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The
Man Said
Som P.
Ranchan
We do not need
will-driven heroes
They have done enough harm to polity
Moses, Pharaoh, Perseus
Gandhi
The legion of half-gods and tin-pots…
Where
Hazara
Singh
Where equality gets
seldom grudged
Dignity of individual is not robbed
And economic justice is not hampered
Such a set-up improves human wealth…
The
Past Haunts
Rita Malhotra
Seeds of recall
An inauspicious past sprouts
Shoots of disturbed thoughts
They branch out
In time’s wailing moments
Only shadows nest in them…
By a Quirk of Fate
Arnachalam Angappan
Its queer that by a
quirk of fate
You passed our anvil half-beaten
Now that you sit over us
We can’t beat the rest…
Wole
Soyinka: Artist as a Social Activist
Vinay M. Sharma
In Nigeria, Yoruba population theatre groups have always
served as the most forthright representation of anti-establishment
campaign. Given the nature of social and political context from which
Wole Soyinka’s drama emerges, there is in it a similar acceptance of
drama as a vital measure of socio-political indictment. Soyinka is
acutely sensitive to the changes in Nigerian political situation,
especially the negative social, political and economic trends of
neo-colonial establishment. The early sixties were a hot arena in
Nigerian political situation, when corruption was rampant and there was
total anarchy in the state. It was in the backdrop of such political and
social disorder that Soyinka raised a voice “against neo-colonialism,
ethnic nepotism, political partisanship and corruption.”1
The existing turmoil in Nigerian society owing to the failure of
leadership on the part of the first generation of post-independence
politicians, together with the disastrous consequences of economic
hardship, civil disorder, war and human carnage made Soyinka think about
his role as a writer and as a citizen. ..
Cats
Who Swim Through Flea Baths
Amy Lynn Hess(USA)
From Cozy in My
Cardboard Box
If cats would willingly swim through flea
Baths (leaving a trail of dead things as they go)
I wouldn’t have to
give the cat you left
with me a bath for fleas
and if y ou were here
I wouldn’t have to pass my time dreaming…
To
Uncle
Tasneem
Shahnaaz
“I’m going to the
hospital tomorrow”
The words rebound in sorrow
The surgeon scalpeled his way
Into the wires pacing uncle’s heart
But could not hold it fast…
GLOBAL PEACE THEORY
(Translated from Pashto into English By: Alley Boling)
Afzal Shauq, (Pakistan)
If and when the invincible book of
norms is ignored?
If and when custom of humanity is burnt to dust?
Due to the wicked shadows of greed, lust and other evil doings,
We don’t have the right to be named as human beings. ..
Rozafa today
Mehill Velaj (USA)
Rozoafa laying under the castle
Her wound ever weeping.
Dodona seeking new walled sacrifices
The world’s body renewing its cells …
To the one I love
Kama Sywor Kamanda (France)
Translated from French into English by Elsie Callander
When the seas are turbulent in the soul
I hope to spare you the full force of fate,
Which wants me, in the grip of a sob,
To devise still more secret schemes.
Oh woman, wellspring of my dreams,
Minstrel of my humanist visions…
Prasad and
Shakespeare-The Patriotic Cosmopolitans
A Comparative Statement
Jagannath Tripathi
Jai Shankar Prasad dominates the Indian letters as Dante or
Shakespeare does over Italian or English. Prasad tried his hands in all
the possible forms of literature known in his time- drama, epic, lyric,
descriptive and narrative poetry, fiction, essay, short story with
isolated uniqueness in each. And the amount of his achievements appears
to be perfectly balanced to the brilliance of his execution. Although
to the average Indian aesthete, Prasad is still the dreamer, the creator
of beauty and singer of love, par excellence, the fact remains that in
no poet has India been so completely and beautifully revealed as in his
writings. To the Indian, naturally he is as dear as Shakespeare could
ever be to the English. A comparison impartial and dispassionate,
between these two national masters ought to have been made by far abler
minds. But fools rush in where angels fear to tread and the present
author took up the subject more as an essay than as a mastered business…
Treatment of Love in
Jasvinder Singh’s poetry
Shaleen Kumar Singh
Prof. V.K. Gokak, the editor of the
pioneering The Golden Treasury of Indo-Anglican Poetry from whom we can
get a better understanding of Indo-Anglican poetry, if we examine his
creative perception with regard to his major themes of poetry – nature,
love, man, the heritages of men consisting of myth, legend, history and
fine arts. According to him ….
Woodpecker's dream
Mubeen
Sadhika
Hard barks
never easy
to drill nor to peck
sucking sap grabbing feast
always routine…
Fight With Might
Ram Sharma
The night is dark,
but day is bright,
look! both have got ,
a very lovely sight…
You
Do What You Have To Do
Chitra Lele
While others do what they do,
You do what you have to do.
When others talk gibberish and play foul,
You learn to speak the language of the soul.
While others fear of the known,
You do not be afraid of the unknown…
The
paradise on the earth
Vijay Kumar
Gupta
Flowers can make
this earth beautiful.
Cool and mild breeze can make our atmosphere lovely.
Bricks and stones can make buildings on the earth.
Fool can fulfill our belly. ..
Shadow-1
Braja K Sarkar
A living dead needs no more weapons
To fight but the fresh air to breath and
Courage to stand up.
I see the deads are living through
The ages, their deeds are
Animated in the history of lives. ..
THE POETIC WORLD OF
SUJATA BHATT
By Mita Biswas
Indian women's poetry in English, still a marginalized area of
critical study, is slowly gaining ground as a significant and
identifiable area of research. The woman writer's reconstruction of life
through the various literary forms and modes emphasizes the validity of
Beheroze Shroff's statement: "The time has come for women to stop seeing
through men's eyes and language–we have to have a different women's
voice." The Indian English women poets of the first phase of development
wrote during the crucible years of the 1950s and 1960s of nation
building and consequent decolonization. Then came the post-modern second
generation women, writing in the recent past of the 70s, 80s and 90s,
leading to a new millennium. They were closer to and more conversant
with real life movements and modern-day complexities, handling the
English medium with more grace, effortlessness, ease and a specifically
organized abandon. In this effort Simone de Boeauvoir's assessment of
women's literature becomes quite pertinent. "Feminine literature," she
says, "is animated less by a wish to demand our rights than by an effort
towards clarity and understanding." The enjoyment and interpretation of
such literature, hence, can be quite fruitful without having a sexist
bias. It is a long time since Simone de Beauvoir published The Second
Sex (1949) in which her assertion, of a non-sexist and
non-prejudiced attitude towards the world of women, established and
created a new place for women as equal beings in the existing world
order. ..
Rainbow Bridge
Vanita Thakkar
A cluster of grey, water-laden
Clouds came drifting
Along with the somewhat strong wind,
Hid the Sun…
THE
TAMING OF A POET
(A conversation)
IK Sharma
With his head in the clouds, he asked:
‘Where does this path go?’
‘It doesn’t go anywhere.
People come and go along it’,
said the old woman at the spinning wheel…
Nature’s Call
Prem Tanzin Negi
Star studded sky
The effulgence of sun
Shades of moon
Snow clad peaks
Serene deep blue water…
Colours
Samita Tiwari
They had said dreams would come to me in colours,
but my wait seems endless, for black & white is all I see.
The changing hues of green along the lush
country-side,
stir me as do the variegated colours of the blue of waters…
I
Long for a Flight
JasvinderSingh
I long for a flight
that will take me
to the heights of fame.
I long to fulfil
my ambition
to be some one in the world…
The Sun of Hope
Harish K Thakur
From the top of the mountain hill
Where the Sun keeps its warm head
Every morning,
Runs down the Sun of a new morn
And the sun of my hope
Rises too…
No More War Please
Asif Andalib (Bangladesh)
No more war, please
Please no more war
No more bloodthirsty leader, please…
Writing a Book Review
– Some Reflections
Usha Bande
A book review is generally defined as a literary activity, an academic
pursuit and an intellectual exercise. It is termed a critical analysis
of a book; it describes, scrutinizes, evaluates and conveys an opinion,
supporting it with evidence from the book. Such definitions provide it a
broad base and do not restrict a book review to literature only. Any
book, pertaining to any stream –sociology, psychology, history, besides
literature – can be (and is) reviewed on the basis of content, style and
merit. A book review is also an open forum where one examines and forms
an opinion of the writer’s work. One of the simple definitions is, “A
book review is both a description and an analysis of a book. It should
focus on the book’s purpose, contents and authority. It is not simply
retelling.” That gives the book review the status of art and the
reviewer becomes an artist. “Writing a book review is an art of writing
skills, evaluation and knowledge which takes the merits as well as the
demerits of a work…”
Book Reviews
Kamla K. Kapur. As A
Fountain In A Garden. Chandigarh: Tarang Press, 2005. pp.62.
ISBN 81-7010-352-5. Rs. 100.
Reviewed by Nilanshu Kumar Agarwal
Shelley’s expression “Alas! I have nor hope nor health,/ Nor peace
within nor calm around” from ‘Stanzas Written in Dejection’ displays the
anxiety of his pain-stricken anguished heart. The same dark clouds of
dismal despair hover round Kamla Kapur’s celebrated anthology As A
Fountain In A Garden, which is the elegiac tribute to her husband
Donald Dean Powell, who committed suicide, leaving Kamla in the midst of
‘pregnant emptiness’ of the world. The poems in the collection were
written over a period of four years after the suicide of Donald, who was
disappointed for not finding a proper appreciation of his creative
works…
Arvind Kumar
Choudhary, Universal Voices, I.A.P.E.N. ,Pipra , P.O Domri, Distt.
Begusarai, Bihar-851117, India , Pages 48, Paperback Price Rs.75/-
Book Review by Jasvinder Singh
In the
book titled Universal Voices Dr. Arvind Kumar Choudhary offers a
handful of finely crafted poems which reflect his personal feelings
about a number of personalities, who have unique qualities which
distinguish them to be renowned universally in their respective fields
to promote the genres of Indo-Anglican literature . Their writings in
prose and poetry have been perennial sources of fascination and
knowledge. In a way, he has done a yeoman’s service to the contemporary
literary luminaries by providing a brief poetical pen portrait of each
of the luminaries that too in the most economical language. His poems
have presented attractive features of each of the luminaries with big
revelations to make the readers have a clear picture of their greatness.
Some are fellow editors, poets who have dedicated themselves to widen
the scope of Indo-Anglican literature through their own writings, and by
creating platform for fellow fledgling, grown up littérateurs, and of
course, celebrities who have made distinguished contributions in modern
Indian literature in English and became known universally. The poet has
won the hearts of many readers through his beaming thoughts, and the new
trend he has set which has become a source of attraction for others. He
has done very well to select the personalities like Aurobindo Ghose,
Adil Jassawala, Dom Moraes, D.C.Chambial , Harish Thakur, Keki
N.Daruwala, Kamla Das, Krishna Srinivas, Mahashweta Chaturvedi, Dr.
H.Tulsi, M.R.Anand, Nissim Ezekiel, Syed Ameeruddin, Saroijin Naidu,
and others…
R.K.Singh,
Sexless Solitude And Other Poems, Prakash Book Depot, Bareilly,2009,
Rs 98, pp-86
Book review by Ram Sharma
Dr. R.K.Singh is an established name in Indian English Poetry. He
has to his credit 11 poetry collections, namely ,My Silence [1985],
Memories Unmemoried[1988], Music Must Sound[1990], Flight of Phoenix[
1990], Two Poets; R.K.Singh [ I Do Not Question ] Ujjal Singh Bahri [
The Grammar of My Life] [1994], My Silence and other Selected Poems;
1974-1994[ 1996], Above the Earth`s Green [1997], Every Stone Drop
Pebble [ a haiku collection , jointly with Catherine Mair and Patricia
Prime ,1999], Cover to Cover ; A collection of Poems[ jointly with
Myriam Pierri and Giovanni Campisi ,2003] , and The River Returns
[2006]. This is his 12th poetry collection…. |
