Yuyutsu Sharma to appear at the Asian Literary Society live session on 'Feminism in Modern English Literature' with Santhini Govindan, Mandira Ghosh and Kiren Babal in the 3rd Asian Literary Confluence 2020 on 23rd October 2020, 4:00 pm
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
Yuyutsu Sharma to appear at the Asian Literary Society live session on 'Feminism in Modern English Literature'
Monday, October 19, 2020
Yuyutsu Sharma to read at Asia Pacific Writers & Translators & the New York Writers Workshop's monthly reading series, Isolation Break v.6 hosted by Ravi Shankar
Join the Asia Pacific Writers & Translators and the New York Writers Workshop for our monthly reading series, Isolation Break v.6 featuring the best established and emerging voices from around the world. In this edition, join T.S. Eliot Prize winning poet and memoirist George Szirtes, Moth International Short Story Award winner and novelist Mandy Beaumont, poet, columnist for the Financial Express and cofounder of The Indian Novels Collective Ashwani Kumar, 2020 Varuna Fellowship winner and Queensland Premier's Award nominated playwright Emilie Collyer, and Rockefeller Foundation Fellow and one of Nepal's finest poets Yuyutsu Sharma. Hosted by Pushcart Prize winning poet and memoirist Ravi Shankar, Isolation Break is archived on YouTube and open to all. Click on the link to register for the event. You'll get a reminder when the event goes live this Saturday
Sunday, September 6, 2020
The Kathmandu Post Review : Yuyutsu Sharma's New Nepali collection, Panaharu Khalichchan
Books
Poems that travel across and beyond the Himalayas
Yuyutsu RD Sharma’s Panaharu Khali Chhan is a collection that outlines the poet’s oeuvre and leaves the readers wanting more.Bibek Adhikari
In his long career of 40 years, Sharma has produced more than a dozen anthologies, contributed to numerous literary magazines worldwide, and served as a visiting poet-scholar at many American universities. What makes his poems so widely read and anthologised is because they are grounded: they depict the actual image of the penurious lower-class Nepali society. Yet the depiction is not straightforward—he yokes many images into a single poem, creating a long-lasting and at times hauntingly gripping experience for his readers.
Reading the collection, which is divided into four parts—Pahadko Artha, Khacharharu, Phurbako Yarling, and Whitmanki Chhori—is synonymous with having a long tête-à-tête with the mountains and their people. It is only in the latter part of the work that readers get transported to the West: New York, Amsterdam, London, among others. The first part—Pahadko Artha, The Meaning of the Hills—chronicles the bleak and bizarre lives that thousands of poverty-stricken Nepalis are forced to live. Readers find themselves between short, pithy lines surrounded by labyrinthine images. Yet, at the heart of all these poems, the notion of loss prevails over beauty.
Take, for instance, the first poem Euta Sapana. Dreams about thunder and vultures get juxtaposed with the falling of a “four-month embryo / from the greedy mouth of a hateful hawk.” The result is the trembling of the newly-wed bride, who was “dreaming of pregnant sunsets.” It is Sharma’s caliber as a poet that enables him to stitch one image after another into the Frankenstein-esque poetry of grotesque horror. The “horror,” however, is everyday reality for many Nepalis.
In his next poem, Niyati, the poet compares the life of a street dog with a drunken porter—both are “huddled / in the shadow of / a pagoda.” The element of dread is manifested by Sharma’s choice of images: “gorilla kick” and a “pus-dripping paw.” This nauseating description of a normative scene results in a prickling sensation of fear and loathing in the reader.
In the poems that follow, Sharma contrasts Buddha with the “death of a dream” and the “illusion of a colorful lust.” He broods over the death of an old woman in a traffic accident and thinks about the fiery, swollen eyes of the sun. Bhimphedi, on the other hand, is a powerful work that brings together labour workers in a tunnel to the philosophical musing—“another name for drunkenness is death.”
Sharma also pays a fitting tribute to one of his inspirations, Gopal Prasad Rimal, in the poems Aamaka Sapanaharu and Gopal Prasad Rimal. He calls Rimal a “young embryo-son” and later the “pagoda of poetry.” What I personally found charming is his bewildering use of imagery. He defamiliarises what is commonplace and comes up with something strangely fascinating. Take his poem Lumbini as an example. He sees the sacred pond “green [but] with droplets of dried blood,” while “upon the boiling afternoon’s boundary” a tortoise raises its long neck and gawks.
In the second part of his book—Khacharharu, Mules—Sharma’s poems reach Lake Phewa, Ghorepani, and Birethanti. The people of these areas are like the hill mother from his poem, Asafaltaharu, who has nothing to offer her caterwauling son except a “moist but stinking kiss.” Yet life goes on. The hill people struggle to make their ends meet, but drag their lives like mules, carrying “stanzas of modern slavery” on their backs. These mules carry Iceberg beer, Chinese bricks, tin cans, rice sacks, and iodised salt on their backs—and they are “cursed for a lifetime eternal wandering.” So are the people living there.
The last part of the book—Whitmanki Chhori, Whitman’s Daughter—takes the readers beyond Nepal. Readers travel to the chilling alleys of London to the butterfly-filled streets of the Netherlands. One of his most read and loved poems—Ani Tapai New York-baasi Hunuhunchha (Are you a New Yorker?)—chronicles his first-hand experience in the streets of New York. Moreover, in another poem, London Bombaari, the poet travels around London and collocates the euphoria with Bhaktapur fair and Shakespeare’s Prospero.
As an ardent admirer of his many English poems, reading Sharma in Nepali was a bit of an uncommon experience. Many of the poems in this collection, having first written in English and later translated in Nepali, have a different flair from the usual contemporary poetry. Still, some poems feel like they are being forcibly translated. One example of this is Yeshuko Cross, or Christ’s Cross, which is too ambiguous even after multiple readings. But once the readers scan the English version, the meaning resurfaces. This is quite frustrating for someone solely relying on the Nepali version.
Sharma’s Nepali is peppered with many phrases from Hindi and English. Readers who are looking for a “standard Nepali” are at a loss. Nevertheless, the use of the poet’s idiolect—the speech pattern of an individual—is a classic double-edged sword: it can either attract the readers or repel them. Personally, I found it rather charming, especially reading the stanzas sprinkled with strange dialects. Still, the occasional typos and errors in punctuation make the reading a jittery one. An efficient editor can easily solve this problem.
For Sharma, the best poems are like “the poems / on the Lake [he] didn’t write,” just like the “kisses [his lover] / refused” to accept. Also, for him, the Lake (especially Lake Phewa) is like a half-written poem, forever struggling to be wholesome and achieve something illusionary. Between these two dualities—of writing the best poems and eschewing the half-baked ones—he struggles sometimes and fears the blank page, the dreadful khaali pana. In the eponymous poem, Panaharu Khhali Chhan, he “scribbles anger,” “compiles a cosmos of failure,” dreams about the “flaring fields of fire,” and “chants the mantras”—the same that used to fill his pages before.
For readers who want to peruse Sharma’s selected poems in Nepali, which he wrote (and sometimes translated) for 40 years, this anthology will be the right choice. It will outline the poet’s oeuvre and leave the readers wanting more. On a final note, reading Sharma in English is a delightful experience; reading him in Nepali, a somewhat bewildering and disconcerting one.
News: Yuyutsu Sharma's Quaking Cantos poem at Zebra Film Festival
Distinguished film maker Stephan Bookas' film based on Yuyutsu Sharma poem, "I See My World Shaking" from 'Quaking Cantos' has been selected from nearly 2000 submissions by the programme commission to be a part of the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival taking place from 19 to 22 November 2020 in the Kino in der KulturBrauerei in Berlin.
https://www.haus-fuer-poesie.org/…/literaturwerkstatt…/home/Sunday, August 23, 2020
What nature means to me : Yuyutsu Sharma Note on Royal Kew Gardens Collaboration
What nature means to me
Writers share the inspiration behind their displays dotted across the Gardens this summer
BY MERYL WESTLAKE
Leo Boix
I live in Deal, a small East Kent coastal town overlooking the English Channel, where I swim regularly.
Nature, in all its forms, has inspired my poetry in unexpected ways, from the marine environment where I live and work, to the woodland trees and migratory birds I'm surrounded by.
This special connection became even stronger since I moved to the UK from Argentina in 1997, as it reinforced in me notions of belonging, exile, and fleetingness.
Óscar Martín Centeno
For me,
nature connects with the human being, transmits its heartbeat, amplifies its
silences. In the poem it is more than just a stage. It is the invention of
love.
The
photograph is of a crasa, it is a typical plant in arid areas, quite
common in southern Spain.
I like it a
lot because it looks like a green rose that is born in unsuspected places. I
took the picture on a rainy day and the drops of water shine on the plant.
©Óscar Martín Centeno
Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
When I was young, my mother told me there were kami, spirits,
everywhere. Sometimes, I sit still and try to listen out for them.
Jini Reddy
Nature is
the living earth – in nature I experience freedom, belonging, repose, an
unravelling, and often, joy.
This is an
image of the St. Lawrence River ( and the Lachine Rapids) taken from the
end of the street I grew up on in Montreal. Whenever I arrive back in Canada,
this is the first place I go, and it represents so much: sweet memory and
homecoming but also the beauty and power of nature. When I come to this spot, I
exhale, unravel, feel free and at peace.
St Lawrence
River©Jini Reddy
Yuyutsu RD Sharma
Nature in
the Himalayas is not just a physical thing but a spiritual entity, Devatatma, a
Sanskrit word meaning a place where soul of the god lives. It’s through the
celebration of these magnificent Himalayan glaciers, named after divine beings
like Annapurna, Lord Shiva’s consort, that I have been able to get in touch
with the sublime and seek higher truths in life.
The song of
these glaciers that melt and replenish the granary stores of the Subcontinent
bestow upon us a sacred mission to survive, keeping us physically fit, agile
like birds, connecting our breaths to the colossal soul of the gods.
Himalayan
peaks ©Andreas Stimm
Nina Mingya Powles
I took this
picture outside a temple in Yunnan, China, in 2016.
The
courtyard was coated in yellow leaves; the air was full of incense. Ginkgo
trees are very ancient – to me they represent memory, history, and
connectedness.
Gingko,
Yunnan, China ©Nina Mingya Powles
Toni Giselle Stuart
My walks in
Silvermine have become about connecting to my ancestors, the indigenous ones
who have walked this land for thousands of years, and those who immigrated here
centuries ago in various ways.
In the
mountains and at the ocean, I remember and feel, how I am part of something
much bigger. This makes me feel held and safe.
Source: https://www.kew.org/
Saturday, August 22, 2020
'The Guardian' feature on Yuyutsu Sharma collaboration along with nine other celebrated writers at London's Royal Kew Gardens!
'A journey around the world': Kew Gardens offers visitors an escape
Travel the World at Kew series will showcases plants from 10 countries across six continents
Thu 20 Aug 2020 14.36 BSTLast modified on Fri 21 Aug 2020 04.37 BST
Children looking at humpback whale sculpture
Those unable to satisfy their wanderlust in these uncertain days of lockdown and travel quarantine are invited to immerse themselves in the sights, smells and spirit of faraway places – in a botanical sense at least – here in the UK.
From colossal Californian redwoods, those imposing ancient giants of the plant kingdom, to the balmy fragrance of Mediterranean rosemary and lavender, visitors to Kew Gardens in London will be transported to 10 countries across six continents within just a few hours as part of its Travel the World trail experience from next week.
The essence of
a tranquil Japanese tea garden and delights of the Himalayan flora of an
undulating Rhododendron dell are still within reach, for a tiny fraction of the
real cost, with visitors’ senses heightened by accompanying prose, poetry and
illustrations specially commissioned from talent across the world.
Sophie Rochelle
walk past beds of asterids in the Agius Evolution garden within Kew Gardens,
London.
A visitor walking past beds of asterids in the Agius Evolution garden within Kew Gardens. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA
“In a year
when many holidays and travel plans have had to change, Travel the World at Kew
will offer visitors a chance to experience the next best thing, a journey
around the world inside the safety of our walls,” said Richard Barley, the
director of horticulture, learning and operations at the Royal Botanic Gardens,
Kew.
“Visiting 10 special locations dotted throughout our 320-acres landscape is a perfect way to reconnect with nature after months of lockdown.”
Kew’s Great Pagoda towers over plant specimens collected in China’s Sichuan province. South Africa’s bergs and kloofs are replicated in a rock garden stippled with cascading waterfalls. Eucalyptus trees arouse thoughts of Australia, as do spectacular mountain gums.
The monkey puzzle trees – “coiled succulent pine / with saurian arms, bony plates / on reptilian back” in the words of the Latino-British poet Leo Boix – are redolent of the time of dinosaurs. They evoke, too, Argentina’s “sub-Antarctic forests” and rivers of “the most radiant turquoise I’ve seen”, writes the Kew scientist Dr Laura Martinez-Suz in her accompanying prose.
Britain’s native woodlands of tall grasses, wildflowers and whispering beech and hazel are also on show. Meanwhile, Óscar Martín Centeno’s poem The dance of sunrise in the Mediterranean Garden is a dreamscape of flowers swaying in the light of a rising sun.
A centrepiece will be a large-scale humpback whale botanical living sculpture, created by the winner of the Netflix series The Big Flower Fight and on display from 22 August – 18 September.
The specially commissioned poetry and prose by literary award-nominated writers, with a strong connection to each country, are displayed alongside vibrant illustrations by artist Mark Boardman.
Visitors walk past flowering beds along the Broad Walk, Kew Gardens, London.
Visitors walking past flowering beds along the
Broad Walk at Kew Gardens, London. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA
Writers include Joe Cottonwood, who lives in the coastal mountains of California, whose words read: “because a redwood with its power / will never preach / makes no demands / sips from the clouds / swallows the sunlight …”
The world-renowned Himalayan poet Yuyutsu RD Sharma has penned Rhododendron’s Suitor, which includes the lines: “an eternal lover / jilted by the silver-barked / suitor of the steep cliffs, / the Nepalese alder …”
Paul Denton, the head of visitor programmes at Kew, said the trail highlighted some of the “hidden gems” of Kew Gardens. “You can be reading a beautiful piece of poetry at the same time as seeing the landscape, so you can get a real sense of place and space,” he said. “It’s like taking the perfect holiday snap.”
His
favourites? “I love the Californian redwoods. There is something about the
colossal nature of these trees. And the monkey puzzle tree, which just has such
a strangeness about it.”
Tuesday, July 7, 2020
Yuyutsu Sharma's Poetry to be featured at Royal Kew Garden, London's upcoming August, 2020 show, "Travel the World at Kew"
Travel the World at Kew
DATE
LOCATION
PRICE
- Robert Montgomery
- Joe Cottonwood
- Nina Mingya Powles
- Óscar Martín Centeno
- Leo Boix
- Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
- Tamryn Bennett and Lyndsay Urquhart
- Jini Reddy
- Dara McAnulty
- Yuyutsu RD Sharma
- Toni Giselle Stuart
Guidance about coronavirus
Saturday, June 6, 2020
New Poem, Yuyutsu Sharma's "Dai, Chengdu" published in "On the Verge- Poets of the Palisades III Anthology."
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
Yuyutsu Sharma's "Jasmine Jewels" inspired by American photographer, Julie Williams-Krishnan's photograph at "Live Encounters", Ireland's leading online magazine
https://liveencounters.net/le-poetry-writing-2020/06-june-pw-2020/yuyutsu-sharma-on-an-empty-sac-street/?fbclid=IwAR1YxA06YNlL87FMXP0yNZY7FbTwAYdvqVVTKOwWtoAUPG5FOosTKwprRG0
Friday, April 17, 2020
An Older Poem about a dead monkey : "To Muktinath" by Yuyutsu Sharma
On my way to Muktinath