AWB Blog Special Blog Items ASTROPoetry Blog For Global Astronomy Month 2020 (88) - From Grass to Stars (Prologue)For Global Astronomy Month 2020 (88) - From Grass to Stars (Prologue)
Foreword by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe, astro-photo-poem (cosmopoem) by Valentin Grigore
- Published: Monday, November 30 -0001 00:00
Our project was conceived during the world sanitary crisis for the time period between Spring Equinox (March 20) and Astronomy Day (May 2) via Global Astronomy Month (April 1-30, the central target), but there was always a normal delay of a few days between the photographs and the publication of the photo-poems,
Thus, the first episodes appeared on March 27, and now we are on May 10, former National Day in Romania and current Day of Romanian Royalty just because on this date Carol I of Hohenzollern (king and amateur astronomer) came to our country in 1866 and created a dynasty who brought modernization (including the first national institutions for amateur and professional astronomy), the state independence (proclaimed also on May 10, in 1877) and Great Romania.
130 years after that beginning, in 1996 Valentin Grigore and I launched the cosmopoetry mega-project of the Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy (SARM), after several years in which I had worked on this concept and a few weeks after the decision which we had taken together in 1995, on the Voivodes Hill near Targoviste.
In our vision, cosmopoetry means astropoetry combined with astrophotography or (and) other forms of astroart in works made by one author (but this does not exclude works in tandem or in various groups).
Although others tried in time to deviate or adjudicate the sense of this concept, we have remained consequent until today, and proud for the great champions who appeared in this gender: Calin Niculae, Dan Mitrut, Cristina Tinta Vass aka Tina Visarian (in astro-photo-art-poetry) in Romania, John Goldsmith (in astro-photo-poetry) in Australia etc.
So, today I continue to be the coordinator (and contributor through astropoetry drama, astro-photo-poetry, essay, humorous-musical astropoetry sketch, review and just pure astropoetry) of the cosmopoetry movement, while Valentin Grigore continues to be the permanent adviser and the main supporter (and contributor through astro-photo-poetry, creation of events and just pure astrophotography).
In 1996, at the first edition of SARM’s Cosmopoetry Festival (Perseid Event, Art Showroom of Targoviste City Hall), Valentin Grigore exhibited his first variant of a carpet with tens of photos and his astro-prose-poem “State of Sky” (before the internet era, we used to promote cosmopoetry through exhibitions), which was named “the most beautiful astro-photo-poem of the 20th century in Romania” by an independent jury in 2000, at a national event in Barlad.
For GAM 2020 he prepared another special astro-photo-poem (with amazing images from Romania and his astronomical expeditions around the world), this time with very few and simple words, in lines seeming like short and discreet maxims and magic demands, which turn his astrophotography into astonishing feeling of art, poetry, education through astronomy, appurtenance to the Universe and invitation to astronomical culture.
He presented in Romanian this astro-photo-poem (a variant in motion accompanied by Dan Stesco’s electronic music) in the recent on-line Astral Concert which took place in Romania, but now we can admire the bilingual (Romanian and English) and meditative variant for the AWB Astropoetry Blog as a series with a prologue and three episodes.
So during the Day of Romanian Royalty, all I can enthusiastically say is:
Dear sky lovers,
for today, tomorrow and a day after tomorrow,
the king of world cosmopoetry is…
FROM GRASS TO STARS (Prologue)
Astro-photo-poem (cosmopoem) by Valentin Grigore
To be continued…
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