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The Valley of Your Life Paperback – April 30, 2024


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From the moment we are born, we learn an inexorable truth: one day we are going to die, and as we grow older, we get to experience the contraries that often afflict our existence. We have a tendency to fight what we consider negative, and many of us become blind to the fact that without darkness, there is no light. To many of us it takes some time to realize that we have a choice between resisting and losing the battle to what is an unavoidable part of our existence and accepting the darkest moments in life and gaining perspective and wisdom that will lead to enlightenment. Inspired by works of visual art, The Valley of Your Life explores ways in which darkness co-exists with light and enriches the human experience. It embarks us on a journey from the desert to the valley of our lives through the vessel of the poetic word.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Mari-Carmen Marin's beautifully rendered ekphrastic poems owe their notable success to her extraordinary ability to give herself over fully to the intimacies of experience. In so doing, these poems deep dive into a generous gallery of paintings-from Salvador Dali to Doris Zinkeisen-and develop outward in the manner of self-portraits remade from the poet's own image palette. This is a poet who understands that paintings inhabit simultaneously exterior and interior realms-the quotidian world and the world of dreams. Marin's gift is her willingness to carry this double focus through so many moments." -Jeffrey Levine, artistic director and publisher of Tupelo Press

"Mari-Carmen Marin is a singular voice in contemporary poetry. In this collection of finely crafted ekphrastic pieces, the page becomes a canvas, a visual field unto itself. Marin's poems are as stunning in their architecture as they are lyrical and thought-provoking." -Kristina Marie Darling, Fulbright Scholar and author of Daylight Has Already Come

"These ekphrastic works dance through a marvelous array of artworks, bringing hidden treasures to life and showing us news ways to see old favorites. Marin approaches poetry with the same sense of wonder, exploring different ways to imagine the poem onto the page . . . a true adventure in poetic form, a journey through art history." -Lorette C. Luzajic, founding editor of The Ekphrastic Review

"The Valley of Your Life draws inspiration from iconic works of art. Marin's poetry breathes new life into visual masterpieces, offering readers a meditative journey through themes of love, pain, contemplation, and resilience. Each poem is a reflection not just on the artwork it describes, but on the universal human experiences that art evokes. Marin's writing is deeply emotive, often weaving a delicate balance between vivid imagery and raw emotion . . . Her ability to mirror the mood of the artwork while exploring her inner landscape is a testament to her skill as a poet." -LITERARY TITAN

"A breathtaking collection of poems inspired by timeless artwork. Marin writes from a place of visual art appreciation. Considering classic paintings, like Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, alongside more obscure works, the poet explores human emotion, relationships, culture, and nature . . . The poet experiments creatively with form: Marin uses blackout text to symbolize the erasure of history in a poem on the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, and a piece on Francesco Hayez's Vengeance Is Sworn reads like a theatrical scene. Marin mines a wide variety of artwork styles and eras." -KIRKUS REVIEWS

"The Valley of Your Life: Ekphrastic Poems is a poignant, poetic exploration that interweaves personal reflections, historical pain, and a deep appreciation for the arts, a launching point for an introspective examination of life's many facets-from love and solitude to trauma and healing. This intricate canvas of imagery and emotion highlights the profound connections between poetry and visual art, inviting readers to see the world through a dual lens." -Romuald Dzemo, THE BOOK COMMENTARY

About the Author

Spanish by birth, Mari-Carmen Marin moved to Houston, Texas, in 2003, where she found her second home and teaches English at Lone Star College-Tomball. She turned to poetry at a time when her fears, anxiety, and depressive episodes enveloped her in a veil of dense fog. At first a flicker that helped her take small steps without falling, poetry has become a roaring flame that illuminates her path and warms her through the darkness. Her debut book of poetry, Swimming, Not Drowning, was published in 2021 by Legacy Book Press and was the 2022 American Writing Awards Winner for Poetry and Finalist in the Category of Autobiography and Memoir. She also received the Lone Star College Writing Excellence Award in the same year. Since an early age, Marin's dream has been to make a difference in this world, to touch other people's hearts in the way that so many artists have touched hers. She is currently living her dream and will continue living it as long as her duende keeps her company and she has an audience to listen.-www.maricarmenmarinauthor.com

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Shanti Arts LLC (April 30, 2024)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 104 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1962082245
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1962082242
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.1 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.28 x 9 inches

About the author

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Mari-Carmen Marin
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My name is Mari-Carmen Marín. I was born in Málaga, Spain, but moved to Houston, TX, in 2003, where I have found my second home. I am a professor of English at Lone Star College—Tomball, and enjoy dancing, drawing, reading, and writing poetry in my spare time. From an early age, I loved making up and telling stories (I occasionally got in trouble because of them), and I have always had a whole world living in my mind with different voices talking to me, sometimes quietly, others loudly, sometimes individually, others on top of each other. For a long time, I wrote in a diary to try to make sense of what they said and why they said it. I own seven of those diaries, full of experiences, thoughts, feelings that sometimes I use for inspiration. However, a few years after I crossed the Atlantic to live in the U.S., I began to use poetry as a way of self-expression, and soon it became a challenge to create beauty, to transform the ordinary into art. Nowadays, writing poetry is my comfy chair in front of a fireplace on a stormy winter day; it brings warmth, comfort; it provides a window through which I can see myself and the world from a perspective I can understand.

Here is my author's website:

www.maricarmenmarinauthor.com

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