Poetry in Tumultuous
Times
Cultivating Voices featuring Pratik Magazine. November 22, 2020
Literary communities around the world continue to widen their circles in spite of the global pandemic. Seasoned writers are taking on innovative roles in the digital sphere to introduce their fresh works to newer audiences. They are emerging in the online world with the most unexpected collaborations.
The latest issue of Pratik Magazine led to one such collaboration involving celebrated poets from Ireland, United States, Canada, Italy, and more.The reading was hosted by Cultivating Voices Live Poetry and the gracious host, Sandra Yannone, with Technician-in-Charge, Don Krieger.
The quarterly magazine Pratik, founded by Nepalese poet Hari Adhikary in 1979, began as a Nepali language publication. Several distinguished Nepalese poets like Mohan Koirala and others were involved with the publication until it was later revamped as an English language literary magazine in 1990. At that time, Yuyutsu Sharma became the Editor and continued to publish the magazine until 2003. During the online reading, Yuyutsu described how he would go to the Kathmandu Durbar Square every day after teaching Shakespeare at the Tri-Chandra College of Tribhuvan University, and sit in a one-room letter press run by two young Newar brothers. "It was in the heart of the city near Kashtamandap, literarily meaning house of wood, another name for Kathmandu," he added.
Yuyutsu continued to publish the magazine for a decade, but his mother's death in 2002, and the grief that ensued, prevented his work on the publication. He traveled throughout Europe and North America and met many writers along the way. He then decided that it was time to bring back the magazine. He thought it would be an enjoyable opportunity to introduce the illustrious poets he had met during his travels in the West to his audiences in the Indian Subcontinent where there was limited exposure to contemporary Western literature. More importantly, he wanted to translate and introduce Nepalese poets to the world at large. “Very little is known about contemporary Western poetry or available in English or translation with the exception of a few figures like TS Eliot and Allen Ginsberg,” he discerned.
I was excited about the reading, but little did I know that I would have the opportunity to hear such an accomplished set of writers such as Charles Bernstein, Tony Barnstone, Chard DeNiord, Grant Hier, Seymore Mayne, Jill Hoffman, Gloria Mindock, Kerrin McCadden, Faminia Cruciani, Bill Wolak, Judith Mok, Gerard Beirne, Sydney Lea, Ute Margaret Saine, Cleopatra Mathis, Suzanne Lummis, Patricia Carragon, Chuck Joy, Jack Grady, and Howard Pflanzer.
The event began with Charles Bernstein, an American literary scholar known as a member of the Language Poets. As with all of the poets, Bernstein has multiple literary achievements, prizes, and acknowledgements to his name. Every poet read precisely and with heart, showcasing their life-long dedication to the literary arts. Social justice themes were woven into their poems. We heard from Tony Barnstone, who read a vivid narrative poem on bullying. His final piece was a solemn reflection on domestic violence. The poem relayed acompelling account of guilt felt by the speaker having known something wrong was happening next door, a battering of a helpless woman.Yet, the speaker himself expressed helplessness.
Vermont Poets were grandly represented in the reading, and with no exception, Chard DeNiord, Vermont’s Poet Laureate Emeritus, read a lulling short lyrical poem, and another with remarkable metaphors such as “bone in heart” likened to a tuning fork.
Jill Hoffman, the Editor of Mudfish, delivered her poems with a voice charged with certainty.Her first poem “Aubade” began with lines:
Say I was in the Camps
and my friends were all gone
and walking around me as memories
in their gray striped pajamas
not lying in the bay of skeletons anymore
naked
and my dog was licking my cunt
And Felix Nussbaum was painting barbed wire
like a necklace of lace
with a few prisoners penned in
one shitting on a tall can
and I was in love with him
but couldn’t show it
because he was dead…
Hoffman, also a painter, included ekphrastic elements in her work with a reference to Felix Nussbaum a German-Jewish surrealist painter.
Kerrin McCadden read moving elegies for her brother who lost his life to the U.S. Opioid Crisis. Her writing process included mining words from a President Nixon speech which was to be read in case the moon landing failed. The extracted words formed poems with a solemn tone and meaning in the context of McCadden’s brother. Her powerful set ended with the starkness of numbers: “I add him to 72,000/and subtract him from me.”
Then to Rome. Flaminia Cruciana read her work in Italian, while Yuyutsu Sharma, in Kathmandu, read the English translation. It was a remarkable demonstration of how the limits of the pandemic brought together two people across thousands of miles. Cruciana is an archaeologist and Near East scholar who has worked in pre-historic Ebla, Syria. Her compassion for the Syrian villagers has influenced her writing, and was evident in her passionate elocution.
Every poet read with zeal much like in an in-person live reading.We were all together in the energy of the present moment and with each poem.The reading closed with American poet, playwright, and fiction writer Howard Pflanzer whose poems were infused with a call to action on behalf of those silenced. He began in the voice of a migrant at the Tijuana-San Diego border. For his final poem, Pflanzer shared that 15 years ago, he had been pulled over by the police for walking alone at 2 a.m. It was not until recently that he had written about the experience:“Where are you going?...Identify yourself!...to them I was a White drug dealer/not the usual dark-skinned prey…"
And when the cops left:
I stood there alone for a moment
caught my breath
and continued walking towards 14th Street
understanding clearly who the cops were that night
and the deadly threat to those with dark skin.
Cultivating Voices Live Poetry is a virtual reading series which started in March 2020 to help writers “summon their strength and promote social unity through the literary arts.” This reading was one such occasion where contributors to Pratik Magazine brought with their works humor, melancholy, wisdom, encouragement, social commentary, and literary craft. Both Sandra and Yuyutsu talked about the challenges of isolation and how they missed seeing their poetry colleagues in the customary ways that poets meet. Yet, this event brought poets and audiences together in a space of unity and appreciation.
⏤⏤⏤⏤⏤
Rhony Bhopla is a British Indo-American poet and visual artist residing in Sacramento, California. Her poems have appeared in Cosumnes River Journal, Convergence, Medusa’s Kitchen, and Brevities.Her recent visual art piece, The Indian Accent, is showing in the Crocker Art Museum’s Studio Selections 2020 Exhibit. Rhonyis in her second year in the MFA in Writing program at Pacific University.
Rhony Bhopla
Now available on Amazon USA, UK, Canada, Europe and
India, Links below:
Amazon US:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GZ23NSG?ref=myi_title_dp
Amazon
UK:https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08GZ23NSG?ref=myi_title_dp
Amazon Canada:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08GZ23NSG?ref=myi_title_dp
Amazon ITLAY:
https://www.amazon.it/dp/B08GZ23NSG?ref=myi_title_dp
Amazon INDIA;
https://www.amazon.in/dp/B08GZ23NSG?ref=myi_title_dpUS
Also on Daraj: https://www.daraz.com.np//products/i104708556-s1026068809.html
Thank you Rhony Bhopla for your perceptive review of my poetry, Yuyutsu Sharma for publishing MIGRANT in Pratik, and Sandra Yannone for hosting this terrific event.
ReplyDelete