My Voice
The month of October is poetry in itself—bringing the sensation of a gentle, rosy chill, the fragrance of festivals, and a mind that feels pleasantly unhurried. This month, in *Kritya*, we feature:
In our ‘Master’ section, we present Pahlavon Mahmoud—a renowned wrestler, poet, and clergyman from a town in Uzbekistan—through translations by Azam Abidov. The beauty and fluidity of the original verse shine clearly through the translation:
The world’s a beauty and you are its face,/Mind’s a river and you’re water – base./Don’t sit on a flower leaf as dew,/In this orchard you’re a sign of grace.
We also present the poetry of Ravichandra P. Chittampalli in our ‘Editor’s Choice’ section; his work beautifully blends linguistic elegance with a fresh perspective on our companionship with nature:
When I stood against the sky,/The world around went still,/The wind died in the throat of the vale,/As the little snowball rolled lazily down./When I stepped off at last,/Fair Beard marched up,/Leaving frosty prints everywhere,/As the ice cracked around the ferrule.
In the ‘In the Name of Poetry’ section, we feature Eduard Harents (Armenia), beautifully capturing the essence of October—its softness and love:
The world’s a beauty and you are its face,/Mind’s a river and you’re water – base./Don’t sit on a flower leaf as dew,/In this orchard you’re a sign of grace.
In the section ‘Poetry in Our Time,’ three poets from three corners of the world are presenting their beautiful expressions. Margarita Drago (Argentina/USA); her poems show hope—
If I had another chance,/I would be the same again./I would embrace the letters/that live inside me,/I would gather the dust from my bones
and with my Nazarene sandals,/witnesses of love and death,/I would begin to walk/the beaten path,/– the south, being always.
my north—/I would overfly prisons and cemeteries/to give life to death/and build paradise/in the kingdom of this earth.
Anjana Vipin Edakkunny is a writer from Kerala, India, currently residing in the United States. Her work often engages with myth, memory, and contemporary experience, tracing how they bleed into one another. Let us read a few of her lines—
I wear the night/like the moon wears/the silhouette/of a rabbit./Smelling of paalapoo/and freshly-strained starchy rice,/the tips of my untied hair hiss/inches from the ground./My laughter splinters the woods/like plucked-out anklet bells hitting
stone floors.
Abiral is a writer, researcher, and teacher based between Berlin and Patna. There is a wonderful mixture of human sentiments and experiences in his poems.
An ascetic — she brought/All her powers and placed/Stone upon stone under/The thorny babool/Till the words she uttered
Became a mantra /And the mantra the very/Call — I heard hung/Between here and there — now and never/Between the two shores
Of being and non-being /I heard her before I knew of hearing,/Before I knew of knowing, I knew her./Mother — she called me mother.
With the vermillion on my stone head/And the bridal crimson wrapped about,/She sang me into being./She was all Will — that witch
Who pulled me from the /Stagnant stream of emptiness and cast me/Into the stone — a wish granter,/A village deity — minor god
Of a major god chopped/Into a fitting piece shaped/By her rough hands — /A miracle come to life/In a stone under a tree.
A cosmic force come to rest /In the shape of eternity.
I hope you will like this issue with its wonderful poetry.
With regards,
Rati Saxena