Charlene Robson

Charlene is a poet, writer and a song writer who is blessed with a magical voice.  She performs her poetry with sensitive interpretation that has been described as “hypnotic.” Her poems demonstrate a highly perceptive stewardship of human experience and a passion for ‘the sacred ‘ – in life presences such as music and universal rhythm, tangible nature and mystery, and of course, pulsating through it all, love.

Here is more about Charlene in here own words…

“Code is poetry,” the computer geeks say.  For me, poetry is code.  I feel that poetry contains universal truth that warrants universal attention.  I bear the gift and burden of the need to be a participant in the poetic record.

Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins coined the term “inscape” to refer to the divine energy in all created matter – vegetative, animal, geologic, built, interactive.  His poetry aimed to transcribe some of the mystical beauty and wisdom he found palpable all around him…How could the words this energy became not reflect a haunting intensity?

Hopkins and others –  Anne Michaels, Wendell Berry, Dorothy Livesay and Rumi among them –  have inspired a certain intention I bring to the poems I write.  Bearing witness to the transcendent I see, hear, touch, smell and taste in my earthy evolution is a way of saying, “here,” a way of saying, “thank you.”

In personas chosen according to theme, I paint particularized human experience as it interacts with a bigger life picture. Because the human experience is rife with mystery, the poems honour that mystery.

My hope for them, however, is that they deliver something familiar to the listener – if even in the sense of ‘witness’ they themselves evoke. If my listeners feel more connected with their own humanity for having heard my compositions, I’ve done my job.

The performance aspect of my work is meant to bring more to life the memory held in the poems. My vocal delivery makes their sensations more immediate; my interpretation of the text makes their human shape more real.

In both my writing and my arts showcase coordination work, I engage a long-standing passion for community. I believe that when artists and arts-lovers gather and work as a team, anything can happen.

1. 

   Tshaka says:

   February 26, 2010 at 9:50 am

   Thanks for your kind words