Post III , Poetry at the Games

Post is a Review of Poetry Studies from the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies at the Mater Dei Institute , Dublin City University (D.C.U). The third issue of Post was launched this week, there is .pdf copy available to interested readers now available online, I have linked it at the base of this piece.

In Michael Hind’s editorial, Post III, and the poetry of sport sets the framework for the third issue, and puts some difficulties with it into their proper context. Contributors are Katelyn Ferguson on (Brendan) Kennelly on and off the blocks , Jonathan Silverman ‘trackside vigilance’, Christodoulos Makris , Stephen Wilson, Niall Murphy, Roy Goldblatt, Alexandra Tauvray, Ian Leask, and there’s even a review by me about Jeet Thayil’s selection of Contemporary Indian Poets for Bloodaxe.

Christodoulos Markis’ read from Spitting Out The Mother Tongue on the evening of the launch, and the poems are available in the Post III .pdf , Christodoulos’ blog is here . The above image is by Derek Beaulieu, I am also linking to his blog .

My contribution to Post III was to look at editor Jeet Thayil’s The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets. I greatly enjoyed his approach to it’s editing which was of a non-chronological construction and was well-populated with women writers , who have stepped from behind the classical Indian constructs of beauty and silence to speak at last. I hope Jeet likes the review, as I have sent it to him (with some trepidation). Two of the women from the Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets have appeared on the pages of Poethead before now. I am linking Imtiaz Dharker’s site , as I have become incredibly fond of her writing as a result of the introduction she received in Jeet Thayil’s book. My review is on pages 130-134 of Post III.

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I am adding here an excerpt from Imtiaz Dharker’s Living Space ,

Into this rough frame,
someone has squeezed
a living space

and even dared to place

these eggs in a wire basket,

fragile curves of white

hung out over the dark edge

of a slanted universe,

‘Living Space ‘ , image and poem by Imtiaz Dharker.

Poetry by Imtiaz Dharker is available at her website , and linked in at Poetry international Web . Thank you to Jeet Thayil who contacted me about the review of his book, and who appreciates my emphasis on the women poet’s emergence from behind the classical ( and often constructed) representations of women. I have published a brief link to Dharker before now, here.