GESSO COCTEAU

For those of you who have been asking, the release date for 'Stranded Hearts and Other Sorrows' will be in first quarter of 2023. Once again as in 'Song of Desire' my poetry is illustrated by digital artist Pete Berg. As Alan Bamberger wrote about our collaboration in 2017, "an emotive coalescence of a literary and visual experience, an environment where the two mediums blend in an endless circumference."

I think by now if you are familiar with my poetry you will recognize the universal and timeless theme of unrequited love. I recently read a statistic that stated, “Ninety eight percent of the population has been on either one or both sides of an unrequited love.” The theme then becomes universal and for centuries artist have been inspired to create from this perceived love. 

“I think in some ways unrequited love seems so much better than real love. It will always remain in some perfect realm of lust and sadness but never fall into the realm of familiarity and boredom. It will also never grow into a deep emotional tie with someone you love in a 360 dimension, ‘through better or worse’.

It seems the path toward achieving the ideal love relationship is littered with affairs of the heart that are incomplete approximations. There is a certain magic to unrequited love, it can catapult an artist to new realms. The experience of unrequited love so often causes an ephemeral mood state.” 

As artist we are here to find the common denominators of the human condition. I write about this often because I think it is important in this time of decisiveness to remember we are more alike than different and to take comfort in this truth.

Gesso Cocteau