A new anthology brings together poetry of dissent from all over India

    03-Sep-2021
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Nabina Das & Nirupama Dutt
Contd from previous issue
Poet Parul Khakhar’s “Shav Vahini Ganga” (Ganga the Flowing Hearse) which we read when this book was already completed, resonated with our inner cry of O Ganga tumi, Ganga boichho keno (O Ganga why do you flow on). Memory indeed fights forgetting in Witness by Red River through poetic testimonies, exactly as poet-anthologist Carolyn Forche´ had compiled in her anthology, on which Nelson Mandela showered these pertinent words: “Poetry cannot block a bullet or still a sjambok, but it can bear witness to brutality – thereby cultivating a flower in a graveyard.”
Excerpted with permission from ‘The Editor’s Note’, by Nabina Das, and the ‘Introduction’, by Nirupama Dutt, from Witness: The Red River Book of Poetry of Dissent, edited by Nabina Das, Red River. The Print