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«A Good Poem Will Not Only Warm the Heart, It Will Light Up the Brain» – Nolo Segundo

Juan Re Crivello: Do you think poetry is back in fashion?

Nolo Segundo: I think poetry has greatly declined in popularity because far too many ‘academics’ have ruined it by a rather perverse notion that if a poem is accessible, understandable, it can’t be very good. All the great writers from the Psalmists to Homer to Shakespeare to my beloved Emily Dickinson have written poems that are ‘graspable’, with meaning profound but direct. I call it the ‘satori’ effect: when you read something and suddenly you have an insight into a mystery that you may have not even been aware of. But since WWII too many writers, both in poetry and prose, have gone the other way, purposely it seems going out of their way to obfuscate, to confuse even. The saddest part, I think, is not just that their writing is pretentious–it’s boring! A good poem will not only warm the heart, it will light up the brain; and a great one will pull on even the soul.

And this is not just happening with writing: If you look at modern art, you’ll see a shift from meaning to ‘form’, from beauty and truth to ugly and sterile. I love classical music and know very little has been composed since the end of the Second World War to even echo Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, et al. In short, I suspect–more and more– that humanity is ‘devolving’. In terms of science and technology, yes, we are advancing but in terms of a sense of ‘the More’, of God and soul and the profound role we play as the sole species out of millions to have evolved–or been gifted– with sentience, I think we are dangerously delusional. We have created weapons that can turn our beautiful earth into a forlorn and empty desert, and so are much like 5 year olds who enter a room to play and find bags full of loaded handguns.

Well, sorry if I’ve gone on too long. I still have hope, perhaps a true ‘Great Awakening’ will come along and humanity will free itself of the materialist mindset that has caused so much suffering. As a young man I learned–the hard way, a very hard way– that we are endless beings ‘travelling’ for a time in mortal vessels, and this world, what we call life, is really just a long dream shared by billions, with birth a falling asleep and death an awakening. [ I wrote of this in an essay-memoir which my publisher allowed me to include at the end of ‘Soul Songs’ titled ‘The Day I Remembered My Soul’.] 

I believe we are each little mysteries, never fully knowable to others or even ourselves, and one of the myriad mysteries for me is how I’ve been more creative in my 8th decade than in the previous 7 combined!  In the past 7 years I’ve been published in over 240 lit mags in 21 countries and my publisher, Cyberwit.net, has released 3 collections–and recently asked me to put together a fourth book! The poems ‘come to me’, usually in the mornings, it seems, and if I don’t write them down soon, I risk losing them, never to get them back. So I have an app of my Iphone called ‘Poet Assist’.

And more than once I’ve come across one of my poems online, and start reading it and am amazed, that I could create such a thing….

J. R. C.: Could you tell us about city you live in, and give a description of your favorite bar or café.

Nolo Segundo: I have attached one poem from the book which as it happens I feel echoes much of how and why I see the world ‘devolving’: LIVING IN A DRY LAND. And as far as a favorite cafe goes…well, there is a great little restaurant in town called ‘The Pie Lady’ with the best cappuccino and pies! Of course!

Author Bio:

Nolo Segundo, pen name of retired teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, the war zone of Cambodia, 1973-74] L.j. Carber, became a published poet in his 8th decade in over 240 literary journals in 21 countries on 4 continents and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, thrice for best of the Net. Cyberwit.net has published 3 collections in softcover: THE ENORMITY OF EXISTENCE; OF ETHER AND EARTH; and SOUL SONGS. These titles reflect the awareness he gained in 1971 when he had an NDE whilst nearly drowning: that he has–is–a consciousness predating birth and surviving death, what poets since the Psalmists and Plato have called the soul. 

Living In A Dry Land by Nolo Segundo


They who choose to live in a dry land
must live a very dry life–
too parched to sing, too dried out by what
they call ‘reason’ to see they have made
life hollow, a partial thing, a blind thing….

They have made their world so arid even
hope is scorched while the human is left
desiccated, no wetness left for goodness or
hope, not even for the inscrutable miracle
of love–
for in their sere minds all of life shrivels,
left scorched, withered– burnt fragments
that were once honor, courage, faith–now
they see only an empty desert bounded by
death, extinction, nothingness….

A man once came to them, to that desert
their seared souls had made. He offered
them water, water to quench their thirst,
to moisten their minds, to make green
and lush once again their world, all done
with water, the holiest of water that would
lead them from a paradise to Paradise.

A few drank of the water, the water of
life and hope and awareness–
the water of Eternity–
but the others refused it, fearing the
man who brought it so much,
they killed him.

Two thousand years later,
some drink from His water of Life
and others choose a shriveled life,
too dry for hope, too dead for any
meaning….

HERE IS THE LINK TO MY MOST RECENT BOOK