New to Patreon!

For anyone interested in supporting my mission to find beauty in darknes, I just made a Patreon account. No pressure to join, I just figured I should make the option available as an artist in this day and age. http://www.patreon.com/valerieparente

The overarching theme to all my artwork- whether it is poetry, prose, stories, drawings, paintings, or photography- is finding beautiful darkness. I love finding the positive in dark moods, situations, and imagery. This is evident in my written work on my website, valerieparente.wordpress.com, and in my novels available on Amazon (“The Artist, The Muse”“In Touch”, and “Rather Be Haunted”. I draw inspiration from a lifelong and personal struggle with very severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and anorexia. Each body of work I create centers around mental illness.
The Artist, The Muse : a poetry and prose collection about what it is like to have a mental disorder that influences your art.
In Touch : a fiction novel about a female with OCD, based on my real-life struggle with OCD, through the eyes of a male without the disorder.
Rather Be Haunted : a poetry and prose collection that explores love, heartache, and death from the perspective of a girl with OCD that feels “haunted” by the motifs in life that define her humanity, including my signature Mannequin Art (used as a commentary on what it means to learn how to be a “normal” human).

Thank you from the bottom of my heart if you are interested in my journey to discover beauty in darkness.

The Artist, The Muse

dark angel

The Artist, The Muse by Valerie Parente

What if the artist is her own muse?
Well then the art is her own truth.

This girl, a mastermind of the English language,
This girl, unmasked, has a mind of ink and pages.
Her metaphors have a way of making the literal very literary.
She believes in foreshadowing, the act of oncoming clouds.
Though it’s make-believing… for shadows, in fact, are uncommon in clouds.
A dreamer, she is.
A dream, where she lives.

She makes stories and tales
Making up stories entails
Being in private
There she writes this…
Man invested in an emotional girl
Manifested in the motion of words
Written on many sheets that hide
Ridden of men, she confides.

When she finally decides to share a work spawned from her mind
Then you find that she designed a rare world flawed on the inside.
Still, each of her works expressed.
Will teach of her worst and best.

Interesting how brave she is
In trusting the reader to read her.
She is the author who yearns as affliction writes her unique imagination.
Shares another, you soon learn as a fiction writer, you need image innovation.

A motif is a treasure.
A treasure is her motif.
Therefore, when the artist is her own muse
She makes use of her own truth.

 


 

Buy The Artist, The Muse : A Poetry & Prose Collection

The Artist, The Muse by Valerie Parente

– Valerie Parente (11-20-2019)

 

A Writer’s Threat

A Writer’s Threat by Valerie Parente

For years I have been my own muse.

If I make you my muse then you have done the near-impossible… you have overthrown my ego. Congratulations, you are divine in my eyes.

Just hope to God that you’ve become my muse for enchanting my life, not for inflicting senseless pain. Because if you try to write me off then I’m going to turn the writer on. If you ask me to stop then guess what? You just gave me a new prompt. I can orchestrate a symphony of sentences that will touch you to tears or I can arrange a thousand words into your personal hell. Both will pierce your heart ten times stronger than you pierced mine. And when you read what’s on my mind you better actually listen to the message and cherish the emotional chords it strikes, good or bad, because a storm of more rhymes and literary devices are about to head your way and tear apart every piece and particle that once constructed your comfort zone… and that’s going to continue happening with more and more force until I become your muse.

"felt cute, might stab someone with my words later" by Valerie Parente

felt cute, might stab someone with my words later

– Valerie Parente (6-4-2019)

Paradox Lock

Paradox Lock by Valerie Parente

I am tense where I am supposed to be open
So I pretend that this is a voluntary means of coping
Just a treasure I’ve been withholding.
But the truth is I have no control
of the impossible pain that takes its toll.

I am a lock who is supposed to love a key.
The very thing meant to set me free
is the same cause for my strong agony.
What they call the highest of highs
comes through me as the loneliest night.

I am exhausted when I am supposed to be energized.
They say this problem has psychological ties
manifesting as fear deep inside.
But if this is true then why can’t I recall
the very trauma that started this all?

For so long I was stuck with this mystery.
Where could I find this abnormality?
After they pointed out reality
I read into how this condition thrives
but I am still left wondering why.

Lock

– Valerie Parente (11-22-2017)

Inquiries

Inquiries by Valerie Parente

What do you want when you are the only one in charge?
Who are you when nobody else tells you what to want?
How long will it take you to let go of your flaws?
Do you even think before you talk?
Where are you in your thoughts?

Vyne

– Valerie Parente (11-27-2017)

The Artist, The Muse: A Poetry & Prose Collection

The Artist, The Muse: A Poetry & Prose Collection by Valerie Parente OUT NOW

Buy THE ARTIST, THE MUSE Via Amazon

The Artist, The Muse is what you get when you interweave psychology, creativity, and spirituality into the poetic fabric of a mentally disordered daydreamer’s mind. Valerie Parente artfully hones the craft of written word in this collection of poetry and prose through fantastical metaphors, rhythmic patterns, heartfelt emotions, metaphysical references, and breath-taking epiphanies. Dark daydreams and silver-lining mantras blossom out of the obsessive compulsive writer’s verbal landscape as the artist becomes her own muse.

Includes poetry, prose, and artwork by Valerie Parente.

Table of Contents:

The Artist, The Muse
Conscience of Nonsense
Glitter In The Air
Shy of Me
The Gargoyle Mindset
An Inadequate Reflection
Ink
You’ve Made An Author Out Of Me
Essence
Grandiosity of the Sick
Daydreams Are Shadows
Sanctuary
Hindsight of the Falsehood
Echoes
Idu Ego
The Silver Screen
Realize These Butterflies
The Writer
Natural
The Instinct of Intuition
The Masterpiece Tragedy of Marionette
Egomaniac
Inquiries
Playing with Dolls
Imagination Is Not Free
Validation
I Wish You Well
Bleeding
Paradox Lock
Dreams of Floating
Give & Take
Her Bright Pink Shoes
Why I Apologize
My Heart Thaws
Mars
Sage of Tarkus
Normal
The Creeper
Young Sapling
Scarecrow
she could not master astral projection
Touch the Heart
Creator
To Be Human
Lady Luna and the Light Inside
Tiara
The Answer
Order In Disorder
Trust the Stars
Novelty
Message From The Universe

The Artist, The Muse by Valerie Parente