The Unfold Pinnacle by Basanta Kumar Kar
Pre-published, 2010
Reviewed by Janelle Elyse Kihlstrom
(Reprinted with permission. View the source here.)
Basanta Kumar Kar's "The Unfold Pinnacle" breaks new ground in what has been, ever since the last embers of the '60s slowly fizzled out, an unfashionable field, at least in English language poetry, what the title page describes as "verse for a cause."
This collection is best read as a document of Kar's personal experiences working in a senior-level position for an international development organization operating in India, a position which put him in contact with extremely disadvantaged women living in various parts of the country. Each poem tells a different woman's story in her own voice, as imagined by the author with obvious empathy and insight. After each poem, the basic details of the women's situation is revealed. For instance, the subject of the first poem is described as a "20 year old scheduled caste woman residing in a conflict hit relief camp of Raikia, Phulbani, Orissa, India."
Some of the poems' subjects are impoverished rural women and girls who have endured hunger, abuse and abandonment, many of them "scheduled caste" and "scheduled tribe" women belonging to minority groups. Some are young girls making a living in the sex trade in cities like Bombay. Some are HIV-positive or have lost their husbands to AIDS. Some are physically disabled. One was tortured by her community for suspected witchcraft.
Although there are limits to the author's command of the subtleties of literary versus practical English, there are moments of beauty in the small solace the subjects of these poems find in the natural world and the deep reserves of strength and capacity for hope they possess, despite the hard facts of their lives:
I pluck lily; seasonal jasmine,
others knit, play:
a tempest inside me,
the occasional gulmohar comes down;
red soil embraces it; plays with it
the sun sets early
life moves on; I learn to live
hope begets life
despair begets death.
Most importantly, these are poems that invite us to care about the internal as well as the external circumstances of real women we have never met and whose lives may be very different from our own. Although they are not autobiographical portraits of these women, these poems are the closest many readers will come to glimpsing the inner experiences of fellow human beings living lives so severely restricted by poverty, marginalization or abuse. I believe the world would only benefit, in terms of cross-cultural understanding, by seeing more projects of this kind, and as a woman I wholeheartedly support the spirit of this book.
Basanta Kumar Kar is the author of two collections of published poems, The Naïve Bird and The Silent Monsoon. His poems and reviews have appeared internationally in a number of journals and magazines, including South Asia Mail, Times of India, The Houston Literary Review, Wordgathering, The Cartier Street Review, Wild Violet, The Smoking Poet and The Stolen Island Review. He holds a senior management position in an international development organization and lives in New Delhi, India.
More information here.
Pre-published, 2010
Reviewed by Janelle Elyse Kihlstrom
(Reprinted with permission. View the source here.)
Basanta Kumar Kar's "The Unfold Pinnacle" breaks new ground in what has been, ever since the last embers of the '60s slowly fizzled out, an unfashionable field, at least in English language poetry, what the title page describes as "verse for a cause."
This collection is best read as a document of Kar's personal experiences working in a senior-level position for an international development organization operating in India, a position which put him in contact with extremely disadvantaged women living in various parts of the country. Each poem tells a different woman's story in her own voice, as imagined by the author with obvious empathy and insight. After each poem, the basic details of the women's situation is revealed. For instance, the subject of the first poem is described as a "20 year old scheduled caste woman residing in a conflict hit relief camp of Raikia, Phulbani, Orissa, India."
Some of the poems' subjects are impoverished rural women and girls who have endured hunger, abuse and abandonment, many of them "scheduled caste" and "scheduled tribe" women belonging to minority groups. Some are young girls making a living in the sex trade in cities like Bombay. Some are HIV-positive or have lost their husbands to AIDS. Some are physically disabled. One was tortured by her community for suspected witchcraft.
Although there are limits to the author's command of the subtleties of literary versus practical English, there are moments of beauty in the small solace the subjects of these poems find in the natural world and the deep reserves of strength and capacity for hope they possess, despite the hard facts of their lives:
I pluck lily; seasonal jasmine,
others knit, play:
a tempest inside me,
the occasional gulmohar comes down;
red soil embraces it; plays with it
the sun sets early
life moves on; I learn to live
hope begets life
despair begets death.
Most importantly, these are poems that invite us to care about the internal as well as the external circumstances of real women we have never met and whose lives may be very different from our own. Although they are not autobiographical portraits of these women, these poems are the closest many readers will come to glimpsing the inner experiences of fellow human beings living lives so severely restricted by poverty, marginalization or abuse. I believe the world would only benefit, in terms of cross-cultural understanding, by seeing more projects of this kind, and as a woman I wholeheartedly support the spirit of this book.
Basanta Kumar Kar is the author of two collections of published poems, The Naïve Bird and The Silent Monsoon. His poems and reviews have appeared internationally in a number of journals and magazines, including South Asia Mail, Times of India, The Houston Literary Review, Wordgathering, The Cartier Street Review, Wild Violet, The Smoking Poet and The Stolen Island Review. He holds a senior management position in an international development organization and lives in New Delhi, India.
More information here.
