Freeze Frame

By Oscar Sparrow, Candy Bright, Paul Tobin and 3 more

A poetry anthology about life and love presented in text and audio book form.

The Freeze Frame project brings together six international poets, each with their own vision of what would appear in the static frame if we capture the flow of our ceaseless contemporary narrative.

With an hour of free audio the reader may experience the full presence and intention of the poets on their Kindle or other e-reader device.

Whether you are seeking an inspirational quote or a cutting edge intellectual concept, Freeze Frame is a unique collection of short poems allowing you to step aside and perhaps hit the pause button of your own rushing life.

We are born without language into a world of tears, mystery, sounds, shapes, light and dark. Slowly words begin to allow us individual expression. For the poet, this process never stops.

The quest for words with which to capture the sound of wind in trees, an echo on a lonely city street, an unexpected jolt of joy and on and on is the quest and frustration of the poet. Whether it is the nuance of a relationship or the clatter of a factory machine, we seek to hold them so that they may be seen, maybe for just long enough to make a little more sense of them. By sense of course, I mean perhaps beauty, pathos, symmetry and on through an infinity of inadequate dictionaries.

Freeze Frame is a project arising from my own experience as a poet. We live in a multi-channel world. Poetry is no longer a mainstream medium and we should not be surprised at this. Our lives are dominated by work and survival. We can click on any film we wish to watch, or hear any song that was that was ever composed.

So what could poetry do that was special?

My response was that it could provide a tiny pause in the great evolving video of our time. Perhaps it was worth freezing the frame.

I invited five other writers to contribute to this collection. The great thing about other poets is that they are not me. They are free of my own influences and prejudices. The internet has allowed contacts and cross pollinations that would never have been possible previously.

Out there in the ether there are the images, the metaphors, the juxtapositions and the rhythms that say just a little more than the words alone.

I thank all of them for their preparedness to join this mission.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gallo-Romano Media
• Release date: Mar 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393322283

Book preview

Freeze Frame

Poetry Anthology

by

Paul Tobin, Jo VonBargen, Jefferson Hansen, Claude Nougat, Oscar Sparrow, Candy Bright

Published by Gallo-Romano Media

http://www.facebook.com/FreezeFrameAnthology

Copyright 2012

Paul Tobin, Jo VonBargen, Jefferson Hansen,

Claude Nougat, Oscar Sparrow, Candy Bright

Discover other titles by these poets:

Paul Tobin

Jo VonBargen,

Jefferson Hansen,

Claude Nougat,

Oscar Sparrow,

Candy Bright

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard works of these authors.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Paul Tobin's Poems

Jo VonBargen's Poems

Jefferson Hansen's Poems

Claude Nougat's Poems

Oscar Sparrow's Poems

Candy Bright's Poems

Audio Recording of this anthology

Talk to us...

Connect with the poets in this anthology

Gallo-Romano Media

Thanks to...

Appendix - Poet Interviews

And Finally

Foreword

Dear Reader, 

During these difficult times where many of you may be in isolation and maybe under financial stress, we at Gallo Romano Media have made all our e book titles by Emma Calin and Oscar Sparrow free. It is a small gesture but perhaps it may help. Our love and best wishes to you all.

https://www.emmacalin.com/coronavirus-lockdown-free-reading

We are born without language into a world of tears, mystery, sounds, shapes, light and dark. Slowly words begin to allow us individual expression. For the poet, this process never stops. The quest for words with which to capture the sound of wind in trees, an echo on a lonely city street, an unexpected jolt of joy and on and on is the quest and frustration of the poet. Whether it is the nuance of a relationship or the clatter of a factory machine, we seek to hold them so that they may be seen, maybe for just long enough to make a little more sense of them. By sense of course, I mean perhaps beauty, pathos, symmetry and on through an infinity of inadequate dictionaries.

I am a poet because I feel that the thing, the emotion, the mystery of life itself is more than I can say and more than anyone has yet said, or ever will say.  As a child I wandered fields alone.  Years later I read Wordsworth. I loved his insights but wanted more because he had shown me a way.  His words, however, had burst as a fabulous firework in a boundless dark sky. In some ways, a flash of light only serves to reveal the depth of darkness.

Freeze Frame is a project arising from my own experience as a poet. We live in a multi-channel world. Poetry is no longer a mainstream medium and we should not be surprised at this. Our lives are dominated by work and survival. We can click on any film we wish to watch, or hear any song that was that was ever composed. So what could poetry do that was special? My response was that it could provide a tiny pause in the great evolving video of our time. Perhaps it was worth freezing the frame.

I invited five other writers to contribute to this collection. The great thing about other poets is that they are not me. They are free of my own influences and prejudices. The internet has allowed contacts and cross pollinations that would never have been possible previously. Out there in the ether there are the images, the metaphors, the juxtapositions and the rhythms that say just a little more than the words alone. I thank all of them for their preparedness to join this mission.

Paul Tobin is an English poet. I choose the word ‘English’ deliberately because he is part of a tradition stretching back to John Clare. He has a quality of modesty and calm which can edge towards the melancholic understatement of Philip Larkin or Simon Armitage. His work has utter human warmth even in a grey sky day. He is never bigger than the subject and always reminds me of the Chinese question and answer –‘Why do all rivers come to the sea? Because he is always lower than them.’

Jo VonBargen is an American poet from Texas. Her imagery is as big as the sky. She has passion and a wry sense of humour. When I first saw her long poem From This Far Time I became a fan. She knocks words together and finds sparks where you didn’t think there was flint. An understanding of things flows into me from her insights and imagery. Her range is from bar rooms to the edge of the galaxy. She is pure poet rock with all the authentic impurities.

Jefferson Hansen is from Minneapolis USA. He is the editor of the Altered Scale online arts magazine. He can be avant-garde, conservative, experimental or traditional. His work could