Maigualida (Maia), the Author
Maigualida (Maia) Rak, a woman whose quiet femininity encompasses life with beauty and poetry, offers us a collection of poems, a vibrant memory of past and present loving, passionate and sensual loves. Born of a present in Vermont, where the winter calmness of fable and the romanticism of the autumnal ochres, are opposed and simultaneously joined to the exuberance of the Caribbean forests that connects her with the ground, together forming a collage that allows this skillful pen to transmit her passion to us for living, uncovering a sensual and sophisticated intimacy. She manages to interweave in total harmony with the body's passion and the sublime vibration of a soul in love.
Of the Desire And The Sublime
Del Deseo Y Lo Sublime
By Maigualida (Maia) Rak
Maigualida Rak's bilingual collection of poems deal with a single, multifaceted force of her soul in its conflation of the desire and the sublime. In free verse, she relives the incandescent, irrepressible and intimate passion of romances both known and anticipated.
Her collection of poems "Of The Desire And The Sublime" looks back on memories and longings from a distant past and a fertile present and transforms them into the substance of poetry. The poet's brimming fantasy revisits her romances and experiences, where native soil, seasons, colors, aromas and eternal loves are never left behind.
Only a skilled poet who has perfected and plumbed the depths of her passion can unselfconsciously lay bare her most intimate feelings while simultaneously avoiding the showy raffishness of mass-market tabloids and telenovelas. Her voice is unique and refreshing.
Few poets can deliver such a captivating and meticulous eruption. Her language is explicit and manages to interweave, in total harmony, bodies' passion with the sublime vibrating of a soul in love. The poems have equal appeal in both Spanish and in English translation.
Seven Days
Venezuelan-born Vermonter Maigualida Rak is a Spanish tutor with a degree in English as a second language from Saint Michael's College. She is also a poet. Her latest book of poems, marked "second bilingual edition," suggests she is a hopeless romantic in both languages. Opposing pages of the book present a poem first in Spanish, then in English. Even to someone with minimal skill en Español, it appears nothing is lost in translation.
Rak's verses give new meaning to "romance language;" her vocabulary is wistful and passionate by turns. Every single poem is about love. Phrases such as "feverish silence," "devastating loneliness," "infinite fulfilment," "throbbing closeness" evoke both heaving-bosom bodice rippers and the forward sensuality of, say, John Keats. Rak has no use for irony or cynicism; she is wrapped in velvet and strolling a field of wildflowers.
Carolyn Mecklosky
Of The Desire And The Sublime - Del Deseo Y Lo Sublime is a unique collection of prose poetry exploring love and the passions of a woman's voice. This is so rare to hear the voice of heat, love and loss, the body's knowing, the body's wisdom from a woman.
Remembering those moments, we long and our souls speak.
The author captures the essence, those moments of connection, joy, wanting, love, and celebration.
Heartfelt and raw, a celebration of a woman's wisdom, honoring our journey, listening, and giving voice to spiritual and sensual feelings with both imagery and depth which linger in the reader's mind long after the last line is read.
Magazine, Vermont
Romantic optimism and heartbreak are touchingly interwoven in this beautiful, bilingual collection of poetry by Spanish poet Maigualida Rak. Rak’s verses are filled with passion and longing, nostalgia and hope, and raw, unabashed sensuality.
In Fulfillment, she writes:
As leaves in nuances of autumn colors fall down / My youth in summer was mad for you / In a silent night / We traversed the damp city holding hands
Seasons, particularly autumn, are a recurring theme in Of the Desire and the Sublime, perhaps owing to Rak’s current home in Vermont. But just as likely it is a nod to the poet’s resignation that all new loves are either lost or grow old, and even our most feverish passions cannot be sustained beyond their time. “It dies and is born in mysterious pleasures,” she writes in Yours.
Rak’s use of color and texture deftly bring fragile, fleeting moments to life with a kind of majesty. Her verses, free and unrhyming, carry us through her artful use of natural imagery and metaphor. But while Rak’s poetry is heavy on romance, it never becomes cloying or sentimental. Beneath her joy in love and sensuality lurks a darkness that never quite cuts the surface but is felt throughout the book.
In Awakening, she writes:
Frigid winters / whirlwinds and summers / have infused my essence / Even so / there is no waking
In an age where many poets strive to make us feel unnerved, Rak is a breath of fresh air. My response to this book was a purely visceral one and I immediately wished I could sit down with Rak over a glass of red wine and share my own misadventures in love. It is impossible to read Of the Desire and the Sublime and not be reminded of your first love, your great love, and of course, the one who got away. But rather than evoking cynicism, Rak’s verses serve to remind us of love’s immense pleasures and the rewards of keeping an open heart.
- Mara Brooks
Jan Kingsley's Review
Passionate and profound, sensitive, and sensuous, Rak's poetry provides glimpses - cameos - into her past loves. Her poetry is deceptively simple, using a broad range of vocabulary to describe the emotions and situations she has experienced and indeed, is still experiencing. The reader is drawn into the poetry which becomes a catalyst for one's own - perhaps dormant memories.
The poems were originally written in Spanish and the translation by Frederica Velutini-Hoffman is first class; rather than slavishly translate too literally Velutini-Hoffman is not afraid to interpret the meaning behind the original and this results in beautiful poetry in the English as well.
This book of poems will appeal to those who are seeking greater meaning than mere memories as well as to those who wish to explore the intricacies of the Spanish and English languages.
Dominique Tomei's Review
Maigualida Rak's book speaks for itself and for many people that may not be in the possession of their sexual voice; a plight especially prevalent in the United States of America where sex and sexuality are treated like objects separate and apart from humanity, godliness, holiness, faithfulness - a symptom of a sad reality for many who live as sexual doings instead of sexual beings. Not embracing, enfolding, engulfing, within their minds the truth that sexuality is linked to relationships, protection, provision, expansion, development, love, joy, health and interdependency and completion.