Voices Within: Naina Dey

Naina Dey is a critic, translator and a widely anthologized creative writer. She has authored several books on critical studies, translations and her publications include two volumes of poetry. She was awarded the “Excellence in World Poetry Award, 2009 by the International Poets Academy, Chennai and was among a team of young Indian writers felicitated jointly by Sahitya Akademi and Visva-Bharati University in 2010. Of her latest publications are a translation of Upendrakishore Ray Choudhury’s “Gupi Gain O Bagha Bain” and One Dozen Stories, a book of short story translations. She is concept creator of literary and artistic organ Chamunda’s Dream. Naina is currently working on her third poetry book.

Let me write a poem

Let me write a poem

tonight

Let me be

all alone

wrapped in silence

as I unwrap my heart

peeling away its flimsy glitter

gently

bit by bit

Let me be

so, I can mould my heart 

the way I want

like a child’s clay

pressed and squeezed

into a leaf, a bud, a star

that will delight

not bleed

over snow-white laces

laid for tea

Let me bathe 

in the sweet-sourness 

of pictures and words and rhymes

Let me alone

so, I can turn into a poem

***

Evening

On some dejected evenings

after the crimson ball of fire

has dropped in the west

the steps of life grow dim

The dying light

streaks my cheek

with the mantra of primal desire

for survival and immortality

dum spiro spero

***

A Hymn to Hope

Let tulips bloom

from the blood 

of battered hearts and veins

Let music water

the tender shoots of hope

that peer from the crevices

of lonely days

Let poetry bridge 

the distance

between dis-eased minds

Cement our resolve

for a world full of grace

Let us have Light 

after a night of pain

***

---

Setu, February 2022