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Contributors:
Poetry and Essays:
Hassanal Abdullah
Roni Adhikari
Kayes Ahmed
Rassel Ahmed
Chak Amitava
Pallav Bandyopadhayay
Stanley H. Barkan
Nicholas Birns
Jyotirmoy Datta
Jyotiprakash Dutta
Caroline Gill
Nirmolendu Goon
Clinton Van Inman
John McLeod
Manas Paul
Matin Raihan
Hasan Sabbir
Naznin Seamon
Amiyakumar Sengupta
Letters to the Editor:
Maria Bennett
Laura Boss
Stephen Cipot
Joan Digby
John Digby
Arthur Dobrin
Kristine Doll
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Adel Gogy
Mary Gogy
Mike Graves
Leigh Harrison
Yvette Neisser Moreno
Marsha Solomon
Tino Villanueva
Bill Wolak
Letters to the Editor:
Babette Albin
Chandan Anwar
Mansur Aziz
Laura Boss
Rumana Gani
David Gershator
Caroline Gill
Isaac Goldemberg
Zahirul Hasan
Omar Faruque Jibon
Gholam Moyenuddin
Hasan Sabbir
Subir Sarkar
Tabrish Sarker
Bikul Hossain Rojario
Cover Art:
Ekok Soubir
Poetry magazine publication, however, is rarely an easy option these days. The production of a vibrant international journal that embraces the finest work of new and established poets from east and west is no mean feat. Shabdaguchha has had many highlights thus far, including the editor’s innovative Swatantra Sonnet form. A recent personal choice would be the feature on Cajun poets by Professor Beverly Matherne. On this auspicious occasion, Hassanal, we offer our thanks and hearty congratulations. শুভ জন্মদিন, Shabdaguchha.
—Caroline Gill
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Shabdaguchha: The 15th Anniversary Issue
Caroline Gill
An International Celebration of Literary Adventure
Shabdaguchha marks its 15th Anniversary
“Adventure is worthwhile,” wrote Amelia Earheart, the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an aeroplane. Earheart’s Fokker F7 seaplane, the ‘Friendship’, touched down near the harbour in Burry Port, between Swansea and Laugharne, two places in Wales inextricably linked with the life and works of Dylan Thomas. Earheart, who kept the log, made the 1928 crossing from Newfoundland in the company of a pilot and navigator-cum-co-pilot. The ‘Friendship’, bound for Southampton, was forced to curtail its flight after more than twenty hours in the sky. The seaplane came to rest on its pontoons in the Burry estuary, where it was initially tied to a buoy for safety. Earheart was hailed as something of a celebrity.
I was reflecting on this important Shabdaguchha anniversary when Earheart’s story came to mind. I occasionally visited her memorial at Burry Port during my twenty years in Swansea, home town of Dylan Thomas. Transcontinental journeys by air are commonplace occurrences these days, and many poets ‘catch a plane’ to international destinations to attend festivals, give readings and take up residencies. This can be an enriching cultural experience, particularly since the poet’s life has often been compared to that of the hermit in a hut or to the academic in an ivory tower.
These spells when a poet leaves home, in order to collaborate with other poets and to interact with fellow human beings, are often complemented by times of relative silence and solitude. The poet’s life, however, is rarely a simple see-saw between what might broadly be called ‘travel’ and ‘writing’, and this is where an international publication comes into its own. Copies of Shabdaguchha wing their way across the globe at regular intervals, uniting far-flung poets and readers in a tangible and life-affirming literary bond.
I first encountered this unique bilingual Bengali-American magazine via Peter Thabit Jones, editor of The Seventh Quarry Press (Swansea), in association with Stanley H. Barkan of Cross-Cultural Communications (New York). Through Peter, I was invited to submit poems for a feature in Shabdaguchha (Issue 53/54, Volume 14, No. 1/2, July-Dec 2011) on ‘Six Poets from Wales’. Aeronwy (1943-2009), daughter of Dylan Thomas, was one of the six. I had enrolled on Aeronwy’s poetry workshop at the Laugharne Festival some years before, and have fond memories of participating in a stimulating writing exercise, based on the game of Consequences.
Like Amelia Earheart and Dylan Thomas, Aeronwy also crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Her last literary tour in the USA took place in 2008. I, too, have had the experience of flying to America. I recall vast tracts of pristine snow unfolding beneath me, shortly before my aircraft touched down in Philadelphia. It may have been a routine flight, but it was also part of a thrilling expedition. Earheart possessed a natural spirit of courage. She went on to fly solo over the Atlantic in 1932. Most writers will not have such dangerous feats in mind; but as fellow travellers in the realms of poetry, Shabdaguchha has much to offer us by way of exciting cross-cultural exchange and ‘worthwhile’ literary adventure.
Peter Thabit Jones co-authored a chapbook in 2008 with USA poet, Vince Clemente, Consulting Editor for The Seventh Quarry. The volume, the first in the Poet to Poet series, had the topical title of Bridging the Waters - Swansea to Sag Harbor. We can stretch out across the world around us, a world that is both expanding and contracting as our knowledge broadens in response to the ever-increasing arms of the internet. We can also look up and marvel at the stars, the moon and Dylan’s ‘lark full cloud’, in a shared spirit of celebration.
Poetry magazine publication, however, is rarely an easy option these days. The production of a vibrant international journal that embraces the finest work of new and established poets from east and west is no mean feat. Shabdaguchha has had many highlights thus far, including the editor’s innovative Swatantra Sonnet form. A recent personal choice would be the feature on Cajun poets by Professor Beverly Matherne. On this auspicious occasion, Hassanal, we offer our thanks and hearty congratulations. শুভ জন্মদিন, Shabdaguchha.
UK
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