Wordweavers : Poetry 2022 Shortlist

Showing posts with label Poetry 2022 Shortlist. Show all posts

Thursday, 24 November 2022

Poetry 2022 Longlist


Devika Dhond	Bharti Bansal	Shivani Dua
Alka Tomar	Anuradha Sowmyanarayanan	Ishita Shreshtha
Neelamani Sutar	Aishwarya Vedula	Shubhankar Sengupta
Bibek Limbu	Chandrali Das	Pramod Kolikipudi
Indrani Saha	Vinita Gera	Nivedita Narsapuram
Shefali Thapliyal	Lourdes Priyadharshini	Ritwik Chaudhary
Bindu Saxena	Ayushi Rajput	Laiba Majeed
Udatha Geetanjali	Sheena Sarah Winny	Anisha Dutta
Mathew John	Preeth Ganapathy	Sanket Mhatre
Kamala DN	Sattvik Swastik Dutta	Tazeen Fatma
Preeth Ganapathy	Amar Agarwala	Chandrama Deshmukh
Ananta Narayani	Nisha Mascarenhas	Jovitha Joys
Shiqran Sharfuddin	Swagata Ghosh	Adira Singh
Alka Balain	Bhagyashree Mishra
Shruthi Vatsavayi

Sanket Mhatre, Poetry 2022 First Prize

Butterflies Have Odd Jobs

Butterflies have odd jobs here

of leading you to the beach

or misleading you –

deep into coconut groves

where stories of faint shorelines

merge with crumbling mansions

covered in half foliage

and derelict truths

The monarchs leave a trail of silence

As they show you around

Reserved tour-guides

their flutter isn’t restless but

a surreal dance of organized harmony

They aren’t looking for milkweeds alone

but for a lost address and a house with no name

before they turn homewards

Bhagyashree Mishra, Poetry 2022 Shortlist

A Quarantined Quartz

When on the solitary settee, I sit
Shells of silence conceal my being
Clicking on the ridged cartilages
A sole sound from the tirelessly ticking hands
Hung on the wall of solitude, walks in
The clock houses a quarantined quartz

Just as all of us - humans at home.
When on the spruced-up bed, I settle
Ubiquitous uncertainty floats in the air, up there
Spinning from the ceiling, fanning my flames of fear
Whirls and whirls, my mute spectator - the ceiling fan.
When through the glass pane, I take a sneak peek
An empty lounge, a void play area gaze back at me
Lawns lulled to slumber, wrapped in layers of loneliness
Seems to be an unexplained mystery - this emptiness, this nothingness.
When into the tunnel of thinking, I'm thrusted
Imprisoned within a fort of fright
Caged in a casket of catastrophe
I yelp at my helpless being, yet
A rumbling train of thoughts keeps up the stride
Only to embrace luminous rays of hope at the tunnel's end
Baking my sunken eyes, blissful beams whisper -
"This isn't the end, things will soon mend."

Alka Balain, Poetry 2022 Shortlist

The Swimming Prayer

Wading in the pool, the Sun spreads

the watercolours of dawn.

I tri-part the water that cleanses my skin.

My fingers pen verses on its surface

after birthing unbidden in the night.

As the water whirls in love,

I envision

You dancing in the spiral

carrying me along,

and I carry You in me

all day, my friend.

Shiqran Sharfuddin, Poetry 2022 Shortlist

That Hour Has Come!

(Part 1)

As I passed through the threshold,

Some cautious Signs were being displayed,

With actions so ominous, questioning:

"Does the Hour have a Knowledge that

You can know it by?"

A suspicious pause ensued,

Provoking me to think, think and think...

Oh Yeah! And those Signs

Everyone has to learn them,

Prior to their taking place...

So that, they can recognise that Hour,

When they see those Catastrophes!

And that Hour exhibited shamelessly,

The trust-worthies as the liars

And liars as the honest ones!

Criminals becoming the law-makers,

And money influencing the judgement;

Liars' blabbers getting listened in zeal

And guiding sermons getting dumped in the bin;

"These are the Signs!"

Listen, you deaf! the clock is ticking...

And that Hour finally arrived,

Which had been predicted-

Renowned swindlers controlling the Markets,

And the Hypocrites ruling the Kingdoms;

Interest Banking ruling the world,

Making rich richer and poor poorer;

Acid starts raining and rain becoming a curse

Also, the rain harvesting the drought;

"These are the Signs!"

Lo Mankind! Open the eyes!

Dishes working restlessly

And one severing his blood ties;

Wide world shrinking just as a village

And one doesn't visit his sick neighbour;

That will really be a hazardous threat,

When architectures get designed ornamentally,

Skyscrapers start kissing the skies,

And Old parents rotting in Old Age Homes!

"These are the Signs!"

Books will be million in number

And illiteracy will be everywhere;

Foolish will have high respect

And Scholars shall be thrashed apart;

Knowledge will be learned,

For the only sake of worldly gain;

And Number of preachers will increase,

But, Preachers themselves will practice not,

What they preach!

"These are the Signs!"

Beats of music will be everywhere

And woeful wail will not be heard;

Haridos will start resembling the Bactrian Camels,

And men will be women and women will be men;

"These are the Signs!"

Those are Deaf, Dumb and Blind,

They'll never return to the Path;

Even after being shown a thousand signs!

They'll rule that hour!

For which of these Signs will ye deny?

These are the indeed Signs,

For the men of better understanding,

“That Hour has now come!!!”

Chandrama Deshmukh, Poetry 2022 Shortlist

Aai

My grandmother –
She lived a full life they say!
‘What is a full life?’ I wonder.
Does it mean being nice to people so they keep checking boxes in their good books?
Does it mean filling spaces left by others, mending broken hearts,

making constant sacrifices to survive?
Does it mean waiting for something to move you, to rattle you,
to make you feel alive?

Or does it mean letting yourself loose,

so the invisible puppet strings give an impression

that you are doing a happy dance?

What is a full life after-all?
She was always brimming with spontaneity
that she curbed without hesitation,
because it was a norm.

She hated schedules, routines and repetitions,

but unknowingly learnt the grid method
to draw perfect pictures,
focusing on one square at a time.

It’s ironic how she reminds me of rainbows

and old brown blankets at the same time.
I still picture her soaking in the scorching sun

looking at her hands like they were magic wands.

I still see her, eyes focused on the sewing machine,

trying to darn her torn wings,

patching it with pieces of ordinariness, so she doesn’t stand out.

This is my grandmother, who lived for 83 years

but always made it look like 83 days.

Unlike me, her math was impeccable,
but she never bothered to delve into the inverse ratios life threw at her.

She kept knitting crochet shawls

because even the sense of warmth comforted her.

My grandmother was without a past or future.

All she had was present.
She scrubbed her feet rigorously
and never walked barefoot.
She always believed she’s not meant to walk,
she’s meant to fly.

Finally, she did fly!
No, I haven’t lost her. I never will.
She was a phoenix

and I dread that imaginary bird for what it has to go through.

Everyone thought she was perfect.

She hated perfection.

Rest in peace Aai.

Or rather, dance in peace.

That suits you better!

Amar Agarwala, Poetry 2022 Shortlist

When Dusk Draws Nigh

Silence morphs the call of falling dusk

Gathering under fiery skies,

Stilled leaves in sombre silence hang

Moping at the darkness that plies.

Dusty paths the homebound cattle plod

Syrupy chirping of birds in flight,

Smoke from the earthen ovens pause

Wistfully staring at twilight.

Frenzied bats eke out their weary awls

Urging the evening star to wait,

To let moon lord overnight,

And muse over their morbid fate.

Wind over the placid river brings

Low tidings for cicadas to cry,

Fathom the fragrant moonflower will

Need endeavour to pacify.

When vigil of stark skeletal boughs

Stand mournful over the hooting owl,

And the mist like a wimple veils

The nocturnal creatures that prowl.

Those who lie in cemeteries stark

Berate the mausoleums old,

Affording them scant room to move

Adding to their ordeals untold.

Crimson dawn will pale the darkened sky

For light to lug another day,

Darkness would need wait again

For dusk to come upon its way.

Preeth Ganapathy, Poetry 2022 Shortlist

Grandfather

(For AB Nachaiah)

One afternoon, when the sun shone

jasmine yellow on the vast cement courtyard,

and the cranes were moving white dots

on green rows of paddy fields

and the rest of the household had trooped out

to dance to the laughter and bells,

chimes and beats of a wedding,

you stayed back,

held my hand in your green-veined one

helped me take baby steps

into the land of mathematical

wonders -

division and time,

where I learnt how

a single bar of Cadbury Diary Milk

can be divided into equal pieces

between three cousins,

where I learnt how to read time

on the little red bedside time-piece,

where I learnt how time divides

everything it touches, into tiny squares of past.

I look back now and think –

I was actually learning how

the dividend of your days

was divided by the divisor of your passion

and your profession tightly rolled into that single yarn

of teaching.

I tripped over stone

after milestone that afternoon.

The quotient was what twinkled

in your voice as you steadied me, wiped by soiled knee,

clapped your encouragement

which stayed with me

when I, years later, began to walk and then run

across that strange land

of mathematical wonders,

calling it

mine,

negotiating the pitfalls of algebra

and crossing over the potholes of many a parabola.

But, what you never taught me,

what you never taught me,

that afternoon,

was how to read the time

of departure.

And now I am left,

with a constellation of memories

as the remainder.

Ayushi Rajput, Poetry 2022 Shortlist

Silence

Is The Culmination

Of Poetry

Mathew John, Poetry 2022 Shortlist

Half Chai

Half Chai
is meditation
as you get used to
sitting on the steps,
the sweat of working women returning home,
family- full bikes whirring past,
dogs shitting in yellow brown,
the proverbial old woman with a stick,
the pan-spit stains, the finger dips and
the Brownian motion of brown tea powder.

Half Chai -
In this bonsai of a glass
Red brown
Earthen colour
Earthen mirth.

What is there
That I have not known over a glass of tea ?
Love. Anger. The sharing of souls.
Drink
Red brown sorrow
Burn the brain - lest it sleep to death.

Half chai
Again and again
Slows down my speed train
Makes crystals out of time
Gives me back
The still of the moment.

For resurrection in the mornings,
Salvation in the evenings
Thank you.
Here, I betray you
For four steel coins.
My half chai,
Crystal maker.

REFERENCES

Half Chai – is the local Indian slang for a small glass of tea. ‘Chai/Chay’ means Tea in Hindi.

Chandrali Das, Poetry 2022 Shortlist

Forbidden

Her pace gradually slowed to an amble from brisk,

As she caught sight of the towering black obelisk.

Everytime she'd visited the graveyard, it'd served as a landmark,

For that colossal alabaster pillar was the only identifiable structure in the night's pitch dark.

The gravestone seemed grayer than she seemed to recall,

The new moon night exacerbating the graveyard's forbidding, deathly pall.

Undeterred, she placed her palm over the ice-cold stone, brushing off the dust,

As the winds seemed to billow in a compassionate, rather caressing gust.

Placing the crimson-red roses she carried on the tomb,

for the thousandth time, she reread the epitaph.

Her beloved had scripted her own destiny all right, to the grave from the womb,

Even penning down a eulogy to be read at her own funeral before she killed herself,

That cruel, cruel girl, she'd left all devastated, choosing to have the last laugh.

A wistful smile escaped the girl's lips,

If irony had a patron deity, he must've taken a fascination to her.

Their love had been 'forbidden' in life,

For they didn't fit into what the world had deemed 'acceptable',

For all everyone wanted was for love to be defined rigorously,

For each word to be underlined until the paper gave way beneath.

Even now, as she grieved the hole in her heart, she had to inconspicuously sneak into the graveyard,

For women weren't allowed entry, the scriptures said.

Scriptures-words of 'wisdom' told and perpetuated by men alone.

The prospect of Judgement Day terrified her no more, and never would,

For men had differentiated, segregated far more than God ever could.

Bindu Saxena, Poetry 2022 Shortlist

Clouds

Bidding adieu

- Cataract surgery

Nivedita Narsapuram, Poetry 2022 Shortlist

Maps and Graph sheets

Do you remember those political maps

we bought at the stationary shop?

Those flimsy sheets of paper that sold maps,

political, apolitical

For five marks, we would mark the bumps and ridges

and the slimy waterbodies

Now, they are sold in three-dimensions and five-dimensions

Do you remember the year

when we did not know what

north-west or north-east meant

And a half-mark was cut

Now, our maps are marked by

Caste-marks and headgear

But we know the slimy measurements

Are measured by what we wear

Vinita Gera, Poetry 2022 Longlist

The Last Poem

The longing memory of the man

I irrevocably love/

beholds me wherever I go,

every street is a strap

every alley hides a ghost that

spangs at me like a jumping jack

I whimper, hold me.

Hold me one last time before I

lie in the bedroom and

wake up every morning with

curtains drawn and nothingness washing over me

like a lethargic wave

Hold me one last time before I

die and dive through the earth,

like a mermaid of the soil

to be next to your bones

Hold me one last time before I

leave the city

lie down crawling my way to the edge

lean over the abyss

and become the last poem in the world

Hold me one last time

or read me, written as the last poem in the world

I am leaving the city before

the city leaves me

Hold me, hold me one last time.

Bio: Short Bio:

Vinita is a creative writer, her unique flair for writing reveals a mind, and is persuasively poetic. The invincibly capable finds peace in her solitude and coffee. Imperfections fascinate her. Uncertainties she embraces. The eternal seeker within the human condition is constantly on a discovery unveiled through her writing. Self-acceptance, her trademark, is so refreshingly robust that oftentimes leaves people with whoops of admiration for her freedom of thought. Using her stumbling block as a stepping stone is what sets her as a prime example of grace under pressure.