Poetry/ Photography/ Short Stories/
Painting/ Song Lyrics Anthology
The book is
titled: SAUDADES Anthological Contemplations on Persons, Places,
Identity, and Time.
It will
feature the work of artists that originate from nine countries including
Brazil, Cuba, England, Iran, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, Spain and the
United States.
I am
indebted to my friend and colleague – the immensely talented
filmmaker/artist/creative force Amy Serrano, who is leading this project.
There will
be multimedia events – perhaps around the nation and overseas – to come.
Though I
have certainly experienced saudade and a great amount of my overseas
photography portrays aspects of it, I confess I did not know the word until the
brilliant and multicultural Amy Serrano posted a call for artists that
explained the word.
I borrow
from her background information:
In English, saudade is
often explained as a word, impossible to translate, yet quantifiable as an
emotion that encompasses a wholly relatable configuration of bittersweet
emotions.
These
involve a distinct strain of profound melancholic yearnings that may be for a
person, a place, an identity, or a time that has gone, and may never return.
Saudade is
also a word for a deep-seated longing about an idealized experience that has not yet happened, and
perhaps never will.
Aspects of saudade
may include one or more these emotions: a profound sense of longing for a lost
love or the homeland, bittersweet nostalgia, deep loss, a sense of
"missingness,' dynamic regret, a gaping hole, transcendent emptiness,
mysterious incompleteness, poignant sadness, an elusive wish, a singular
absence, having "the blues," an ardent wistfulness, a haunting emptiness,
a desperate yearning, and/or indolent dreaming.
