It hurts. Twisted, gnarling, rooted pain that knows no age, no boundary it envelopes into me, into others, and I see it reach out with a radiated hand pain is so familiar. I have become desensitized to it. I only know it needs me and that my corporeal and incorporeal existence beckons to it, like …
The Philosopher No More
A raconteur unto himself His deft tales he did not tell Any man or any beast. A self-appointed philosopher Trapped inside his own skull, Thoughts expressed to no soul. They came for him nonetheless, The thought police who patrol These dark, depraved streets; He stands tall, he does defy The higher power of this land, …
Second Generation Air Pump
i. What domestic image are you scrutinizing this morning, Carlos Williams? What line break have you devised on your carriage, hastening from a measled simp to the hospice gent who attempted, more than once, to so rudely slide into your work through your breathtaking enjambments? ii. I am changing the tire this morning and I …
নাগরিক রাবণ
নাগরিক প্রাণ আমি প্রকৃতির উদারতায় তাই বদহজম নাগরিক ঘ্রাণ আমি নাগরিক জনে-জালে আটকে জীবন; আমি নগরীর অভিশপ্ত পণ নিঃশ্বাসে যে ঢালে অন্তর্বিষ অনর্গল, অনুশোচনা কেবল – দীর্ঘজীবী হতে থাকে নাগরিক রাবণ।। কী জানি ফাঁকা, এক্কেবারে ফাঁকা লাগছে এগোচ্ছে না কিছুই, না মন না শরীর- নাহ্ কিচ্ছু না বুকটা ঢিবঢিব দিনটা নিবনিব জোঁকের মত সিঁটিয়ে যাচ্ছে …
2021 in books: what to look forward to this year
Kazuo Ishiguro returns with a novel about an artificial friend, Zadie Smith brings the Wife of Bath bang up to date, Bill Gates takes on the climate crisis … a literary calendar for the year ahead January 4 Winners of five Costa category awards announced. 8 The Father released – Florian Zeller directs an adaptation …
ভবিষ্যৎ মৃত্যু
দুটো বুলেট নিয়ে দুটো রিভালভারে, ঠিক তাক করব দুজন দুজনের দিকে ঠিক সেখানটায় যেখানে তুমি কালো টিপ পরে থাকতে, আর আমার কপালের মাঝ বরাবর, যেখানে তুমি হরহামেশা চুমু আঁকতে। মনে বাজবে শরতের সুর, বাতাস বইতে থাকবে হালকা করে। হ্যাঁ অবশ্যই তোমার ওড়না উড়বে সামান্য। দুলবে খানিক। কিছুটা মাতাল হওয়াও যেতে পারে। যেন কিছুটা শুটিংস্পটের মতো …
Love’s Fading
Thirty minutes to midnight And he approached me, steadily with tired bare feet, Spotlighted by the full moon; He was wearing a white shirt, Top two buttons missing, Unwashed for at least a month or so, Fashionably knee-cut faded jeans, However, the cuts resemble Years of capitalist abuse; His eyes were intriguing, With his iris …
Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin at the crossroads of mankind
In 1943, Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin drew a series of sketches on the man-made famine that had spread throughout Bengal, killing hundreds of thousands of people. Done in Chinese ink and brush on cheap packing paper, the series, famously known as Famine Sketches, were haunting images of cruelty and depravity of the merchants of death, and …
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Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain — a pioneer of women’s education who strove for a feminist utopia
Where are the men?’ I asked her. ‘In their proper places, where they ought to be… We shut our men indoors.’ Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s seminal science fiction short story ‘Sultana’s Dream’ depicted a feminist utopia, and was one of the first fictional works in India to do so. However, it never really received the fame and recognition that …
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Shifting the Focus From Sylvia Plath’s Tragic Death to Her Brilliant Life
RED COMETThe Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia PlathBy Heather Clark What becomes a legend most? As suggested by the old black-and-white Blackglama fur ads, featuring Lena Horne, Diana Vreeland and Cher, among others, legends are people who have soared beyond fame or celebrity into a more rarefied, inaccessible stratosphere. Today’s media-fixated, Kardashian-dominated world …
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