrical, with minimal punctuation to allow the
phrasings in the poem to be read in several different ways, which creates
nuances and different meanings and allows readers to interpret the poem by
bringing their own understanding, their own knowing, to it.
Complex Knowing – Number
4
Great
star gone
Planet
kept reflection
Days
we hoarded and days we lost
Paralyzed
by sensitive
Dilation
growing days and time
Dogs
running great
Stars
gone shimmering
Planet
recollection
Left
angry and alone how
Could
it be
Otherwise
How
could
We
have known?
Drifted
days drift
By
and by the
Wherewithal
to love
Us
one begets the
Other
stars forget the
Skies
before them days we
Held
close and days
We
squandered and
Lost.
These poems are more about a feeling – more like
listening to a nocturne by Chopin or Ravel, rather than trying to convey a
message or tell a story, though there are meanings and episodes from my life and
a few current events buried and woven through them. My objective in writing a
poem is not to convey a certain specific meaning to the reader (or listener),
but to open readers up to a sensitivity that allows them to find their own
meanings in the poem. I want readers to be able to bring their own knowing to
each poem, leave the work open enough so that each reader can take away their
own understanding from it.
[You can read more of Chris’s poems at http://antiphonyck.blogspot.com/ ]
Praise for Past Releases from
Chris Katasaropoulos
“Antiphony” by Chris Katasaropoulos
“‘Antiphony’ is a book so eloquent and brilliant that
it requires time— that precious entity few seem to have saved for exploration
of the arts – to explore this obvious treasure. It is related to the great
works of literature – James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Solzhenitsyn,
Dante Alighieri, Roberto Bolaño, Tolstoy, Proust, Kazantzakis, Kafka, Melville,
and Conrad are a few that come to mind.”
– Grady Harp, Amazon Top 10 Reviewer, Literary Aficionado
“With the debate between supporters of evolution and
creationism (recently highlighted by Bill Nye
and Ken Ham), ‘Antiphony’ is an intriguing timely tale.”
– Midwest Book Review
“‘Antiphony’ is, in many ways, an awe-inspiring
novel…Writer Chris Katsaropoulos has a way of delving deeply into what seem
like small moments…It makes me wonder how he did it.”
– Al Riske, author of “Precarious” and “Sabrina’s Window”
“Hold on to your chair or you will be totally transported
out of your comfort zone by ‘Antiphony’…Katsaropoulos is an emerging fresh
literary voice not to be overlooked.”
– NUVO Newsweekly
“‘Antiphony’ blends reality and non-reality in a
fabulous way. There are dreams and visions, there's science and of course the
piece itself is fiction but could be a real story theoretically. Interesting!”
– Kathryn Vercillo, diaryofasmartchick.com
“Fragile” by Chris
Katasaropoulos
“‘Fragile” is a beautifully-written novel…the writing
is uniquely refreshing. After reading Fragile, I found myself feeling very contemplative.
Readers will enjoy Fragile and will find meaning in it that applies to their
own lives…Highly recommended.”
– Paige Lovitt, Reader Views
“Mesmerizing and beautiful, a truly stunning book!
Katsaropoulos is new to writing fiction, and his first novel sets the bar
incredibly high.”
– Lauri Coats, ReviewTheBook.com
For more stops on this tour go to the JKSCommunications Tour Page
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Katsaropoulos is the author of
more than a dozen books, including four critically-acclaimed novels,
“Unilateral,” “Antiphony,” “Fragile” and “Entrevoir,” as well as “Complex
Knowing,” the first collection of his poetry.
“Unilateral,” his latest novel, is
publishing in September and deals with the conflict in the Gaza Strip and
Middle East. Chris has been an editor at several major publishing houses and
has published numerous trade books, textbooks and novels over the course of his
career. Chris enjoys traveling, playing the piano and hiking in out-of-the-way
places. Visit antiphonyck.blogspot.com
to read more,
including his most recent poems. Chris lives in Carmel, Ind.
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