Poetry: Voices Within 2019: Guest Editor’s Note

Gopal Lahiri: Guest Editor

It’s always a challenging task to identify the different voices in a poem. The poetic voices are always rooted in some characteristic elements which brings an edgy energy. Different voices in poetry can also be like instruments in an orchestra, adding coatings of sound and tone.

For this, I am extending my sincere gratitude to Dr. Sunil Sharma, the editor of the English Section of Setu, the bilingual literary journal, published from Pittsburgh, USA, for giving me the opportunity to guest edit the special poetry section titled ‘Voices Within’ where the best poems of the established as well as young Indian Poets writing in English are included.

Robert Frost once said ‘Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words’. It’s in fact none of a poem’s effects function in isolation. But it’s also true that the total of all the separate parts can in no way add up to the functioning whole. But it’s the act of analysis that may be revealing

It’s quite natural that even a poet is also speaking in different voices. In this collection titled ‘Voices Within’, some poems are strikingly inward, some makes hidden regions visible, some traces the sound wave paths within where the self dissolves into many voices. Some poems are meditative, humane and moving.

The unsentimental language and the arrangement of words and phrases, the breadth of form and content, the range of imagery and craft - all roll into a perfect poem. Poetry is all about understanding- not everyone reads a poem the same way, and that is the prettiness and truth of it all.

There are no themes in particular for this endeavor but emphasis is given on strong imagery, innovative style and syntax. Selecting poems amongst many isn’t an easy task and long debates ensue silently in your mind - on which poems more than the others. Sometimes there is disappointment when one of your fellow poets doesn’t make the cut.

It’s really heartening to note that the response for this initiative by ‘Setu’ is overwhelming. I am indebted to all the poets for sending their poems written to the best of their capabilities. But not all the poems are in tune with the poetic elements which I am looking for. Unfortunately, I do not feel that all the submissions for ‘Voices Within’ are suitable for publication but do however urge the poets to forward those poems onto other publications in order that as many as possible are able to read. Some of the Bios are edited to make them brief.

A compilation of this size is often said to contain something for everybody and I am sure most of these poems will be endearing to the readers. Admittedly, in this one, every reader is sure to find something to take away. ‘Voices Within’ holds enough evidence to support that claim.

Gopal Lahiri

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Poetry: Voices Within: Authors

1. Ambika Ananth 2. Amit Shankar Saha 3. Aneek Chatterjee 4. Abu Siddik 5. Anuradha Bhattacharyya 6. Ayaz Rasool Nazki 7. Ballari Sen 8. Basudhara Roy 9. Bhaskaranand Jha Bhaskar 10. Chandni Santosh 11. Debendra Sahu 12. Deepak CJ Malakar 13. Gopa Bhattacharjee 14. Hema Ravi 15. Jagari Mukherjee 16. Jamiel Ahmad

17. Kanwar Dinesh Singh 18. Kiriti Sengupta 19. Kushal Poddar 20. K.S. Subramanian 21. Lopamudra Banerjee 22. Molly Joseph 23. Moinak Dutta 24. Mushtaque B Barq 25. Nishi Pulugurtha 26. Nandita Samanta 27. Neetu Vaid Sharma 28. Padmaja Iyengar-Paddy 29. Parneet Jaggi 30. Pitambar Naik 31. Purabi Bhattacharya 32. Raja Chakraborty

33. Ranjana Sharan Sinha 34. Rizwana Parveen 35. Santosh Bakaya 36. Sanjeev Sethi 37. Sangeeta Sharma 38. Sarala Ram Kamal 39. Sanhita Sinha 40. Saikat Gupta Majumdar 41. Sandeep Gupta 42. Shree 43. Sharmila Ray 44. Shristi Sharma 45. Sanjiban Roy 46. Tapeshwar Prasad 47. Vinita Agrawal 48. Wani Nazir

Setu, January 2019