• Parabaas
    Parabaas : পরবাস : বাংলা ভাষা, সাহিত্য ও সংস্কৃতি
  • পরবাস | English | Poem
    Share
  • Poetry : Subhas Mukhopadhyay
    translated from Bengali to English by Carolyn B. Brown

    Shakti puts it well—
    gibberish in verse
    what better way
    to save oneself
    from being eaten up by poetry

    if you compare a poem to an onion
    people will have fits of fastidiousness
    because they link onions with
    the stink
    of bloody meat

    but if you keep peeling and peeling
    peeling and peeling
    till you reach the end
    nothing’s left of the poem either

    what’s a poem?
    hold on, let me see—

    a rose in a timid lover’s hand
    a glimmering firefly on the forest’s limbs
    a chorus of voices singing in harmony
    “comrade” called out from afar
    to vanish in thin air

    but first
    to help me understand better
    tell me—

    what isn’t a poem?
  • মন্তব্য জমা দিন / Make a comment
  • (?)
  • মন্তব্য পড়ুন / Read comments