Where Technocracy Ends
The other day, since I couldn’t recall,
I googled “What was I just thinking about?”
and the computer would not give me
the correct information to my inquiry.
I asked it this question a million times over
and every time it gave me the wrong answer.
It felt good knowing there were still
some...
SHATTER
Glass wall inside of me
Looking to where I want to be
How this widowed heart hides
In plain sight, wishing to be seen
False light is blinding me
Until I can no longer breathe
Quiet madness beguiles
This raging fire, consuming
Masked her wall of pretend
Fettered anguish lingers within
Imprisoned by the tides
In murky depths a life...
They Won’t Forget to Pray
(verses in response to “So Long Marianne”)
In the night,
you asked for silence
to speak to angels
for Marianne, for Marianne.
You opened your lips
and dry as they were still breathed
the confession of stillness.
Darkness approached as you addressed
love in its trembling thoughts.
I can’t hear your voice.
It is quiet and...
Civil Guardsmen
From a field of grasses dried
by wind, two civil guardsmen stare
toward the sun for traffic
on the lonely road
they have been stationed to protect.
They are tall
against the burnt horizon,
still as the ground itself,
and one is the reflection of the other
as, side by side, they stand
in place. Should one
turn around,...
Jagari Mukherjee
The story of post-independence Indian English poetry can be traced to Nissim Ezekiel’s A Time To Change (1952). Since then, Indian English poetry has grown in leaps and bounds, with luminaries like Dom Moraes, Arun Kolatkar, Adil Jussawala, A.K. Ramanujan, Dilip Chitre, Keki Daruwala, and Jayanta Mahapatra dominating...
Linda Ashok
Do you have any guess for this deep seated aversion for the “spoken word” in general? Why literary critics and practitioners exclude the spoken word from the scope of their literary pursuit? When the paper wasn’t invented and writing was yet to become a norm on paper but...
Introduction:
It takes guts to speak with artistes, especially poets. They are sensitive, they refuse to speak much about themselves (here I’m talking about old-time poets, the present clan is more vocal), and it is even more difficult to understand their mood and psyche. When I asked Nikita Parik, assistant...
“The maker has no control. This is sortilege, the magic of inditing.”
Hello Sanjeevji! It’s a pleasure to be interviewing you. Let me tell you, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Nine Summers Later, and This Summer and That Summer, your latest release. I’ve also read a bunch of your newer poems among...
Anuparna Mukherjee
In the wake of #MeToo campaign that has taken the social media by storm, it is alarming but perhaps not surprising to see the sheer number of women who have come forward with their traumatic experiences. It is true that there is a large number who chose to...
Why Naipaul Is Not Great: A True (Non-kantian) Appraisal of a Literary Career Now Ended
S. Shankar -
Subramanian Shankar
I first read Naipaul in Malaysia as a teenager. I would check out his books from the library of the club to which my family belonged. I recognized the world that Naipaul described in early books like A House for Mr. Biswas and Miguel Street, though I had...
Terry Sanville
1.
On Friday morning, Dad took Shasta, our shorthaired terrier with a white-tipped tail, to the vet. I didn’t even know the poor dog was sick. At seven, I didn’t understand illness and suffering. But my older sister, Betty, seemed to know. She waited with me in the living...
J. Ross Archer
The blinking red, white, and blue lights I saw in my rear-view mirror startled me. Daydreaming, I must have not been paying attention to how fast I was driving. I pulled over and waited for the officer to approach my car. I knew to be aware of...