Media & Press – Hélène Cardona

Hélène Cardona’s Poetry is…

A magic carpet ride, not like anything else around. —Grace Cavalieri, The Washington Independent Review of Books

Simultaneously rapturous and lucid. —The London Magazine

Breathless, enraptured, and to borrow a phrase once used by Charles Tomlinson brilliantly to describe the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva, ‘self-wearing’. —Caitríona O’Reilly, Poetry Salzburg Review

Extraordinary, magical, and poignant. —Guy Sangster-Adams, The Cultural Pick

Exists in a constant state of becoming. —Kristina Marie Darling, The Iowa Review

A truly joyous act. —Mark Eisner, Poetry Flash

A tender, pensile world that merits repeated line by line explorations. —Anthony DiMatteo, The Los Angeles Review

The chronicle of a traveler. Cardona’s poems often, like James’s sentences, withhold their core image until the final word, when it crystallizes like something flash frozen, caught in motion. —J.C. Hallman, The Brooklyn Rail

Art that can bring into focus a lyrical, whole, beauty-filled cosmos through a spiritual sublime. —Vince Gotera, North American Review

An exploration of spirit rather than body, an everyday wilderness that transcends time, geography, history, and the physical self. —Karli Cude, Typographical Era

Liminal and otherworldly. —David Mason

Visionary. —Richard Wilbur

A terrific and singular achievement. —Stephen Yenser

A love song, a hymn to goodness and beauty. —Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac, La Cause Littéraire

Open-hearted. —Dorianne Laux

Surprising, upsetting and, ultimately, uplifting. —Lawrence Kasdan

Centered in joy, rooted firmly in the wild landscape of the imagination. —Brian Turner

A tour de force of language and phonetics. —Joanne Harris

An elegy, a prayer. —Ilya Kaminsky

Embracing and beautiful. —Olympia Dukakis

Exquisite craftsmanship. —Costa-Gavras

Astounding, melodious… dives into uncharted metaphysical and spiritual depths. —The US Review of Books

At once imaginary, wistful, and often rapturous. —Willis Barnstone

Hauntingly evocative in its mysticism, exotic and familiar, covering foreign terrain that will eventually lead us home. —The California Journal of Women Writers

Takes a reader to a farther shore. —John Domini, The Enchanting Verses Literary Review

Full of wonder. —James Lawless

Shamanic poetry, poetry as magic, poetry as a gateway to the unconscious and to the dream world, liminal poetry, poetry as alchemy, poetry as healing. —The Passionate Transitory

A graceful skate across a liquid language, a voyage across subliminal waves. —Thomas McCarthy

Unparalleled grace. —Alessandra Bava, Poetry Rules

The language of transcendence, of magic. Anyone who has grieved the loss of childhood experience, of treasured places far away, or of a loved one close to home can appreciate the sensitivity with which the poet conveys her longing to recapture these losses in art. —Erna Cooper, World Literature Today

An Orphic incantation. Whitmanic and cosmic. —Paul Wilner, ZYZZYVA

A vision transcending the scope of normal human destiny, a glimpse of the essential nature of the cosmos. —Rustin Larson, The Iowa Source

Soul-searching and enchanting with its mysticism and elegance. —Readers’ Favorite

Mysterious but also so familiar, especially to anyone who has crossed borders. —Mia Funk, The Creative Process

Spiritual awakening, a sacred journey. —Marc Vincenz, The Lit Pub

Liminal. Cardona’s shared journey is so immense, so inclusive, that her simple statement, it’s a wild place we inhabit, steps off into infinitude. —Richard Jarrette, Santa Barbara’s Voice Magazine

A song for the acceptance of doubleness, pluralism. —Antonio D’Alfonso, The Pacific Rim Review of Books

Whimsical and symbolic. —Amanda Ferris, The Absolute

Poignant, a lyrical search for transcendence and for the metaphysical truths that underlie the natural world and human experience. —Hugh Hazelton

An appreciation of the powerful and mercurial magic of nature in all its guises. —Wolf Print

Lush, lyrically gorgeous. —Robert Vaughan

So luminous and fanciful that you can stumble around for hours within it, lose track of time almost, and fall out the other end feeling lighter and like you just traveled to another time and place. —Elizabeth Cohen, At the Inkwell

Imaginal and mythic. —Jamie Dedes, The Poet by Day

Linguistic spiritual transcendence that is illuminated on every page. —Alison Williams, Poetry International

Breathless. —Jack Foley, Caveat Lector

Fervent, feverish, musical. —Candace Pearson, Spillway 26

Teaming with magic and vivid animal imagery. —Juanita Couslon, The Lady

Traces of melancholy, flashes of resilience and above all, an abundance of wonder – at things both quotidian and cosmic, past and present – shine through Life in Suspension. —Tulika Bahadur, On Art and Aesthetics

Des poèmes comme des incantations séductrices pour fusionner entre réel et irréel. —Ghislaine Léjard, Le Capital des Mots

Une poésie spirituelle et sensuelle en même temps, où rien n’est rejeté, tout est instantanément senti, compris, transformé, transfiguré. —Dana Shishmanian, Francopolis

In the News

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, 21 April 2024, 3:20pm

Interview in FashionMag42

Interview in Starry Mag

Interview in Film Daily

Interview in Close Up Culture

The Abduction w ins the 2024 Independent Press Award

The Abduction is a World Literature Today’s Notable Translation

Interview in Medium

Interview in ShoutOut LA Magazine

My new movie Caralique releases on all TVOD November 21st

Beautiful review and interview of my movie Caralique

NouDiari: Hélène Cardona, hija del poeta ibicenco José Manuel Cardona, premiada como mejor actriz por su trabajo en Caralique

Superb review of Life in Suspension in The Antonym

Glorious review of The Abduction by Ron Starbuck, Saint Julian Press Book Reviews

Hélène wins the 2023 Monarch of Motion Pictures: Royal Society of Television & Motion Picture

The Abduction Book Trailer

Hélène wins the 2023 Best Actress Award at the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema (for Caralique)

Scénema interviews Hélène for Beyond the Curve International Film Festival in Paris

The Abduction, Hélène Cardona’s translation of Le Rapt by Maram Al-Masri, is awarded an Albertine and FACE Foundation Grant

Hélène wins the Vanguard Award for Cinematic Achievement by an Actress at the Scotland International Festival of Cinema

Hélène participate in PEN’s Women in Translation

Hélène chats with Stephen Savage on the Stephen Savage Show

Hélène wins Best Supporting Actress at Beyond the Curve International Film Festival in Paris and Best Supporting Actress at the Lady Filmmakers Festival

Hélène recurs as Monique in Season 2 of Upload

Hélène talks with Scénema at the Beyond the Curve International Film Festival in Paris

Birnam Wood wins the 2022 NYC Big Book Award the Independent Press Award

Winner Best Actress: 2022 V.I.Z. Film Festival, Tokyo International Monthly Film Festival,Dubai Independent Film Festival; Winner Best Supporting Actress: 2022 Calcutta International Cult Film Festival, 2022 Beyond the Curve International Film Festival in Paris; 2022 Royal Society of Television & Motion Picture Awards, Virgin Spring Fest, 2022 Indo French International Film Festival, Druk International Film Festival; Best Supporting Actress Finalist: Swedish International Film Festival, Accord Cine Fest; Golden Actress Nominee: Golden Short Film Festival; Semi-Finalist: San Francisco Indie Short Festival

Hélène is a Judge for the National Translation Award in Poetry

My translation “He has begun to speak to me” from The Abduction by Maram Al-Masri in AGNI

Hélène is a Judge for the Voice Arts Awards

Miami Book Fair: Resistencia: Poems of Protest and Revolution

Honored to nominate John FitzGerald’s The Mind for World Literature Today‘s “21 Books for the 21st Century”

From the Heart with Grace / Du cœur avec grâce in SalmonPoetry40

2020 iWoman Global Awards Winner

A House Like a Ship in Pratik

Strength in Plume

Life in Suspension wins the 2020 Independent Press Award

EuroVoix EuroJury2020

Tabula Poetica’s 10 year Anniversary in LA Times

Birnam Wood wins the 2019 Best Book Award and Readers’ Favorite Award Gold Medal in Poetry

Cinema Confidential

Birnam Wood is Bonnie Hearn Hill’s Great Day Book Club’s Book of the Month

Hélène is awarded the 2019 Naji Naaman Literary Prize

Wiki’s 13 Picks of Talented Contemporary Poets

Birnam Wood reviewed in Bookaccino and North of Oxford

Birnam Wood reviewed in World Literature Today and The Los Angeles Review

Birnam Wood wins the Pinnacle Book Award for Best Bilingual Book & is a 2019 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist

Birnam Wood reviewed in Readers’ Favorite and two poems in Terrain.org

Birnam Wood reviewed in Poetry International

Birnam Wood is a World Literature Today Notable Translation of 2018

Birnam Wood is awarded Best Translation in the Washington Independent Review of Books

Birnam Wood is reviewed in The Iowa Source

Life in Suspension is reviewed At the Inkwell

Life in Suspension is a 2018 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist

AWP Writers Conference & Book Fair, Tampa, Panel: The Glories of Impossible Translations

Feb 24, Nasty Women Poets! A Book Reading & Signing, Beyond Baroque

Feb 4, Santa Barbara Poetry Series: Hélène Cardona and Bettina Barrett

Jan 20, An Enchanted Reading of Poetry and Translation: Martha Rhodes, Hélène Cardona, John FitzGerald, Carolyn Tipton, Stephen Kessler

Life in Suspension reviewed in Poetry International

Life in Suspension wins the 2017 Best Book Award in Poetry

The Lit Fantastic: Hélène Cardona (Translation & Renaissance Women)

Books to Watch Out for Oct 2017

Hélène Cardona in the Spotlight

Poets Live at the Tennessee Bar, Paris

Invitación a un Encuentro Especial con la Actriz y Poeta Hélène Cardona

El Festival de poesía de la Habana le invita a un encuentro con la poeta, actriz y traductora Hélène Cardona

Primer Festival de Poesía Itinerante Nuestra América, Havana, Cuba

Compases inaugurales de un Festival Itinerante

Life in Suspension is Book of the Month on Great Day

Hélène Cardona at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in French Culture

Reading the World Conversation Series: Authors, Translators, Ideas

Une rencontre avec l’auteure Hélène Cardona in French Morning

Books & Ideas – Hélène Cardona in French Culture

Hélène’s Aphorisms

To live is to persist in pain

Life works out better later/like a cactus eventually blooms

We have the same ear for reading/the bones in the wind/and breaking down the sun.

Art is perpetual rebirth/…the way we receive counsel from God.

I dream for a living

Every wall is a beginning.

I want/to die remarkably

……….

For me, poetry is a process of self-revelation, an exploration of hidden dimensions in myself, and at the same time a way to become myself, a process of individuation I try to create throughout my life – a profound experience of the fundamental interconnection of all in the universe. Writing is cathartic as it extends a search for peace, for serenity, rooted in a desire to transcend and reconcile the fundamental duality I see in life. Ultimately, I seek expansion of consciousness.