The Day Barque is a review of poetry, prose and works of art exploring the age-old quest for the divinity within. It focuses on the moment-to-moment struggle to connect with that which is timeless and eternal while being bound by time in an earthly body.
The Day Barque is published bi-annually by the Apollo Poetry Society in the foothills of Northern California. The Day Barque contains poems, stories, paintings, drawings, and other works of art from contributors worldwide, all of whom are actively involved in the effort of being present, also known as self-remembering, mindfulness, self-inquiry, prayer of the heart, and know thyself, among many other names.
Our central theme-the journey of the seeker to awaken from sleep-is that at the heart of all the world's great traditions, including Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Sufi, Egyptian, Mesoamerican, Stoic, Platonic, Non-Dualist, the Fourth Way, as well as the principal subject of the world's epics, myths, and fairy tales. In this fourth issue (Volume 3 - Number 1), we feature contributions from poets, writers, and artists from Rome, Athens, Moscow, Istanbul, London, Prague, Ahmedabad, Cairo, and Apollo, California.
Here is a poem by Jo Anna Mortensen from this issue:
We Sometimes Wake
The world is always waiting. Night fades;
Eos opens an apricot gate.
The call of a mourning dove rises,
followed by the she-dove's answer,
her four notes high. A peony petal
falls like a silk parachute drifting in horizontal flight.
The world is waiting, keen to meet us and
we sometimes wake to green's extravagance,
nibbling on tidbits of April light.
About the Author: Judith Grace is a poet, editor, screenwriter, and playwright. For many years she was the English-language editor of the Italian art magazine FMR in Milan and translated numerous books for FMR from Italian, including Wendigen (1986). She is author of Goodbye My Fancy, about the last months of Walt Whitman's life, published by Ulysses Books in 2003, which was produced as a play in 2004 and 2005. She also wrote The Conference of the Birds, produced in 2003 and Gaiety, Revelry, Radiance, produced in 1996. Among her many publications is the literary magazine Lyra.
Stefano Petrizzo is a poet and translator. His poems have appeared in local literary magazines. His translation work includes 13th century Italian poets and an adaptation of Iphigeneia at Aulis which was performed on stage in Northern California by Apollo Performing Arts. He is currently pursuing an M.F.A in poetry at Antioch University, Los Angeles.