We have dedicated this issue of the journal to ‘Form Poetry’, sensitively curated by our guest editor, Smeetha Bhoumik. Narrow Road – Vol 11 is proud to be home to ghazals, sonnets, tercets, sestinae, haiku, tanka, and free verse along with the regular sections of haibun and short fiction. Narrow Road has often struggled for quality fiction, this time, however, we have a set of stories that might leave you gasping for breath. Some of these voices refuse to be turned down, others whisper in blink-and-you-miss words. But we urge you to neither blink nor miss, as you turn the pages, for what they have to say cannot be boxed into simple adjectives like timely or essential. It is instead transcendental.
As you leaf through the pages, do not miss out on our features. More than a century ago, on 31st Aug 1919, India saw the birth of Amrita Pritam, a pre-eminent poet, novelist, and essayist. We pay a small tribute to her, in the form of four exquisite translations from the Punjabi by Sarabjeet Garcha. Srividya (as always) Speaks Poetry. Poornima Laxmeshwar strikes a conversation with Sivakami Velliangiri, and we have faithfully recorded it for you. We have also reviewed Frazil (1980-2017) by Menka Shivdasani and The Amazing Glass House by Susan Beth Furst.
Sarabjeet Garcha is the author of four books of poems, including A Clock in the Far Past, besides a volume each of translated poetry and translated prose. He has translated several American poets into Hindi and several Indian poets into English. His poems as well as translations have been widely published in International journals like Versopolis, Modern Poetry in Translation, Words Without Borders, Right Hand Pointing, The Indian Quarterly, and Domus India, among others. The recipient of a fellowship in Hindi literature from the Ministry of Culture of India, he is also the founder and editorial director of Copper Coin, a multilingual publishing company.
Sarabjeet Garcha
Sivakami Velliangiri is a senior poet, born in Madras and brought up at Trivandrum, and now living in Chennai. When Sivakami Velliangiri was Sivakami Ramanathan she published her poems in Youth Times. After coming to Chennai she published in various literary journals and Professor Srinivasa Iyengar included her among the women poets in his ’History of Indian Writing in English’ in his 1980 edition. She co-ordinated the British Council Poetry Circle and enjoyed bringing young ones to poetry. Her online Chapbook ‘In My Midriff’ was published by Lily Literary Review:
‘How We Measured Time’ is her debut poetry book.
Sivakami Velliangiri
Poornima Laxmeshwar resides in Bangalore and works as a content writer for a living. Her poems have been published in national and international journals of repute. Her first poetry collection “Anything but Poetry” was published by Writers Workshop, Kolkata, a chapbook of her prose poems “Thirteen” was published by Yavanika Press and her full-length poetry collection ‘Strings Attached’ was recently published by Red Rive
Poornima Laxmeshwar
