Isabel White

Language and identity - people divided by a common language

Those of you who know me will know that I am a mongrel from a mongrel nation. An island race that spent several centuries being invaded, who then invaded a quarter of the globe has absorbed a legacy of language and culture that is one of the richest in the world. All that was, for a time, in mortal danger. Because, like so many societies, we have a ruling class that for most of its existence has been pre-occupied with devising ever more fiendish ways of holding on to power, our language has been one of the weapons used against the rest of us proletarians to keep us in our place. From the moment that man first put stylus to clay, writing has been the most powerful weapon of division and oppression, as well as the greatest tool for emancipation and unanimity. So, when the Catholic Church arrived in Britain, it was not long before it acquired a monopoly on the written word. This meant that anyone who wanted to better themselves had to master Latin alongside their native tongue. During the 17th century, French began to usurp Latin as the pre-eminent language of diplomacy and international relations (the ‘lingua franca’). It remained so until it was marginalised by the combined influences of the British Empire and the rise of the United States as the dominant global power after the first World War, with English as the dominant language.

Even then, the rarefied language with all its idiosyncrasies that become modern English was used as a means of reinforcing social stratification. Just as the Académie Française had been established to protect the French language, scholars and statesmen seized the opportunity to do the same for English, from the pronouncements of the likes of Fowler and Partridge1 to the overweening diktats of the Mitfords and the English glitterati with their U and non U vocabulary; this was a way of putting linguistic space between the proles and their ‘betters’. What evolved by the mid-twentieth century into ‘Received Pronunciation’ was then championed by the BBC, and therefore given worldwide legitimacy. This did immense damage to the standing of the forty odd accents and dialects that already existed in the UK, bolstered by a rich variety of dialect and patois from myriad immigrants arriving on our shores over 150 years. For a while, our dialects were in danger of dying out completely, until rescued by a combination of factors – their championing by the folk dance and music revival begun in the Victorian era, and the social mobility and egalitarianism of the 1960s to the present day. The one cohort of society famously unaffected by the need to ‘talk posh’ is of course us poets. This wonderful variety of accent, dialect and patois, overlaid with the huge array of slang words from so many cultural minorities have given us a rich palette indeed, from which to draw the language we use to articulate what is essentially an emotionally resonant artform. To be seen as great work, poetry has to work on so many levels, and while the jury is out on what poetry is, it is much easier to argue for what it is not. There is also wider agreement that it should stand above and apart from its more prosaic counterpart. What relevance does this have to readers of this journal? I have been fortunate to have shared a platform for my work with practitioners from all over the globe, from myriad cultures and in myriad languages and in turn, have been heavily influenced by them. Many of them have gravitated to the UK, where there is a temptation for them to present their work in translation, and we can sometimes be all the poorer for it, for in reading their work in

a foreign tongue they lose a degree of the passion and scholarship that inhabited their work in its original language. In our London poetry group for example, we always ask our readers to read their work in their mother tongue, so we can hear the cadences, the music, rhymes, alliterations, onomatopoeia (if there be any), but essentially, the passion which drove them to create their work in the first place, and the animation in its delivery that brings it alive for us. Thus does poetry achieve its eloquence and its status as the greatest of all art forms. It falls to the poets to rescue lost dialects and languages, to champion and celebrate them, to mix them with modern speech and language so that they are not just received in aspic but evolve into new forms of vernacular speech. There may be those who denigrate the patois of the immigrant without understanding how it found its way into daily use, without listening to how wonderfully diverse it is, how eloquent in its simplicity and in its potential to enrich our own language. Hopefully, everyone reading this will recognise the creeping homogenisation of the language of their own cultures and will strenuously resist all attempts to do this, for we would all certainly be the poorer for it. Long live the common and the less common tongues of the world, which tell their tales with the greatest power. In writing for the poor, the oppressed and the disadvantaged, you will be writing for everyone and in so doing, boosting their self esteem and giving them hope.

1 Fowler’s Modern English Usage; Partridge - Usage and Abusage

Isabel White is UK based prize winning, published poet, with a particular interest in linguistic diversity in her work. Performing across the UK, in Paris and Rotterdam, Isabel has worked with a host of performance poets, actors and musicians, many of them household names in the UK.

Amir Or

The temptation

This was the temptation: to rub the I against the you, our thought against its images. To feel. We were there before, you remember, without mother or father, without navel, marked only by the first cut. Free of weight, measurement, destruction we wandered inside each other, dreamt worlds, lived. But the stakes were too low, the risk – only a game. Desire was action, instantly complete. And that’s the way (remember?) we got here too: by a single desire, by a glance.

And now we’re here, in the viscous air, rubbing this in, with effort – every single sensation, every meeting. Our suns rise and set, our worlds get old, but here: suddenly we find a new wrinkle in our soul, and this – is for real. It’s real. Finally we can lose, destroy, finally we are alive. For a moment we can even die.

By the temple

By the temple / Assad's begging bread / Abdalla's begging money. Nearby / among the booths of / incense and charms / Mustafa's begging stars / and Issa's begging love / stretching out / their begging bowls / gaping. Mansur's begging truth / from every passer-by / Jallal begs freedom / Omar – life.

And he? / He's begging nothing / yet no one gives him any. His begging bowl's filled / with glances and stares / thought-alms / word-alms / air, fire, earth, / kingdoms / elixirs / salvations. He turns his begging bowl upside down / and empties it. / Yet it's still quite full. "Dear Self," he writes on it / fills it with wine to the brim / and drinks up in one gulp; ah, it's not empty! He smashes his bowl / in one go / broken pieces / yet it seems to be now / even fuller; / multiplied. By the temple / Assad's begging flesh / Mustafa – pebbles / and Omar – walls. By him / by the temple / there's no temple.

AMIR OR, the 2020 Golden Wreath laureate, published 14 poetry books and 2 novels, translated to more than 50 languages, and published in 37 books in Europe, America and Asia.

Mohammad Nurul Huda

BinduBari

Touching a feather flying from Siberia, I came close to a crane; mortal eyes wide open. Confined in a mud-home in Bindubari, Birds swam in seas and lakes, their wings half-broken. BinduBari is a herbal resort in making, I’m a tree; Soon I shall measure the universe, legging it free. 04.01.2021

Paris 2005

An alien has arrived here With his outlandish steps Paris, be aware be aware All our art and poetry May end in mere garbage The city of cultural diversity Signing a universal treaty Of all nations and individuals Burying wars and funerals Sailing like a Phoenician sailor I am reading ‘Leaves of Grass’ I’m in disguise a Tiresias tailor Wearing a lungi, holding a brush Paris, you are too aesthetic Hoarding poetry, art and flowers Planting all the buds of stars In the blue and muddy bowers I’m really wonder-struck That you still dream at daytime Let dogs rejoice behind a truck Carrying all corpses of crime Can you make cities of flowers

In all soils on all river-banks In no land no cadavers Crushing warheads and tanks With questions I’m an alien Riding an unsettling train From all directions Stopping at all stations Your street, cafe, tower Never grows old, never Just make me a favor Since I am alien everywhere None wants to die ever Like Gilgamesh I care Hunting immortality Not just painting or poetry Give me the elixir of my choice If you fail, please down your voice I am not Vinci, nor Mona Lisa I’m an alien, with a timeless visa An alien may remain an alien To all deadly itinerants Please step inside my vessel I deal in formlessness An ever-born trace. [Original in English by the poet on 05.09.2020 Note: In 2005 I visited Paris to take part in UNECO intergovernmental meeting on cultural diversity representing Bangladesh. The poem was conceived and drafted at that time, but finalized today. Best wishes to my friends across the world.]

Say good time

Let me read every moment of your movement, since I move only with you. If you don’t move, I am ever anchored in your show.

The universe is a zero if you don’t grow; Throw me out, just throw; Don’t keep me captive Within bone and marrow. Let us share our free time, From one birth to another, Say always goodtime, goodtime Migrating from one domain to another; Forgetting a birth is just a crime. [Original in English. 01.01.2021]

A ride from Dhaka to Delhi

Missing the flight of Air-Universe From one nation-state to another, I chose a ride on a mule-celestial, Born in the wedlock of a Mughal angel And a Konaraka damsel; My mule-chariot spoke to me In a pidgin voice combining All the mother tongues of the world, None could communicate to the other, All the way we quarreled and quarreled. The aeronaut who drove the mule-airbus Was reborn as a human after millions of years, Both a man and a woman - rather a Tiresias, Let the world not be ruled only by a Sycorax.

We landed At a Delhi Fort of tricks and aesthetics, Near the military Fort of Akbar, the great; We warred with the weapons of roses and Poses, posing no nuclear threat. 05.10.2018 Original in English 4/6, Siri Fort Institutional Area, New Delhi, India.

Sudipto Chattopadhyay

O body

I leave my feelings everyday Beside your agony, From the broken play-house Bring the austere devotion. Every quiet afternoon With the suns setting Wakes up the face of destiny, Taste of tongue, touch of skin, Nameless story of birth, Feeble utterances of gossamer existence Foiling everything, I keep on touching the still world; O the life come back Bring me the ancient body. Poem of dawn

Will you pardon me? It is not six in the morning yet, The light of dawn hasn't touched that body for three days, Now I shift from body to disembodied soul! Left behind are the mementos, tyranny of water, I have been hearing this hurt with my own cars, How sweet are the hurts, feelings are long, I live together with others, the united belief, Within me it is I who am growing, it is I..... Sun, you come, touch the devotion, the source of crime, Lover, you come, we will sit wearing the same dress, The dialogue of the start of the war of not mine but ours, Uttered in the unison is the mantra of the high-held head. Nobody has come. At the last hour of the day - blood has Spilled over from body of the fallen body. All my courage, all the fearless music Have gone lost, perhaps it is not six o' clock yet I am fleeing, o body - will you pardon me?

Dr. Sudipto Chattopadhyay is a Poet, Translator, Essayist of Kolkata India. Joint Secretary International Society for Intercultural Studies And Research (ISISAR). Editor ‘Cultural and Quest’, Kristi O Anvesa.

Reaz Ahmad

Internment

A ship idles off the coast, A mariner checks out lazarette Under the weather deck; A beach long been deserted by revelers, Now comes alive to its natural self With a brigade of red crabs Blanketing the shore; Caressed by morning glory and sun ray. Last of leper colonies shuts down Atop a far-off mountain Where all the heavenly birds chirp, With their music tuning down the creek; Little did they knew A horde of pestilence Riding on an apocalyptic white horse, Comes down hard on neverland Pushing Lombardy's funeral parlors To a breaking point; Hardly a man is out there to Partake the wake and accompany The casket to the chapels; A calm is only to be punctuated By a bird's hum or a bicycle's creak, Where the dives and the lazarus All are at the mercy of a great leveler, Don Rodrigo's killer The plague that puts on test The believers, the agnostics alike; Go back home all mourners.

Man on a cane bottom'd sofa

He would curl up on the rusted couch, His legs bend and feet off the damp floor;

After all, how much space a man can occupy In a shabby veranda, poorly ventilated, Where one gets to see roaches quite often Rushing out and in, busy they must be hell-bent; And spiders weaving layers of webs merrily, With an army of ants marching down The worn-out floor gully in single file. Was it a hardwood settee? A Mahogany hardwood or A Burma teak sofa probably; Where naturally occurring oil resist Anything watery. Cane bottom'd and rattaned back, It was quite a furniture Slight shy of a bed, With round cushions proxying pillow. The man coiled him up on the couch, His knees bent, head up, reposes on the seat He looks like a reclusive, reclining Buddha! After all, how much space a man can occupy In a shabby veranda, poorly ventilated. That old piece of heavily built settee Must have weathered Many a sun and many a moon Long days of monsoonal rains, Windy nights and dust mite allergy, Beetles and termites, bugs and mice; It must've acclimatized Many a house shifting too, As man on the couch also do (es).

Reaz Ahmad is a career journalist and a poet. He is now serving as the Executive Editor of Bangladesh’s fastest growing English daily Dhaka Tribune. Reaz Ahmad teaches journalism as an Adjunct Faculty of Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) and the University of Dhaka (DU). He loves composing verses both in Bangla and English languages.