Beraha Sellem will capture your heart and gently ease you into the the soft winds floating through your imagination.  Here is a snippet from her untitled piece:   The homeless musician of Champs Elysées Plays an old jazzy piece with a rusty saxophone. The pure sound of his music pierces my heart. It sounds like my cry when we fell apart. I stop and I stare at him; a tear falls down Against his cheek, but he keeps playing. I feel his body shaking and his brown Eyes, full of pain, are bringing Me back to you. Love is killing us. Slowly. Surely. ***   Eloísa Pérez-Lozano shapes thoughts into understandings many of us have experienced.  From her "Distractions During Spanish Mass." a priest speaks clumsy Spanish his “oh’s” turn into “ows” and “eh’s” turn into “ay’s,” stumbling on the precipice of holy words in an alien tongue like a toddler who’s learned how to walk, his moving fee...

The passing of Keith Leonard had a profound affect on aaduna .   His spark, wit, graciousness, joie de vivre, and savoir faire framed most people’s initial contact with the journal.   While his spirit will continue to permeate what we do, we also know he would want us to get back to normalcy; “forget him,” and start to roar like we did when he was around.   Well, Leonard will not be forgotten.   While we are not quite ready to really roar, rest assured, we are moving back to normalcy at least at the hectic, controlled purposefulness, random craziness, and getting on each other’s nerves the way that we thrive on when getting an issue ready for launch. In a few weeks, you will be gently placed on words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs, and experience images that will have you travel to various and intriguing levels of your imagination.   The summer-fall 2015 issue contributing poets are Bruce Ellis Alford    ...

Sometimes it is easier to let experiences transform from yesterday to today into futile grasps of the future, slipping quietly, dripping like time measured in slow motion... Moving toward places and remembered times when there was a comfort, an inner reaction that empowers the spirit to find harmony with the universe And the inner emotions of solace and peace. Sometimes it is best to embrace even as the letting go is simultaneous when the kindness and generosity of people met for the first time permeates and then evaporates into painful memories of  abandonment and exile. Yesterday became today when the avoidable omissions slams consciousness back into darkened depths of despair and toxic understanding. And at some point in time when relevancy is a notion of creativity and hope is the coming of the gods, acceptance is forged with strength; the eternal path becomes clearer, and more purposeful. Then it is easier. bill berry, jr. (c) 2015 With a saddened hea...

Late Summer Day in Central NY, September 16, 2015 (Photo by: Lisa Brennan) As the days of summer transition to the wonderment of the fall season, aaduna will release its combined summer and fall issue in mid-late October.   Noticing the symbiotic nature of the diverse work for individual issues, the awakening led to the decision to fold the summer issue into the fall so the works complement and supplement each other, and compel the reader to transverse different directions.   This combined issue may offer more than the normal vitality and intrigue of a single issue.   You will be the judge. Starting this week, we will present snippets and tads of information about the contributors.   So, as we always say before an issue launches, “Get ready…” In other news, aaduna added two new countries to its global reach, (Algeria and Cambodia) and we are now read in 85 countries to date! The “likes” on our Facebook     ...

Since I know the campus, the work of the College's Press and letterpress-printed, hand-sewn endeavors, and had a professional relationship with Wells back in the day when I served as a dean at Cayuga Community College, I think this is a grand opportunity if you or colleagues that you will share this posting with are interested. bill  

South Porch, Seward House Museum (photo by: Lisa Brennan) aaduna, Inc. in association with the Harriet Tubman Boosters presented a reading of words on the South Porch of the Seward House Museum.  Three reading rounds enabled the audience to experience intriguing and enchanting words that were heard throughout the Gardens of the Museum.  This event celebrated the Museum's September First Friday Community Event, as well as the non-profit corporation's fifth year of publishing aaduna , an online literary and visual arts journal.   Bobbie Dumas Panek (photo:  Lisa Brennan) Ron Van Nostrand (Photo by: Jessie Reich) The affair, funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, featured the esteemed Auburn poet, Bobbie Dumas Panek... Special guest, Ron Van...

Katrina… New Orleans and the Gulf region… Voices that will never be able to spew out rhymes that dip, stretch, and strike cords in our consciousness 9th Ward, New Orleans, LA - google image Hands that will never write those words to inspire and teach us truths over fantasy, dreams over madness, worth over defeatism Feet that will never touch the stage and bring us flights of fancy, and make complicity, our simplicity Breath that will never blow out those tunes that makes us tap our feet and drift back to those times in our lives Intellects that will never serve as leaders in all idioms of commerce and creativity Spirits that will never make us want to become more than what we are in this moment. We remember….2005. © 2015 by bill berry, jr.