Setu 🌉 सेतु: Guest-Editorial: Winging through Gloom: Poetry of Hope and Recovery (Padmaja Paddy-Iyengar)

Padmaja Iyengar-Paddy
SETU –Women’s Special Edition

Respected Setu readers and my dear poet friends,

Greetings. I follow Cricket very closely as I love this sport. I often keep searching for analogies from Cricket for my writings. In respect of this March 2022 Women’s Special Edition of Setu, I can very well say that I’ve hit a four – a boundary in cricketing terminology - considering that this is my 4^th year as the Guest Editor for SETU’s March Special Edition, dedicated to women poets!
~ Padmaja Iyengar-Paddy, India

This year’s theme very aptly is WINGING THROUGH GLOOM: POETRY OF HOPE AND RECOVERY, conceived and suggested by Dr. Sunil Sharma, Editor-English, SETU.

Hope and recovery have been the constant mantras post the pandemic vestiges of which still remain in our midst. Care and caution continue to guide our day-to-day life, which needs to go on! Let’s never forget to mask up when we step out, please!

When a batsman hits a four, the ball crosses the boundary fetching him four runs. And the entire stadium erupts into a demonstration of rapture and celebrations. This fourth stint of mine as the Guest Editor for SETU- March, 2022 - Women’s Special Edition, gives me very much the same feeling as if I have hit a four, celebrating the 4years of my association with SETU – March Special Edition since 2019.

I experienced the same feelings of joy and pride that I felt in the earlier years too, when Dr. Sunil Sharma, Editor-English, SETU, invited me for the fourth year in a row, to helm SETU, March, 2022 Women’s Special Edition, as the Guest Editor. I readily accepted this interesting assignment! I feel a sense of gratitude and also feel deeply touched by the confidence and faith Dr. Sharma has been reposing in me year after year since the last four years to take up the Guest Editor’s role in SETU’s March Special Edition. A special thanks to Mr. Anurag Sharma, Editor.

For the world, the last two years, have not been normal, with the pandemic COVID-19 and OMICRON giving us nightmares. Masking and sanitising have become a way of life! However, in the last few months, there does appear to be some respite. The pandemic cases are showing a steady decline and slowly but cautiously, we are returning to normalcy. The Covid Vaccinations too are being carried out on mission mode across the globe.

It is in this backdrop that Dr. Sunil Sharma, Editor, SETU, came up with an interesting and apt theme for this year’s March Special Edition viz: WINGING THROUGH GLOOM: POETRY OF HOPE AND RECOVERY.

As always, I thoroughly enjoyed the process of inviting select women poets from India and other countries to contribute their poems on the aforementioned theme. The invited women poets from India and other countries, all of them accomplished poets, and known to me over the years, have shared their excellent theme-based poems that are sensitively-penned and thought provoking.

The entire process of inviting and interacting with the select women poets to contribute their poems, has been very pleasant and special for me. It was truly a learning experience for me to read and compile the poems contributed by the talented women poets, each presenting her own perspective of Hope and Recovery. After all, the pandemic has made everyone nervous and cautious, and these do get reflected in some of the poems. However, the sense of hope and recovery are palpable in most poems.

This year, 21 women poets have contributed their poems – from Canada, Greece, Italy, Malaysia, Portugal, USA, and India.

My deepest gratitude to the women poets who responded to SETU’s call and have made the valuable contribution of their poems to this Special Women’s Edition of Setu, on the theme of “WINGING THROUGH GLOOM: POETRY OF HOPE AND RECOVERY”.

I welcome you all to visit www.setumag.com and enjoy the rich fare of poetry in SETU’s March 2022 Women’s Special Edition!

Padmaja Iyengar-Paddy

Guest Editor, Setu, March 2022

WINGING THROUGH GLOOM: POETRY OF HOPE AND RECOVERY