Ιnterview with Eva Lianou Petropoulou
“Through literature we review our past and we anticipate our future. As long as humans exist there will be great literature”
Eva: Dear Poet, please share your thoughts about the future of literature.
Joe: First, I thank you for inviting me to participate in this important ongoing project designed to bring literature into a brighter and broader light. I understand literature as an essential human expression. Literature satisfies a need in the human psyche that dates back to prehistoric cave paintings. It has been manifested in Egyptian and Mayan hieroglyphics, Chinese hanzi, ancient scrolls, parchments, books, and now digital writing.
I see literature to be as much a part of the human condition as drinking water or breathing air. A natural synthesis of information, ideas, and visions that are absorbed and released. It is a bind that holds civilizations and societies together. It exists in thousands of languages and dialects but the result is the same everywhere. Literature can be enlightening, educational, or entertaining. It may be polluted and manipulated, censored and banned for periods of time, but it will always surface in the truth. It requires dedication, concentration, and courage of both young and old writers. Through literature we review our past and we anticipate our future. As long as humans exist there will be great literature.
Eva: The good and the bad: Who is winning?
Joe: In order to survive in the natural/physical world, our collective mind has developed a system of duality. Good vs Bad, Right vs Wrong, and so on. These conflicts go on forever. The ideas of goodness, beauty, truth, are considered absolutes by individuals as well as nations, religions, politics. History will show us that these concepts are in a constant state of change. What was considered true in the past is now a forgotten antique. So, what is dominant in the present time? We must let the future unfold. We must employ charity and compassion for our fellow inhabitants of this realm. We must see ourselves in the suffering and the struggles. Until we are able to realize that all and all is in fact connected, our families, our neighborhoods, our nations, and our planet will continue to spiral.
Eva: How many books have you written? Where can they be found?
Joe: I have one complete book that was published by JKSB Media LLC on May 31 2020. It is titled ‘The Invisible Waterhole’. It is a 126 page collection of spiritual and sensual verse. It has opened the doors to countless international anthologies, blogs, poetry recitals, speeches, and numerous appearances both live and online. It has attracted enough attention that I have been appointed official Beat Poet Laureate of the State of Michigan 2022-2024, Official Poet of the Birland Nation (North Africa), and I have been awarded Honorary Doctorate
The Invisible Waterhole is available here:
and here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063704010587
The next book is written and will be published later this year. An audio book is being developed also.
Eva: The Book – E Book or Hard Cover Book? What will be the future?
Joe: Eva, as I mentioned before, the world is constantly turning. While there is a great nostalgia for the textures, the smells, the heavy feel of traditional hard cover books, I believe they will phase out in time. Environmentally it makes sense not to use paper from trees. I believe the new library is the phone you hold in your hand. Eventually, even that will give way to something as yet not thought of.
Eva: A wish for 2023.
Joe: My wish is for each person to employ their courage to express their personal freedom. To stop polluting their lives with poison food, air, medicine, and media. To stop believing the daily barrage of lies, propaganda and mental manipulation. To let others exist and be free to be themselves. To stop fighting over ideas that will have no meaning years from now. To concentrate and focus on health for themselves, physical, mental, spiritual health. Its very simple and easy. It requires respect and trust. Literature is the tool to enable us for this revolution.
