Public Republic

Photo: babasteve
We would like to wish all our editors, authors and readers a wonderful 2009!
May all of us are happy and healthy, may all of us are full of joy, may abundance and smiles rain upon us throughout the year.
The Team of Public Republic

Kelly Martineau

Photo: sharif
Sometimes it is slow, a gentle whirl through space.  I seem to float as the ground spirals up at me slowly, like time unwound.  In that moment, there is still a chance that I can save myself from an embarrassing spill.
That doesn’t happen very often; usually, I crash to the ground, landing in [...]

Photo: trialsanderrors
Fashions fade, style is eternal.
Yves Saint Laurent
Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.
Coco Chanel
If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.
Lord Chesterfield
Zest is the secret of all beauty. There is [...]

Anca Vlasopolos

Photo: audreyjm529
in dream
clouds shouldered their way
past me
looking
like the familiar
purplish fade
of a longtime bruise

Photo: 28481088@N00
Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.
Hal Borland
Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.
Oprah Winfrey
We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on [...]

Vanya Nikolaeva

Andre Demers is a 36 years old painter from Montreal, whose paintings are associated with Pop Art and Optical art, but he is inspired by constructivism and surrealism. He has given his work the name of Pop-Op art.
Andre Demers has been painting for more than 14 years now. He has completed his studies in [...]

Raven Jordan

Photo: ajawin
I.
So massive a construct was the gown of pearls that it could stand on its own with no queen inside. And now, this noon–how its inhabitant did sweat.

A network of pearl-strung wires it was, lashed snug to her body via hidden strings; it pinched her skin through the plain linen slip that was [...]

Photo: frischmilch
The tradition to celebrate a New Year is perhaps universal, although the precise date of its occurrence is so varied from culture to culture. It can be the winter solstice, the end of harvest time in the fall, the beginning of spring. The customs and rituals of celebration are varied as well. People send [...]

Donal Mahoney

Photo: Daylight.
Down the patio walk,
white stones, through the garden,
under the trellis toward me
yellow frock, yellow hair
rising and falling

Linda Cruise

Photo: stephmcg
Read Part I
Strangely, perhaps, when it comes to literary fiction, truth exists in the context of a paradox: fiction is dependent on truth—on multiple levels. If a story is to succeed as art, it must contain deeper meaning and relevance. This is to say that literary fiction permits the [...]

Photo: 2dogs_productions
“Making things happen is a natural extension of myself.”
Issey Miyake
A-Poc

“Personality is what gives life to design.”
Michael Michalsky
Adidas
“Fashion is a language.”
Af Vandevorst

Interview with Blaga Dimitrova’s Poetry by Farideh Hassanzadeh-Mostafavi

Farideh Hassanzadeh (Mostafavi), an Iranian poet, has translated poems by Blaga Dimitrova into Farsi. She wrote to Dimitrova and asked for an interview. The great poet was in her last days and could only send her books. Farideh decided to arrange an interview with the poetry of her [...]

Photo: mike9alive
Ted’s fingers rattled as they felt along the dusty shelf. He stood on a short folding ladder but could not see where his hands reached. He sensed a long, thin metal thing, like curtain rods, cool and hard to his touch. Then it came back to him. Wrapped in the yellowing twin bed sheet [...]

Photo: krisdecurtis
Best Wishes for Christmas and the New Year
Dear friends of Public Republic,
Thank you for becoming part of our virtual-real space and for your support.

Dear friends of Public Republic, please finish these sentences:
1. For me, Christmas is…
2. My greatest discovery for 2008 was…
3. My most wonderful surprise for 2008 was…
4. The most important gift for me is…
5. I hope 2009 will bring me…
6. I wish the readers of Public Republic…

I am surprised it is not a common expression of disdain: “That’s as useless as putting a suit on a short man.”

Bozhana Apostolova

Photo: tanakawho
I love you, and I feel – my ailing blood is raving
and troubling again my frantic passions. I
am traveling obsessed across the earth, all craving
for you, for your love that stirred me into life.

Vanya Nikolaeva

Deron Cohen was born and raised in San Diego, California. He graduated from the University of California in Los Angeles, with a degree in Fine Arts. Deron has been teaching painting courses, held one man shows in Seattle, and participated in group shows at the San Diego Art Department, Limbo Fine Arts, and Sushi [...]

Ellie Ivanova Ponti

Photo: hermanturnip
Today we associate holiday gift-giving with Christmas, but just as many other Christmas customs and symbols, blending holiday traditions coming from other religions, gift-giving has its sources in multiple cultures practices.

Ellie Ivanova Ponti

Photo: vassil_tzvetanov
Christmas celebration in Bulgaria is an amalgam of customs and symbols, coming from different traditions and beliefs just as it is in any other country.
On one hand, there are the ancient Roman elements dating from the beginning of Christianity itself. The Bulgarian name for Chistmas, Koleda, comes from the Latin holiday [...]