Book Review: Poetic Connections; Poems From Australia & India. Edited by Tamaso Lonsdale / Publisher: Cyberwit.Net
“Once, poets were magicians. Poets were strong, stronger than
warriors or kings- stronger than old hapless gods. And they will be
strong once again.”
- Greg Bear
The Poetic Connections, edited by Tamaso Lonsdale has come
out as an anthology of poems combining the ideas, emotions and cultures
of two different places, Australia and India, in the most strengthening
way which proves to be the full stop of long waiting process in the
field of poetry.
Jane Kenyon once said,
“The poet’s job is to put into words those feelings we all have
that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell
the truth in such a beautiful way, that people cannot live without it”
The poets in the Poetic Connections are those pillars, providing
truth with the excellence of artistry and subtlety through their verses.
The anthology consists aesthetic colours and essence of six various
poets from Australia and India. Three poets, Laura Jan Shore, Nathalie
Buckland and Rob Harle are from Australia; whereas, three poets Aju
Mukhopadhyay, Sunil Sharma and Jaydeep Sarangi are from India.
Laura Jan Shore was born in England and raised in the U.S.A, later
moving to Australia. Shore has tutored in and taught creative writing
from 1779 onward. She has been the President of Dangerously Poetic
Press. The anthology contains eight illuminated poems by her entitled: Meeting You I Wonder, The Interrupt, Facing The Crack, Stranger In Paradise, Revealed, At Dawn, Silence, Don’t Say It. Laura
excels in crafting each and every word with great ease and intellect
which prove to be the most precious pearls in the ocean of aesthetic
beauty.
Nathalie Buckland was born in Wales, United Kingdom during the
Second World War. She started writing from the age of eight. Nathalie
studied Early Childhood Education and moved to Australia in 1969 with
her young family. The poems of Nathalie in this anthology are: Sojourner, Don’t Wait, Pelicans, Solstice, River
- A Sestina,Teenager, Storm and Migrant. Nathalie
holds the mastery of gathering inspiration from her local community of
Nimbin with all its diversity, her family, and the natural beauty of the
surrounding countryside with its native birds and animals.
Rob Harle is a writer, artist and academic reviewer. His main
concern is to explore and document the radical changes technology is
bringing about, through his poems. Harle’s verses in this anthology
are: Game Over, The Colour Of Greed, Lost Cafe,Homage To The Mud-Dauber Man, Requiem For An Old Dart, Whore And Nun, The Dulling and On The Road To Nimbin. He mainly focuses on the trends of Post-Postmodernism.
Aju Mukhopadhyay, a bilingual award winning poet, author and
critic, writes fictions and essays as well. An ardent follower of Sri
Aurobindo, Aju is inwardly guided by the perennial source of his
spiritual and philosophic truth. His poems may be broadly categorized
into three groups: On Nature, Poems with Spiritual Overtones and
Feelings, and Poems on Social, Political Subjects. He is subjective in
his subtle feelings and expressions. His poems in this collection are: Om
Sri Aurobindo, The Burning Lamp, The Inner World, At The River Bank,
Ant’s Hut, Life And Death Hug Each Other, Fundamentalists and The Death Of A Rose.
Sunil Sharma is an academic administrator, a bilingual critic,
poet, literary interviewer, editor, translator, essayist and fiction
writer. He is a freelance journalist and blogger as well. His style and
technique of writing proves to be the most dominating part of his
verses. The way in which he creates a panorama through his words, is
delightful. His poems in this anthology are: The December Wind, Ode
To A Railway Halt, Winter Dusk At The Railway Halt: Second Part, A
Garbage Dump, A Woman, The Girl On The Threshold, White Noise and The Dog Whisperer.
Jaydeep Sarangi is a bilingual writer, poet, academic editor,
translator and the author of a number of significant publications.
Sarangi has the expertise of delving deep and presenting the rich
literary and cultural tradition of India in the most splendid way. He is
a keen observer of life and world, which seems significant in his
verses. His poems in this collection are: Native Links, City Of Joy, Missing Link, Peace In No Man’s Land, Life Beyond, My Life, History Of Land and My Sap Of Writing.
Salman Rushdie once said, “A poet’s work… to name the unnameable,
to point at frauds, to take sides, start argument, shape the world and
stop it from going to sleep.”
The poets in this anthology, Poetic Connections, have the
strength and zeal to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take
sides, start argument, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep. A
must read compilation for all.
- By Varsha Singh
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