Hannah Regel and Amlanjyoti Goswami
Once upon a time, there was no city. There were only dreams, gardens,
a flower market.
– from ‘Bus routes of childhood’ by Amlanjyoti Goswami
Swigging from the bottle we would sing soft hymns about this quick shot at living
When we learnt how easy killing is.
–from ‘The Deer Hunter’ by Hannah Regel
Amlanjyoti Goswami and Hannah Regel, whose dazzling poems feature in the spring 2021 issue of
The Poetry Review, are the latest contributors to the
Review’s online ‘Mixtape’ series – the poetry equivalent to Desert Island Discs.
Among the ten poems that knock Amlanjyoti “out cold, with their sheer power, intensity and beauty” are Wisława Szymborska’s ‘Under one small star’, Li-Young Lee’s ‘The Gift’ and Naomi Shihab Nye’s ‘Kindness’ – a poem “so utterly beautiful in an act of immanent grace, the kind that comes only from loss and a spirit of sharing”.