Cynthia Karalla

The Third World Cynthia Karalla

Written in the fall of 1997, and only recently resumed from the darkest corners of prehistoric harddrives, The Third World is a collection of poems that sing about our relation to the natural world and to others. Karalla recollects fleeting fragments of past loves to discover that the value of romance lies not in the everlasting endurance of the illusory beliefs we project on the other, but rather in the overpowering intensity of those transitory yet unforgettable instants. In love, the relation to the other can only be as that to an ancient god; Karalla's poems give us back the haptics, the flavors, and the vivid colors from those fugacious experiences. In this lived mythology, societal frames are ever-present, and a person outside the moral framework, like 'The Third World', easily becomes the object of miscast prejudice. But she doesn't care about the bigotry or the self-righteous rituals surrounding her, nor about the misinformed disapproval of a potential loved one. She continues to follow her own morals, and strives to remain in 'The Third World', freer, outside the other worlds, unveiling hypocrisy, but always with an open mind. Starting from her childhood, and unfolding through the lights and sounds of maritime landscapes and of NYC's beau monde, The Third World is Karalla's polysemous hymn to life.