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Contemporary
poetry special
Editor's Note Ours is a multilingual culture. Our sources of inspiration for writing poetry are various civilisations, cultures, religions and political processes. Mirza Ghalib wrote in Persian and Urdu and Muhammad Iqbal wrote in Persian, Urdu and English. Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote in Urdu and Punjabi. He talked about Palestine, Lebanon, Pakistani peasants and, also, interpreted Quranic eschatology as a socialist classless utopia. The legacy of British
colonialism, the influence of the Islamic sources, the geographical proximity
with Literati normally does not publish poetry because we can neither adequately deal with nor accommodate the volume of poetry we receive. But after receiving some very good poems, especially from Moez Surani, Janice Pariat, Ijlal Khan, and Helen Swain we decided to bring out a special issue on contemporary poetry. The poems we received clearly evince the arrival of a new poetic sensibility, which has been transformed by a sense of futility about idealism and the loss of faith in the redemptive power of words. All is disjointed in the external world and there may be some hope in narcissistic indulgence in sensual explorations. The logic of American drones flying above Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is not very conducive to hope in the external world; therefore some of the poets find beauty only in the mundane, lovelorn acts. In others, there is a stubborn celebration of self-destructive behaviour. Somehow the early years of the 21st century seem to corroborate, with a scary acuity, the essence of the 20th century discovered by Edwin Brock in "Five Ways to Kill a Man." For our readers, we are reproducing the poem here: By Edwin Brock There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man. You can make him carry a plank of wood To the top of a hill and nail him to it. To do this Properly you require a crowd of people Wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak To dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one Man
to hammer the nails home.
Or you can take a length of steel, Shaped and chased in a traditional way, And attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears. But for this you need white horses, English trees, men with bows and arrows, At least two flags, a prince and a Castle to hold your banquet in.
Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind Allows, blow gas at him. But then you need A mile of mud sliced through with ditches, Not to mention black boots, bomb craters, More mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs And some round hats made of steel. In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly Miles above your victim and dispose of him by Pressing one small switch. All you then Require is an ocean to separate you, two Systems of government, a nation's scientists, Several factories, a psychopath and Land that no one needs for several years. These are, as I began, cumbersome ways To kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neat Is to see that he lives somewhere in the middle Of the twentieth century, and leave him there. So far the 21st century has been full of conflict, scarcity, and insecurity. Some poets, in our selection, choose not to engage with the political sphere at all while others are overtly political. Rinku Dutta shows the passion of an activist, Moez Surani embraces despair so ardently that it seems a cathartic activity and Helen Swain celebrates those who use words to keep hope alive. Janice Pariat, Ijlal Khan, Sidra Omer and Jayshree Menon describe personal and social ambiguities. All of these expressions of contemporary reality are valid ones because, it seems, there are no tenable arguments for human redemption left. So, here we affirm and celebrate the vanity of vanities all over again. Realpolitik By Moez Surani Since the death of 500,000 Iraqis goes unmourned so I will not mourn them but will continue drinking to excess. And though it has been written that under the eternal threat of war children gain anxiety disorders and are found banging their head against floor and other available cement – I will not mourn them. I will not mourn the dying and deformed because an idealist cannot be happy. And I want to be happy. So I will laugh and marry and continue drinking to excess. My day will come too Provoke me Let my rage surface Hit me till you please Bang the door as I cry Enjoy it I'm sure it gives you delight To see me weak and pathetic Too upset for a fight Though keep in mind will you My day will come too I cry not because I'm weak But because my anger is subdued. Distance By Janice Pariat if you take the shorter route there are precisely 847 buildings between your place and mine. houses mostly, ugly biscuit stone while nicer others in Mediterranean white and green, warmest reds or plain, pale beige. 2 coffee shops daytime-emptied, except for a few wayward souls, looking for something meaningful among mocha swirls. 9 piles of construction sand, darkly sullen in the midday heat, some joined by wine bricks that lie there in a drunken haze. 5 traffic lights that stop and start life on the roads. a florist who is always present eternal blossoms surround him. i have never tried walking all the way, so steps aren't counted, numbered. probably there is much distance, between us. too much in fact. unmet at bookshops in hidden streets, uncrossed ditches after the rain. the path from yours to mine, lies untravelled. A trace of my desire By Ijlal Khan Her sleeve slithers off her shoulder into the unseen dark The moon shows in its silhouettes what the night allows Mystique of the folds of her sheet seethes the night sand What is beyond the glance that sinks in her is the lost thought Strings that yearn in her tresses play to her heart Her eyes disturb the chords and her fingers stay She frowns not considering that her contempt pours Into the music of the night that sets the night darker The sun slaves surrendering to her will till she lifts her brow She slings a trail of light as her tiresome body weighs back And with the labor of each night she makes another dawn To what crevasses of her frayed heart her songs yearn Why I who have paid her nights with my absent sleep not dwell In her slight smiles reflections on a shivering pond My soul to her ankles bleeds the palms it does not moisten Nor it leaves a trace of my desire on her open scar Some do say some days she asks is not the turk here yet those days through my absence I imagine her silent charms For me that wait in the chafing gale of the moonless sky Do I make my self present to see her or to live by that thought Alone Happy Kites
'no laughing matter: you must live with great seriousness like a squirrel' Nazim Hikmet Our life together will, I think, have a chasm. 10 years. 20 years. An insignificant chasm. Our feet will visit countries that haven't yet graced us. My innocent feet. You will send me your long letters and I will phone you before we amble towards each other in old age and fence timidly with our canes. We may age into reticence. And endure the grieving of someone we love so much. And may begin measuring our conversations. As though what we have in us has, by the years, been distilled or poured through black rocks-- griefs, joys, the hundreds and hundreds of morning reflections that our life affords us--and through those rocks become sacred. Joyous mornings like this one when you shared your ritual coffee with me the coffee that you made each morning before sitting down to your hyphenated and rhapsodic writing crushing the heated milk into cream. Or we may not become reticent. And may leave this world happy kites. Spilling our words and thoughts and cares haphazard and with joy. We spoke through all of this this morning after you woke me from dream into that guest bedroom of yours that was absurd with sunlight. If what we are doing is practicing life we are making headway here. The Dissemblers By Moez Surani 2001. My mother and sister travelling India together gain reduced museum admission by passing as citizens. A guard stops them and asks who the Prime Minister is. Vajpayee! my sister answers. And the Finance Minister? Vajpayee, my mother tells him. Name anyone in local politics. The three of them laughing now. Vajpayee, she insists. Miscalculation By Janice Pariat It used to be here, I'm sure it was. The bus stand I waited at everyday. Just around the corner from the cigarette store, some 14 steps, no less, no more. I counted. I suppose it changed, the route or me. Your Ribcage Open your mouth so I can dive in eat your words crawl upwards into your cavities, and see the world through your eyes I listen to how results are pegged out in human form and think about action not taken while bullets lash out and rocks fall. I cannot feel the heat of your back inert against chrome fittings and I am glad of your shades in the glare. Having one rib more or less your carapace is harder older wiser than mine, more used perhaps. I like the smoke meandering through your story and while I wait for your tongue and teeth to bite at corruption my gums recede. I have a moment I 'm making a hat I tend to make a few mistakes with colour I get too excited Now i'm working up slowly i've got a bright car Bloody Fuel By Rinku Dutta Even a rock responds Warming to the touch Of the hand holding it. But You, You remain frigid. Even as I expose Shots of half-burned babies Bleeding from shrapnel wounds; Hapless children, Limbless, orphaned. You, You merely shrug. In God You trust And in The State. They are doing What is best. And ALL you care And is your concern: YOUR life must go on YOUR car should run. Language of hands By Jayshree Menon Her mehndi-filled hands lay open Like a butterfly's wings She was a bride, I knew Intricate designs on her palms Hid her own long lines of fate The hands next to her Kneaded her hands into her palms Wonder what bothered her so much That she kneaded so hard into her hands The girls next to her hid their hands In each other's hands Their laugh tickled their playing fingers Disappearing into their clothes… The old women sitting next to me Their wrinkled hands are not on their laps Their fingers are dancing in the air Explaining things. A young woman on the other side Clenched her fists While the one next to her Broke her knuckles. Another one searched her palms For missing answers and stumbling questions The hands next to her Just closed and prayed. All their hands Lay open and closed Kneaded and twisted Wrinkled and rough All these women Their hands searched and found Some hid, revealed some Intertwined fingers and interlinked fates But the bride's hands before me In this train Just snapped shut And hid more…
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the former Soviet Union, our ideological and logistic support to American
neo-colonialism,
