To My Translator
Poetry by Saoirse: ‘let us build a night on the marble edifice / of silence. Spread freshly laundered sheets / over the freckled sky and light / the twin candles of our bodies.’
We Imagine Angels: Two Poems by John Copley Alter
Poetry by John Copley Alter: ‘In the proximity / of other gods—other sutras— / we muttered our creed—you // pecking / away at your manual typewriter— / carbon copies of personal letters / home—to the diaspora—we // noodling on the keyboard of happiness’
What You Can’t Conceal Will Tell Itself
Poem by Manasha Sharma: ‘stumbling and mumbling it shows itself / in a half unscathed smile / in ragged dirty clothes, / my love homes itself before it gathers space.’
‘A silhouette of things’: Two poems by K.S. Subramanian
Poetry by K.S. Subramanian: ‘In a year its ambience malodorous / Inch of space making way to concrete. / Green unseated by thick red brick’
Words, rain, Mozart: Three Poems by Sunil Sharma
Poetry by Sunil Sharma: ‘a sign / from the heavens, a sighting / rare, a visitor infrequent, in the / urban jungle.’
A Recoiled Thunderstorm: Three Poems by Kashiana Singh
Poetry by Kashiana Singh: ‘Flushed body of a zombie, burnt silk of raging worms / beholder of lost labyrinths, embroiderer of membranes’
The Litanies of Your Imaginations: Three Poems by Panchami
Poetry: ‘I want to weave lavender flowers into my hair / love my mother, whose anger / is a withering flower / decomposing to memory / in ash burn lavender.’
Yesterday’s Rain: Six Poems by Sakkho Goon
Poetry: ‘I placed my parents on a bench / And refused to let the sunset / Dawn upon their lives.’
A Better Place to Rest: Three Poems by Kiriti Sengupta
Poetry by Kiriti Sengupta: ‘Death pauses verdict; the authority mars evidence. / The doomed is put on the pyre; rallies slit through / the silence.’
Days Are Whirlpools: Three Poems by K.S. Subramanian
Poetry by K.S. Subramanian: ‘Let me not do a U-turn of my neck / to see the past, skill sets that / lost their spell in time, high hopes / Slithering down a slippery slope’
Inheritance, from Loss
Poetry by Antara Mukherjee: ‘I dig / Into my memoir platter / where shrouded instructions / wrestle with unhealed wounds.’
Bena Sareen, winner of the Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize, speaks about her latest honour and the “huge responsibility” of designing a memorable literary cover. By Chittajit Mitra