© Christopher Conforti

YAEDI IGNATOW

I’ve grown up in the country. For two years I lived in the city and I began to write poems about paranoia; but in the countryside around me I see the ancient symbols of moon, tree, sun, the animals as messengers and something in me echoes to the symbol in these things. This is what I love about the country. The natural isolation away from city distractions activates our race and historic memory which is rooted in symbols.

In the Koran, many suras speak of the sun as symbolic of man’s spirit and the moon as a symbol placed within our nightly view to remind us of the soul. Just as the moon can only be seen clearly in the darkness of the night sky, the soul can only be seen clearly in the darkness and silence of private meditation. This is the solitude from which poetry springs.