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Dharwadker’s Kabir
Kabir: The Weaver’s Songs, translated and with an illuminating 96-page introduction by Vinay Dharwadker (also includes extensive notes to the poems, a glossary, and bibliography). The historical Kabir is thought to have lived from 1398-1448 in the eastern half of northern India. His poems were literally songs, and the poems we have today are the product of a long process of revision by Kabir’s followers.Read More
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Taslima Nasrin takes refuge “somewhere in Europe”
“Bangladeshi writer ‘exiled again’”. Let us all hope Taslima Nasrin at last finds peace and the creative freedom she deserves. Stepping back a bit from Taslima’s travails…: It would be illuminating to see a “diaspora map” showing the flow of intellectual resources—i.e., writers, artists, scientists, academics, etc.—from oppressive parts of the world to relatively free parts of the world. Something like this map tracing the first Jewish diasporas.Read More
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Poetic Brutality…
I launched into reading this article with an expectation of yet another clash of fundamentalisms, of the sort that has plagued Bangladeshi poet Taslima Nasrin. The outlines were familiar: a lecturer, one Sanjay M G, is attacked for reciting a poem “with ‘objectionable content….’ ” But it turns out the content involved a slur against a long-deceased political leader, Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha Empire (d. 1680).Read More
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
