BOOK REVIEW : By Dr. Sunil Kaushal

                                                 
                                               LOPAMUDRA BANERJEE’S

                                                      BOOK OF POEMS

                                                  ‘LET THE NIGHT SING’

 
·         Paperback: 114 pages

·         Publisher: Global Fraternity of Poets; First Edition edition (2017)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 9383755342

·         ISBN-13: 978-9383755349

 

Attempting to write a review of ‘Let The Night Sing,’- a book of poems by

 Lopamudra Banerjee, a writer, poet, editor and translator, currently based in Dallas, USA, was not only a daunting task, but an educative one too.

Her bio reads almost as extensively as a full-length article. Below is an extract from an interview by Sufia Khatoon, an activist and art curator based in Kolkata. It gives the reader an intimate glimpse into the poet’s heart and mind and what makes her tick.

Lopamudra Banerjee is a writer, poet, editor and translator, currently based in Dallas, USA. She is the co-editor of the bestselling anthology on women, ‘Defiant Dreams: Tales of Everyday Divas’. ‘Thwarted Escape: An Immigrant’s Wayward Journey’, her debut memoir/nonfiction novel, published by Authorspress, has recently received Honorable Mention at the Los Angeles Book Festival 2017. The manuscript has also been a First Place Category Winner at the Journey Awards 2014 hosted by Chanticleer Reviews and Media LLC. Her literary works have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, both in India and the US. Recently, she co-edited and co-authored a ghost story anthology titled ‘Darkness There But Something More’ with Dr. Santosh Bakaya.
She has received the Reuel International Award 2016 (category: Translation) for her English translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s novella Nastanirh (translated as The Broken Home) instituted by The Significant League, a renowned literature group in Facebook. It is now part of the book ‘The Broken Home and Other Stories’ (Authorspress, 2017). She is also a recipient of the International Reuel Prize for Poetry in 2017. ‘Let The Night Sing’ is her debut poetry collection, published by Global Fraternity of Poets.

 

                                                                 

        The book recently received Honorary Mention at the New England Book Festival 2017 in Boston, USA (category-poetry).                                                         

Read more about her and her writings……https://dialoguetimes.com/poetry-cathartic-reality-intervi..../

                                                              

                                       

                 ' With Dr. Santosh Bakaya and others at the launch of Let The Night Sing'

 

 

 

Lopa Banerjee is one of the most intense and passionate writers I have ever read.

Let The Night Sing has been divided into five sections, probably depicting the poet’s own phases in life containing several meaningful poems to her credit, which manage to cast a spell.

Most of her poems are profound and seething; I had to go through them more than once. I first read the book appreciating it as an outstanding work of art, written with brutal honesty, a boldness that makes Lopa stand out in a crowd. 

The second reading was to follow the life story of the poet, which unravels before the reader through her writings. I also wanted to prolong my sojourn in the land that she creates so spontaneously yet intricately and would go back to certain poems to taste the flavor again and again.

Lopa weaves an exquisite tapestry of life, the threads of love and the longing for it, weaving bold patterns, as a blue print of her own intense life that has been devoted to writing profound, passionate and enchantingly lyrical poetry. 

Her words speak to the reader, not only in perfectly woven verse, but also as a study of human character, the life of a young Indian child, through the lonely journey of an only child, an adolescent struggling in an era when most Indian children grew up by default without much attention being given by parents or society to the rights of a child as an individual.

The book touches on multiple aspects of life, stepping from adolescence and the pains of puberty as depicted in the poem, ‘Learning to Fall’…“It’s dark,” a shout, “Come back home at once,” - it is the loss of freedom a girl suffers that kills her innocence on one hand, yet the desperate yearning for her maiden life that had been her first stepping stone to unravel the world around her. Her cumulative experiences of leaving her homeland, absorbing the foreign land that later became her home, motherhood and unapologetic womanhood shape the autobiographical aspect of the book. On the other hand her poetic responses encompass a variety of the happenings in her world around, including the life story of Malala Yousufzai, the story of a commonplace house maid, the story of the children of sex workers, child marriages and brutal abuse of girl children in various countries, including India.

Birthday re-remembered’, the poem is a passionate ode to her own birthday as she completes three decades on the earth…“an announcement of age leaping”, which is pertinent both physically and metaphorically.

 In the poem ‘Father’s Day’, her poetic expressions: ”languishing for a face that gleams ……the hiccups of failed conversations echo” …..her failed attempts at communication with her father are painful.Though apparently she writes the poem for her daughters and her husband, she is also recalling the bond with her own father and yearning for a childhood that remained an unfinished story.

 Her romantic poetry is notable for heightened passion, the anguish of separation and lover’s agony - expressions of the pathos of youth. There is pensiveness and pain, the pangs of passion, a lust for life. Helpless and gloomy at times she yearns for true love as her dreams remain thwarted and she writes of relationships that never fructified in the conventional sense.

In the poem “Surrender” she writes - ’My love, don't you know my charred flesh
longs to make love to you?’

There is a fire lit inside her which makes her write; she becomes an agent on behalf of other women to tell the story of the lives of so many oppressed women, as many are not brave enough to speak out themselves. She sees and feels their pain and crisis and expresses it through her writings, sensitive to the agony of women who face the menace of lust, rape, hunger, deprivation of love and care. She ruthlessly exposes man's false sense of superiority of gender.

The poem –‘FIREBIRD’, written for  'International Women’s Day, has been recited by her often on different platforms and been widely acclaimed when she hits at the lopsided patriarchal values of her land where female feticide is rampant:

                        “And then, you who have crushed and torn my silky petals,

                              You who have made me sing lust-ridden songs,
                           You who have taught our mothers to kill us in the womb   
                            To mourn our birth while their cherished sons blossom”

In her latter poems, there is a definite rebellious slant to her writings. Lopa surfaces, bold enough to live life on her own terms, which can be spotted in her writings, as in this poem:                     

                                                    UNBOUND
                                                  

                                                   I, am myself.
                                     A woman, unbound and whole.
                            Do not look for me inside the painted walls
                           And the crushed mirage of the old concretes               
                                   Inside every brick and mortar

                                Inside every chipped, peeled crevice
                                      Of my body, freedom breathes
                                               In its own symphony.

As she leaves the familiar shores of her beloved Kolkata, her homeland, facing the loss of both her parents, death seems to haunt her, and a fear of losing life, uncertainty prevailing over what is next, as the waves of life and death ebb and flow.

Her last poem reveals the poet’s mellowing and a philosophical outlook towards the mystery of life and death.

                                                     REBIRTH

                           I know that in every birth, human or not,
                                  I will resuscitate in the womb,
                                  Murmuring in angelic sounds,
                          Eager to germinate through splattered splashes
                                   Of blood and leftover wounds   
                                      Of a life that lay behind

                              Compromised, forgotten, cold, fading.

As I finished reading this collection of amazing poems, I was struck with the range, her intensity and the pain she must have lived through to create such a work. With time I see her evolving and writing with a spiritual strength, born out of a tumultuous journey of fiery writing.

Already being widely recognized both in India and abroad for her versatility, I am sure, soon, modern literature will boast of her as a prolific writer.