Advice from Saraswati and the Muses

Write what is wrung from your tongue
a blistering song, a howl from your lung,
strum every veena vein muscle string
of your throat and your thumb.

Write with a bite that goes below, to the bone,
to marrow and to moan, to the seed of a seed.
Write to merit a sigh, a smile or a sob
from a granite idol or a brass snob.

Embrace the past, encompass eternal, vast
feelings. Empower -- under the thumb, mum,
conquered -- with hymns. Leave no crumb
unversed. Croon with aplomb.

Invoke immortal ideas, idols, ideals, idioms.
The wise mine for poems in realms forgotten
or uncharted. Seek, master the unknown,
the before and the after of Allah, Yesu, Om.

To celebrate and sing of the light like a skylark,
begin in the dark. Curate a spark within, burn,
transcend the limits of the Brahma and a quark.
Publish. Deserve immortal art.

--

--
First published in Muse India, 2016.
Saraswati: The Hindu Goddess of Knowledge, Speech and Music.
(My new year resolution for 2017: publish, publish, publish -- mostly science, also poetry)

Books Read in 2017

Read in 2017 (60 = 40 + 20; NF 13) 

ENGLISH FICTION (26) 

FICTION IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION --  (12): Silence by Shushako Endo [Translated from the Japanese by William Johnston], Rudin by Ivan Turgenev [Translated from the Russian by Richard Freeborn], The Monkey's Wrench by Primo Levi [Translated from the Italian by William Weaver], The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann [Translated from the German], By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolano [Translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews], Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbagh [Translated from the Kannanda], The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano [Translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer], Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima [Translated from the Japanese by Michael Gallager], The Swimmer by Zsuzsa Banks [Translated by Margaret B. Dembo], The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati [Translated from Italian], A Night in the Cemetery and other Stories of Crime and Suspense by Anton Chekov [Translated from Russian by Peter Sekerin], Cairo Modern by Naguib Mahfouz [Translated from Arabic by]. 

NOVEL / FICTION IN ENGLISH (14): The Pearl by John Steinbeck, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie, The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, A Painter of Our Time  by John Berger, Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher, The Confidence Man by Herman Melville, Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson, (Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand), Angels  by Denis Johnson, Love, Again by Doris Lessing, The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing and Cities on the Plain by Cormac McCarthy, 

ENGLISH POETRY (20) 

POETRY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION (5): The Poetry of Zen  [Translated from the Japanese and the Chinese by Sam Hill and J. P. Seaton], Issa's Best: a Translator's Selection of Master Haiku by Kobayashi Issa [Translated from the Japanese by David G. Lanoue], The Sound of Water: Haiku by Basho, Buson, Issa and Other Poets [Translated from the Japanese and the Chinese by Sam Hill] , The World's End by Pablo Neruda [Translated from the Spanish], Splendor and Death of Joaquin Murieta by Pablo Neruda [Translated from the Spanish by Ben Belitt], 

POETRY IN ENGLISH (15): Sweet Ruin by Tony Hoagland, Station Island by Seamus Heaney, The Long Meadow by Vijay Seshadri,  A Street of Clocks by Thomas Lux, Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth Poems 2004:2006  by Adrienne Rich, The Splinter Factory by Jeffrey McDaniel, Winter's Journey by Stephen Dobyns, Evenings and Avenues by Stuart Dischell, The Forgiveness Parade by Jeffrey McDaniel,  As I Walked Out One Evening by W. H. Auden,  Backward Days by Stuart Dischell, Letters from Aldenderry by Philip Nikolayev, The Romantic Dogs by Roberto Bolano, To Urania by Joseph Brodsky, Selected Poems: 1988-2003 by Seamus Heaney,

ENGLISH NON-FICTION (13)

PHILOSOPHY / RELIGION / MYTHOLOGY / HISTORY (0):  

POPULAR SCIENCE / ECONOMICS (3): Proof: The Science of Booze by Adam Rogers, Flow and Branches by Philip Ball,
 
NON-FICTION - OTHER (10): Ways of Seeing by John Berger, The Art of Recklessness by Dean Young, A Writer's Nightmare by R. K. Narayan, The Uncertain Certainty by Charles Simic, Understanding a Photograph by John Berger, Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol by Iain Gately, (Twenty Poems that Could Save America and Other Essays by Tony Hoagland), The Miles Between Me by Toni Nealie, The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Micheal Pollan,


MAHABHARATA (by Mahrishi Ved Vyas; translated from Samskrit into English by Kisari Mohun Ganguly) (0/18):

LITERATURE : INDIAN LANGUAGES (1=1+0; 0 )

Hindi / Urdu / Punjabi (Fiction/Mythology: 1 + Poetry: 0 + Non-fiction: 0): Bhasmavrit Chingari by Yashpal,

Sanskrit (Fiction: 0+ Poetry: 0): 

(If I am through more  than 50% of the book, it goes into the list of the year past, otherwise it appears in the new list next year. See here for the books read in 2016, with a selection of my favorite reads from the year past.)

Best among the books read in 2017
(1)  The Savage Detectives
(2) Gachar Gochar 
(3) To Urania
(4) Drink
(5) Cairo Modern
(6) The Splinter Factory
(7) The Magic Mountain
(8) The Swimmer
(9) The Miles Between Me
(10) A Street of Clocks