book excerptise:   a book unexamined is wasting trees

Modern Bengali Poems

Lila Ray

Ray, Lila;

Modern Bengali Poems

Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi, 1999

ISBN 8186908986

topics: |  poetry | bengali | translation | anthology


 

Contents

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Michael Madhusudan Dutt: The poet's return to his mother-tongue 1
Rabindranath: On the death of his wife (from SmaraN) 2

Rabindranath: Flying cranes [balAkA, done in prose style] 3
    Space echoes with the song of all creation's wings:  "Not here!
    Elsewhere! Elsewhere! Elsewhere! Somewhere else!"

Kamini Ray: On her son's birthday 5
Satyendranath datta : The song of equality [extract from sAmya sama]
Mohitlal Majumdar : The traveller (extract from "pAntha")8
Kazi Nazrul Islam: The rebel [Bidrohi extract] 9
Pramatha Chaudhury
Jibananda Das : Disposition
	   {even though there were many rivers in my eyes once)
Sudhindranath Datta: Orchestra
Amiya Chakravarty : The sojourner
Annada Sankar Ray : Radha
Jasimuddin : Asmani 19
Premendra mitra : nameless harbour
Buddhadeva bose : Goethe's eighth love
Bishnu Dey : Ellora
Bimal Chandra Ghose
Arun Mitra : Late at night
Arun k Sarkar : A summer storm
Asokbijay Raha: The enchanted tree
Naresh guha : Sakuntala
Subhas Mukhopadhyay : Resolution 1940
Nirendranath Chakravarti : Fear
Sarat Kumar Mukhopadhyay : Decency
Dinesh Das: The sickle 33
Sakti ChattopadhyAy: Grief
Asim Ray: A table waits
Manindra Ray: River waves do not sparkle
Sankha Ghosh : Agastya's journey
Kabita Sinha: Eye speaks to God [kavita sinha]
Samarendra Sen gupta : She may be untaught
Ashish Sanyal: A tree's nature
Krishna dhar : The earth did not weep
Kamalesh Sen: Is this love?
Anirvan Datta : How far Vietnam
Abhijit Ghose : In the end
Sunil Gangopadhyay : Self-confrontation
    [ We invented weapons to arms ourselves / against beasts. ]
abhi sengupta
samser anowar : superman
ananda bagchi : ashtray
ketaki kushari dyson : rain
devaprasad mukhopadhyay : midnight wanderer\
pabitra mukhopadhyay : iblis controls himself


Kazi Nazrul Islam: The rebel [Bidrohi extract] 9

     	    	   Hero! Say,
		Say, "My head is high!
The Himalayan peaks bow their heads on seeing mine!"
    	      	   Say, Hero --
 Say, "Rending the great sky of the great world,
       Passing sun, moon, planets, and stars,
       Piercing both heaven and earth,
       Cleaving the throne of God,
       Have I risen -- I, the eternal wonder
       Of the Lord of Creation!
On my brow burns Siva's eye - the royal mark of victory!"

     	    	   Hero! Say,
		"High is my head always!
	I am uncontrollable, insolent, cruel,
	I am the Dancer of Doom, the Cyclone, Destruction,
	I am Terror, I am the cursee of the world, I am irresistible,
	Everything do I smash to dust!
   I trample underfoot all bonds, all laws, all orderliness!
        No law do I acknowledge,
I sink fully the full boat, I am the torpedo, the terrible floating mine!
    I am Siva the destroyer, in my loose hair I bring
        The ultimate Northwester!~
  I am the rebel, the rebel son
      Of the Lord of Creation!"
      	     	  Say, Hero -
  	  "High is my head always!

Dinesh Das: The sickle 33


	Let the bayonet be as sharp as it will
	what the sickle, my good friend,
	let the shell and the bomb grow booming
	sharpen the sickle, my friend.

Lila Ray was the wife of Annadashankar Ray; she was born Alice Virginia
Orndorf, in El Paso, TX.   She has translated numerous texts, including
gaNadevatA and bhuvan som.


amitabha mukerjee (mukerjee [at-symbol] gmail) 2012 Apr 27