Poet Kiriti Sengupta discusses with Professor Akshaya Kumar the multiplicity of truth, poetic style, and the Bengali English poetry scene, among other things.
The poetry manages for the most part to escape the trap of nostalgia
Poetry about Kolkata quite often veers into the lachrymose, nostalgia’s cousin. A collection of poetry titled
The Kolkata Cadence might thus make the reader apprehensive but, fortunately, the poems mostly escape that trap. There
isthe standard romanticisation of Kolkata’s old red houses, dingy lanes and its particular brand of rain, but it is to be found only in certain poems that falter.
Kushal Poddar’s poems stand out for offering something more than the hackneyed Kolkata of tram, rickshaw and river; ‘Our Bodies of Water’ and ‘Straightjacket’ are layered with a surreal quality. Linda Ashok’s ‘Gift’ and ‘You Ask If This Is Love’ offer novelty of thought.