Summer Song, CancióN Del Verano: Poems, Poemas

By Alexandro Acevedo Johns

A meditative, reflective poetry that tells simple and honest stories, especially of fragile people, with humility and humanity, thus highlighting the dignity of every human being.
Alexandro Acevedo’s strong sense of human rights, of freedom, equality, justice, was certainly strengthened by his profession as a lawyer, as well as by having endured the dark years of the Pinochet dictatorship, which oppressed Chile for seventeen years, from September 1973 to March 1990. While the natural beauties of his country have stimulated his love for Nature and motivated the theme of its conservation against the shameful stupidity of man's destructive action.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fabrizio Frosini
• Release date: Dec 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005238063

Alexandro Acevedo Johns

My name is Alexandro Acevedo, but I sign my writing with my maternal surname Johns. I am Chilean, born in November 1947. I'm a lawyer and live in Santiago, the capital of Chile, with my wife Marcela. In my youth I was devoted to poetry, as many of my generation. Now, since I retired from the legal profession, I've regained my freedom to write. It is said that writing is a very demanding activity and endanger the spirit if you're not an optimist. But, after the years, I feel that writing helps me to stay alive and connected emotionally with the world we live in.

Book preview

Introduction

by

Fabrizio Frosini

I have known my friend Alex —Alexandro Acevedo Johns— for more than seven years, as he joined "Poets Unite Worldwide" —our group of poets— for a collection of poems on the bloody Paris events of November 13th, 2015 (a series of coordinated Islamic terrorist attacks that left 130 people dead and more than 400 injured). That book, a large collective work, was then published with the title Poetry Against Terror, and Alexandro’s poem was, 'The Cost of Terror and the Two Chilean Women' ('Ofrenda contra el terrorismo de dos mujeres chilenas', its Spanish title).

That poem, about two of the victims of the Bataclan mass shooting — two Chilean women who had long fled to Paris to escape political oppression and persecution of dissidents in their country— already showed the salient points of Alexander's poetry: a meditative, reflective poetry, telling simple and honest stories, especially of fragile people, with humility and humanity, thus highlighting the dignity of every human being.

Alexandro Acevedo’s strong sense of human rights, of freedom, equality, justice, was certainly strengthened by his profession as a lawyer, as well as by having endured the dark years of the Pinochet dictatorship, which oppressed Chile for seventeen years, from September 1973 to March 1990. While the natural beauties of his country have stimulated his love for Nature and motivated the theme of its conservation against the shameful stupidity of man's destructive action.

Alexandro Acevedo is a versatile poet, with a distinctive voice —although the sonority of his verses is particularly evident in their Spanish versions— therefore I invite you to dedicate an hour or two of a quiet evening to this short collection which, while not exhaustive of Alex's poetic work, will give you the opportunity to appreciate his human and literary qualities.

Read the poems with an open mind, so as to open your heart to the themes of Acevedo’s poetry —as well as to that child who, in 'The Cost of Terror and the Two Chilean Women', represents a symbol of hope for a future of freedom.

(Fabrizio Frosini, December 2022)

~*~

Valparaiso, Chile, Image by Julian Hacker from Pixabay.com, used under Creative Commons CC0

THE POEMS

I.

(* Spanish Version included)

1.. Ode to Writing

2.. Confession to Mary Ann *

3.. Adagio for her *

4.. Abstraction of our lives *

5.. The Autumn, my old friend *

6.. Impression of Winter *

7.. Spring is back *

8.. A Summer Song *

9.. Refugees in the heart of human being

10. Fables of Wolf *

11. The Cost of Terror and the Two Chilean Women *

12. Clamor of a victim *

13. The Tree of Inequality

14. Women on Earth

15. Goodness and Evil *

16. Apology for Democracy

17. Backlight over human cries *

18. Cry for Earth's Agony

19. Time Travel *

20. Carnival morning in Rio de Janeiro *

21. Magic Friend *

22. Sonnet As A Lament *

23. The End Of Our Era *

24. My childhood's house *

25. Always Christmas

26. Journey to Valley of the Moon in the Atacama Desert *

27.