Editorial

A Poet is a Cherry Tree in Spring

I want / to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees. — Pablo Neruda

I have seen these lines being used in love letters. I know how dear these lines are to the young lovers, in particular. But whenever I read these lines, I feel that I hear the voice of poetry. Poetry, as if, whispers in the ears of a poet, words which are intimate, seductive and smell of the aroma of new birth.

Why do the poets write poetry? The answer to this question varies from poet to poet. A “Why do I Write?” session of any poetry festival is a proof in point. I write poetry because it makes me a cherry tree of Spring. But to become a cherry tree of Spring, I undergo a process that is extremely painful. Before writing the lines mentioned above, Neruda, in the same poem, also wrote, “How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me, / my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.” I read these lines and feel that this poor ‘me’ of Neruda is actually me, that Neruda is writing these lines on my behalf. No, wrong I am. Neruda wrote these lines on behalf all the poets of the world. A poet needs to know how to live with poetry, to bear with the pain of a work the end of which (à la Ferdinand) is pleasurable.

Poetry India will remain sensitive to the pains and pleasures of living with poetry. It will curate poems written in all Indian languages and try to act as bridge between poets and readers of different languages and locales. It will respect ‘difference’ as a reality and aim to priorities ‘unity of diversity’ over  ‘unity in diversity’ to do its bit in fighting separatism and sectarianism. The replacement of ‘in’ by ‘of’ in the age-old axiom-like phrase, Poetry India believes, will do more justice to the multicultural fabric of the nation and of Indian poetry.

We dedicate this inaugural issue to Sandip Dutta, the founder of Kolkata Little Magazine Library and Research Centre. Dutta passed away on 6 March 2021, leaving behind a treasure house of little magazines of different languages and states of our country. A one-man-institution, he did for little magazines what a government should have done. Single-handedly he founded a library solely meant for little magazines and went collecting rare magazines from across India and abroad. He will remain an inspiration to Poetry India in (not competing with but) supplementing the governmental and corporate enterprises to curate Indian poetry.

Wish you all a pleasant read!

Angshuman Kar

March 28, 2023