From the Jacket:
Child Even in Arms of Stone is an anthology of poems on and about children, poems that sing of lover for this "unattainable earth" as Milosz puts it. There are as many as 30 well-known poets of the world ranging from JoJo T. Boskovsky to Rabindranath Tagore, Kabir to Pablo Neruda and Li Po to W.B. Yeats besides a few tribal songmakers of India. Deep within every sensitive poet, every artist, a child is alive and we hear his voice, we see him play with words, colours and images. The poets speak about their own children or about children and childhood in general. In these poems celebrating the ineluctable childhood, children speaks of their dreams and their aspirations as in Tagore's poems. A child sends a loving invitation to a butterfly as in the Wordsworth poem. Children look at the world with their sense of wonder and awe. So do the poets look at childhood as do Lorca, Tanikawa or Lzet.
The poems presented in this anthology compel us to sit back and consider once again as to how to make this planet safe for children and hand it over to him.
Abut the Author:
Dr. Sitakant Mahapatra (b. 1937) an eminent Oriya poet of the modern times, had his M.A. in Political Science from the University of Allahabad and later Ph.D. from Utkal University. He joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1961 and held several positions as Secretary to the Government of Orissa, Secretary, Government of India and President, UNESCO's World Decade for Cultural Development. His poems have been published in translations in all Indian and several foreign languages including French, German, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Romanian, Danish, Hebrew and Macedonian. Dr. Mahapatra is also an insightful essayist and an excellent translator. His publications in English include Death of Krishna and Other poems, Morning Rain and Other Poems, Unending Rhythm (Oral Poetry of Indian Tribals), Endless Weaves (Tribal Song and Tales of Orissa) and Tuined Temples and Other Poems. Some of his essays and scholarly works are Gesters of Intimacy, Tradition and the Modern Artist, and The Mahabharata, Modern Indian Literature.
Among the awards he has received are Bharatiya Jnanpith Award, Sahitya Akademi Award, Soviet Land Nehru Award, and he is also Fellow-International Academy of Poets, Cambridge, Senior Fellow, Harvard University, Homi Bhabha Fellow etc. He is presently the Chairman of National Book Trust.
Acknowledgement | viii |
Let All Fathers become Poets | 3 |
Jojo T. Boskovski Children's Spring Games |
13 |
Dennis Brutus from Letters to Martha |
14 |
Nirendranath Chakravarti The King Without Clothes |
17 |
Sakti Chattopadhayay I Can But Why Should I Go |
19 |
Po Chu-I Rising Late and Playing with A Ts' ui, aged two children |
20 |
Children | 21 |
Nazim Hikmet On Living |
22 |
Kabir A Fish in the Water is Thirsty |
25 |
There is a Moon in My Body | 26 |
Balraj Komal The Holiday |
27 |
D.H. Lawrence Mystic |
22 |
A Sane Revolution | 29 |
Federico Garcia Lorca First Page |
30 |
Conch Shell | 31 |
Water, Where are You Going | 32 |
Jayanta Mahapatra Grandfather |
33 |
Federico Mayor Your Child-eyes |
35 |
Love | 36 |
Subhas Mukhopadhayaya Why isn't He Back Home |
37 |
Pablo Neruda Childhood and Poetry |
39 |
Y Nhi Talking to a Lost Deer |
41 |
Wilfred Owen Strange Meeting |
42 |
Oded Peled From Letters to Bergen-Belsen |
44 |
Sylvia Plath Child |
46 |
Li Po Absence |
47 |
A.K. Ramanujan Of Mothers, Among Other Things |
48 |
Son to Father to Son | 49 |
Birthdays | 50 |
Rainer Maria Rilke Childhood |
52 |
From The Ninth Elegy | 54 |
Izet Sarajlic Children |
55 |
When Tamara Coughs | 56 |
Tamara | 57 |
What is Tamara Saying... | 59 |
Erik Stinus After the Storm |
60 |
Rabindranath Tagore The Flower-School |
61 |
The Further Bank | 63 |
Shuntaro Tanikawa Picnic to the Earth |
65 |
Adult Time | 66 |
A Child | 67 |
Tribal Poems of India The Old Hearts Still Beat |
68 |
The Golden Moon of Spring | 69 |
Don't Cry, Dear Child | 70 |
Where did They Hide You | 71 |
Dear Stars, Moon and Sun | 72 |
Su Tung-P'o On the Birth of His Son |
73 |
Che Lan Vien On Being a Mother |
74 |
Walt Whitman Miracles |
75 |
William Wordsworth To a Butterfly |
77 |
W.B. Yeats A Prayer for My Daughter |
78 |
From the Jacket:
Child Even in Arms of Stone is an anthology of poems on and about children, poems that sing of lover for this "unattainable earth" as Milosz puts it. There are as many as 30 well-known poets of the world ranging from JoJo T. Boskovsky to Rabindranath Tagore, Kabir to Pablo Neruda and Li Po to W.B. Yeats besides a few tribal songmakers of India. Deep within every sensitive poet, every artist, a child is alive and we hear his voice, we see him play with words, colours and images. The poets speak about their own children or about children and childhood in general. In these poems celebrating the ineluctable childhood, children speaks of their dreams and their aspirations as in Tagore's poems. A child sends a loving invitation to a butterfly as in the Wordsworth poem. Children look at the world with their sense of wonder and awe. So do the poets look at childhood as do Lorca, Tanikawa or Lzet.
The poems presented in this anthology compel us to sit back and consider once again as to how to make this planet safe for children and hand it over to him.
Abut the Author:
Dr. Sitakant Mahapatra (b. 1937) an eminent Oriya poet of the modern times, had his M.A. in Political Science from the University of Allahabad and later Ph.D. from Utkal University. He joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1961 and held several positions as Secretary to the Government of Orissa, Secretary, Government of India and President, UNESCO's World Decade for Cultural Development. His poems have been published in translations in all Indian and several foreign languages including French, German, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Romanian, Danish, Hebrew and Macedonian. Dr. Mahapatra is also an insightful essayist and an excellent translator. His publications in English include Death of Krishna and Other poems, Morning Rain and Other Poems, Unending Rhythm (Oral Poetry of Indian Tribals), Endless Weaves (Tribal Song and Tales of Orissa) and Tuined Temples and Other Poems. Some of his essays and scholarly works are Gesters of Intimacy, Tradition and the Modern Artist, and The Mahabharata, Modern Indian Literature.
Among the awards he has received are Bharatiya Jnanpith Award, Sahitya Akademi Award, Soviet Land Nehru Award, and he is also Fellow-International Academy of Poets, Cambridge, Senior Fellow, Harvard University, Homi Bhabha Fellow etc. He is presently the Chairman of National Book Trust.
Acknowledgement | viii |
Let All Fathers become Poets | 3 |
Jojo T. Boskovski Children's Spring Games |
13 |
Dennis Brutus from Letters to Martha |
14 |
Nirendranath Chakravarti The King Without Clothes |
17 |
Sakti Chattopadhayay I Can But Why Should I Go |
19 |
Po Chu-I Rising Late and Playing with A Ts' ui, aged two children |
20 |
Children | 21 |
Nazim Hikmet On Living |
22 |
Kabir A Fish in the Water is Thirsty |
25 |
There is a Moon in My Body | 26 |
Balraj Komal The Holiday |
27 |
D.H. Lawrence Mystic |
22 |
A Sane Revolution | 29 |
Federico Garcia Lorca First Page |
30 |
Conch Shell | 31 |
Water, Where are You Going | 32 |
Jayanta Mahapatra Grandfather |
33 |
Federico Mayor Your Child-eyes |
35 |
Love | 36 |
Subhas Mukhopadhayaya Why isn't He Back Home |
37 |
Pablo Neruda Childhood and Poetry |
39 |
Y Nhi Talking to a Lost Deer |
41 |
Wilfred Owen Strange Meeting |
42 |
Oded Peled From Letters to Bergen-Belsen |
44 |
Sylvia Plath Child |
46 |
Li Po Absence |
47 |
A.K. Ramanujan Of Mothers, Among Other Things |
48 |
Son to Father to Son | 49 |
Birthdays | 50 |
Rainer Maria Rilke Childhood |
52 |
From The Ninth Elegy | 54 |
Izet Sarajlic Children |
55 |
When Tamara Coughs | 56 |
Tamara | 57 |
What is Tamara Saying... | 59 |
Erik Stinus After the Storm |
60 |
Rabindranath Tagore The Flower-School |
61 |
The Further Bank | 63 |
Shuntaro Tanikawa Picnic to the Earth |
65 |
Adult Time | 66 |
A Child | 67 |
Tribal Poems of India The Old Hearts Still Beat |
68 |
The Golden Moon of Spring | 69 |
Don't Cry, Dear Child | 70 |
Where did They Hide You | 71 |
Dear Stars, Moon and Sun | 72 |
Su Tung-P'o On the Birth of His Son |
73 |
Che Lan Vien On Being a Mother |
74 |
Walt Whitman Miracles |
75 |
William Wordsworth To a Butterfly |
77 |
W.B. Yeats A Prayer for My Daughter |
78 |