Five Female Indian Poets


One thing that’s been good about Facebook is that it has connected me with poets from other parts of the world. This is a very expansive endeavor that focuses finally on the clarity of a poem. Through poetry groups I am in, and partly too through the efforts of Dr. Ampat Koshy, who operates several good poetry groups in India including this one:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/rejectedstuff/

I have met all the poets in this particular post.

It occurred to me last spring to ask some of these Indian poets to send me a video of themselves reading a poem with links to their other work. So far five poets, all of them women, responded rather promptly with a poem, links and a video, which I edited into the one Vimeo you will find below. Here they are now.

Reena Prasad

That Line

Our nights are different in their packaging
Yours is a dim lamp throwing a golden sheen over your resting limbs
Mine, a cold trickle
flowing through crumpled bed sheets
A flashback of a hard life
lies uneasily with a morbid rehearsal of death
and the night rests between their noises
They touch briefly just before we dream

If you want to read more of Reena’s work, you can check it out here:

http://harivarasanam.wordpress.com

Reena and Flurry



Aparna Sanyal

WRAITH AND PAPER TIGERS

I am in the honeycombs still-
The night has passed, but the marbled
surfaces of dream betrayal remain.
In that foreign land, the ether of
my hope has long since evaporated.
I plunge deep into
stunning cold water,
shiver and emerge voiceless,
with ceaseless, clockwork rhythm.
Reality is stunned by the sudden
lactation of my dreams, their artless spray,
as they press and prod within,
wring streams
and coils, twists of tales and
drops of tears from my awake
self.
How to summit the hills in my heart,
disable smoke and mirror land mines?
Until they dissipate,
these wraith and paper tigers are real-
and their claws are sharpened
to steel.

-Oct 19th, 2017

Wraith and Paper Tigers was a recipient of the 14th annual Beullah Rose Poetry Prize, and first appeared in Issue #25 of Smartish Pace.

APARNA UPADHYAYA SANYAL

Aparna holds an MA from Kings College, London. She is a recipient of the 14th Beullah Rose Poetry Prize by Smartish Pace. She is featured on the Masthead of the Songs of Eretz Poetry Review as a Frequent Contributor for 2018. Her poetry has appeared/ is forthcoming in Smartish Pace, SOFTBLOW, Gyroscope Review, Broad River Review, Poetry Breakfast, UCity Review, The Visitant, and many more. Her first book is slated for release in mid 2018 with Vishwakarma Publications, India.

She lives with her 4-year-old son and husband in Pune, India.

Find her work here:

http://www.facebook.com/aparnasanyalwrites/

Instagram: @aparnasanyalwrites

Aparna Sanyal


Sunil Kaushal

For Rainy Days

The smoke from your cigarette
seeps into the essence
of my very being
to curl out as the fragrance
of your presence
there beside me
when I miss you most
late, very late
into the night
as it is embraced in the arms
of early morning
and I delight.
A new day to begin-
so I can hear
your voice again
for which I stayed awake the whole night
memorizing it’s music
for rainy days
when you are far away
and I bide time
listening to the melody
of your heart
trying to find you
in it’s music
imagining I’m understanding you better
day by day
yet getting no further than
that hot summer’s day, long, long ago
when I sipped the dregs
from the glass
you drank from,
leaving me thirsty
yet drunk forever.

Copyright@Dr. Sunil Kaushal18/04/1997

Sunil’s link:

http://sunilkaushal44.blogspot.in/

Link to my winning poem as an entry to All India Poetry Contest by On Fire Cultural Movement:

Sunil Kaushal


Sunita Singh

Shringar (Adornments)

Swathed in the robe of your love
Wearing the kohl of devotion in my eyes
The bindi of your divinity shining on my forehead
The tinkling bangles in tune with your flute
The soft lilting anklets of your bond, on my feet
I drink the cup of your name
Yearning to be one
With you, my love!
© Sunita Singh

You can read more of Sunita’s work here:

http://solitaryreveriesblog.wordpress.com/

Sunita Singh


Aakriti Kuntal

My heart at sunrise

Light circulates
behind the window
Seamstress of orange ferns

I take my widowed palms
into a large spin
and set them on fire
Auburn against the evening’s setting sun

Cease and count
the sacred lungs of fire
As they awaken the sky today,
once more, one last time

Cease and count
the lifting colors of dead bees
As they roam,
strung across a sleepless blue continent

Cease and demarcate
the furious longevity,
the rugged intervals
between chambers of white clouds

As they lick my lonely breaths
and throttle the stunned air
Distort a quiet blue sky
into this dreamless raging voice

as only ugly passions like ours do
Then let it beat,
outside of all creation,
my falling heart at sunrise

You can check out more of Aakriti Kuntal below:

Links: http://facebook.com/aakriti.kuntal
http://www.instagram.com/blue_hemisphere/

Aakriti Kuntal


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