Page 19 - Poze Magazine Vol.31(ATR-4 months)

In sub-zero temperatures wearing all my clothes and five

layers of coats when I was living in a blacked out asbestos
shack! When I walked across the shack in candle light my

long black and white velvet cape I am wearing in some of
my promotional photos was on top of the other four coats
and the weight of them all made me drag my legs along

and stoop and the shadow it cast across the wall was like
the Elephant Man!

Vladimir Mayakovsky has played a major role in my
career as a poet and inspired a great deal of my poetry.
He guided me to a book sale and I had hardly any money

but I went to a particular box of books and a red one
stood out to me and it was “THE BEDBUG AND SELECTED POEMS by VLADIMIR

MAYAKOVSKY” I spent that winter in the blacked out asbestos shack, freezing cold with
just candle light reading the book and writing poetry that is now set to be

choreographed as a Mayakovsky-themed ballet! Nothing has come easy. I have
experienced a lot of hardship along the way but gladly made the sacrifices in the name
of my craft!

A well-respected academic website for the preservation of Soviet Literature awarded me
a high accolade for “The Panjandrum of Quondam (The Epic Grenade) and that was a

wonderful feeling to have a Harvard-educated Chairman of the website tell me I am the
“High Priestess of the Church of Mayakovsky” and arranged for my epic to be translated
for publication in Russian was a remarkable feeling.

Another exciting time was when my work was published in a Russian and English version

of NEW POETRY magazine. The Editor and Founder translated “The Warring Harridan” -
and intends to translate “Candy Cotton Kid and the Faustian Wolf” - for publication in his
Russian edition.