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Post-Colonial Poems
This book presents the best of Assamese poet Kamal Kumar Tanti, selected from his collections Uttar Oupanibeshik Kobita (2018), and Marangburu Amar Pita (2007), which won him the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar for 2012, translated by Shalim M Hussain and Dibyajyoti Sarma respectively.
History plays the undercurrent of my poetry. At the same time, writing poetry is an integral part of my social activism. My long years of activism taught me to become a vocal, close observer of past and contemporary situations. In the process, I became conscious of the socio-economic and political situations. I write what I see, what I feel what I understand, what I see as politically correct. My voice is for freedom, for people, against injustice, against colonialism and neo-colonialism.
KAMAL KUMAR TANTI
Kamal Kumar Tanti incorporates the subaltern ethos with élan, and is a force to reckon with in Assamese poetry. If an unrelenting quest for identity, an intimate relationship with language and the audacity to tread a unique path in the labyrinth of our history distinguishes a major poet from a minor one, Tanti is your poet, rendered elegantly into the Indian English idiom by Shalim M Hussain and Dibyajyoti Sarma.
CHANDRAMOHAN S, author of Letters to Namdeo Dhasal
History plays the undercurrent of my poetry. At the same time, writing poetry is an integral part of my social activism. My long years of activism taught me to become a vocal, close observer of past and contemporary situations. In the process, I became conscious of the socio-economic and political situations. I write what I see, what I feel what I understand, what I see as politically correct. My voice is for freedom, for people, against injustice, against colonialism and neo-colonialism.
KAMAL KUMAR TANTI
Kamal Kumar Tanti incorporates the subaltern ethos with élan, and is a force to reckon with in Assamese poetry. If an unrelenting quest for identity, an intimate relationship with language and the audacity to tread a unique path in the labyrinth of our history distinguishes a major poet from a minor one, Tanti is your poet, rendered elegantly into the Indian English idiom by Shalim M Hussain and Dibyajyoti Sarma.
CHANDRAMOHAN S, author of Letters to Namdeo Dhasal
- GenresPoetry
112 pages, Paperback
Published February 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 15, 2022
"We were lost in a deserted lane
of the Salna Garden.
An old Kachari man took pity on us and said,
'Just walk straight ahead my sons,
the road is filled with dreams, not reality.
It'll dawn when the dreams end.'
We understood, finding thorns is
as difficult as it is easy to find flowers.
Flowers don't let us feel
they do it themselves.
Thorns don't feel their pain
they make us suffer.
We wanted to thank
the old Kachari man and
after killing him, we left
his body for the crows and the vultures.
That's why the cuckoos admired us and
at the end, we reached a land of swords."
// Travelogue (tr. Dibyajyoti Sarma)
Dually identifying himself as an Adivasi and an Assamese, Kamal Kumar Tanti believes writing poetry is an integral part of his social activism. He says, "History plays the undercurrent of my poetry." It is a point echoed in Hussain's essay who thinks both Tanti collections focus on the individual who "stands at an unsteady crux in history caught in the contradictions of the past and the promises/bleakness of the future." It is a crucial aspect that Talukdar remarks upon as well: "... [W]e have got a poet, who bears the legacy of [colonialism's] tragedy, the burden of floating history, the heritage of lower-class society."
It is a certain kind of broken history, "the history of two hidden centuries / ... of colonization. / ... of the colonized." This articulation is difficult, as the expressive medium, English, is foreign: "We are trapped / in their coils / in the damned illusion of language." Tanti exerts considerable effort to demolish the metanarrative of history, of nation and nationalism, to rescue localized narratives of collective memory—reclamation of "the long shadow of memory"—that have been pushed to the periphery. He assumes the guardianship of history, the responsibility to take off the masks, stating: "We are all tellers of incomplete tales".
of the Salna Garden.
An old Kachari man took pity on us and said,
'Just walk straight ahead my sons,
the road is filled with dreams, not reality.
It'll dawn when the dreams end.'
We understood, finding thorns is
as difficult as it is easy to find flowers.
Flowers don't let us feel
they do it themselves.
Thorns don't feel their pain
they make us suffer.
We wanted to thank
the old Kachari man and
after killing him, we left
his body for the crows and the vultures.
That's why the cuckoos admired us and
at the end, we reached a land of swords."
// Travelogue (tr. Dibyajyoti Sarma)
Dually identifying himself as an Adivasi and an Assamese, Kamal Kumar Tanti believes writing poetry is an integral part of his social activism. He says, "History plays the undercurrent of my poetry." It is a point echoed in Hussain's essay who thinks both Tanti collections focus on the individual who "stands at an unsteady crux in history caught in the contradictions of the past and the promises/bleakness of the future." It is a crucial aspect that Talukdar remarks upon as well: "... [W]e have got a poet, who bears the legacy of [colonialism's] tragedy, the burden of floating history, the heritage of lower-class society."
It is a certain kind of broken history, "the history of two hidden centuries / ... of colonization. / ... of the colonized." This articulation is difficult, as the expressive medium, English, is foreign: "We are trapped / in their coils / in the damned illusion of language." Tanti exerts considerable effort to demolish the metanarrative of history, of nation and nationalism, to rescue localized narratives of collective memory—reclamation of "the long shadow of memory"—that have been pushed to the periphery. He assumes the guardianship of history, the responsibility to take off the masks, stating: "We are all tellers of incomplete tales".
August 21, 2022
The book as a whole is a pure piece of art from the selection of poems, the fire and tribalness in them to the Japanese artworks. Simply mesmerised me. That's how a book of poetry should be presented to the readers.
Specially liked the poem The Long Shadow of Memory series and the translated soeech of Kamal Kumar Tanti on his Sahitya Akademi receiving ceremony.
Specially liked the poem The Long Shadow of Memory series and the translated soeech of Kamal Kumar Tanti on his Sahitya Akademi receiving ceremony.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews