Aneek Chatterjee (Voices Within 2023)

Aneek Chatterjee is from Kolkata, India. He has published more than five hundred poems in reputed literary magazines and poetry anthologies across the globe. He authored 16 books including four poetry collections. He also co-edited one poetry anthology. Dr. Chatterjee received the prestigious “Alfredo Pasilono Memorial Panorama International Literary Award 2023”, conferred by the Writers Capital Foundation. He was a Fulbright Visiting faculty at the University of Virginia, USA and a recipient of the ICCR Chair (Govt. of India) to teach abroad. His poetry has been archived at Yale University. He can be reached at: akchatjee@gmail.com

 

 

Molten Silver is Dripping on the River

 

This evening believes

there is no bickering, no rivalry,

no war, no hatred on earth.

Molten silver is dripping on the

river, --- alms from the moon, --- smiling

and gossiping with the happy river.

Trees and bushes and each grass on earth

are also engrossed in chats.

 

This evening is different.

My hand is also engrossed in yours, 

soft and warm, like silver drops

from the moon.

There is no bickering, no vengeance,

no hatred on earth.

There is no other human

on earth too. Only two souls,

a river, a moon, trees and bushes

and grass, --- green and golden. 

 #

This evening is crafted for unspoken,

but not unheard words of love; ---

nothing else, only silent

and unending tales of love.

 

Onlooker

 

I am unable to jump into

issues you raise, right or wrong.

Mostly an onlooker, cracks and

damages are evident to me.

I wish to see and gain, strength.

But the iron wires around you

stare at me, like a mirror, ---

an onlooker

 

Lullaby

 

The glass I raised looked happy

with bubbles and gold.

Every glass everyone raised

looked happy with cheering

bubbles and gold flowing out.

One corner

of the room  however witnessed

the death of ecstasy in every

bubble. And suddenly a vacant seat

in the corner began to sing

a lullaby for me.

---

Setu, November 2023 :: Voices Within 2023

Poetry: Aneek Chatterjee (Tagore Special)

Aneek Chatterjee

Nibaran, Amito & Shibnath*

In this summer, Amito Roy proposed:

‘Let’s go to Shillong for a trip.

We plan to take Nibaran Charabarty, the

sensational poet along; you’ll enjoy his new,

radically different verse’.

I felt tempted & when I was about

to agree, Gora rushed in:

‘Dada, people are dying in the pandemic

& you’re sitting idle ? Come with me,

the world needs you’. 

 

When I was eating & sleeping poetry;

when I was living & revelling in

my poetry, Charulata threw her published poem

on my face. I was stunned to discover the talent,

whom I always knew as a pretty home maker. 

 

At the dead of each dark night,

when I face you, Tagore,

thousand lights glow & tell me afresh

about a poet, novelist, short story teller, painter,

singer, nationalist, social thinker & a lot more …  

 

& when night fades into dawn,

my feared school teacher, Shibnath babu,

who has both sting & teeth,

appears with a long stick:

‘you idiot, don’t just stand here;

go & read Tagore, to know

the mystery of life & beyond’.  

 

After about three hours, in the library,

Nibaran Chakrabarty says:

always look for the new, for the fresh,

come out of monotony, see the world.

*All names used in this poem are from novels and stories written by Tagore

 

Bio: Aneek Chatterjee is a poet and academic from Kolkata, India. He has been published in reputed literary magazines and anthologies across the globe. He authored 15 books including three poetry collections and a novel. His third poetry collection “of Ashes and Persiflage” (New Delhi and Kolkata, Hawakal) came out in November, 2020. Chatterjee has a Ph.D. in International Relations; and has been teaching in leading Indian and foreign universities. He was a Fulbright Visiting faculty at the University of Virginia, USA and a recipient of the prestigious ICCR Chair to teach abroad. His poetry has been archived at Yale University. 

---

Tagore Special :: Setu, May 2022

Voices Within: Aneek Chatterjee

Aneek Chatterjee is a poet and academic from Kolkata, India. He has been published in reputed literary magazines and anthologies across the globe. He authored 14 books including three poetry collections and a novel. His third poetry collection “of Ashes and Persiflage” (New Delhi and Kolkata, Hawakal) came out in November 2020. Chatterjee has a Ph.D. in International Relations; and has been teaching in leading Indian and foreign universities. He was a Fulbright Visiting faculty at the University of Virginia, USA and a recipient of the prestigious ICCR Chair to teach abroad. His poetry has been archived at Yale University.

Lonely Lamppost

Standing here for decades like

a lonely lamppost, bereft of any lamp.

Beneath, human beings walk and sit

silently; like a magical show 

of sudden appearances.

They don't argue, don't quarrel, don't cry.

They only walk silently. They only follow.

And when they're tired, they sit and sleep

below, with fellow stones strewn around.

On a cloudy morning, in a clever Saturday, 

one stone got tired of all the glare. 

His friends climbed up silently 

and killed the lamp, 

the lonely lamp, in a lonely lamppost 

that used to giggle.

Now all stones can walk and work silently.

Sit and sleep without any glare, any giggle, any light. 

Now everybody can follow 

the desired in dark; 

talk in hush syllables, without argument. 

Now they look at the lamppost 

bereft of lamp and light,

and cherish a crippled sculpture, 

designed by stones in saturdays and mondays, 

all days, months and years.

***

Amoeba

The vast, ancient ceiling was 

ridiculing me from above. 

Suddenly I doubted my existence 

and felt like a tiny insect 

or an amoeba, you can’t normally see. 

Quickly it dropped two huge iron beams 

to crush my fragile glass, -- my id 

 

After a devastating war, the must-survive 

amoeba looked up 

to view many visible cracks 

on the powered ceiling 

***

Mother

She sent me to the river 

to bring water she believed 

best for her plants. 

Her garden had many colors 

and her kitchen; and the sweaters 

she knitted. 

Our drawing room had many colors, and 

our plates for lunch and dinner. 

She smelt my sweater, in my absence, 

I knew. She smelt my eyes when I 

was before

 

Now the glow of twilight 

is smelling her; there is no water 

in any river I know; all plates are pale white 

and broken. She is lying now; and the discourteous 

twilight has stolen all colors in the world

to shower on her.

***

---

Setu, February 2022

Solstice: Collection of Haikus

Book Review by Aneek Chatterjee

Rajorshi Patranabis (2021), Solstice: Collection of Haikus, New Delhi: Authorspress, pp. 57; Price: ₹ 295; $ 25. 

                          Haiku is a short form of Japanese poetry, now used globally. In English language poetry, Haiku has become very popular due to the challenges it offered to the author, -- seventeen sound units, traditionally known as ‘On’ or ‘Morae’ in the Japanese language, broken into a 5-7-5 format. Initially, in the English language, sound units were taken as syllables, although these were not quite the same, and put into a 5-7-5 syllabic format. Therefore, initial English language haiku followed the 5-7-5 syllabic pattern; although with the passage of time this pattern was not always followed by poets. This was because Haiku provided ample space for experimentation beyond the 5-7-5 pattern. This kind of experimentation also gave birth to some related forms of Haiku, like ‘Haibun’, ‘Haiga’, ‘Kuhi’ etc. These preliminary words were necessary to understand Rajorshi Patranabis’ collection of Haiku titled “Solstice”, which provided the readers a combination of the 5-7-5 format and other short variations of poetry, with a three-line structure followed throughout the volume, -- for all short poems. 

                        In “Solstice”, mindscape invites nature, love, nostalgia, melancholy to be companions; as author Rajorshi Patrnabis sets out for a poetic journey. “Freak escapade, pines in hill, / plums delight, big water side, / Shillong, your name is love …” Love for a city in the Himalayas, we know as Shillong, has been portrayed through the canvas of nature, in a simplistic, yet magnetic way, in these lines. Rhyming in three lines? Yes, Rajorshi provides the reader with that luxury as well: “Sense remains in absurd thought / Melancholy, that peace had sought / Love me violent, bleed in clot …” These rhymed stanza brilliantly exposes the longings of a soul which seeks violent love, because in its absence, peace only brings eternal melancholy. This craze for love continues in another rhyming poem: “Darkness beckoned your lips to my lip / Day ushers and you leave me with weep / Flowers still garden my grave, resident in you deep …” It would not be an exaggeration to term “Solstice” as a collection of love poems, because majority of short pieces in this volume depict the poet’s unending quest for love. For instance, read the following poems: “Pyre in flames / Rush to your bedside, / “Yours forever now.” or, “Your eyes feigned ignorance / We are destined / Unruly unison …” or, “In your greens do I bleed blue / Deep ignorance, my heart does rue / And in your red, I flow through you …” or, “I lived to love / Love till the end / End begins with you …” In all these stanzas, love is ubiquitous; in different hues, variegated colors, invisible postures. The last poem quoted above, follows a unique pattern where the last word of the previous line becomes the first word of the following line. Call it “Chain Verse” or “Enjambment”; to the poet and to readers like me these are only adorable, excellent love poems.  

                          The beauty of nature mingles happily with the inner cravings for love in this volume. As poet Gopal Lahiri observes in the ‘Foreword’ to the book: “For Rajorshi, haiku is not a ripple induced by currents, but an echo of love and devotion which explore the silences and undulations”. In “Solstice”, the poet makes his invisible sorrow, cheers and pain for love visible only to nature, and to his readers. Consider these lines: 

Rajorshi Patranabis

“Orange Sunset 

Twilight red 

Purple hearted ecstasy …” 

and: 

“Hands on my heart 

Tears drenched my chest 

Last of your first touch …”     

or:  

“Trickling down the slopes 

Sprinkles of gold 

Heaven’s backyard …”  

or: 

“You see me through 

Throughout your pains 

Love’s hegemony …”  

In his collection Rajorshi used punctuation marks, capital letters at the start of each line and ellipsis at the end of the third line in almost all haiku, barring one or two; -- not very common usages in traditional haiku writings. Did those ellipsis marks point towards the unending journey of love or parts of his experimentation with haiku? The poet knew best. These might appear out of sync to the traditionalists, but such usages actually fitted well with his compositions.   

                   In every haiku of this worthy collection “Night smells you / Stars see you / Lost somewhere, I feel you …” We also feel the poet through his lovely creations; through his imageries and metaphors; through his unveiling of emotions and desires. Poet and painter Sarbajit Sarkar correctly observes in ‘Some Thoughts on Solstice’, included in the volume: “In Solstice, Rajorshi achieved this rare feat by integrating sun’s celestial navigation of coming to a solstice with the inner joy of his own life”. Strangely enough, this ‘joy’ often also contains pains, only the search for love knows and feels. This unending quest for love finds an abode, temporarily perhaps, in Rjorshi Patranabis’ “Solstice: Collection of Haikus”, which is surely a collector’s item. 

***

Author's Bio:                              

Rajorshi Patranabis, a multilingual poet and translator, is a food consultant by profession. He had been published in many national and international journals. He has three collections of English poetry, one collection of Bengali poetry and one book of translations. Solstice is his most recent collection of haikus in English.

Reviewer’s Bio:

Aneek Chatterjee is a poet and academic from Kolkata, India. He has been published in reputed literary magazines and poetry anthologies across the globe. He authored 14 books including three poetry collections and a novel. His third poetry collection titled “of Ashes and Persiflage” (New Delhi and Kolkata, Hawakal) came out in November, 2020. Chatterjee has a Ph.D. in International Relations; and has been teaching in leading Indian and foreign universities. He was a Fulbright Visiting faculty at the University of Virginia, USA and a recipient of the prestigious ICCR Chair to teach abroad. His poetry has been archived at Yale University.

---

Setu, June 2021

Outward from Inner Things: a review of "Of Ashes and Persiflage"

Review by Sutanuka Ghosh Roy

Title: Of Ashes and Persiflage

Author: Aneek Chatterjee

Page: 84

ISBN: 978-81-8961948538-3-1 (Paperback)

Edition: (2020)

Published by Hawakal Publishers, Calcutta, New Delhi India.

 Aneek Chatterjee is a poet and academic from Kolkata. He has been published in various reputed literary magazines and anthologies across the globe. Of Ashes and Persiflage are his third collection of poetry after Seaside Myopia (2018) and Unborn Poems and Yellow Prison (2019). Writing poetry is an intensely personal experience while putting it out for the world to read is quite the opposite and poet Aneek Chatterjee explores juxtapositions akin to these and more---some very corporal, some very metaphoric—in Of Ashes and Persiflage. The title “Of Ashes and Persiflage” has a magnetic pull because of the element of drama in it. According to the poet,” many of these poems were first published in reputed literary journals in the U.S.A., U.K., South Africa, Mauritius, Singapore and India. These are unrhymed poems, composed in free verse” (Introduction). It is his response to stimuli but one good thing about this form is that if one continues to evolve and hopefully Chatterjee is, then there is a richer texture to one’s response even on a familiar stretch. In this collection, Chatterjee mixes love, despair and hope suggesting the binaries of individual identity and anonymity. He writes, “The train that slowly moved/past a dilapidated wall, / pink flowers, suddenly took/ a reverse gear” (“Dilapidated Wall”, 13). There is a neatness that adds rare verve to his poems. In “This Afternoon is Grey”(14) he writes, “This afternoon is grey/All lights were switched on early/I know every bit of this/surreal world, brown door, every bit…/But I never knew/I loved grey so much”(14). 

Sutanuka Ghosh Roy

 The poet’s soft-focus is life, human life with its myriad hues, their substance liquefied in dappled tones. “I stitch words/for a ballad/& decorate these on my page/ When I open the page/It’s only a tabula rasa” (“Barren Page”, 15) exploring relationships between the self and words/stillness, breaking down his process of recreating an intimate moment in his poetry and often stretching its infinitesimal capacity by testing emotional limits, Chatterjee has produced a body of poems that is minimal to the eye, yet profound in its layers of meaning. “I’m still flying/I’m still flying in danger/without energy & colour/you’re unable to/figure out” (“Coveted Seat”, 20) the poet thus captures a significant part of the breadth of human emotions. When Chatterjee writes, “The mirror survived,/but the piece of wood/broke down in shame/& the mirror stood alone, as always”(“Piece of wood”, 21) he tries to show how to live with oneself and to write in expressing the solitude one has to tear away until one is left with oneself.

 Some of his poems are buoyed with quizzical humour---‘you idiots made a hue and cry/over my health, fought over me, / but could not save me’ (“Fossil”, 22). There is a swift gliding when he writes “Summer gone, rains /came/But the sky remained/blue” (“Blue in Rains”, 23), feather-light bristles that arrest words in dense splotches at places---favouring in both cases, chance over life. At the other end of the spectrum is his poem “About time & pride” (24), very sharp, feisty and a fey stylization ideal for telling stories. The paradoxes in his vision are fashioned much after what the average human being also experiences, thereby making Of Ashes and Persiflage intensely relatable in their emotional quotient. Sometimes Chatterjee’s canvas reflects hope in the form of uninterrupted and calming colours—“The colour I see gets coloured/according to my desire, my wish/my ego, my people” (“Colours”, 35), the poet thus strips down the range of human emotions through colours and textures.

 “Not easy to sleep/in ruins/the debris, the holocaust/ come back in short naps,” (“Ruins, 32), the poet thus makes a familiar experience seem a little too extraordinary. What one finds most intriguing in Chatterjee’s poems is an attempt to arrest a moment of truth in a tasteful manner. Life isn’t static. Each day has something to offer. Of Ashes and Persiflage has captured that. Certain poems help him to make sense of his situation. He wrestles for nuance by wrenching words and woes like “I wasn’t in my senses/ and longed for/ a glass of water” (“Mythology of Mind”, 40). Some poems like “Green Packets’, (44) dip into his emotional deposits, other poems like “The Music” (47) document the demotic. The poet however teases the medium into drier, speckled textures in his best work, “Of Ashes and Persiflage” (46). “Chair looks at the corpse/for one last time, and status/Belongings, wealth and/ego each in persiflage/The fire is waiting,/ time is waiting, and the ultimate ash,/to embrace all hankers, ladder, perfume/and vanity: you and me”.(46).‘Art teaches us to see into things’ Chatterjee’s collection Of Ashes and Persiflage allows us to see outward from within things.

 No doubt poetry is the outcome of very personal emotions and expressions. But only those which can make a perfect balance between the personal emotions and realities to represent the time both in eternity and temporal can be considered as true poetry. Chatterjee’s collection Of Ashes and Persiflage creates a perfect balance between personal emotions and his surrounding realities. The beautiful book cover by Bitan Chakraborty is an added embellishment. Hope that this particular collection of Aneek Chatterjee’s poetry pushes Hawakal Prokashona to key stronger poetry collections. The future will be in a better position to answer this.

---

Setu, March 2021

Aneek Chatterjee: Poetry (Voices Within 2021)

Aneek Chatterjee is a poet and academic from Kolkata, India. He has been published in reputed literary magazines and poetry anthologies across the globe. He authored 14 literary and academic books. His latest poetry collection “of Ashes and Persiflage”, published by Hawakal, came out in November, 2020. Chatterjee holds a PhD in International Relations. He was a Fulbright Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia, USA and a recipient of the prestigious ICCR Chair to teach in foreign universities. His poetry has been archived at Yale University.

 

Coffee Cup, Red Cherries

A big meteorite is circling
& mocking everyday sojourn
Treacherous drops of the ocean
jump to my coffee cup
My toes, rhythms with girlfriend
finally dance to a splendid vacuity.
& I respond to calls from red cherries
but a Coelurosauria threatening me
from nowhere
Pubs are full of creatures I haven’t
seen in my plate before, eating
every bit of my food
The fork has only joined the ugly
passage of the meteorite

Red cherries still calling
But my coffee cup has
surrendered to the
Coelurosauria


A Grasshopper Jumps

I present my gloom in a
packet of wondering flowers
Sighs of agony melt
in the skies, above green
forest.
A grasshopper jumps into
the innermost space of my
cardiac chamber and says,
throw your last breaths
to a frolicking children’s
park, in the dazzle of
cosmic rays …

in a sudden dusk


Vacuum

Intricacies have turned
virtual in the new normal
Sure you won’t call me a cad
now if I lovingly throw
you in the air
inside my cell phone
& send the best picture of
a peart somebody,
essay a poem effortless
into your brain.

But show me please,
how can I paint
a ubiquitous vacuum
in the virtual space,
in a new normal ?


Lost Book, Purple Sweater

Now I close the door
Now I close all windows
Put out all lights in the pathway.
Now I darken the moon
Now I darken the brain
to see those who walked
the green grass in misty mornings;
who sang winning songs
beside the piano; who lighted the
stove in the kitchen in winter
nights.
Now I see the coffee cup
& the lost book; the purple sweater
with long hands, long enough to
reach a broad shoulder.
Now I see my sister plucking
yellow flowers, now I see friends
in the football ground

Now I close all doors, all windows
to be eligible to see everything 
in front of my dead eyes

---

Life, Cognition and Creativity 2021 :: Setu, January 2021

Poetry: Aneek Chatterjee

Aneek Chatterjee

Mother

Mother you love me. 

You’ve structured my

daily routine with much care. 

Seven to nine

in the morning: language;

nine to 11: maths;

11 to 1: biology

Lunch, rest etc

thereafter.  

From the afternoon to

late evening: tuition from

reputed teachers

Mother, do you know

a football ground

laughs in my language book; 

grasshoppers jump from

biology lessons;

& an ominous planet threatens

me from my physics lexicon ?

#

Sometimes I want to be

your father

& wish to take you back

to days of yore  

when you played hide &

seek, kho – kho;

when you dreamed to be a

leg spinner; 

& tell you 

stop spinning around

your son 

______________________________

Elders!

Look at the lovely sky

Where I wish to fly

The aroma of flower

Signals nature’s power 

The naughty river flows

Through jungle, meadows 

I’ve visited in my dream. 

But I like to scream

When a dog crashes under the car

A bird is caged by the neighbor; 

& there is a fence around my mind

Oh elders, be patient, be kind

________________________________________

Bio: Aneek Chatterjee is a poet and academic from Kolkata, India. He has been published in reputed literary magazines and poetry anthologies across the globe. His recent credits are:  Chiron Review, Better Than Starbucks, Poetry Potion, Shot Glass Journal, The Stray Branch, Dissident Voice, Café Dissensus, Literary Yard, Ann Arbor Review, Chicago Record, Setu, Ethos Literary Journal, GloMag, New Asian Writing, Montreal Writes, Scarlet Leaf Review, Pangolin Review, Mark Literary Review, Merak Magazine, Taj Mahal Review etc. He authored 13 books including two poetry collections titled “Seaside Myopia” & "Unborn Poems and Yellow Prison" (Cyberwit.net), and a novel named “The Funeral Procession”.  Chatterjee has a Ph.D. in International Relations; and has been teaching in leading Indian and foreign universities. His poetry has been archived at Yale University.

---

Children's Literature 2020 :: Setu, July 2020

Aneek Chatterjee (Voices Within)

Aneek Chatterjee is a poet and academic from Kolkata, India. He has been published in reputed literary magazines and poetry anthologies across the globe. His recent credits are: New Asian Writing, Chicago Record, Ethos Literary Journal, Shot Glass Journal, GloMag, The Stray Branch, Ann Arbor Review, Montreal Writes, etc. He authored two poetry collections “Seaside Myopia” & "Unborn Poems and Yellow Prison". Chatterjee has a ph.d. in International Relations; and he taught at the University of Virginia, USA as a Fulbright Visiting fellow. He also received the prestigious ICCR Chair to teach at reputed foreign universities.

Chocolate Square

they won’t allow me to the podium

so i climbed up a tree with great difficulty

i could have climbed the podium

with much ease; they won’t allow

the tree is much above the podium

much higher to me, my now forgotten id,

much higher …

the happy chairs look so small,

flowers decorating the podium look so plastic

faces of vibrant dead men are nothing

but surreal paintings

and the lady announcer

vanished all of a sudden

the podium invited me, why, i do not know

they obstructed my entry, why, i do know

happy chairs turned sad, why, i don’t know

plastic flowers appeared real, why, i do not know

why the lady vanished, i don’t know

why I climbed up the tree, i do know

#

my solace, my id now scanned the podium

my tired hands and legs instructed me

to stay on the tree

chairs look so small, and the podium

a little box i fancied as chocolate square

in childhood

chocolate chairs adults prefer

in a little box

Dilapidated Wall

The train that slowly moved

past a dilapidated wall,

pink flowers, suddenly took

a reverse gear

A boy surreptitiously

crossed a big whole in an

ancient wall to fish from the

black, silent pond;

pink flowers watching with

surprised birds and ghosts

And in winter nights,

the dilapidated wall crumbled

several times to allow dacoits

with big, primitive guns.

The boy shivered in fear

till the morning whistle

of the locomotive creates

a rhythm of safety

and silent laughter

Inside Out

Wrinkles on my face

are like unhappy lines of

a dry river bed.

They’re saying

I’m getting old. In every winter

breathing trouble ails me

& I’m unable to express my feelings

due to intermittent bouts of cough

Arteries & veins inside my body

are getting thicker due to trashes

gathered from society & flow of

oxygen to my heart is getting choked

day by day

But believe me, I’m young at heart

I still love migratory birds to adorn my gardens

I like mothers peeling oranges for their

children in sunny winter mornings

I like the tingling sounds of

uncertain trams sailing over

I play football with both

green-maroon & yellow-red jerseys

Long addas on cemented rocks

still rejuvenate me like a sudden

poem in the dingy, smoky coffee house.

Don’t look at my face

You may be fooled

Instead dig deep into my heart,

my young heart

I’m waiting for

a magic touch from you

to turn a dry river bed

into a flowing Ganga in search

of the magnanimous ocean

---

Voices Within-2020 :: Setu, February 2020

Book Review: Aneek Chatterjee’s Seaside Myopia

Review by: Sandipta Kanti Nag

Associate Professor of English and Literary Critic

---

Seaside Myopia: A Book of Poems
Author: Aneek Chatterjee
Publisher: Cyberwit.net, 2018
ISBN: 978-93-88125-25-3
Price: ₹ 200 INR; $ 15 USD

---

                           “Seaside Myopia: A Book of Poems” authored by Aneek Chatterjee and published by Cyberwit.net (2018) sails through poems culled from different genres and styles, varying from dark poetry to poems waxing eloquently on love, relationship and sensuality. The poet’s perspective is sui-generis – to connect himself with his landscape as well as his mindscape in particular; or, we may say, to the universe and the cosmos in general. Chatterjee’s poetry highlights his startling ability to amalgamate tradition and modernity to assume a new role of a poet speaking for humanity across the national borders and the amazing plasticity of his diction that incorporates the demands of particular moods. A sensitive reader of his poems, that have emerged from “daily life and societal milieu; poems crafted out of melancholy and joy” (Preface of the Book), cannot fail to discern a poetic subtlety in Chatterjee’s poetry that makes him a poet with a diversity of ideas and inclinations, with a finely tuned aesthetics and great command over language and style. The sole aim of referring to such wide ranging critical evaluation of a poet is to harp on the richness and authenticity embedded in the poems of Chatterjee. One need not, by accident even, misread such evaluative statements as mere eulogy without its solid anchorage in “Seaside Myopia”.

Aneek Chatterjee

                             Poems included in the book eminently bear the stamp of the poet’s originality, both in terms of handling the creative medium with felicity and ease and of perambulating between the landscape and inscape with a view to mould a vision which is earth-bound, land-bound, and yet which can experience an untrammeled, uninhibited magical ecstasy of being amongst ‘waves’, ‘sand’, ‘children’ and ‘seagulls’, as in the title poem of the volume. Aneek Chatterjee’s poetry also evidences a queer and, at times, an intriguing blend of a romantic mind with modern sensibility. In the very opening (dark) poem of this volume, one comes across a queer ‘Reminiscence’ in which the poet harps on the shock of his discovery of the strange ways of the world. This poem effortlessly blends the present life to an earlier life, where a person was shot by someone he trusted. Or is it a reflection of our feeling that we get shot at every day, every moment of our existence? The shock and wound that come from societal horror of the landscape, beyond self, got eerily painted:
                           He will cross tramlines, pubs
                           and a theater, a school
                           He will enter a by-lane
                           I know very well ….

                           and shoot me                          (Reminiscence) 

Sandipta Kanti Nag

                      The poet moves easily from a dark world to the world of love and emotion. He succeeds in showing the gap between the security of the private world sanctioned by love, and the insecurity of the public life, mired with fear and crisis. Chatterjee is at his lyrical best in some of his remarkable love poems, not found frequently now-a-days:
                             Touch me, touch my heart; I look up
                             at your face, and loudly say
                             ‘shut the world and let me love
                             like an insane’, every moment n every day             (Shut the World)

We sail through magical rhymes with the poet in another love poem:

                                  My boat is ready for you
                                  Feel free to sail through

                                  the blue waters, away from shore
                                  Away from mundanity and more

                                  Away from beloved garden and film show
                                  Will you ? I am afraid of hearing a ‘no’          (A New World Beckons)

With love, sensuality takes a considerable shape in Chatterjee’s anthology, and he is equally comfortable in his portrayals:

                                   You’ve uncovered me
                                    and my ecstasy
                                    in this moonlit night 

                                    As you groan loud in joy
                                    Hillocks tell me
                                    they have been conquered in silence

                                    In a surreal moonlight                                      (Surreal Moonlight)

                 
                        If Chatterjee traverses through tradition in hillocks, moonlight, love and sensuality; he also paints with equal ease the ‘cloggy by-lanes’ of the modern world. In one of the efficient Triolets, he depicts nuances of the modern life:

                              I wanted to see light in darkness
                              But unruly mind did not want a vision
                              Carnivals dance floor fuelled me to express
                              I wanted to see light in darkness
                              Urban flights, diamond smile, unworthy to impress
                              Dark by-lanes strewn inside, cloggy passion                   (Dark By-lanes) 

The modern mind is storage of the complexities of the modern world; and the poet is fully aware of such complexities:

                                And mind is a blackhole
                                Sucks sunshine and the cactus
                                white and yellow
                                sucks the sand
                                green blue red and black 
                                …………………………………
                                Mind sucks blackholes
                                Time sand and the cactus
                                watch in silence                                      (Blackholes Sand …) 


                        The presence of sorrow, pain and sufferings, apart from love and sensuality, in different poems of the volume makes “Seaside Myopia” a fascinating read. The inescapable sorrow and pain in all the visible and invisible avenues of life have been aptly portrayed in the volume. Poems like ‘Circle of Melancholy’, ‘Pencil in My Brain’, ‘Dinner Table’, ‘Alien’, ‘The Ivory Tower’ excel in this realm. One is often struck also by similes and imageries in several poems, like in the ‘Rains’:

                                  Rains came
                                  at 11 a.m.
                                  on punctured tyre and broken chain.
                                  On john’s tin roof
                                  with dancing mango pickles                                (Rains)
                             
and in ‘Mud’:

                                   Look, I’m drenched in mud
                                  thrown from all sides and, heaven.
                                  Look, I’m thrilled with mud
                                  of all colors.
                                  Is mud part of the curricula ?                               (Mud)   

                      There are some jarring effects in a few poems that shake and destabilize readers, like ‘my contact with a drenched body’ (p.33); ‘liquid comes out, strange, / human blood’ (p.14); ‘Do I search a mind in the corpse?’ (p.15);  or ‘Torn hair of raped sister’ (p.14). But such jarring effects make the reader face realities of a dark time we are passing through. Overall, “Seaside Myopia” makes a rewarding read. What strikes most is the poet’s immaculate willingness to connect the self with the other, body with soul, person with the landscape and the universe. The volume deserves a place in every poetry lover’s bookshelf and in every library.
                              __________________________________________________ 

The Author: Aneek Chatterjee is an Indian poet and academic from Kolkata and author of “Seaside Myopia: A Book of Poems” (Cyberwit.net, 2018). He has been published in literary magazines in the USA, Canada, Australia, UK, Mauritius, Philippines, Bangladesh and India. His poems have been included in eight anthologies also; -- all published from the USA. Chatterjee has a ph.d. in International Relations. He also authored and edited 9 academic books and a novel titled “The Funeral Procession”, besides numerous articles. He taught at the University of Virginia, USA as a Fulbright Visiting fellow.

The Reviewer: Sandipta Kanti Nag is currently working as Associate Professor of English in Hooghly Mohsin College, one of the prestigious academic institutions in India, established in 1836. His recent  credits are: ‘Poems from Santiniketan', an anthology of poems from Visva-Bharati University;  'Mati o Manush' from Dhaka, Bangladesh; 'Indo-French Festival Volume' from the old French city of Chandernagore; 'The Presidency  College Magazine' from Kolkata; translations in 'Kabita o Samaj' from Kolkata; 'More Poems from Santiniketan'; articles in 'Indo-Anglian Literature: Past to Present', in the ‘175th Anniversary Volume of Hooghly Mohsin College and miscellaneous columns on literature and society in books and journals of repute.

Setu, April 2019

Voices Within: Aneek Chatterjee

Aneek Chatterjee is an Indian poet and academic from Kolkata and author of “Seaside Myopia: A Book of Poems” (Cyberwit.net, 2018). He has been published in literary magazines in the USA, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Mauritius, Philippines and India. His poems have been included in eight anthologies also; -- all published from the USA. Chatterjee has a Ph.D. in International Relations. He also authored and edited 9 academic books and a novel titled “The Funeral Procession”, besides numerous articles. He taught at the University of Virginia, USA as a Fulbright Visiting fellow.

Unborn Poems and Yellow Prison

I do not have much time.

Remove the sheet of mist

from the mustard field

I wish to see pranks of

yellow flowers,

wish to enjoy their blinks

under the winter sun

Let me see the river

playing hide and seek

with me, fishes

Do not net them

I’m averse to any prison,

red, blue or yellow

Let the fish swim in fancy

and wave to me,

let the tree

whisper agony in my ears

Do not talk loud

Poems are ready to have

a free, silent birth

#

Do not be the wall

along the mustard field,

yellow flowers and unborn

poems

My river has all the time

to break any shackle

The Ancient Stoic

The river comes to you

and whispers: can you

see everything like

before, old fellow?

The river cleanses your feet

and pays homage

The air is engaged in

all kinds of pranks

with you.

Have you seen the carnival

last night, and physical

intimacy of young lovers?

Have you seen blood

of the murdered washed

away by waters,

and heard uncontrolled

cries of the mother ?

I hate your stoicism

over the ages, but silently aspire

to be like you,

now and always.

The Last Poem

A crow sitting on

a dry naked branch

has been shouting ruins

The morbid sound of a

dilapidated tram has irked

his senses

I searched love in

a dingy by-lane

The bluish ash cat only

watched

I can still hear those melodious

tunes making the tree

grow again

I can see mother knitting

the dream sweater in

winter sun

I’m still playing hide

& seek with the air,

& all children

#

The crow is shouting

harsh in ruins;

& amid ruins everywhere

I try to compose my last

poem, under a

winter sun

Journey

At a meeting of the dead recently

the bearded man demanded

that he be shaved clean

immediately

The young lad wanted a football

ground on his book

The girl shouted for roads

free of pigs, & the lady

supported her

The crow dropped a lizard

from its beak & wished

pieces of cooked chicken

instead

The queen held on to

her jewelry,

& the musicians

threw away their piano, guitar,

drums & violin

Life only smiled

in silent vengeance

Voices Within - Complete List of Poets :: Setu, January 2019