Sunday, September 6, 2020

The Kathmandu Post Review : Yuyutsu Sharma's New Nepali collection, Panaharu Khalichchan

 Without Fear or Favour


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.Poems that travel across and beyond the Himalayas
bookmarkmail
Bibek Adhikari
Published at : September 5, 2020
Updated at : September 5, 2020 09:35
Kathmandu

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


                                                                                                                                                        Himalayan peaks ©Andreas Stimm

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. 

 

 Silvermine landscape ©Toni Giselle Stuart

Source: https://www.kew.org/

https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/words-behind-nature-means?fbclid=IwAR0nSnZPDeTYuXswXp8BO8hMpSayIEnNKs6bdj8lWZsZu9-0UImdjuVRCv0






Saturday, August 22, 2020

'The Guardian' feature on Yuyutsu Sharma collaboration along with nine other celebrated writers at London's Royal Kew Gardens!

 

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

Caroline Davies

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.”

 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/aug/20/a-journey-around-the-world-kew-gardens-offers-visitors-an-escape

 

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

Delve into the jungle, meditate in a Japanese Garden or meander amongst the Mediterranean olive groves. Explore the world 30 minutes from central London.
An illustration of global landscapes at Kew

DATE

From 3 July – 16 October 2020

LOCATION

Throughout the Gardens. Ask for a map on arrival.

PRICE

Included with entry. You must select a time slot for your visit in advance
Satisfy your wanderlust at Kew this year. 
Bask in the glory of the Californian summer with our Redwood Grove. Get your Spanish holiday fix with our Mediterranean Garden. Adventure around Asia with our Japanese Garden or experience the Himalayas with our incredible Rhododendron Dell. 
Let the powerful fragrances of the Chinese Grove transport you thousands of miles away, or if you're the adventurous type, explore the humid forests of Madagascar in our tropical glasshouse. 
Holidays might look a little different this year, but the scents and sights of Kew Gardens can whisk you away. 
This summer, create the holiday of a lifetime in a day. The world awaits you...


From 22 August
Nestled in our global garden, walk amongst poetry, prose, and illustrations from acclaimed writers from around the world. 
10 selected spots will be brought to life along with memories and sentiments from our own staff and volunteers.
Featuring work by:
  • 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

Read our dedicated page about the new time slot structure and what changes we've made to keep you safe. 

Saturday, June 6, 2020

New Poem, Yuyutsu Sharma's "Dai, Chengdu" published in "On the Verge- Poets of the Palisades III Anthology."


Dai, Chengdu

How old are you?
She looked up at me and asked,

a girl name Xio Xio
that translated into Nepali

would mean—
Apple Apple!

She came from Chengdu,
the region known, she announced

for apples,
pandas and beautiful elegant woman.

I have been to Nepal,
she added, and spent time

in the mountain
and learnt few words in Nepali.

Her eyes shone like black birds
in the white nest of her singing face.

I looked at her
slender waist and noticed

a gold-spangled ring
with a tiny lotus dangling out of it.

She bent backwards
shaking her long hair

falling like a dark waterfall
on her marble shoulders.

You must be a Dai then,
an elder brother, she said,

I was wondering
how to address you.



Edited by Paul Nash, Denise La Neve, Susanna Rich, John J. Trause, and David Messineo. 

The Poets of the Palisades shine in their third anthology of new and memorable works — 142 poems from 80 poets. All have had featured readings in the series sponsored by the North Jersey Literary Community in Teaneck, NJ (founded 1997) and the High Mountain Meadow Poetry Series in Wayne, NJ (founded 2017). For these tumultuous times of environmental crisis, bad politics, pandemic, and unrest, the editors selected submitted poems and arranged the best into eleven themed sections
These works, of our time, are on the verge, or, as editor Paul Nash indicates, “In transition … about to change … at the point where something may occur … in anticipation … to extend outward toward the unknown … nearing the likely or inevitable attainment of some state of being … to approach a barrier, boundary or portal … at an event horizon … crossing a permeable membrane … to reach the outer margins of something different or unexpected.”

POETS AND ARTISTS IN THIS ANTHOLOGY: Joel Allegretti, Renée Ashley, Donna Baier Stein, Amy Barone, John Barrale, Caterina Belvedere, Norma Ketzis Bernstock, Michael McKeown Bondhus, Laura Boss, Theresa Burns, Laurie Byro, Kevin Carey, Cathy Cavallone, John Chorazy, David Crews, Jessica de Koninck, Erica Desmond, Catherine Doty, Juditha Dowd, Sandra Duguid, Jane Ebihara, James C. Ellerbe, R.G. Evans, Tom Fitzpatrick, Ellen Foos, Laura Freedgood, Davidson Garrett, Deborah Gerrish, Henry Gerstman, Suzanne Gili Post, George Guida, Barbara Hall, Therése Halscheid, Patrick Hammer Jr., Karen Hubbard, Pamela Hughes, Josh Humphrey, Paul Kuszcyk, Vasiliki Katsarou, Tina Kelley, Adele Kenny, Janet Kolstein, Elaine Koplow, Denise La Neve, Susanna Lee, Joel Lewis, Timothy Liu, Roy Lucianna, Mary Makofske, Charlotte Mandel, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, David Messineo, Marilyn Mohr, Gene Myers, Paul Nash, James B. Nicola, Priscilla Orr, Wayne Pierson, Tom Plante, Jennifer Poteet, Morton D. Rich, Susanna Rich, Denise Rue, Alison Ruth, Brett Rutherford, Yuyutsu Sharma, Danny Shot, Carole Stone, Heather Strazza, John J. Trause, Doris Umbers, David F. Vincenti, Emily Vogel, BJ Ward, Galen Warden, Joe Weil, Barbara R. Williams-Hubbard, George Witte, Dave Worrell, Anton Yakovlev, David Yazzi, Michael T. Young, Donald Zirilli, Sander Zulauf.

ISBN 9798650452249. 284 pages, paperback, 6x 9 inches. $19.95 from Amazon (see link below). Ebook for $4.99 from Payhip. (see link below).



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


Jasmine Jewels
Inspired by Julie Williams Krishnan’s photograph


Translucent sparks
 of compassion,

quiet, impenetrable
feathers of light,

only fools would
attempt to smash

their indestructible cores
with sledge hammers.

The white jasmine
jewels have traveled

centuries of soft
sleep to arrive here

and nestle like little lambs
between human and divine feet,

tousled, nameless
face of the animal vehicle

beside the frozen feet,
the only clue to the deserts of darkness

they tried to plough through
to overcome the demon that rode

a wolf’s back to drink up
raging oceans of humanity.

Only the quietly menstruating
jasmine flowers survived in the end

 to sum up our story.


@Yuyutsu Sharma




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


To Muktinath
Yuyutsu Sharma




















On my way to Muktinath
I saw a big rhesus monkey
lying dead in grass,
like a crumpled lump of domestic laundry
beside a grey-haired grandma
pulling ebullient strands
of sunlight from
her spinning wheel industriously…

A frozen streak of lightning,
a crinkly flower of divinity,
a flying son of a virgin vermilion wind,
its immobility shook me
with a worrying loss and dread…

Dense forest
lay ahead and outside her hut
a newly born baby
lay snoring after an oily massage in sunlight.

What would you do with it?
I wished to ask
as I hovered around the scene for a while.
Was it killed in an accident?
Or is it a forest menace?

A quiet creek rustled by,
in its glassy surface
the frozen shadow
of a bare branched winter tree
looking like an injured frame
of an untouchable
from the village up above
or a smudged skeleton
of a shriveled, routed Yeti.

From Milarepa’s Bones, Helambu: 33 New Poems, Nirala, 2012

Saturday, April 4, 2020

Corina Poem 3: The Supermarket, Elmhurst by Yuyutsu Sharma




























“Do you sell any wines here,”
I asked and  waited there for an eternity
as he struggled unpacking his box
of 99 cent merchandise in the aisle,
then rose to face me,
“I speak no Englis.”
I walked the superstore,
stench of the dead and the dying
stinging my nostrils...
A stone crab menacing moving
its smashed pincers atop
a pile of soft shelled turtles
frozen and defaced from
uncouth handling and numerous inspections--
Tilapia, carp and caby fish,
Dungeness crab and special lobsters,
jelly fish, yellow eel, the snake of the sea,
all live and squirming
in the murky waters of my brain...
The striped bass whose face
has been scrubbed along
endless tracks of transportations,
buffalo carp moving in
a murky glass case,
or live frogs in a tin box,
inert, not croaking to bring
Dionysus to these golden
Superstores in the Queens.
Great China crab frozen
beneath layers of an affluence,
conch shells hushed before the snail
could wriggle out of the shell
and name million cosmic metaphors
of self, salvation and sacrifice.
Or leave the empty body
of the Lord to utter a prayer
or a war cry of justice...
I guess it was a revolution
of sparrows as he lifted his step
to stop in the middle
of the jungle on his way out
of the castle Kapilvastu
and carefully step aside
so as not to crush
a line of Industrious ants
or stop a summer song
of ecstatic cicadas
along the raging rivers...

I haste I rushed out
of the slaughter house,
feeling the dragon’s hook
in my throat and bowed to
million little lives on the earth
singing and swaying in an erratic energy
to the music of His long
lustrous earlobes of wisdom...


©Yuyutsu Sharma (yuyutsurd@gmail.com)
From A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems, Nirala, 2017


Recipient of fellowships and grants from The Rockefeller Foundation, Ireland Literature Exchange, Trubar Foundation, Slovenia, The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature and The Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature, Yuyutsu Ram Dass Sharma is a world renowned Himalayan poet and translator.

 He has published ten poetry collections including, The Second Buddha Walk, A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems, Quaking Cantos: Nepal Earthquake Poems, Nepal Trilogy, Space Cake, Amsterdam and Annapurna Poems. Three books of his poetry, Poemes de l’ Himalayas (L’Harmattan, Paris), Poemas de Los Himalayas (Cosmopoeticia, Cordoba, Spain) and Jezero Fewa & Konj (Sodobnost International) have appeared in French,  Spanish and Slovenian respectively.  In additionEternal Snow: A Worldwide Anthology of One Hundred Twenty-Five Poetic Intersections with Himalayan Poet Yuyutsu RD Sharma has just appeared.

He has held workshops in creative writing and translation at Queen's University, Belfast, University of Ottawa and South Asian Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany, University of California, Davis, Sacramento State University, California, Beijing Open University and New York University, New York.

Half the year, he travels and reads all over the world and conducts Creative Writing workshops at various universities in North America and Europe but goes trekking in the Himalayas when back home. Currently,
Yuyutsu Sharma is a visiting poet at Columbia University and edits, Pratik: A Quarterly Magazine of Contemporary Writing.





Sunday, March 22, 2020

First Corona Poem: "The Shopkeeper’s Daughter" by Yuyutsu Sharma #ContagiamociDiPoesia



In the local tea shop,
my regular haunt

to write fresh poems
each morning in Kathmandu,

I pull a page
out of my sheaf of papers

to let her read what I’ve been
working on since morning.

She looks at it for a second,
then almost uninterested

as if she has made a mistake
twitches her nose

twisting her face eerily
lifts it as a blade against her cheeks

turning the page
with my Corona poem

as a protection wall
to sneeze behind and return

the sullied page
as a fitting token of appreciation

from some cranky critic.





Recipient of fellowships and grants from The Rockefeller Foundation, Ireland Literature Exchange, Trubar Foundation, Slovenia, The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature and The Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature, Yuyutsu Ram Dass Sharma is a world renowned Himalayan poet and translator.

He has published ten poetry collections including, Second Buddha Walk,  Annapurna Poems,  and A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems, Widely traveled author, he has read his works at several prestigious places and held workshops in creative writing and translation at  Heidelberg University, Germany, California, Beijing Open University and New York University, New York..

Half the year, he travels and reads all over the world and conducts Creative Writing workshops at various universities in North America and Europe but goes trekking in the Himalayas when back home. Currently,
Yuyutsu Sharma is a visiting poet at Columbia University and edits, Pratik: A Quarterly Magazine of Contemporary Writing.


#ContagiamociDiPoesia