Pls tell us about the poems? How many poets have contributed...tel us something about it? Asked by: Monty
The subject matter of the poems and their poetic concerns are staggeringly large and wide-ranging. There is introspection and gregariousness, politics and pedagogy, history and science, illness and fantasy, love and erotica, sex and death — the list is centrifugal, efferent, and expansive.
There is free verse and an astonishing penchant for formal verse — so you are likely to encounter a pantoum next to an acrostic poem, a triolet juxtaposed against a ghazal, lyric narratives and prose poetry, Sapphic fragments and Bhartrhari-style shataka, mosaic pastiché, ekphrastic verse, sonnet, rubai, poem songs, prayer chants, documentary feeds, rap, reggae, creole, canzone, tritina, sestina, ottava rima, rime royale and variations on waka: haiku, tanka, katauta, choka, bussokusekika, sedoka — the Indian poets are in full flight.
Taking into consideration the quality of the contents in this anthology, I would provocatively assert that the best English poetry written by Indians in the contemporary national and international literary arena is perhaps as good or superior to Indian fiction in English as a whole. There is bravura, experimentation, risk-taking, innovation, erudition, and delightfully uninhibited and fine use of language by the poets here. And for the best of them, this book is just a mere show window displaying only a small slice of the authors’ individual oeuvre that is wide-ranging and impressive.
Importantly, this substantially generous selection of over 400 poems by eighty-five poets — spread over nearly 550 pages in this volume — significantly shifts, expands, remaps, and realigns the existing topography and tenor of contemporary English poetry by Indians.
What's the theme of the poems? Asked by: Sheila
As I just mentioned as part of the first question -- the subject matter of the poems and their poetic concerns are staggeringly large and wide-ranging. There is introspection and gregariousness, politics and pedagogy, history and science, illness and fantasy, love and erotica, sex and death — the list is centrifugal, efferent, and expansive.
How the idea of the book came about? Asked by: Amy
Contemporary English fiction by Indians is now well known and widely established as part of the mainstream national and international literature with authors like V S Naipaul, Anita Desai, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, Amit Chaudhuri, Shashi Tharoor, Pico Iyer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kiran Desai, Vikram Chandra, Aravind Adiga, and many others. They have won a range of prestigious prizes and awards including the Nobel, Booker, Commonwealth, Pulitzer, Sahitya Akademi, among others.
“Indian poetry in English has a longer and more distinguished tradition than Indian fiction in English,” asserts literary critic and novelist Pankaj Mishra in The Times Literary Supplement (December 3, 2004). A leading UK poetry publisher, in a catalogue item states, “Many Indian poets were mining the rich vein of ‘chutnified’ (Salman Rushdie’s word) Indian English long before novelists like Rushdie and Upamanyu Chatterjee started using it in their fiction.”
Both these observations may well be true, but the ground reality of the story of Indian poetry in English is completely different. In the wider cultural arena, very little is known about Indian poetry and poets, within and more so outside India. Only a handful of contemporary English-language Indian poets command an international and national status. And the others who are visible happen to be known within very tight and narrow confines of the poetry circles, university reading circuits, and literary festivals. Beyond the initiated groups, not many follow or read contemporary English poetry, though ironically a great number write it.
There are not enough discerning anthologies of contemporary Indian poetry published in India and even less abroad — and the few that exist [and not very easily available] have tended to be rather narrow, inward-looking, and unsatisfactory. The lack of comprehensive poetry anthologies is something of a major surprise considering the vast cultural power of the world’s largest democracy, and India’s position as the third largest English language publisher in the world.
Anthologies of new writing serve as perfect vehicles and repository that showcase and highlight the best in current literatures. They also capture the pulse of literary culture, and act as good sources for archival material for future generations. Many fine single-author individual volumes by Indian poets have appeared in India and elsewhere, but their scattered appearances (and the aforementioned lack of a worthy library of comprehensive poetry anthologies) do not add up to what one would think of as a body of contemporary works that reflects a movement in new English poetry by Indians. This anthology hopes to redress some of the shortfall or near absence -- that is how the idea came about.
Pls tell us something about the book? Asked by: Aki
I have chosen to focus on poetry written in English, as a wider selection that includes India’s many official languages would make this volume too voluminous and unwieldy. This is just the start and hopefully there shall be more such anthologies representing Indian poetry, including those in translation which in itself is an extensive and huge area.
A unique feature of this anthology is the fact that the overwhelming bulk of the poems are new and unpublished in individual author volumes. Over ninety per cent of the eighty-five poets have specially contributed new work for this book. Therefore the contents of this book give the reader a fine idea and a fresh taste of the vibrant contemporary Indian poetry and cultural scene. Carrying new and unpublished work is a major departure from other available anthologies, where some editors of these volumes have shown a tendency to mostly pick work from already published books or from existing older anthologies.
The history of contemporary English poetry by Indians is well over sixty years old — it has been over sixty years since India became a Republic in 1950. And to celebrate this occasion, the contemporary poets included in this book are all born post-1950, and all use English — one of India’s many official languages.
The range of style, preoccupation, technique, is vast, various and impressive — each poet stamping their own signature and subtly displaying their own vision. The poets who are presented in these pages live in India and the broader Indian diasporas such as the United States and Canada, United Kingdom and Europe, Africa and Asia, Australia and the Pacific.
This diversity and multicultural representation allows the poets to have an internal dialogue between themselves and the varied topographical cultural spaces they come from or are influenced by. Therefore the poems create an inherent syntactical and historical tension — one that ultimately celebrates the written word, imagination, artistry, intellect, and humanity.
How many poems it has? Asked by: Neelu
This substantially generous selection of over 400 poems by eighty-five poets — spread over nearly 550 pages in this volume — significantly shifts, expands, remaps, and realigns the existing topography and tenor of contemporary English poetry by Indians.
Your thoughts on contemporary poetry culture of India? Asked by: Anushri
Taking into consideration the quality of the contents in this anthology, I would provocatively assert that the best English poetry written by Indians in the contemporary national and international literary arena is perhaps as good or superior to Indian fiction in English as a whole. There is bravura, experimentation, risk-taking, innovation, erudition, and delightfully uninhibited and fine use of language by the poets here. And for the best of them, this book is just a mere show window displaying only a small slice of the authors’ individual oeuvre that is wide-ranging and impressive.
Your favorite poet-Indian & International? Asked by: Madhu
There are too many. Let us start from the Indian poets:
Jibanananda Das, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Ghalib, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Agha Shahid Ali, Arun Kolatkaer ... and so many more.
International poets would include:
Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, Joseph Brodsky, Paul Celan, Yevtushenko, Irina Ratushinkskaya, Les Murray, ... and so many more
Your advice to aspiring young poets? Asked by: OP
Read, read, and read more poetry -- both by the international masters and of other contemporary Indian poets. The problem is that there are too many who write poetry but not that many who read it. Also, it is a good idea to read and to learn how to write formal poetry, metrical verse, to gain confidence and mastery over the form. Once the poetic grammar is in control, you can improvise. Working with a poet you admire -- as in a 'guru-shishya' relationship could be very useful.
are u also a Poet, Sudeep? Asked by: Natasha
Yes, I am indeed. Here is the HarperCollins biography on me:
SUDEEP SEN [www.sudeepsen.net] is widely recognised as a major new generation voice in world literature and ‘one of the finest younger English-language poets in the international literary scene’ (BBC Radio). He is ‘fascinated not just by language but the possibilities of language’ (Scotland on Sunday). He read English Literature at the University of Delhi and as an Inlaks Scholar received an MS from the Journalism School at Columbia University (New York). His awards, fellowships & residencies include: Hawthornden Fellowship (UK), Pushcart Prize nomination (USA), BreadLoaf (USA), Pleiades (Macedonia), NLPVF Dutch Foundation for Literature (Amsterdam), Ledig House (New York), Sanskriti (New Delhi), Wolfsberg UBS Pro Helvetia (Switzerland), Tyrone Guthrie Centre (Ireland), and Shanghai Writers Programme (China). He was international writer-in-residence at the Scottish Poetry Library (Edinburgh) and visiting scholar at Harvard University.
Sen’s critically-acclaimed books include The Lunar Visitations, New York Times, Dali’s Twisted Hands, Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins), Distracted Geographies, Prayer Flag, Rain, Aria (A K Ramanujan Translation Award), Ladakh and Letters of Glass. Blue Nude: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1979-2014 (Jorge Zalamea International Poetry Prize) is forthcoming. He has also edited several important anthologies, including The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry, Poetry Foundation Indian Poetry Portfolio, Poetry Review Centrefold of Indian Poems, The Literary Review Indian Poetry, World Literature Today Writing from Modern India, The Yellow Nib Contemporary English Poetry by Indians, Midnight’s Grandchildren: Post-Independence English Poetry from India, Wasafiri New Writing from India, South Asia & the Diaspora, and, Lines Review Twelve Modern Young Indian Poets.
His poems, translated into twenty-five languages, have featured in international anthologies by Penguin, HarperCollins, Bloomsbury, Routledge, Norton, Knopf, Everyman, Random House, Macmillan, and Granta. His words have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, Newsweek, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Telegraph, Financial Times, Herald, London Magazine, Poetry Review, Literary Review, Harvard Review, Hindu, Hindustan Times, Times of India, Indian Express, Outlook, India Today, and broadcast on BBC, PBS, CNN IBN, NDTV, AIR & Doordarshan. Sen’s newer work appears in New Writing 15 (Granta), Language for a New Century (Norton), Leela: An Erotic Play of Verse and Art (Collins), Indian Love Poems (Knopf/Random House/Everyman), Out of Bounds (Bloodaxe), and Initiate: Oxford New Writing (Blackwell). He is the editorial director of AARK ARTS and the editor of Atlas. [www.atlasaarkarts.net]
Please share your favourite poem in the book. Asked by: Rakhi
As an editor of the book which include 85 poets and over 400 poems -- I cannot be biased and choose one or any poem over the other. They are all like my little children that I have shepherded over 15 years, and now are presented within the protective cover of the book.
Your opinion about the famous Indian poet Kamala Das who wrote poems and other literary works in both English and Malayalam? Asked by: Adithya Kiran.K
Kamala Das is a writer I have admired for her bold gutsiness, her uncomplicated presentation of subject matter, and her stance on feminism. I have only read her in English as Malayalam is a language I do not understand.
what will be your next book? What kind of books you are planning to write? Asked by: Tanu
The book I am working on is called "LADAKH" which includes paintings by an Irish artist, Janet Pierce. Three-fourths of the book is based in the high Himalayas, and one-fourth in Ireland. It will be released in India in December this year.
Another book that I am working on is called "EroText" . It will contain poems and prose pieces broadly on the subject of erotica and desire and divinity.
What inspired you to write poetry considering we have less Indian authors writing poetry these days ? Asked by: Alpa
Poetry came to me quite by accident when I was in Class 10 decades ago. Prior to that I thought writing poetry was a very hard thing to do.
Having said that, I grew up in a family and culture that was steeped in poetry, arts, music, dance and culture -- a very Bengali milieu amid debate, recitation, and appreciation of the arts in general.
Once bitten by the poetry bug, there was never looking back though -- it is a like a drug, an aphrodisiac, a passion for me -- both its writing and its craft.
I am not a poetry reader. Would definitely like to look towards the genre. Any recommendations for readers who want to start reading poetry ? Asked by: Alpa
Well, this book, "The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry" [by Indians] is an exceelent start for poetry written by post-1950s born Indian poets.
For the earlier generation, both R Parthsarathy's and A K Mehrotra's Oxford India anthologies are fine volumes to look at.
what will be your next book on? Asked by: Tanu
I have answered this earlier Tanu. But I am also thinking of putting together an anthology of contemporary women's poetry by India poets. There are many fine ones around now.
Do you think in India Poetry has that kind of Demand? I have noticed a growth in readers but Not anything in Poetry? Asked by: Tanu
Poetry definitely has a special kind of demand. Since it is not commercially driven, the demand is more basic, more urgent, and more tactile.
There is a huge growth in book the numbers who write English poetry and the numbers who are interested in hearing poetry read out aloud. There is now a flourishing scene of open mic poetry, performance poetry, poetry readings in the literary festival circuit, universities and elsewhere.
Why did you choose this title 'The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry' ? Its intriguing . :) Asked by: Alpa
Simply because it represents English-language poetry written by Indians. If it was Bengali poetry, it would have been similarly called "The HC Book of Bengali Poetry", and not Bengali Poetry by Indians. I do not think suffix qualifiers are relevant anymore.
Is "LADAKH" a poetry book as well ? It sounds interesting. Asked by: Alpa
It is a book of poetry with beautiful paintings that accompany it.
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