CLRI CONTEMPORARY LITERARY REVIEW INDIA – journal that brings articulate writings for articulate readers.
CLRI Print Edition ISSN 2250-3366
September 2012
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Editor-in-Chief: Khurshid Alam
September 2012
contents 1.
KHURSHID ALAM ................................................................................................ 2 Book Formats in Digital Publishing ....................................................................... 2
2.
MIHIR VATSA....................................................................................................... 5 Cormorants ........................................................................................................... 5
3.
A.J. HUFFMAN ..................................................................................................... 6 Tooth and Mail ...................................................................................................... 6 The Thousandth Tail............................................................................................. 7
4.
ANZHELINA POLONSKAYA ................................................................................ 8 A Normal War ....................................................................................................... 8 Snow .................................................................................................................... 9 Paul Klee’s Boat ................................................................................................. 10
5.
JOVAN VUKSANOVICH .................................................................................... 12 mindring .............................................................................................................. 12 trailing scent of a hidden prey ............................................................................. 17
6.
TARUN AGARWAL ............................................................................................ 20 Love And Loyalty ................................................................................................ 20 School ................................................................................................................ 21
7.
BRUCE DODSON .............................................................................................. 22 Discovery ............................................................................................................ 22
8.
CHANGMING YUAN .......................................................................................... 23 Village Accent ..................................................................................................... 23 The Loss of a National Identity ........................................................................... 24
9.
CHAHRA BELOUFA........................................................................................... 26 Changeable change! .......................................................................................... 26
10.
ABDUL BARI ...................................................................................................... 27 Victims ................................................................................................................ 27
11.
STORY RETOLD................................................................................................ 28
September 2012
contents 12.
MEENAKSHI JAUHARI CHAWLA ...................................................................... 33 Birthing ............................................................................................................... 33
13.
DAN CORFIELD ................................................................................................. 35 The White Climbing Tree .................................................................................... 35
14.
LEKH RAJ TANDON .......................................................................................... 39 Khurshid Alam Interviews Lekh Tandon at Barista, Mumbai ............................. 39
15.
SHAILENDRA CHAUHAN .................................................................................. 43 Indian Poetry, its Aesthetics and Politics ............................................................ 43
16.
SOFE AHMED .................................................................................................... 47 Wole Soyinka: An Original Thinker of Traditional and Modern African Rituals ... 47
17.
COUNTRY – A NOVEL BY SHELBY STEPHENSON ........................................ 54 Preview of a Novel.............................................................................................. 54
18.
BOOK RELEASES ............................................................................................. 59
September 2012
editorial
Digital medium is not simply a medium, it is a space to our life. All its shortcomings stand tiny before its advantages. It is the best alternative to saving paper, thus to saving plants and forests. It is the fastest means of communication, you can fly your documents and files across the globe in no time and at no costs. You can share your heart and mind to the world without coming under any hammer. – Khurshid Alam, Editor-in-Chief, Contemporary Literary Review India
www.quickheal.com
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September 2012
editorial 1.
KHURSHID ALAM
Book Formats in Digital Publishing The most popular ebook format till date is the PDF. Since the very beginning of the Internet the PDF has been around and with us. However with the growth of the Internet technologies more and more traditional publishers are migrating to digital publishing and many more are born digital. Electronic book formats, or e-books or ebooks, basically originated as the replica of the printed version of the books. The PDF corroborates this logic. But soon many digital devices came in that changed the proponents of the ebook format. The mobile and then tablets, computer and then laptop, projector and then slides are fast changing the requirements. So the ebook format also requires to be compatible with most of the available devices and gadgets of the time. Hence the EPUB format was born. EPUB is a vendor-independent XML-based format which is compatible with most of the ebook reading devices including the Kobo eReader, Blackberry Playbook, Apple's iBooks, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Sony Reader among others. More e-book reading devices are implementing supports for EPUB. Nonetheless Kindle of Amazon.com does not support EPUB, it has developed its own formats such as KF8 and AZW. However, the biggest question to the authors and writers is not why their manuscripts are going to a certain format but how to format the manuscripts so that they are easily converted into electronic format and are widely compatible with e-book reading devices. So your books are available with more eStores and can be read on more devices. Every digital publisher has certain requirements. The best way is to read the requirements of the ePublisher thoroughly with which you want to publish. Some certain requirements that you as a writer should have in mind most of the time are:
Your manuscript should not be too long. It increases the file size. A file size above 5 MB may create problems with many publishers.
Use smaller dimension of the page layout for better look.
Don‘t keep your Headings like chapter names, sections, overly large. 2
September 2012
editorial
Avoid using large spaces before and after the text lines, headings for chapters and sections.
Avoid colored texts, headers, footers unless unavoidable.
Avoid using images unless necessary as some digital devices do not support images.
Create hyperlinks using the Hyperlink feature of Microsoft Word. Creating Table of Contents (ToC) using the References feature of Microsoft Word do not work on many devices.
Avoid using auto-generated numbered list and bullet list of Microsoft Word. Insert numbers (1, 2, 3, …) and bullets manually. Once again do not use typical or rare images for bullets. Use simple images for bullets like filled circles (•), filled squares (▪), empty circles (◦) etc.
Do not keep blank pages in your document for digital publishing as many keep in the Word document.
Forthcoming Topics India‗s Stand in Digital Publishing
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September 2012
poems
At one time poetry was a large part of mainstream readership. The public seemed to lose interest with the advent of gaming and the Internet, and now the Internet can be the avenue of restoration of this important genre of entertainment and enlightenment. – Jack Huber, Poet & Author, http://www.jackhuber.com
http://www.publishing-next.com To enquire for placing ads, contact us at: contemporaryliteraryreview@yahoo.com
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September 2012
poems 2.
MIHIR VATSA
Cormorants White necked guests in winter croak inside roomsfloating weeds near the shore; fly away in the tyndall spring, balancing first take-off shakes with fastened wing-belts. Introduction: Cormorants as the title suggests, is about cormorants and their movement from one place to another with shifts in the seasons. Mihir Vatsa grew up in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, where he works as a Culture and Tourism Activist, and currently lives in New Delhi where he's pursuing his degree in English Literature from Delhi University. His poems and writings have been published in Muse India, The Enchanting Verses Literary Review and The River Journal among others. He is also the Founder-Administrator, Tales of Hazaribagh (http://talesofhazaribagh.co.nr/). He can be reached at vatsamihir(at)gmail(dot)com.
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September 2012
poems 3.
A.J. HUFFMAN
Tooth and Mail Smile savers are delivered to your door. Quick – break out anew. Remember it‘s time to swap a new one. Wear out. Become less. Now preserve. Four times you‘ll protect [the planet] too . . . in the postage-paid package. Order them! Rather than send them to the land.
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September 2012
poems The Thousandth Tail Connections. Pop. Sizzle. Fizz. Please hang up. And try again? This ring tone is crazy. Trippin'. Defeat. Reprieve. Just breathe. Digits stretch. Poke. Twist. Do a little dance. Its all in the name. Of love.
A.J. Huffman is a Daytona Beach, Florida-based poet and freelance writer. She has previously published three collections of poetry: The Difference Between Shadows and Stars, Carrying Yesterday, and Cognitive Distortion. She has also published her work in national and international literary journals such as Avon Literary Intelligencer, Writer's Gazette, and The Penwood Review.
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September 2012
poems 4.
ANZHELINA POLONSKAYA
A Normal War A normal war showed up along the road, with its pots and pails, its brown clanging. The old lady brewed up quite a mess and now she‘s got to play the partisan—there‘s nowhere to go, only ruins around, banal as that sounds. Clearly we were being killed, and even more clearly I was afraid they would separate us first, as I read more than once in Merle, And so in terror I tried to make a deal with the killers. Hell, did this really happen?
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September 2012
poems Snow (Monologue) Were my dad alive, I‘d say to him: ―There‘s snow everywhere. It‘s drifting so high, papa, you can‘t find a clear place on my body. I‘m beat. And there‘s nowhere to go.‖ And do you know (let‘s suppose) how he‘d answer? ―Give me the shovel, my girl? Clearing snow‘s not women‘s work?‖ Oh, no. You didn‘t know my dad. He said: ―There‘s no salvation in little things. I knew that and, calculating, I watched the snow fall. The window frames and the pines that weren‘t cut down in summer are all buried, and there‘s a hole in my left temple. Believe me, your dad did all he could— I rubbed my eyes, then disappeared.‖
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September 2012
poems Paul Klee’s Boat Soon it will be winter and soon a nightingale with a bandaged throat, a plum tree in bloom, and a white hill brought to the door. Illness arrives like Mozart, sits down at the black piano and touches the voice with a tone. I see January, a blockade, you‘re sketching Paul Klee‘s boat, big on petite. It sails along, the fool, not knowing – can‘t brush the wave from its eyelash. Somewhere a shutter bangs shut, and you bend toward the sketch. Mozart creates like a god! And the two of us, childless. We‘d be husband and wife, together forever it seemed. But burned by Greeks and barbarians we fled, leaving no trace.
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September 2012
poems Note: These poems were originally written by Anzhelina Polonskaya in Russian and translated in English by Andrew Wachtel.
Anzhelina Polonskaya (1969) was born in Malakhovka, a small town near Moscow. She has been a member of the Moscow Union of Writers since 1998, she became a member of the Russian PEN-centre in 2003. An English version of her book, entitled A Voice appeared in the acclaimed “Writings from an Unbound Europe” series at Northwestern University Press in 2004. This book was shortlisted for the 2005 Corneliu M Popescu Prize for European Poetry in Translation and for the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) prize for literature in translation. Polonskaya has published translations in many of the leading world poetry journals, including World Literature Today, Poetry Review, The Ameircan Poetry Review, and International Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review. In October 2011 the “OratorioRequiem” Kursk, whose libretto consists of ten of Polonskaya’s poems had debut at the Melbourne Arts Festival. In 2012 a bilingual edition of her newer poems will be published by Zephyr Press under the title Paul Klee’s Boat. She can be reached at anjela@polonskaya.com.
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September 2012
poems 5.
JOVAN VUKSANOVICH
mindring mindrinnnnnnnnnng thought stop b l o o d r u s h brainword b r e a k b r e a k dream wake dream sleep snakejaw s o moon silver sky black sky d e e p d e e p b l a c k b l a c k
r a w
s o u n d s e e green eye brain snake tongue slither w e t w e t cry out 12
September 2012
poems LOUD soft s o f t s o f t clear hear eyes shut eyes open space you me wide open w i d e r w i d e gone image you gone image me gone sink falling falling sink sink f a l l i n g gone gone d i s a p p e a r skin sex soft taste new wet 13
September 2012
poems thrust trust slide inside wake dream hot wake moan moan love pleasure again more more I you look you see s m i l e I you look you see l a u g h suck wet feel love wet wet soul suck tongue d e e p d e e p s o u n d h o l l o w blood blind suck breath life death cradle birth daily day blood lip most ghost lonely open l o n e l y l o n e l y o p e n o p e n 14
September 2012
poems hawk's beak mind speak ice child lost p a s t p a s t p a s t follow lead lead follow mother tongue old young ash mind corpse think back dance sexhead rain blood d o w n r a i n d o w n d o w n r e d r a i n feel with deep feel joy happy s l i d e i n s i d e wet warm wet love I you play w o r d I you deep l o o k I you deep b r e a t h e easy e a s e 15
September 2012
poems s o
e a s y
e a s e
many too many mouth words many too many low high low many too many night sleep many too many dream day time tick time tick time time many too many time tick time spinning round round spirit me body me come g o g o many too many days dead many too many laugh cry face again again many too many never again see many too many live die die live love no love yes again spinning again 16
September 2012
poems m o r e m o r e many too many break heart pain flesh flesh m a n y t o o
m a n y
trailing scent of a hidden prey whirlpool of deepening shadows audacious call of the wild masked mystery cloaked in randomly directed unspoken methodologies spacious subterranean silence amid the constant clutter clatter of everyday life absence present deadpan peepshow rebellious clairvoyance eyeing the forest for the trees tumultuous evocative whole minus the bleating parts we without mine or yours renegade thoughts rushing upward like mad niagaras ancient cock eyed sun rising backwards in a bipolar west setting defeated in a catatonic east counterclockwise return to nowhere androgynous sundial of blazing paradoxes one pointed irrational arrows speeding towards the ailing heart of staggering status quo 17
September 2012
poems echoing dark side bowstring humming humming quieter quieter reverberating endlessly look see smell slippery underbelly of humanity's slithering past vanishing footprints of legless warriors trailing scent of a hidden prey seductive mirage of forgotten accusers enemies of a recurring leap of faith first hopeful cries of the last humans painful memories of myopic sycophants fading fading sinking sinking oblivious below waves of soothing amnesia retreating murmurs of these blind deaf deniers delirious with modernity's malaria feverish to the decaying marrow of disappearing yesterdays ominous like morbid laughter of hysterical circus clowns innocent like sudden death or miraculous birth bewildering like barking cats or grinning mules shocking like hard cold steel piercing pompous pride 18
September 2012
poems beware the leopard skinned techno vampires wandering lost the back roads of silicon valley mรถbius strip teasers all giddy giggling soul sucker brains cliche graveyard gender blurred zombies their awaiting tombstones begging fascist chisels craving permanent goosestepping identities roadside idiot savants swearing their pledge of allegiance to nobel prizefighters warring in revolving octagons of irreversible fate across the spinning globe beyond forgotten hinterlands light years below icy blinking stars still further towards an ancient meadow beyond the cyprus trees twanging irreverent gypsy banjos mocking bedouin moonlit crimes of fashion lost senile arthritic cows stumbling on the rocky hillside of Sinai Jovan Vuksanovich is a Montreal, QC, Canada-based poet. For the past seven years, he has been presenting his poetry mainly in Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa. In 2008, he recorded a CD of 9 of his poems entitled Deviant Melody. October 2009, Jovan was invited to Warsaw, Poland as 'Feature Poet' (in English) to perform at 5 literary events over a two week period. Jovan's poetry has been ascribed to the lineage of symbolists and surrealists, with cascading, provocative images oscillating between vivid imagined landscapes and bitter doses of reality. His poetry brings paradoxes to light through a noble rebellion cross-hatched with irreverent humour. Jovan is in the process of publishing his manuscript of poems entitled Catastrophic Bliss.
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September 2012
poems 6.
TARUN AGARWAL
Love And Loyalty We danced till it was wee, we talked too long to catch a wink, the day I spent feeling drowsy, drowning myself in her dreams. When the evening arrived I knew well that we had been drinking from the same well, a well so deep that it scared us both, a well too sweet for our well-being. June passed and so did July, months took flight so also my right, my right to sleep, my right to think, my right to myself. When I heard her again, I knew I was broken again. I wonder if she is the one who breathed love, the one who said its worth all venom, the one I adored too dearly, the one to whom I surrendered meekly.
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September 2012
poems Inspite of my copious tears I curse her profusely, To hell with love! To hell with loyalty! School School-precious little I relish it, I danced to their tunes. What I want and get pulled by is forbidden and to be forsaken. What they want I must produce, with a contrite heart I obey. They smile at me and reward me a sweet, the desire for another is swiftly snubbed. The agony of my soul that I must sit still, when my heart would have me leap all the while. What can I do but cry, no mercy for me for my pout charms them too and they would only rarely give in.
Tarun Agarwal is a Mumbai-based business executive. His poetry has been published in The Statesman, PEN, The Himalayan Beacon, Indian Poesy and other journals. His prose has been published by Free Press Journal and Education Times, The Times of India. He is currently working on his first volume of poems Life Is But An Empty Dream and can be reached at: india.tarun@gmail.com.
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September 2012
poems 7.
BRUCE DODSON
Discovery Our enemy is faster Without doubts and Unencumbered by the cloth of ethics Without mercy Wearing skins of every race Beyond the reach of simple justice. Do not think that he is beaten in a single battle Or in many He will follow us through lifetimes Killing as he goes Unseen by most And weakened only be the love of men For one another Strengthened by their hate and anger Do not feed him! Bruce Dodson is an artist/photographer who writes fiction and poetry in Seattle, Washington. His published works include Sein und Werden (UK), Kerouac's Dog Magazine (UK), Breadline Press West Coast Poetry Anthology, Blue Collar Review among others.
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September 2012
poems 8.
CHANGMING YUAN
Village Accent Growing up in a remote Chinese village I can never get rid of my country accent Even since I began to speak Mandarin As those in big cities or on television do While attending college in Shanghai, I felt deeply hurt Each time a teacher or classmate made fun of my dialect But inside of my own home, I feel truly delighted whenever My wife or teenager son imitates my English speech act To make myself sound less foreign in a foreign land I often hope to wear a mask covering my voice print Like a big soil-colored birthmark near my mouth Or perhaps, to have a tattoo formed around this area
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September 2012
poems The Loss of a National Identity Neither Chinese foods Nor Chinese parents Nor the Chinese language Nor our Chinese outlooks Not even our Chinese names Make us truer Chinese now Just as all the Chinese Born after the Song dynasty Were no Chinese to Japanese, so Each Chinese coming of age After the Ming was no more Chinese than another to Koreans While to other westerners We Chinese were never the Chinese They had known or known about Nay, we are indeed no longer The Chinese our ancestors used to be: During the Yuan, we became A nation of slaves, less than animals In our own land; during the Qing We learned to dress ourselves up inside out Like our conquerors with queues Since the opium war, we have been Trying to modify, to remove All our yellowish Chinese genes 24
September 2012
poems Deeply coded within Chan Within Confucianism Within the one hundred flowers That came to full blossom Once upon a long time Yes, we are offspring of ancient Chinese We still eat and look like our ancestors But we are not Chinese any more No more than Japanese, or Koreans Who still use some ancient Chinese characters.
Changming Yuan, author of Chansons of a Chinaman (2009) and co-author of Three Poets: Voices from the West Coast (2011), is a three-time Pushcart nominee who grew up in a remote Chinese village and published several monographs before moving to Canada. Currently Yuan teaches in Vancouver and her poetry has appeared in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, London Magazine, Taj Mahal Review and nearly 380 other journals and anthologies in 16 countries.
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September 2012
poems 9.
CHAHRA BELOUFA
Changeable change! When the dove will hiss with a mew When the cat will purr with a bark And eyeglasses will see better than eyes No truth will exist; It will only surrender and exit! When masterpieces will be slaves torn in pieces Jumping with the grasshoppers of summer! Then we can raise our heads and watch the clouds, As silent wonders will knock authentic souls! Who will ask for god's mercy! Since these subjects barked for what they saw, And couldn't see even with eyeglasses!! Who can transcribe the disability of what now we see! Who has the courage to read it? And be the reciter of habit's corruption sea! Once civilized hands swum in its waves And today hands shaking other hands, Whose performances building empty readymade graves! where identities are beheaded, And orphaned within rich slaves! Chahra Beloufa, born in Sidi Bel Abbes, Algeria, is a first year Master’s student in the University of Djilali Liabes, SBA. Chahra participated in the National Competition of English in 2008. Her poems have been included in the anthologies such as Voices from Everywhere (2011), Everything That is not Right (2011), One plus One (2012), and The Nightingale Whispers (2011).
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September 2012
poems 10.
ABDUL BARI
Victims …but there was no change in his pulse. pressing and passing passing and pressing till the holly touch. And she, solely at home crying and praying praying and crying remained a widow of the bloody AUTOMOBILE TERRORISM.
Abdul Bari is doing MA in English language and literature in PSMO College, Tirurangadi. He has written and published many poems in Malayalam.
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September 2012
arts 11.
STORY RETOLD
Our Priority: How hard we struggle to bring things home
Market Scene
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September 2012
arts Task and Love: We add care and affection while cooking
Cooking
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September 2012
arts Relishing: When full stomach, we dance on toes
Egg Dance
Contribution: All these arts are by AERTSEN, PIETER (1508-1575)
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September 2012
arts Entertainment: We may spring up to outdoors for bigger entertainment
Enjoying in spring
Contribution: ALBANI, FRANCESCO (1578-1660)
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September 2012
stories
Flash fiction is fiction with its teeth bared and its claws extended, lithe and muscular with no extra fat. It pounces in the first paragraph, and if those claws aren’t embedded in the reader by the start of the second, the story began a paragraph too soon. There is no margin for error. Every word must be essential, and if it isn’t essential, it must be eliminated. – Kathy Kachelries, Founding Member, 365 tomorrows
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September 2012
stories 12.
MEENAKSHI JAUHARI CHAWLA
Birthing One afternoon I walked out from my room and glanced at the backyard bathed in a March sun – a lazy, already warm sun. Out there stood an instant, shining alone in a sea of leaping instants. Silent and solitary, it succeeded in attracting my attention, as was its intention.
the sunlight and did not raise its hand or give any greeting, only signaled slightly as I passed, and perhaps because I prefer silence to sound, I saw it‘s pregnant stance.
It was a bleak moment of great silence that had journeyed from a place I could not know – but now, it had arrived. It came cloaked in
The instant brought me sadness and irrevocable change, an instant forever wedded to my memory of love.
I
It came to me that day when I was home – I suppose, it did not want to miss me.
t was when a new future was born deep within my soul, without my permission. Future needs no permission – it will arrive anyway.
It was when a new future was born deep within my soul, without my permission. Future needs no permission – it will arrive anyway. It was the instant that seeped, painfully, into my bloodstream. It told my cells that the past was gone and everything in my consciousness, right down to the cells, needed to look towards the future now – however difficult or alone that might be. If future would be a dark silent alley, it would have to be walked through. Silently. Patiently.
The clarity of that single instant was bewildering. It was a resolute moment of great gentle sadness – and immeasurable strength – its strength lay in its gentle touch. That golden moment lay in my palm, then dwelt in my heart, with minimum fuss, and whispered softly, ‗look to the future‘. And in that solitary sunlit moment, my eyes turned away from the past to a future that frightened me with its unknown-ness, with 33
September 2012
stories its loneliness, but it was a future I could not
now look away from.
Meenakshi Jauhari Chawla trained as a computer engineer but works now for an independent publishing house in New Delhi. Poetry is soul food for her and she pieces together thought-fragments and stray images as she goes about her daily tasks. Her fiction has been published in The Little Magazine and Sahitya Akademi's journal, Indian Literature. Her poems were part of a poetry volume entitled I, Me, Myself (Unisun, Bangalore, 2010) and The Poetry Society (India) Journal (2010). Some poems are also part of a forthcoming anthology later in 2011. She lives in Gurgaon, the 'bulging' city.
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September 2012
stories 13.
DAN CORFIELD
The White Climbing Tree Whenever Billy Ryan caught Lisa Dijacamo looking at him from across the classroom he couldn‘t help but notice how her big brown eyes grew even bigger. She was easily the best looking girl in the entire sixth grade. His best friend Doug Ley told him that he would buy her an expensive silver bracelet that spelled her name in big looping letters if indeed that was what she wanted. His second best friend, Mike McConnell, wrote poems about her in his spiral notebook, illustrating it with ink sketches, each color representing the feeling he was having at that moment. Even David Huddleston, who every one said was an idiot, thought that she would win Miss America if she were running for it. At lunch, the four of them would sit two and a half cafeteria tables away secretly discussing all the things they saw in her, unable, unfortunately, to pinpoint exactly what it was that they were looking at. ―Lets face it; she‘s sexy,‖ said David Huddleston. Not one of them knew exactly what that meant, but they all nodded in agreement. One evening Billy‘s father arrived home early from work and told Billy, along with his older brother Frank, to pull up a seat at the dinner table. Apparently, there was
something he wanted to tell them. It wasn‘t even five o‘clock so Billy knew it was important. ―I got laid-off yesterday,‖ Billy‘s father said. ―You got fired?‖ said Frank. ―No, he got laid-off,‖ said Billy‘s mother. She was the only one standing—hovering, actually, hovering and ringing her apron in her balled-up fists. ―What does laid-off mean?‖ asked Billy. ―It means I have to get another job,‖ said Billy‘s father. ―Are we poor?‖ said Billy‘s older brother. ―No, not yet,‖ said Billy‘s father. ―Can I get a new bike?‖ ―No.‖ ―Keep your chin up Pop,‖ said Billy, which is what his little league coach would always tell him when he struck out.
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September 2012
stories By now, Billy‘s mother had turned her back on the table. She was twisting the faucet back and forth as if she were washing dishes even though no one had eaten anything yet. ―Tell them the rest,‖ she said. ―We have to move.‖ ―Where to?‖ asked Frank. ―California.‖ Billy looked past his mother and on through the kitchen window to the woods outside. The trees were green and full this time of year. He saw himself out there hiking around, building tree forts, wading through streams. He saw himself kissing Lisa Dijacamo somewhere near the white climbing tree, where, using his trusty pocket knife, he‘d carved their initials in the center of a heart. He wondered what California looked like, imagining it to be brown and flat. Within a week his bags were packed. A large green and yellow truck waited in the driveway. Two hairy men built like bowling balls loaded furniture at Billy‘s mother‘s directions. ―Let them do their job,‖ Billy‘s
father said. The truck was getting a head start across the country. On the day of their departure, while standing on the front porch, Billy waved goodbye to Doug. Straddling his banana-seat bike, he came no further than the sidewalk and simply nodded, his long legs stretching defiantly. In his striped pants and beige turtleneck he looked like Peter Fonda in Easy Rider, what with the way he grasped his swirling handlebars while leaning back into his sissy bar. The next thing Billy knew he was sitting on an airplane, gazing out the window, swearing he saw Lisa‘s big brown eyes staring back at him through the clouds. He wondered if the girls in California would be like her. Billy had never seen a real Palm tree before. He certainly hadn‘t seen one growing out of the cement in an airport in Los Angeles. But that‘s what he saw the instant he stepped through the glass doors at LAX. We aren‘t going back, he thought. ―Wow, this place is different,‖ his brother said:
wo days later they discovered the beach. …They would trade the Ohio woods for the California swells. They would go from being Huck and Tom to well, whomever the equivalent rebels were in Southern California.
T
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September 2012
stories Two days later they discovered the beach. The water was much colder than Billy ever imagined it would be. But the joy of riding waves! He told himself that he would learn to surf, him and his brother. They would trade the Ohio woods for the California swells. They would go from being Huck and Tom to well, whomever the equivalent rebels were in Southern California. At night he wrote to his best friend Doug. Doug told him that Lisa had been asking about him. Perhaps she was in love with him. Billy asked Doug to get her address so he could write to her. For the next ten months the two young lovers exchanged letters of longing and desire. Then, in September, Billy‘s grandfather fell off his roof while adjusting his television antenna. While in the hospital, doctor‘s discovered Cancer riddling his bones. He was in the hospital for two weeks before he died. The entire family would go back to Ohio for the funeral. Billy was very sad about his grandfather being dead but he was excited about seeing Lisa again. He knew that they‘d be in town a week or so and he could go and see her. He had this wonderful feeling of destiny, of God being on his side; he knew that they were meant to be together. The day after the funeral, Billy and Doug rode their bikes to Lisa‘s house. When she
stepped through the door, Billy couldn‘t believe what he saw. She didn‘t look the same. Her face was rounder, fatter, and the brown hair that stood high atop her head looked like a thick ugly mop. ―I probably should have told you,‖ said Doug. Lisa threw her arms around Billy, kissing him all over his cheeks. Billy thought she smelled like Bologna. ―Let‘s go swimming!‖ said Lisa. Then she took Billy‘s hand, leading him and Doug to her back yard. Beyond the clothesline, next to the lopsided swing set, a plastic blue swimming pool stood with murky water, mosquitoes, and a blow-up raft. ―It‘s so good to have you back,‖ said Lisa. After climbing in, she lay down on the raft, her thick white arms wading like ocean buoys. Later that afternoon Billy went for a walk in the woods. The woods didn‘t seem as thick as they did ten months ago. The creek was but a trickle and he could see the houses on the other side through the trees. He walked up to the white climbing tree; it looked small. On the bark he saw his initials above Lisa‘s. Next to that he saw another set of initials, and next to that another. All around the white trunk there were lovers laying claim to one another. When Billy got back to his grandparents house he asked his 37
September 2012
stories brother if he really were going to buy that
surfboard he‘d been talking about.
Dan Corfield teaches writing at California State University, Long Beach. His fiction has appeared in various literary journals and his poetry can be found in Beside the City of Angels: An Anthology of Long Beach Poetry.
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September 2012
interview 14.
LEKH RAJ TANDON
Khurshid Alam Interviews Lekh Tandon at Barista, Mumbai
Lekh Raj Tandon
Lekh Raj Tandon is one of the well-known faces in the film industry who has a wide experience in film making. He has directed many films as such Professor, Amrapali, Jhuk Gaya Aasman, Prince, Dulhan Wahi Jo Piya Man Bhaaye, Agar Tum Na Hote among others. He was one of the few who took to directing television serials when TV was still in its nascent age. Khurshid Alam, Editor-in-Chief, CLRI interviews Lekh Raj Tandon at a Barista outlet in Mumbai. This interview is more focused on film making techniques than his biography. 39
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interview CLRI Que: Can you please tell me about your family back ground? You belong to the people who have background in the film. Ans: I was born in Pakistan. I came to Mumbai, then Bombay, for studies in about 1945. Back in Pakistan I had the opportunity to work for Elizabeth Taylor (Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor) and was associated with some theatres in Lahore. But my connection with Pirthivi Raj Kappor attracted me to cinema. My parents did not like this and my father called me back to Lahore. After partition I came to India in 1947 and thus I landed in Mumbai. So the connection with the Kapoor family began once again. I started working as an assistant cameraman to Shri V.N.Reddy for Pirthivi Raj Kapoor‘s Aag. Aag was a very successful movie but I had no work for some time. After a gap of some time, Kedar Sharma called me to work for him, our relation lasted for about five years. Then I assisted C N Dhar for Bahu Beti then again I worked for Raj Kapoor. CLRI Que: You made so many good films, which one you like the most? Ans: None! My best is yet to come. CLRI Que: How do you weave your characters in films? If they always carry some bookmark of the idea of the writers? Ans: Eavesdrop how the people in real life interact with one another, how they talk, and how they react in a certain situation. People are the real storehouse for knowledge to streamline the characters onscreen. Not necessarily. Characters should be let evolve on their own, according to the demand of the story. The characters that evolve on their own are ever rememberable. CLRI Que: Do you deal differently while creating male and female characters? Ans: Not so different. However, there are certain things that the audiences expect from male characters likewise there are other things that are excepted of the female characters. CLRI Que: How the idea of Amarpali came to you? What are the challenges in making a film based on history or historical incidents? Ans: Amarpali was adapted from a historical character of the Vashali kingdom of the 5th century BC. In 1948, Acharya Chatursen Shastri wrote a book titled Vaishali Ki Nagarvadhu. According to history, Amarpali was a great dancer and so we preferred to take Vijayanti Mala who was also 40
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interview a great dancer. However, Amarpali is not exactly what she has been shown as in the book, Vaishali Ki Nagarvadhu. CLRI Que: How important are stories for making films a success? Ans: Good stories are very important for making a film successful. But there are always compulsions for other things for a masala movie. CLRI Que: Can you suggest me some tips for best screenplay writing? Ans: Always keep one thing in mind that movie is motion pictures. Story should be developed as to make to move smoothly, visually. CLRI Que: According to you who are the best screen writers of yesteryears and who at present? Ans: Abrar Alvi, Ritwik Ghatak, Balchandran, Vishwanathan G. are very good writers of the past and Javed Akhtar, Juhi Chaturvedi, and Sanjay Leela Bhansali are some of the good writers of present time. CLRI Que: Do you have any plan to write or direct any film presently? Ans: Yes, currently I‘m working on a movie. CLRI Que: You started working in TV serials when the TV was still in nascent age. Your experience. Ans: I treated TV in the same way as cinema. For TV serials, the stories are simply enlengthened into episodes after episodes (laughs). Other things are very much similar.
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criticism
I criticize by creation - not by finding fault. – Marcus Tullius Cicero
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42
September 2012
criticism 15.
SHAILENDRA CHAUHAN
Indian Poetry, its Aesthetics and Politics A QUESTION I should like to ask myself today is: If poetry makes us more conscious of the essence of our day-to-day existence, of life's complexities and meaning, does it have an effect upon action, even political action? One would confirm that this is a very old idea; and that one cannot deny the truth of the statement that there is an eventual effect on our actions, whether social or political. And if poetry may influence politics, we could say that poetry is politics, and so this poetry is not poetry at all, it is just not good for anything. But life is reminiscence, and therefore our poetry too is reminiscence. This memory, this terrible sepulchre which we have inherited, and carry inside us, will not leave one alone, ever. And the poet will ask: Who is that child crying, why, without a mouth? Along with that eternal equation of rich and poor, the splintered dilemma of day and night, of peace and war. Can poetry ever
help to solve it? Can poetry ever turn the world and the workings of the world into song? Familiar as I am with a little of Indian English poetry and the poetry written in Hindi, Marathi and Bengali would I be wrong to conclude that most of our poets are encased in a private world of their own invention, where they cultivate certain delusions? For example, in their superiority to practical life, the belief in the autonomy of their poetry, and their innermost desire to resist change formally, intellectually and emotionally. The dilemma of narcissism, of too much self, I should think, deviates from the direction of true poetry that should find a sense of relation between self and other, the inner and outer world, the personal and social worlds. John Berger, in The Success and Failure of Pablo Picasso, writes perceptively about this dilemma of modern artists. I like to quote:
They are far away and unseen - so that at home most people are protected from the contradictions of their own system: those very contradictions from which all development must come. Many of our poets (those who live in bureaucracy of the academic world) elevate
the artist to the ethereal, where we deny the connections between self and other, 43
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criticism separating language from social relations. We revere this isolated human being (our artist, our poet) and treat his imagination as something he has inherited, a gift from God, as though there were no logical relationship, or historical relationship between the self and the world. We are then aware that we write without any real sense of community or audience. That is probably why the poetry of many Indian English poets fails, when these poets prefer to live "exiled" by their own choice. Such a poet, humanly, would be very lonely. But what will this loneliness mean to his art? It will mean he will begin to write longingly about the country he abandoned; or write patronisingly on the values he grew up with. Later, he is sure to run out of subjects or themes. He might not run out of emotion or feelings but he will, one feels, run out of subjects to hold them. Clearly, the great poets of Latin America and Eastern Europe live inside history, as is the case with our poets writing in their respective regional languages, and their imaginations are vitalised by that deeper perspective. In comparison, much of Indian poetry in English appears lifeless, stuck in the mire of trifling intimacies, without the arms of history and tradition. Frankly, I should like to write such a poem which comes out of the ashes of our own culture. However, to cultivate this relationship between the social and the personal doesn't
seem easy. One is afraid that such writing could bring in a measure of selfconsciousness to it because of a loss of moral poise. However, with his stance of resigned defiance, was often against the idea of the poet as thinker. In his words: "In truth neither Shakespeare nor Dante did any real thinking - that was not their job." What appears as thought in a poet is no more than the emotional equivalent of thoughts prevalent in his time. As far as poetry is concerned, whether these thoughts were part of a great philosophy or not is indifferent, so long as they express some permanent human impulse. At the same time, poetry should have the freedom to express in any way appropriate to it the diversity of human experience. We may take this further to say that a poet is responsible to his conscience, to his sense of what is right and wrong, that comes from both knowledge and judgment. To locate the relation of poetry to social action is difficult. Perhaps this has never been done; so it is not possible to define what that relation is. But this is true: that poetry has some effect upon conduct, in so far as it affects our emotions. To what extent then, is the poetry, say of someone like Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh, an effect? Poetry has the right to judge. One feels one has the right to make such a statement. One can infer that our right to judge is fed by the obsequious ways of our politicians, who 44
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criticism must ingratiate themselves with a mass electorate. This is evident because the common people may think and feel like the emperor Aurangzeb, but there are none who would talk like him in front of the public. Poets, probably, watch the game of politics from the sidelines. We are spectators, when we are poets: not players. Although the view from the sidelines enables us to see clearly much that is blurred to the players, it also distorts vision in certain ways. And our poet, the spectator, easily assumes toward the players an attitude of condescension, inclining toward disdain. So, a great danger we encounter, as poets, away from direct participation in the affairs of the community, is that we take ourselves
easily as the guardians of moral purity. I could say: Politics is dirty and the government is a fraud; but I, as a poet, am clean, my aims honourable. I have better things to do than politics, and no time to waste on plotters and schemers. Politics can only distract me from those better things, keep me away from better people who do those better things, and probably splash me with muck and blood in the end. So let a poet not be snug in his belief that he is the upholder of his society's (or of his country's) morals. This is wrong. Let not this vanity lead to a sort of ranting, a protest that could ultimately veer him away from the true poetry that is his goal. In one of my own poems, there are three lines which say:
Any time my Government breaks its promises, a line of this poem is dragged along the wide, clean streets of New Delhi‌ Maybe this is an example of what I referred to, that is, of my stand as a guardian of moral behaviour. In stating this I do seem to suffer from a small sense of guilt - a guilt that our educated middle-class carry with them when they go on to criticise the government for whatever ails our people. And yet, no world would perhaps exist unless poetry (out of all the arts) creates it for us. And this poetry has its source within every person who lives.
Therefore, I don't think it would be out of place to say that the poet who doesn't see what is happening around him is dead; and the poet who only sees reality around him is also dead. The poet who is only irrational will only be understood by himself and his closest friend or lover, and this is very sad. The poet who is all reason will even be understood by fools, and this is also terribly sad. So poetry will not stand by hard and fast rules, by good and evil; but it will be there and cannot be defeated. 45
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criticism To what is the poet responsible? Can poetry involve itself with politics? Or is it an autonomous, aesthetic object? While there can be no hard-and-fast rules, poetry that ignores the historical relationship between the self and society becomes lifeless. In the end, two alternatives come to mind when one thinks of the responsibility of poets. First, is it right to put such a burden on a man of imagination and dreams, on a poet? Secondly, is there no other class of individuals (I should say, intellectuals like scientists, philosophers and statesmen) who might also be held responsible?
Poetry is a deep, inner calling in man; from it came liturgy, the Vedas and Psalms, and the sacred content of religions. The poet confronted nature's phenomena and in the early ages he called himself a priest, to safeguard his vocation. The same way, to defend his poetry, the poet of the modern age accepts the honour from the masses. Today's social poet is still a member of the earliest order of priests. In the old days he made his pact with darkness, today he must speak and interpret the light.
Shailendra Chauhan, is from Jaipur (India), works as Chief Manager in a Public Sector Undertaking of Govt. of India. He writes poems, short stories, criticism both in Hindi and English and has the credit to have published works such as Nau Rupaye Bees Paise Ke Liye (For Nine Rupees and Twenty Paisa), Aur Kitane Prakash Varsh (How Many More Light Years), Eashwar Kee Chaukhat Par (At the Door of God), and a short story collection Nahin Yah Koee Kahani Nahin (No, Its Not a Story). He is also the Editor, Dharati, a Hindi little magazine. He can be reached at: shailendrachau@gmail.com.
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criticism 16.
SOFE AHMED
Wole Soyinka: An Original Thinker of Traditional and Modern African Rituals Introduction: It is needless to say that every nation or community of the world possesses distinct culture, tradition and rituals or series of conventional actions which represent their own beliefs, customs, mores, ethnicity, civilization etc. Africa or African society is not exceptional in this case. Thousands of years old African civilization is full of miscellaneous rituals, tradition, and culture etc. It goes without saying that along with several appreciable aspects the African civilization has got some anomalous and repulsive phases which stand far from our notion of civilization or a civilized society. The current article is a review on how eminent dramatist has treated his African rituals in his Lion and the Jewel particularly. Africa has given birth to several astonishing literary stalwarts and Wole Soyinka is one of those contemporary Africa's greatest writers. He is also one of the continent's most imaginative advocates of native culture, rituals and of the humane social order it embodies. He was born in Western Nigeria in 1934, he grew up in an Anglican mission compound in Aké. A precocious student, and first attended the parsonage's primary school, and then a nearby grammar school. Though Soyinka raised in a colonial,
English-speaking environment, his ethnic heritage was Yoruba, and his parents balanced Christian training with regular visits to the father's ancestral home in `Isarà, a small Yoruba community secure in its traditions. While Soyinka was twelve, he left Aké for Ibadan to attend the elite Government College of city and by eighteenth he entered university. In the year of 1954, he became ambitious on a career in theater, Soyinka traveled to England to complete a degree in drama at Leeds, under the well-known Shakespearean critic, G. Wilson Knight. After graduation in 1957, Soyinka extended his European apprenticeship by working several years as a script-reader, actor, and director at the Royal Court Theatre in London. This period also saw the composition of Soyinka's first mature plays The Swamp Dwellers and The Lion and the Jewel, and their successful staging both in London and Ibadan. Over the next seven years, from posts at the universities in Ife, Lagos, and Ibadan, Soyinka pursued his hopes for a re-born Nigeria with inventiveness and energy. He wrote and directed a variety of plays, ranging from comedies like The Trials of Brother Jero, a 47
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criticism popular exposĂŠ of religious charlatans, to a series of politically charged tragedies, The Road, The Strong Breed, and Kongi's Harvest, each of which turns on the modern world's interruption of ancient ritual practice. Beyond these full-length plays, Soyinka composed satirical revues, organized an improvisational "guerrilla theater," and wrote for radio and television. He also published his first novel The Interpreters (1965) and his first book of poetry Idanre and Other Poems (1967). In 1960 a Rockefeller research grant enabled Soyinka, now 26, to return to Nigeria. Although the return of Soyinka from England had been widely welcomed, his A Dance of the Forests angered the Nigerian authorities which highlighted wide-spread corruption in the country and the leftists complained about the play's elitist aesthetics. Further more, this play is a complex fusion of Yoruba festival traditions with European modernism. Hostility greeted the play from all quarters. However, what Soyinka's critics failed to appreciate was the radical originality of his approach to liberate black Africa from its crippling legacy of European imperialism or the so-called modernism. He envisioned a "New Africa" that would escape its colonial past by grafting the technical advances of the present onto the stock of its own ancient traditions. Native myth, reformulated to accommodate contemporary reality, was to be the foundation of the future, opening the
way to "self-retrieval, cultural recollection, cultural security. "From this perspective, the critics appear unwitting neocolonialists, their ideas mere replay in African costume of western view. Soyinka dreamed instead of a truly de-colonized continent, where an autonomous African culture assimilated only those progressive elements of recent history that were consistent with its own authentic identity. Complementing his literary outburst, Soyinka also delivered lectures and wrote essays that discussed the nature of his art, traced its roots in Yoruba tradition, and compared his aesthetic principles and practice to those of other writers, both African and European. Nevertheless, Soyinka contrasts with the neocolonial practices that black Africa absorbed from European imperialism. As he defines the concept, organic revolution is a process of communal renewal reached in moments of shared cultural selfapprehension – moments whose manner and content are particular to each society. Such revolution is inherently local and cyclical, qualities more appropriate to African culture, Soyinka argues, than the global teleologies of either Marxist communism or capitalist nationalism. Indeed Soyinka's mode of liberation ultimately displaces the logic of Western politics with the rhythms of native rituals.. For revolution he advocates to reject the abstractions of both dialectical materialism and market economics for the particularity of ceremonial healing – of the 48
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criticism divisions that isolate individuals from society and sever both from their sustaining integration with nature. The god whose ritual Soyinka offers as the model for this organic restoration is Ogun, who risks his own life to bridge the abysses that separate the three stages of Yoruba existence – the world of the ancestors, the world of the living, and the world of the unborn. Ogun, as Soyinka reads the myth, is unique among tribal deities because he is at home in none of these three structured states of experience. Rather, his realm is the chaotic region of transition between them, what Soyinka calls the "fourth stage" of the Yoruba universe, a condition where opposites collide without resolution in "a menacing maul of chthonic strength that yawns ever wider to annihilate" all social and natural order. Ogun's heroic passage through this realm not only preserves the connections between the ancestors, the living and the unborn. It also revitalizes the Yoruba cosmos by benignly channeling into it fresh energies from the fourth stage. This model of social revolution is essentially one of recurring crisis, where novel and alien forces are regularly mastered and integrated into the matrix of tradition and custom. It is to the challenge of this crisis that Soyinka commits his art, and only within its context can the signature gestures of his style achieve their full meaning. But once seen in the framework of Ogun's encounter with the fourth stage, Soyinka's discordant mixing of
genres, his willful ambiguities of meaning, his unresolved clashes of contradictions cease to be the aesthetic flaws Western critics often label them and become instead our path into an African reality fiercely itself and utterly other About rituals Soyinka says ―My emphasis is on the human...Divine enlargement of the human condition should be viewed dramatically, through man. The mode for this is Ritual. The medium is Man. Ritual equates the divine or superhuman dimension with the communal will, fusing, the social with the spiritual and the ritual, sublimated or expressive, is both social therapy and reaffirmation of group solidarity, a hankering back to the origins and formation of guilds and phratries. Man re-affirms his indebtedness to earth, dedicates himself anew to the demands of continuity and evokes the energies of productivity. Reabsorbed within the communal psyche he provokes the resources of Nature; he is in turn replenished for the cyclic drain in his fragile individual potency. In the play The Lion and the Jewel the concept of tradition and rituals are better explained through the character of Lakunle and Baruka,‘the Lion‘. The first thing we notice on reading the play is that Lakunle is an African man who has been westernised – e.g. he is against bride-price and he wants to introduce progress in his village. 49
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criticism As he says: ―To build the railway through Ilunjinle… And motor roads And railways would do just that, forcing civilization at his door.‖ Besides as a modern man, hypocrisy also remains as an essential aspect of his character. He himself being a so-called modern man possesses the three primitive desire_lust for power, wealth and woman but he negates Baroka for these desires as he opines of Baroka: Voluptuous beast! He loves his life too well… In addition, despite his behavior on occasion, he is essentially a lively young man. He tries to emulate European notions of courtesy by relieving Sidi of her burden, though carrying water is traditionally a women's task. His flirtatious opening speech may seem rather crude, but is typical of the kind of jesting that goes on in courtship. Sidi is not so much shocked as bored by Lakunle. How does Sidi cleverly answer his insistence that she should abandon the traditional way of carrying loads on her head? The contrast between the ideas that Lakunle has derived from books about women's weakness and Sidi's answers based on experience.
According to James, Lakunle is a "creature damaged by books" and Soyinka called Lakunle 'an awkward creature – awkward in words, in action'" says James, and Fezile Mpela is a joy to watch as the school teacher who is very much in love with Sidi, and determined to make her his wife. He wants to do so, however, contrary to the traditional rules of engagement, by refusing to pay the "bride-price". Sidi does not get this, or his declarations of love or his kisses — she asks, "what are you doing with your mouth?" He proposes, on his knees, extravagantly calling her Bathsheba, Ruth, Esther, Rachel, adored women from the bible, a book Sidi knows nothing about. For Sidi, the bride-price is important, as it determines her status in the village. Instead, Lakunle encourages her to shake off her yoke, to marry him and love him in a modern and western context which becomes the embodiment of Ilunjinle‘s modern rituals. His vigorous advocacy of progress and science leads to take himself rather too seriously and when he pronounces with conviction that women's brains are indeed smaller than those of men, it becomes impossible for the audience to do so. The performance is engaging and funny — you 50
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criticism want him to get the girl, in spite of the fact that he is clearly going to miss the boat. Lakunle‘s character, however, makes it clear that progress is not all it is cracked up to be and the so-called modernity is not to be accepted in the new Ilunjinle or African. Baroka, whereas, the Bale or chief of Ilunjinle is a major character in the play, here is introduced as standing for tradition. He is a traditional African man, with several wives, he is a good wrestler which is attractive to Sidi who both traditional (Bruka) and modern (Lkunle) men want to possess. His character and winning Sidi‘s heart ultimately ensure the victory of tradition over the new modernity or westernity. His role also clarifies that tradition gets the better end of the stick. Sello brings gravitas and dignity to the part of the Bale, or Lion, and he looks pretty good with half his kit off. He seduces Sidi even though she is determined to outwit him and the status quo, when the curtain drops, is preserved. One is unsure if this is a good or a bad thing. It could be neither, or both. A critic thus says "An African chief can still take many wives. Is this good or bad? As black women we should engage in this debate." The senior wife of Baroka Sadiku also makes a compelling case for the role women have in African tradition and the extent to which custom is oppressive and abusive.
The Lion and the Jewel is not, however, a simple retelling of the classic love-triangle story. The conflict between Lakunle and the Lion is the eternal one of progress vs. African tradition or the contrast between traditional and modern Africa is the contrast between Lakunle and Baroka and Sidi stands for the new generation of Africa who are about to be modernized but ultimately prioritize their own tradition over others or modernity or European culture and tradition. That is the writer‘s one of the chief motives behind The Lion and the Jewel. That is Africa can adopt the concept of modernity save her own tradition as all nations of dignity would prefer to do. Soyinka dignifying himself to a universal position of humanity and deeply analyzing the society of his time has come out with this message of keeping or upholding the originality with the revolution of modernity. ―Lastly we may conclude with how critic James explains the writer‘s views of African tradition and rituals in this play. James says he feels that he can go home and take part in rituals that are hundreds of years old, but come back to Johannesburg and live and work in the modern world; "When I die, if I have not passed on the knowledge of our traditions to my sons, in the way that I received it from my father, then I would have failed… in this country, we tend to do theatre only about our stories... I think we should engage more with other African narratives, and create a feeling of belonging 51
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criticism to Africa…Tradition and progress must live
side-by-side in Africa.‖
References: 1. Msiska,Geald.1978. Wole Soyinka Evans Brothers, London. 2. Ogunba,Oyin, The Movement of Transition : A study of the plays of Wole Soyinka. 3. Soyinka, Wole. 1986. The Lion and the Jewel. Oxford University Press.
Sofe Ahmed is currently working as a lecturer of English at Ideal College, Sylhet, Bangladesh. He has research interest and experience in several fields. Currently his work on primary education in Bangladesh has been published in Teaching Journal of the OOI Junior Academy, U.S.A titled “The Strategic Priority for the Primary Education Development in Bangladesh: From Divergence to the Convergence of Multidimensional Institutions as Option”. Transactions on Primary Education, Volume 10,Number 1,2010, ISBN 0-9703797-8-1. His work on Freud has also been published by Indian Literary Review.
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book review
The artist
doesn’t have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don’t have the time to read reviews. – William Faulkner
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53
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book review 17.
COUNTRY – A NOVEL BY SHELBY STEPHENSON
Preview of a Novel Introduction: This chapter is an excerpt (chapter 5 of 52 chapters) from an unpublished manuscript called Country by S Stephenson FROM "Country" Country rocks videos: shoulders shake; money‘s Word opines and relishes: talking heads. Let‘s stand up for the dulcimer: maybe that‘ll help: I put it on my lap to play: Nin‘s sister, Hopie, brought a hammered to our house one time: that instrument appears in mountain lore a lot, though tradition puts its origin in Persia or India around 2000 years ago. When Hank, Webb, Lefty, Marty, Sonny, Red, Bob Wills, too, and his Texas Playboys−came along−they carved their names in the tops of dulcimers; their careers bloomed with longing. I am in love again when I see a dulcimer−a pulsing hour-glass elongated on a shelf to pine for vines and pantaloons and aunts whose gestures smell of Sweet Society. Speaking of Folk, Country, and Western Music, I am
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book review not surprised that Eddy Arnold‘s king: why, he started out in Tennessee−guitar strapped to his back−and rode his mule all the way to the Country Music Hall of Fame, 1966: ―Cuddle, Bugging Baby,‖ ―Just a Little Loving (Will Go a Long Way),‖ ―Don‘t Rob Another Man‘s Castle,‖ ―C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S,‖ ―I‘ll Hold You in My Heart,‖ ―Then I Turned and Walked Slowly Away,‖ ―Bouquet of Roses,‖ ―Anytime‖ (brother Paul sang it often): why there‘s potential here, a necessary celebration into euphoria over what songwriters call ―hooks‖: I don‘t want to get snagged on one: I‘d rather be tanned on my vacation than on my weekend: opulently I go, talking of Eddy‘s tenderness and acumen for building an empire of dough around his image of the Tennessee Plow Boy: I used to smoke a pipe when I was one and twenty-five; I‘d buy a can of Plow Boy just to see the face of that boy, me, Huckleberry Eddy, on the rounded surface of the tin, the wind siding my curls up the ridges while Black and Gray took my picture, blinking and pissing, their cameras pinking gnats napping between their hind-legs, their ears forward pricked down the long rows furrowing: the mind comes home without hurt or haunt when I speak of 55
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book review Eddy‘s songs: ―Take Me in Your Arms and Hold Me,‖ ―I Want to Play House with You,‖ ―Easy on the Eyes,‖ ―I Really Don‘t Want to Know,‖ ―Cattle Call‖ (a biggie: I never could yodel good), ―You Don‘t Know Me,‖ ―Tennessee Stud,‖ ―Molly Darling,‖ ―The Last Word in Lonesome Is Me,‖ ―What‘s He Doing in My World,‖ ―I‘m Throwing Rice at the Girl I Love,‖ ―Make the World Go Away.‖ Well, well, you can‘t: it‘s imperative that Accuracy suffer when charging the mock-country-western song: Eddy stayed true, even when parody parroted his performances. Coffee houses? Stringy hair, shop-spots, late ‘50‘s, early ‘60‘s: tenacity, talent: Ash Grove, L.A. area: seraphs‘ hearts tune strings I hear by an Angel Band: O come, come, come to the wild of Linda‘s Garden: used to be the inside of a Smith tobacco-barn, named for the man who invented the curing system, little house-toppy cupolas like small silos over one burner and a wick: I‘d rack up out of bed when I heard Paul‘s Farmall Cub: ―Let‘s take that tobacco out, boys.‖ Paul would appear, always late, especially if he had a date the night before: he loved sleep like a dreamer loves visions: I mean 3:30 or 4:00 a.m.? He‘d find me 56
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book review dozing on the doodle-bug-warm ground: the burners had been turned off the night before: I drifted with tiger-lilies, whales, dolphins. The barn‘s gone now, gone, gone, gone, like farming itself, as I knew it, the fields fallow, fewer crops with milk-cows staked in ryegrass, chomping, or cavorting in the pasture with their calves. The bull faces west in the far corner of the pasture: only the foundation of the barn remains−creekrocks: my cousin−the writer, Margaret Maron−and I− share, on my father‘s side, Greatgreatgreatgrandfather David: he‘s Pap George‘s father: Greatgreatgrandpap George sold July, the slave girl, in 1850, for $413.25: Margaret gave her homeplace‘s old foundation grandeur when she threw out some poppy-seeds. Muff Tate, Landscape Architect, designed our yard; I pondered Margaret‘s poppies: I‘ll use these rocks for Linda‘s Garden: ditch-bank-roses, Old Ramblers, oldest on the plantation; Lantana, Old-timey Beauty-bushes, Black-eyed Susan, Euonymus, Tiger-lilies, and a Lot of Weeds, beautiful flowers in such a small space−oh how happy a place that‘ll be! While I was lying here with Linda on my mind and got going on flowers−I was going to 57
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book review say−I‘m writing this for my brother Paul, his oval face serious in a funny way, body erect in the Cub‘s seat, the flatbed trailer bouncing along my eyes, why, I see it all, before the termites ate the timber my father cut in Cow Mire and Help, before my time, raised the two tobacco barns and the roofs, plus a connecting shelter poison-ivy would cover, making my body itch even when I think about the vines running round my britches, the cottontail, jumped, the cottonmouth or the black-runner coiling to strike in the ivy‘s inguinal tear, my vision this site, Dear Reader, I dedicate to Paul: you would love him, by the way: how he supported me always by saying, ―You can sing‖: that‘s an insight into teaching and delighting: endorse someone and gain composure: then you can go about the day as if you‘re Somebody. Shelby Stephenson's *Family Matters, Homage to July, the Slave Girl* won the 2008 Bellday Poetry Prize, Allen Grossman, judge. He can be reached at: shelbystephenson@mindspring.com.
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new releases 18.
BOOK RELEASES Book Title: The Artist As Mystic Author: Alex Stein Publisher: Onesuch Press, London. First Published: 2010 ISBN: 9780 9872760-4-9
Book Title: Lost in Seattle Author: Bruce L Dodson Publisher: Shiva Delivers & Amazon.com First Published: 2012 ASIN: B00819TZVM Lost in Seattle - A novel that traces social turmoil that started with economic recession in America in 2008 and impacted the society for ever.
Book Title: Making A Poem Author: Vihang A. Naik Publisher: Allied Publishers Limited, Mumbai , India. First Published: 2004 ISBN: 81 - 7764 - 584 – 6 Edition: Hardbound
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new releases Book Title: In The Himalayan Nights Author: Anoop Chandola Publisher: Savant Books and Publications, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. First Published: 2012 ISBN 978-0-9829987-0-0 Pages: 286 Edition: Pocketbook - 6" x 9" Price $16.95. Book Title: Biography of Desire Author: Adrià Guinart Publisher: Lulu.com ISBN: 978-1-4478-5219-3 Format: Paperback Pages: 68 Price: $6.63
Book Title: Rising With a Distant Dawn Author: David Groulx Publisher: BookLand Press Inc. ISBN: 9781926956053 Format: Paperback Pages: 80 Price: $14.95
Book Title: Essendo Morti – Being Dead Author: Jéanpaul Ferro Publisher: Goldfish Press Publications; 1st edition (January 1, 2009) ASIN: B002KF7BNC Format: Paperback; Pages: 112; Price: $9.99 Recognition: Nominated for the 2010 Griffin Prize in Poetry
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new releases Book Title: Jazz Author: JĂŠanpaul Ferro Publisher: Honest Publishing (April 25, 2011) ISBN-10: 0956665861/13: 978-0956665867 Format: Paperback, Kindle Pages: 98; Price: $10.70/ Kindle Price: $2.99 Recognition: Nominated for the 2012 Kingsley Tuft Award in Poetry & the 2012 Griffin Prize in Poetry
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September 2012
editor’s talk Contemporary Literary Review India (CLRI) is a rapidly growing literary journal and has become reckoning in a very short span of time. CLRI receives huge submission each month from writers belonging to a wide range of professions from around the world. CLRI is not limited to publishing the writings, it promotes the writers and their writings in many ways. CLRI also helps the writers by providing some paid services so they do not have any hurdle in their publishing career. Manuscript Editing: Publishers and printers do not read your entire manuscript. They read just a few first chapters and decide whether your manuscript is print-ready. If you go for selfpublishing, readers will value you little which in turn, down rates your market value as a potential writer if your manuscript is not well edited. CLRI provides professional editing services to enhance the chances of your manuscript getting selected with the publishers. We have professional editors with vast experience in editing who prepare your manuscripts to suit the publishers‘ requirements. Review Writing: The best way to promote your books is to get them reviewed by a publication. When you write a book it is very important that the concept of your subject and book is brought to the people with all its values. But to tell you the truth the scope of getting a book reviewed is too bleak. CLRI provides book review writing service so that all writers have their turn and their valuable works are evaluated in all respects. Digital Formatting: Given the fact that technology has permeated to all walks of life, traditional publishers are fast moving to digital publication. Many publishers have created their separate department for converting their already published books to digital formats to make them compatible with different kinds of technology-based devices. So that the techno-savvy people can also buy the books and read them on the devices such as mobile phones, tablets, slides, Laptop, computers and other gadgets. CLRI helps you prepare your manuscripts for digital publishing. We convert manuscripts before the writers go for digital version either because they opt for self-publishing or get a publisher for digital version. Writers’ Promotion: Getting your books published is just the first step. As an author you need to promote your writing and concept. CLRI runs a column on Featured Author where we post a flyer along with a slug line about the book and a link to the book store. This helps you enhance the possibility of gaining popularity as well as sell your books.
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editor’s talk To enquire for placing ads, contact us at: contemporaryliteraryreview@yahoo.com
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