Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
Short Biography of Author: Concetta La Placa, Country: Rome. Italy
Concetta La Placa is an Italian poet, writer and critic.
Born in Sicily, she has lived in Rome since 2006.
She is married, mother of two children and grandmother of three grandchildren.
She worked as a ministerial official in the social policy sector of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy. As of April 1, 2024, she is on early retirement.
She began writing and composing poetry at the age of 15.
Today she is present on the international poetry scene because she has published her poems and several short stories (some of them dedicated to children, too) in numerous prestigious anthologies of various international pubblishers, both poetic and literary, published by leading Italian and international publishing houses.
She has published four collections of her poems.
The first sylloge, in both print and E-Book versions, in 2021 on Amazon, titled “Cosmic Love And Emotions In The Wind,” with the “Munir Mezyed Foundation for Arts and Culture of Romania,” of which she is also a member.This Sylloge was edited by Bangladesh editor-in-chief and international poet, Nurul Hoque, who collaborates with the aforementioned Foundation.
The volume contains 54 poems in Italian (IBSN 13979 8711159445).
The second is a Sylloge of 15 poems, published on paper and titled “Emozioni Fluttuanti.”
published by the San Remo-based publishing house Vitale, in 2023.
She also wrote a Sylloge “Amore Cosmico” with five poems that were incorporated into her first and aforementioned book “Cosmic Love and Emotions In The Wind” and, for which in the Poetic Competition “VI International Prize City’ of Sarzana – Cultural Ass. Poets Only Poets July 13-14-15, 2018”, she was awarded the Diploma of Merit in the presence of the qualified jury.
She published ten of her poems on the homepage of authors.poets.com and in the printed anthology of AA. VV. also by this well-known Roman publishing house, in 2023.
In the 2024 she pubblicate two Silloge. Everyone contains 15 poems of author. Their titles are: the first in Maj 2024 is “ EMOZIONI, AMORE, RICORDI IN SICILIA IN VERSI”. The second is entitled “VERSI DI PACE, D’AMORE, DI FEDE E DI LIBERTA’ – UnEfficace Antidoto ControTutte Le Guerre” . Tutte e due le ultime Silloge sono edite da Calogero Vitale editore- Sanremo.
In the field of the national and international poetry competition scene, Concetta La Placa has received numerous awards and honorable and merit mentions in both Italian and foreign poetry competitions.
The author has given and published major interviews in prestigious Italian and international newspaper and magazines such as: THE BURIGANGA, A National Mountly NEWS Magazine of October 2021 – Editor Nurul Hoque; O. P. A (in February 2024); the Comic Book Corner, Quill Compendium of Writers Capital International Fondation, etc, ) and in international programs such as EN ALAS DEL FENIX – RADIO KRYSOL INTERNATIONAL and on a Canadian radio station, ANGEENA INTERNATIONAL Non Profit Organization “ IN THE LIVE VIRTUAL POETRY TALK SHOW” on Saturday , July 3, 2021 Canada , 11 am, Bangladesh 9 pm; Italy 5 pm.
Author Concetta La Placa is also an Italian ambassador for culture and peace in the organization of FICH, International Forum for Creativity and Humanity, President Aziz Mountassir.
She has published her poems in the journals and blog of the FICH (International Forum for Creativity and Humanity) organization, chaired by Ambassador as well as’ also President and Dr. Aziz Mountassir.The aforementioned author has also posted several video poems on YouTube over the years.The following is a link to the VIDEO POEMS BY CONCETTA LA PLACA.
https://youtube.com/@concettalaplaca2844?si=oZVdgUdbnMwhDXhr
Reflection on the value of kindness
Concetta La Placa.
Often in recent years, I have wondered what happened to that value my parents passed on to me as a child. I speak of the value of kindness. Yes, I realise that today talking about kindness is like feeding pearls to swine.
Nobody seems to know its intrinsic value any more.
Kindness is, in fact, a value that seems to be disappearing more and more, I refer to one of the many positive nuances of human behaviour.
One of the most important.
Yet it seems by many to have been consigned to oblivion.
When I refer to human behaviour above, I mean the way we act and react towards objects, people and our surroundings.
Kindness is certainly inherent in a positive action of this reaction.
This action is thus a form of conscious or unconscious externalisation of great power of the individual or person, done voluntarily involuntarily, linked to the individual’s personality type.
Thus, kindness is a behaviour that implies politeness, courtesy, empathy, respect and benevolence towards others.
Certain scholars such as Drummond, Li & Fischer,Malti, Peplak, & Zhang, have defined it as “the ability to treat ourselves and others with gentleness and compassion”.
As such, it reflects an understanding of the high value and uniqueness of all life and the beauty of imperfection, as well as demanding feelings of respect for all people as a seat of values.
Knowing how to be kind to one’s neighbour always requires an awareness and ability to manage
one’s own emotions and those of others, along with the resulting relationships between the latter, as argued by scholar Malti.
Kindness is important because ‘ it promotes social well-being such as
altruism and, in turn, altruism promotes support, help and volunteering.
We know very well how much help and self-help among members of a species is essential to ensure their survival.
In addition, the ability to connect with others through acts of kindness enables the individual’s basic psychological needs for relationship and belonging to be met.
Kindness also seems to reduce anxiety and fear as claimed by two great scholars Rowlands & Curry. They have shown, based on studies, that kindness has positive effects on psychological and social well-being.
Researchers at Oxford University recently found that when we are kind to both known people and even
strangers, this behaviour can increase people’s levels of happiness.
They argued that it can make people happy just by observing others perform acts of kindness.
When, above all, everyone does it spontaneously, without being forced to do so, as another scholar named Aknin et al.
Acts of kindness, therefore, are none other than those behaviours, i.e. any action that involves the act in itself of helping, sharing or caring for others, thus a behaviour that I hope will soon be back in fashion again and will be promoted in children from their tender age.
Anyone would like to receive kind behaviour.
Therefore, it is hoped that it will be practised again so that everyone can enjoy its positive personal, psychological and social consequences.
Auth Concetta La Placa.
