The road to freedom is full of sunflowers – Martin Firrell
From the poems of Imen Melliti transpires the expression of a movement of the individual soul. Her poems have the ability to speak directly to the reader’s heart. They are of a beauty and depth that cannot pass over in silence.
By Stefania Miola
In the language of flowers, the sunflower recalls the sun for the colors of its bright yellow or orange petals and for its rounded shape. For these reasons the meaning of the sunflower is related to that of the sun and light, which in all cultures indicate life, joy, gladness.
The characteristic of this flower is that it always turns the flower-head (this is the name of the inflorescence of the Sunflower) towards the sun. This behavior is known as heliotropism. Sunflower women have a smile ready for anyone who crosses their path – A light and bright smile even on the darkest days. The women, who love sunflowers, love the whole world, we would say. Always available, attentive to others and not only to loved ones.
From the poems of Imen Melliti transpires the expression of a movement of the individual soul. It is the form in which the “I” of the poet speaks directly about herself: however, the structures, tones, themes that she can assume.
The preface to a collection of poems simply wants to enhance the magic of the word, which speaks with its own voice in the ear of the reader. The word is to listen to the voice (voices) of silence, but it is also to relive this silence to give, above all, identity to a (poetic) journey that becomes a diary from time to time.
Imen’s poems have the ability to speak directly to the reader’s heart. They are of a beauty and depth that cannot pass over in silence.
They enclose in verse, the emotions, the desires, the regrets, the reflections of a life lived with passion both for good and for bad.
If I have learned anything from life
Is that sometimes the darkest moments
They can take us to the brightest destinations!
The poet says, immediately making it clear that her verses speak of her life experiences. “They do not claim to be a teaching, they are notes of her experience that are shared with the reader who can reflect on what he has read and recognize himself in his feelings and another verse.”
“We can’t give up! We must continue even when it is scary, even when all our strength seems exhausted.”
In reality, these poems want to be a sort of diary, an autobiographical journey but, at the same time, they represent the salient stages in the life of each of us, the themes with which, first and foremost, all of us confronted.
Among the most evocative images, then, is the beautiful image of the sun ray that continues to be perceived even if the light due to suffering seems buried in the abyss of pain.
I lost the one who was my ray of sunshine…
That sun was shed on the earth
Apparently buried in the ground
Even if I continue to receive and perceive its rays!
Experiences that become stones that each of us leaves behind on the journey of life!
And again, between the abysses and chasms of the soul, the rays of the sun that persistently return to the poet’s symbolism if it is only if…
Give yourself time to heal and accept
Grow despite the vicissitudes of life…
One morning you will wake up
The rays and the light will penetrate your heart.
While opting for the free verse, typical of so much twentieth-century poetry, our Poetess demonstrates that she perfectly knows the traditional metric in the targeted calculation of the syllables that make up her verses.
The particular attention that the poetess puts in the choice of words and in their musicality seems to be able to join the sense of a poem drawn to the world of awareness.
Her poetic universe finds reasons for research in introspective reflection and meditation on the salient events of life: suffering, love, re-birth, altruism, the search for one’s own self, for the freedom to be fully oneself.
Love is something closer to breathing the soul
It is therefore in the adventure of lost love that the starting point of the poet’s long journey towards her nature as a woman of great human principles must be found.
I keep remembering a hard lesson
To be that I am today
I can’t forget the day I begged you to stay!
The poet writes addressing the beloved man who is no longer there, and the silence, tragedy and life is identified in the sense of loss. This pain is carried on the page: the page that contains words becomes uneasy but also becomes an autobiographical diary in which the past, present and future intertwine and chase each other.
Imen Melliti resumes writing her diary. That diary of her never interrupted. And he stitches up, through feelings, dreams, anxieties and fragments of a story, trying to bring together the pieces of her time to try to redefine her mosaic of life and live in the season of light.
[author title=”Imen Melliti ” image=”https://sindhcourier.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Imen-Melliti-Tunis-Sindh-Courier.jpeg”]Imen Melliti from Tunisia, who qualified in English for international relations, is translator and writer; she published an academic book “Master your English”, three English books for children ‘Puppy’s Day, ‘The real friends’, ‘The hinter and the Birds’, and poetry book ‘White Tulip’.[/author]
[author title=”Stefania Miola ” image=”https://sindhcourier.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Stefania-Miola-Italy-Sindh-Courier.jpg”]Stefania Miola is an eminent Poetess, Art Critic and Journalist from Italy. Since 2015, her three books have been published – “One sky – the only true one”, “Violets in the Desert” and “The scent of the white rabbit”. All books are awarded nationally and internationally. Her several poems are present in anthologies of various publishing houses. Stefania Miola had been writing for Sindh Courier.[/author]
