I am thrilled to let everyone know that Swarn Gill’s new book Love, Stars, and Paradigms released a few hours ago just became #1 Amazon bestseller in the UK, the US, and Canada.
Congratulations to Swarn! My publishing house –Literary Revelations – and I are thrilled. Thank you to those who support and believe in us.
Have a great weekend everyone.
The book is available in all Amazon markets.
Gabriela Marie Milton 2022 Pushcart Prize Nominee Publisher, Editor, Award Winning & #1 Amazon Bestselling Author Books:
I suspect I suffer from an acute crisis of half-bloomed neurosis. My past emotions do not fully interfere with my current experiences. The converse is true too. No sophistry added. How boring.
I work my magic. I jump in the water dressed in black lingerie made from Calais laces and Lyon silks. I can feel the waves pounding my body while my mind drowns in the ambiguity of the French Nouveau Roman standing mid-way between modernism and post-modernism like a drunken sunset that cannot distinguish between yellow and orange.
The foliage of the sea turns burgundy. Your fingers contour my face.
Oh, you.
I forget that my favorite poet is Arthur Rimbaud with his “A thousand Dreams within me softly burn” and “I shed more tears than God could ever have required.” All I remember is that once I wrote: “I’ve never existed outside of your obsession with me and my interpretations of you.”
There is something about these interpretations that make you burst in cascades of laughter and art your love for me with lust.
One morning, left by my pillow, I found your reply written on a large index card: “I had to bury your existence inside my obsessions. If not, your love could not have been fully stabilized. You above anyone else know that an absolute correspondence in love does not exist. Love is a mathematical singularity.”
I am delighted to be featured in New York Glamour Magazine the third time. I was asked to first speak about myself and then about the anthology Hidden in Childhood [Literary Revelations, 2023]. I am grateful to everyone who spread the word about this stunning anthology. I am grateful to everyone who bought it. I am proud to have brought together the voices of 150 poets to speak to you in more than 270 poems about the trauma and the joy of childhood. Hidden in Childhood is a stunning and important book. It became a #1 Amazon bestseller for 5 days after its release. Yesterday it recaptured its #1 place for the entire day.
You can get the anthology and read the poetry of those stunning writersHERE.
Apologies if I did not return some of your love. I will visit with you as soon as can. None of you knows that I have an extremely rare autoimmune condition. It is so rare that it’s basically understudied. There is no treatment for it. For years it left me alone. Now, I am going through a flare up. All medical tests were done, and there is no damage to any of my internal tissues. I am ok but I will need time to recover. Please be patient with me and I will visit your sites soon.
Now let’s go back to happier things. I am thrilled I was asked by New York Glamour Magazine to talk about me. However I am beyond delighted I could talk about Hidden in Childhood and your marvelous poetry.
Here are some snippets from the interview:
“Yes, I am an American, but I am also a child of Europe. I have been fascinated, mesmerized, frightened, brought to tears, left speechless by the greatest writers of Europe. I still am. Later, I discovered America’s greatest: Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, Faulkner, Hemingway, Miller, Poe. Yet, in my darkest moments – like those rare moments in which I cannot write – only the writings of Lawrence Durrell bring my muse back.”
“Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology is our first publication. It comprises over 150 authors and more than 270 poems. It is available on Amazon and for almost 5 days was the #1 Amazon Hot New Release in Poetry Anthologies. As the editor, curator, and publisher of this book, I am honored and humbled that so many poets entrusted me with their work. The beauty and the power of the poems included in Hidden in Childhood brought me to tears. The poems of the contributors are stunners. As I wrote in the foreword of the book, if you open the pages of this poetry collection, you will be mesmerized by the talent of the contributors, and by the range of stylistic approaches they use to recreate the world of childhood“
As of this writing Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology is still running #1 on Amazon New Releases [poetry anthologies]. This is almost the 5th day. I cannot tell you how humbled and delighted I am. The poetry in this volume is fantastic. 150 poets wrote about their childhood. Joy and pain. Tears and smiles.
Today coming from childhood the voice of Vance Walker.
PAST AS PROLOGUE – VANCE WALKER
Under the old oak tree where they hung our swing we three would play till the bell would ring
and we burned our hands on the fisherman’s rope and skinned our knees on the fireman’s pole
In our big tree house with lights but no water we three played two sons and a daughter
Using cherries for blood our ammunition was mud squirt guns for rain It was all just pantomimed pain
And I could hold my breath much longer than you under the old oak tree when it was just us two
Except on that day on that afternoon when that rope around your neck turned your face bright blue
I didn’t know what to do under that old oak tree Hang on hold on I’ll get you free
We had our GI Joes up to their necks in mud and flying through the air and landing with a thud
And I could hold my breath much longer than you except on that day on that afternoon
when you banged to the floor when I banged down the door blood, not mud and your face bright blue
I didn’t know what to do tears coming down like rain you in your cherry juice you and your phone cord noose
Remember when we had to pantomime pain?
Well it was we three then it was us two now it’s just me me alone
using tears for rain and I don’t have to pantomime pain.
Vance Walker has been writing poetry since he was a little boy. Recent poetry published: When Smooth-Faced Wooers Woo, in the Wingless Dreamer’s Breath of Love, Poems for Global Poemic, Vita Brevis Press, and The Gay & Lesbian Review. His play, You’ve Got To Keep Mother Alive, was recently performed at Scribe Stages.
Updates:
My deepest apologies for not being able to return your likes. At this point Word Press is working to fix several problems that occurred with this site. I believe I can reply to your comments on my site, but I cannot leave comments or like other sites. I hope this problem gets fixed soon.
Gabriela Marie Milton 2022 Pushcart Prize Nominee Publisher, Editor, Award Winning & #1 Amazon Bestselling Author Books:
I am thrilled to let you know that Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology published by Literary Revelations is now a #1 Amazon bestseller. This book was made possible by the gorgeous poems you, poets from around the world, sent us. Thank you for trusting Literary Revelations with your poetry. Congratulations! You are now #1 Amazon bestselling poets. And we are filled with joy.
We planned the official release of the book on January 31. The book was on Amazon on the 26. However, not all Amazon markets were populated [at the hour I write they are still not fully populated] and the book’s categories we not showing. Even now only one category shows. In addition we had other few things to take care of.
However, people found out about the book on the 27th of January. In a matter of hours Hidden in Childhood became a #1 Amazon bestseller.
I am filled with joy and gratitude. Thank you for buying the book. Thank you for supporting Literary Revelations Publishing House.
On our pre-launch Hidden in Childhood show: Our gracious host Victoria Onofrei of Radio Bloomsbury will broadcast the show on Sunday January 29, at 6pm London Time. If you want to listen you can do it here https://www.bil.ac.uk/bloomsburyradio/
You can buy the book here:
Thank you. Have a great weekend.
Gabriela Marie Milton 2022 Pushcart Prize Nominee Publisher, Editor, Award Winning & #1 Amazon Bestselling Author Books:
[From my poetry collection Woman: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose.]
Between the bed and the window, in that space that smells roses and rien que pour toi, the morning lets her hair down. She is so close that I can reach her skin with the tip of my fingers.
I know … his book and the fame it brought him. The book in which he made me – the me that he imagined – the main character.
He was fascinated by the purple of my makeup and the yellows of my cobra, who used to erect the upper portion of her body to greet him every time he visited.
I do not know what demons he tried to exorcise. In the heat of those summer afternoons, he used to sip his sangria and attempt to find almost religious justifications for what he called my ecstatic existence; an existence populated with the richness and succulence of the Mediterranean literature and void of bullet points.
His acute shyness and his need to overcome the incapacity to love beyond nightly adventures used to ring in my ears like some unhinged marimba lamenting the loss of a pipe.
The dress that I wear in page twenty-seven. That dress and the heart-shaped red stone pierced with a hole for the suspension I used to wrap around my neck. I found that stone in a churchyard.
I was too young. Perhaps an older version of me would have made him a better writer. Do not laugh. You are too handsome when you laugh.
In the end, he managed to do something special. He invented the name of a perfume and made me wear it on every page of his book: rien que pour toi. I hid his book somewhere in the library. Yet, every morning, in the space between the bed and the window, it still smells rien que pour toi.
On August 2021 Woman: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose became a #1 Amazon bestseller. My deepest thanks to everyone who bought my book.
For five times in twenty-four hours, I face in the direction of the sea.
The first time the morning star floats above the water as innocent as the breast of a young girl. Soon the sun will try to catch her naked and burn her skin. She will escape. Pigeons will carry her across the sea. She will melt into yellow waters. Her last rays will fall in my lap like feathers.
I will rejoice.
The second time, divorced from her night bed, the light disperses itself on the shore. I can see myself washing clothes in the sea. My hair is tied in a ponytail. I am barefoot, and my dress is rolled up. The skin of my lips is cracked. I bleed. The clothes I wash smell cedar and spices. The shadow of a seagull positions itself on my forehead. The sea reflects the twelve signs of the zodiac. I can see no relationship between my destiny and that which I do. I am scared.
At noon, the sun kneads the waters with rapture. Shells shed pearls on the shore. My own rational thought leaves my body. I delight in the waves like a gazelle in the grasslands. I feel the movement of the water on my skin. Its cyclical quality sends me in a state of ecstasy. No, it is not the ecstasy of Saint Teresa of Ávila. It is something similar to a soporific trance. I am dead, and I am alive at the same time. I come from the sea. I return to the sea.
In the afternoon, my rational self awakes. My mind spreads its wings. I get preoccupied with verbs. I set one triangle in the normal position, and I invert the other one. I bind them together. I make myself a dress from pieces of paper inscribed with old symbols. Oh, femininity! You are the goddess of vines, the mother earth, the chalice, the blood, the fertility of the womb. I mull over these desperate efforts to equalize the feminine with the masculine. There is nothing in these symbols that points to the intellect of a woman.
In the evening, the sky stretches itself from blue to dark violet. The silk of the gloves hugs my fingers. I feed my iguana with cookies soaked in champagne. She hisses at me. I open a package of silk stockings. The door opens by itself. You step in. I stare at you. You are in by your own volition. One kiss and you borrow my tears. One touch, and I borrow your pain. A passage rite. I keep a coffin adorned with lilies in my bedroom. I sleep besides death like Sarah Bernhardt.
Did you hear that noise? A rosary fell from the Spanish chest.
The wind slips between the petals of a rose and opens it.
Who am I? If I knew, I would tell you.
Did you say you love me? The twenty-four hours are up. Nobody is facing in the direction of the sea anymore.
I cannot tell which of the wounds I acquired hurts the most. I gather all of them in a large wicker basket. Every summer morning I sort them out. I re-live each of them.
I see how the Lie walks hand in hand with the Betrayal, and how the Betrayal indulges herself in the sweetest of wine. Oh, that irresistible taste of black grapes that melts in her mouth. It almost makes her attractive.
The Envy wears red lipstick and high heels. She dances naked on a wooden table. At every turn, she spreads poisonous confetti in the air, and lowers her eyes. I try to decipher the meaning of her gestures. I cannot.
The Greed, with her childbearing hips, indulges herself with poor souls who live at the margins of the city. The children are hungry, and the mother long exhausted. The beds are cold. The moonlight enters the room through broken windows.
I feel the pulse in my temples. Exhausted I go over the meaning of love and sacrifice. I try to restore them to the right place.
Love is the consummation of all acts leading to the warm meal one hands to an old man during winters. It is the sum of all unknowns. It is the finger that draws stars in the darkest of skies.
Sacrifice? You tell me.
Sightly revised version of the original published in Women: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose
“I am ecstatic that the book was for 9 days a #1 Amazon Bestseller [category: poetry anthologies].”
“The book is a memorable collection of over 200 poems by more than 100 authors. It’s a must-have because we all can benefit from the poetry of survival, and of healing. We all can benefit from the experiences so strongly evoked in this book. We all can come together to emerge triumphant from pain. We all need to understand that equity among sexes will lead to the creation of social, economic, and political structures far more suited to respond to the challenges of the future.”
You can read the entire interview in the link below.
