Three Poems – two sonnets by Gourob Chakroborty translated from Bengali, and RAINDANCE
RAINDANCE
(Based on a gorgeous artwork by Smeetha Bhoumik)
I wear a green dress--lime as your leaves. My hair and palms are hibiscus in bloom. I gift you this dance in the rain, as the tree sheds your leaves on me. I own this little terrain traversed by my feet‐- this sweet rainwater drenches my land; now is the chance… Now is the chance to gift my flowers, wet; my joy in swirls, more joys beget. Even after twenty years, you'll find my colors fresh. There's bliss in blooming, bliss in our gaze.
Two Sonnets by Gourob Chakroborty translated from Bengali by Jagari Mukherjee
1 A follower of letters, in words I dwell: word-rest, word-feast, word-shelter, word-infused tradition, with my special spell I explore words--this juggler of letters. Poems birth in my quill; In mere Ideas, do not remain. The shadow grows slowly, turns an immortal strain. Memory's tears reach their destination moving forward, then a step back again. Where Wonder loses itself in rhythm, the proposal of Memory feasts last, gestures to the skeleton of words. How does the sleeping letter survive--all past? Mysteries dwell in words in secret. In letters, he pours out his soul-- Monsieur Sonnet. 2 You, my Past, beside Time you lie. Nobody will wake you again; the sleep which no clamor can disturb bring you peace, forever maintain. Everywhere has spread the suffused dark, one or two drops of relentless charms… some beloved, in a separation song prays to snatch you from Death's arms. Yet, Consciousness to Fate is subject: no time, before Time, arrives. All give-and-take in measures appropriate is slave to Fate--fruit-bearing action thrives. Amidst arrivals and departures, I attempt to stay-- All that's lost is returned our way.
Jagari Mukherjee is the winner of the 2019 Reuel International Prize for Poetry, and the Founder and Chief Executive Editor of the literary journal, EKL Review. She has authored four solo collections of poetry--two chapbooks and two full-length volumes. Her most recent chapbook is "Letters To Inamorato" (2022) published by Penprints Publication. Jagari's poetry ebook, Wine-Kissed Poems (2020), co-authored with Dr. Ampat Koshy, became an Amazon bestseller in India and the US. Her poems and other creative pieces have been published in different venues both in India and abroad such as Kitaab, Fasihi Magazine, Vox Poetica, Treehouse Arts, Harbinger Asylum, Plum Tree Tavern, Scarlet Leaf Review, Ariel Chart, The Hollins Critic, and Flora Fiction, Yugen Quest Review, to name only a few. She has performed her poetry both in the US and in India, including at Sahitya Akademi. Her poems have found a home in many anthologies, including in The Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English 2020 and 2021. She is a gold medalist in English Literature, a Best of the Net 2018 nominee, DAAD scholar from Technical University, Dresden, Germany, and a Bear River Writers' Conference alumna. She has won numerous prestigious awards, including the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize for Book Review(2018), the Women Empowered Gifted Poet Award (2020), the Jury Prize at Friendswood Library's Ekphrastic Poetry Reading And Contest (2021), and most recently, The Bharat International Award for Literature 2022 For Short Story.
Yugen Quest Review 