Editor's Preface
Life has always been a common topic in literature. Less poets or authors played around with “life” directly, however, it was usually implied in their works.
People started to question, what is life?
Scientists believe that life is a cell. “DNA makes RNA makes protein” that makes life.
Singers believe that life is a connection between lovers.
I believe that life is a moment. Or more precisely, life consists of several moments.
A moment when we were born to this world;
A moment when we found we’ve already grown up;
A moment when we realized we have missed the scenery on the road;
A moment when we had someone we love and want to be together forever;
Even a moment we realized we were stupid and made so many mistakes.
C’est la vie!
This collection is designed for someone who has a passion for life as well as someone who wants to delve more about life. There are 13 pieces of literary works in total, all of which are related to life. Some of them were talking about author’s lives based on their observation; some were focusing on recalling memories; some were more like reflective pieces in which authors “smelt” something different. Each of them has some unique characteristic that I do love.
Like I mentioned above, life consists of lots of moments. The sequence of this series of poems or proses was followed by their contents. All the poems and proses that I chose were categorized into four sections: “routine life”, “relationship”, “reflection and memory” and “for him”.
The first section “routine life” consists of four poems. All of them have the everyday setting as the background. “6pm Downtown” picked a unique view on the street, and developed a picture of busy downtown at rush hour. Lo nicely linked several pictures together and presented us with an interesting sight. In the second poem “Butter”, Grant used only 23 words brought us a tasty dinner. As a reader, you will be able to taste the food “in person” and truly enjoy the butter. The third poem was written by me. I always had a special feeling for farmer’s market. My love for farmer’s market and my personal experience made up this poem. Get ready and excited to be hungry! All these three poems applied five senses to attract readers’ eyeballs, ears as well as appetites. The last poem “Routine” created nine sentences and showed a routine life of a family. It seemed that the life was simple and boring, however, this typical scene reflects the most real side of our lives. No matter how boring it is, it is still life.
Life can’t be life without different kinds of relationships. In the second section—relationship, I included three pieces of work. They are all created by me. The first poem talks about a door. I used the first person and pretended to be a door throughout the poem. As a reader, you will get involved into three stories and witness the characters’ tangled experience. “Sinking in the Diablo” portrays a story of a boy who wasted his time playing Diablo because he just broke up with girlfriend. His sadness was obvious and hope you will feel his feeling from the poem. The last one—“The waiting” is a short single scene story between a couple. Both the setting and characters were well developed. It was an interesting and stunning story, worth to read.
The third section is about reflection and memory. Alexie, the poet of “Aware, Unaware” used the least of words expressed a huge topic. I spent less than one minute to read through this poem. However, it took me more than 20 minutes to digest and discover the poet’s intentions and thoughts. It’s concise but intriguing. Like its title, even only two words, one comma, summarizes the theme of the little poem. People always find a bunch of reasons to rationale their actions, both the bad drivers and the slaughterers.
The second poem is “growing up”, a collection of memories. Reading the pieces here is just like watching a video clip in which lots of memories were recorded. We always sigh how time flies. But as long as we did lots of things and had fun while growing up, it is worthy.
Oak Tree is an interesting poem where the last few words of previous sentence repeated at the beginning of the next sentence. Taylor tells stories happened under an oak tree when he grew up with his sister. He described several scenes in which he broke a branch and made a slingshot and a series of actions following the bird he shot down. Taylor mentioned his sister in the second paragraph. He used some sort of poetic way to illustrate the content. I don’t know what exactly the style is, but I’m sure it is a poetic method. The “oak tree” is a clue here, which links author’s childhood memories. And I love his way of putting pieces of memories together. It makes me feel like all the sentences were connected with each other. And the linkage between lines is strong as well.
The last section was called “for him”. This section was made for three men. The first man “wished he could fit” into the little tiny house. He had been dreaming about moving out of his old house. However, after he moved into a new house, he couldn’t find the happiness that he was supposed to have. Life sometimes is like that. You wished you could change it, you did, but after that, now what. You lost the origin of yourself and couldn’t find it back any more. You wished you could fit into the new life, but it’s hard, it’s always been hard. The second man is Neil Armstrong, the first human being who got onto the moon. This is a well-known story, however, Lieberman put his interpretation in it. Description is detailed enough to show the greatness of the moment. The third man is a father. Life is a moment when you looked at your father, and found his gray hair, wrinkled eyes and rough hands. You realized that you are grown up and father is getting old.
In a nutshell, thank you for taking your time to read this anthology. I do love this collection of poems and proses. I hope you appreciate all the shinning points of each of them, and share these works with others. Thank you! :)
❤ Yiwen Wang ❤
People started to question, what is life?
Scientists believe that life is a cell. “DNA makes RNA makes protein” that makes life.
Singers believe that life is a connection between lovers.
I believe that life is a moment. Or more precisely, life consists of several moments.
A moment when we were born to this world;
A moment when we found we’ve already grown up;
A moment when we realized we have missed the scenery on the road;
A moment when we had someone we love and want to be together forever;
Even a moment we realized we were stupid and made so many mistakes.
C’est la vie!
This collection is designed for someone who has a passion for life as well as someone who wants to delve more about life. There are 13 pieces of literary works in total, all of which are related to life. Some of them were talking about author’s lives based on their observation; some were focusing on recalling memories; some were more like reflective pieces in which authors “smelt” something different. Each of them has some unique characteristic that I do love.
Like I mentioned above, life consists of lots of moments. The sequence of this series of poems or proses was followed by their contents. All the poems and proses that I chose were categorized into four sections: “routine life”, “relationship”, “reflection and memory” and “for him”.
The first section “routine life” consists of four poems. All of them have the everyday setting as the background. “6pm Downtown” picked a unique view on the street, and developed a picture of busy downtown at rush hour. Lo nicely linked several pictures together and presented us with an interesting sight. In the second poem “Butter”, Grant used only 23 words brought us a tasty dinner. As a reader, you will be able to taste the food “in person” and truly enjoy the butter. The third poem was written by me. I always had a special feeling for farmer’s market. My love for farmer’s market and my personal experience made up this poem. Get ready and excited to be hungry! All these three poems applied five senses to attract readers’ eyeballs, ears as well as appetites. The last poem “Routine” created nine sentences and showed a routine life of a family. It seemed that the life was simple and boring, however, this typical scene reflects the most real side of our lives. No matter how boring it is, it is still life.
Life can’t be life without different kinds of relationships. In the second section—relationship, I included three pieces of work. They are all created by me. The first poem talks about a door. I used the first person and pretended to be a door throughout the poem. As a reader, you will get involved into three stories and witness the characters’ tangled experience. “Sinking in the Diablo” portrays a story of a boy who wasted his time playing Diablo because he just broke up with girlfriend. His sadness was obvious and hope you will feel his feeling from the poem. The last one—“The waiting” is a short single scene story between a couple. Both the setting and characters were well developed. It was an interesting and stunning story, worth to read.
The third section is about reflection and memory. Alexie, the poet of “Aware, Unaware” used the least of words expressed a huge topic. I spent less than one minute to read through this poem. However, it took me more than 20 minutes to digest and discover the poet’s intentions and thoughts. It’s concise but intriguing. Like its title, even only two words, one comma, summarizes the theme of the little poem. People always find a bunch of reasons to rationale their actions, both the bad drivers and the slaughterers.
The second poem is “growing up”, a collection of memories. Reading the pieces here is just like watching a video clip in which lots of memories were recorded. We always sigh how time flies. But as long as we did lots of things and had fun while growing up, it is worthy.
Oak Tree is an interesting poem where the last few words of previous sentence repeated at the beginning of the next sentence. Taylor tells stories happened under an oak tree when he grew up with his sister. He described several scenes in which he broke a branch and made a slingshot and a series of actions following the bird he shot down. Taylor mentioned his sister in the second paragraph. He used some sort of poetic way to illustrate the content. I don’t know what exactly the style is, but I’m sure it is a poetic method. The “oak tree” is a clue here, which links author’s childhood memories. And I love his way of putting pieces of memories together. It makes me feel like all the sentences were connected with each other. And the linkage between lines is strong as well.
The last section was called “for him”. This section was made for three men. The first man “wished he could fit” into the little tiny house. He had been dreaming about moving out of his old house. However, after he moved into a new house, he couldn’t find the happiness that he was supposed to have. Life sometimes is like that. You wished you could change it, you did, but after that, now what. You lost the origin of yourself and couldn’t find it back any more. You wished you could fit into the new life, but it’s hard, it’s always been hard. The second man is Neil Armstrong, the first human being who got onto the moon. This is a well-known story, however, Lieberman put his interpretation in it. Description is detailed enough to show the greatness of the moment. The third man is a father. Life is a moment when you looked at your father, and found his gray hair, wrinkled eyes and rough hands. You realized that you are grown up and father is getting old.
In a nutshell, thank you for taking your time to read this anthology. I do love this collection of poems and proses. I hope you appreciate all the shinning points of each of them, and share these works with others. Thank you! :)
❤ Yiwen Wang ❤