Sensus Divinitatis

                                                           Life is Flowing...

                                                              PREFACE
                                                                   by

                                                                CrisLo

I was taught never to start a speech apologizing or making excuses, but I think it's necessary in this case. My main concern in writing this is that in no way will it make justice to the next couple of pages that Alice prepared for you. My only relief is that most people just skip this part and go straight to the good stuff. I've been trying for days to write something good. I think what she writes deserves the best, a prologue worthy of this collection, but I just can't find the words to match hers. So if you are reading this please keep in mind that, despite the purpose of a prologue, it will in no way reflect anything of what you are about to read.

And what are you about to read? Well this is a collection of poems, translated from her original Greek works, by the one and only Alice Graivenille. Her poems tell us stories. The thing about poets is that they write about everything to answer their own questions and explain their own feelings. Poets rarely face writer's block, there'll always be something to write about. And that is exactly what you'll find here, a sneak peek of the author's mind and let me tell you, Alice, she's a poet in everything. My being part of her everyday life allows me to vouch for that. No matter what we're talking about, if we're just chatting, joking, teasing each other or we're frustrated and mad with ourselves or the world, she's always a poet. There's always a meaning behind everything she does and says and you need to dig deep and analyze again and again to better understand her because her way of thinking is strange and complex, just like any poet's.

The thing about poets is that the deepest thoughts of their minds are frightening for the rest of us, but if I mentioned her age you'd never believe it. To be able to be so sensitive about life and writing it in such a smart way isn't possible at such a young age, or so I thought. Alice creates reality and offers it to us in a set of senses, feelings and dreams that changes our perception and talks to the soul. She creates a mix of maturity and freshness.

In our precarious world we are so needed of reflection and understanding to get, if anything, a grasp of the meaning we lose little by little with day-to-day's life. And personally that is what I find in Alice's words, some little understanding that I didn't even know I needed. I find things I feel too, but I didn't yet know I felt them.

I think that, of all arts, poetry is the most difficult to master. We have music in which you balance sound and silence, rhythm and textures. We have paintings to balance colours and light. But words? How do you express all the aforementioned in words and still do justice to them and yourself? The most special gift her poetry gives us is that it keeps creating even after it has been written. It is a continuous and spontaneous rebirth of words aware of this moment and forever. In her poetry you find that life is flowing.

Even though Alice manages to write down the inexpressible and makes you understand it, makes you feel it, it's still as inexpressible as it was for you before. And this is what makes her poems beautifully unique, that sense that you understand the feeling but still need to relive it by rereading her poems, because you'll never have quite enough. And even though she has already put it in words, we are still living her poetry in the darkness.

-Cris

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Mon, 20 Jan 2014

-Alice

Now I'd like to add something to that beautiful preface. I've said it a thousand times to myriads of people that keep asking, what inspires you? how do you write your poetry?

I asked Cris to write the prologue because in a way everything that I write has a life of its own. I don't understand it quite myself. The story-teller very much like the painter or the sculptor brings to life something that is already entrapped and fights to come forth, step out of the oblivion and become matter, become real, become life. Cris is my means to bringing everything that I hold inside to life. She always fights me about Poetry saying she isn't cut for it. She says "I don't understand the metaphors. Explain!" And the more I explain the more I realize that I had no idea what I meant when I was writing it. Every time I analyze a poem or a line I discover a hidden part of my thoughts, a theory I wasn't even aware I was mastering inside my rather confusing brain. I'm forever grateful for that. I know she loves everything I write and that kind of takes away the validity of all the praising she did in her preface and it drives me crazy when her answer is always the same, "I loved it" or when she teases me about being "an old soul". But truth is, Cris remains one of the most sincere persons I've ever met on the account of she's real. Poets lie. They carry a hidden camera inside their heads and they capture a scenery, people, faces, emotions... They store them all until need comes and they exploit them, use them to create their poems. I don't think I'd be able to carry on with one of the things I love the most in the world without her keeping me sane about it. She gave me quite the credit and I feel it's my turn to do the same.

Also, one last thing to keep in mind whilst reading this poetry collection.

For me Poetry is all about putting words together, words that otherwise seem unpairable, somewhat wrong, ordinary or cheeky and when that happens, when they click together and complete each other, well it feels like they were invented just to serve this purpose. There's rhythm and flow and words that when put one next to the other they create a feeling of "profound absolution" as if no one can ever doubt, question or challenge what is written there. Almost as if those words were created to be put together and you feel it deep in your gut as it cuts to the bone that what is written is real, it's black and it's white. And I believe in that moment -if God exists then in that moment- yes, we reach God inside.

That's why I titled it Sensus Divinitatis. Allow me to clarify this, I'm an Agnostic Humanist but I accept that others believe in God, they give God different names, faces, abilities... and the fact that they believe is beautiful and praiseworthy. I,on the other hand, believe we carry our own Gods inside us and I find God in that moment of "supreme completion" I mentioned before. However, for the sake of philosophical and cultural debate, do check this page out that'll explain shortly if somewhat too generally what John Calvin meant by "Sensus Divinitatis" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensus_divinitatis

Thank you and may you enjoy what comes next.

-A.G.

PS- It is not so much the votes that count -d'après moi- as is the detailed comments, what the reader thought of whilst reading the poem, what was felt and interpreted. I'd like to read what everyone else makes out of my works. Ask questions, make comments, demand analyses like Cris...