Thought of doing a quick review of my Poetry month activities in 2018. This year I did two projects. One to write a poem in English everyday and the other was to do the translation of an international poet’s poem to my native language ‘Malayalam’.
The English Poems started with a poem called ‘Today I write’ and ended with the poem ‘The End’. In between there were 28 poems ranging from existential, surreal, nature, dark, narrative, Social and even an office poem.
I started the month, writing
Today I write;
clubbed by shattered dreams,
as broken pieces pierce time and space.
And I ended like this
Everything ends in some way
some finish with a thud
some defeat in silence
some culminate in a smile……
On the translations I started with translating the French poet René Char’s ‘The Forehead of a Rose and ended by Translating the polish poet Zbigniew Herbert’s poem ‘Home’. In between I translated poems from across the world, Cesare Pavese, Charles Bukowski, Leonardo Sinisgalli, Yiannis Ristos, Anna Swir, Miklós Radnóti, Miguel Hernandez, So Chong-Ju, Octavio Paz, Julio Cortazar, Aime Cesaire, Gloria Fuertes, Primo Levi, Anna Kamienska, Paul Celan, Tadeusz Rozewicz, Joao Cabral De Melo Neto, Vasko Popa, Blaga Dimitrova, Pier Paolo Pasolini, chairil, Anwar, Augusthino Neto, Wisława Szymborska, Miroslav Holub, Erich Fried, Rose Ausländer, gerrit kouwenaar and the Armenian poet Zahrad.
It was an enlightening experience I started a few years back, the dedicated time to read, think and be in a completely different world. I recommend it to anyone who like words….
Vinod Narayan 
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