Sitakant Mahapatra, the eminent Oriya poet and Jnanapith Awardee says, “Poetry has its own ‘truth’ – the poetic truth, different from commonly understood or intellectually debated truth. The philosopher’s truth does not concern a poet very much. He lives with the truth of his ‘being,’ our essential human condition.”
Prof R K Singh, reviewing Rizvi and Rizvi’s book on Indian English Poetry, says that “the authors are clear in their mind that the current Indian English poetry scene is ‘crowded’ with poetasters, versifiers, struggling poets, true poets, and great poets …”
In a moving story The Tissue Paper WritingsUma Maheshwari delves into the troubled psyche of the protagonist, caught between her intense feelings for her father on his death bed and a failed relationship with a lover.
In a touching tribute to Um Qishta, a Palestinian woman who cradled a dying Israeli soldier in her lap, Homi Framroze writes:
At that holy moment / She wasn’t Arab or Jew / She was the mother of Palestine /
She was the mother of Israel / She was the mother of the suffering /
She was the mother of the wronged / She was the Universal Mother.
