Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

Former boxer and author of several books [tag]Floyd Salas[/tag] will be featured during the open mic at Listen & Be Heard Poetry Caf? on Friday December 8. His most recent volume is a book of poetry entitled [tag]?Love Bites, Poetry in Celebration of Dogs and Cats[/tag].? With gushing quotes from bay area literati like Victor Hernandez Cruz and Chitra Divakaruni on the back cover, this book is no ordinary coffee table book for [tag]pet lovers[/tag]. For those of you with pet loving friends, it may just be the perfect gift this holiday season. To quote the poet himself, here are a few words about writing that I took from his website at floydsalas.com.

?In boxing, the refs say, ?Protect yourself at all times.? In writing, it’s the reverse — ?Expose yourself, reveal yourself, at all times.?

Go to where the pain is. Talent ain’t nothing. Love is. Suffering means plenty. All serious art is conceived in suffering, born from suffering, grows through suffering, comes to terms with suffering, and transcends suffering. All serious art is suffering couched in beauteous terms. So search yourself. Don’t fear to dive into the depth of your own neurosis, for down deep in the subconscious lies a gold mine of poetic experience, and through your struggle to make manifest your own anxiety in the objective terms of the imagination, to communicate it to another person, any reader, you will come to an understanding of it, realize how your personal suffering has universal value, and discover how to mold its torturous shapes into beautiful forms which capture the life force, the transcendent spirit, enrich the human experience and help create a better world for yourself as well as for others.?

Listen & Be Heard Poetry Caf?
818 Marin Street
Downtown Vallejo, CA 94590
707-554-4540