Poet of Honour, an accolade by Ars Notoria and Word Masala Foundation, celebrates our best contemporary poets we should have read by now. They are iconic and a major inspiration.
One can be unbearably expressive with the implicit statements, but when you are not being Bukowski, a good poet shows us how doubly effective the subtly can be and how it devastates us with a message that can whip up in us reactions more strongly than any megaphone noise ever can. This month, Moniza Alvi brings us such a shattering reality and leaves us asking to redefine the use of the word animal. When I watched the harrowing award-winning series Delhi Crime on Netflix, it reminded me that miles away from the megaphone feminism the artists can create a better narrative than the political correctness that springs up from any tribal uprising! I hasten to add that Moniza’s poems here may be dealing with one issue, the poet’s palette is wide-ranging. A key to notice is her craft: very precise and incisive with each word weighing in with its presence. Just look at the poem Candle. With candle, caves, stalagmites and stalactites, does it need to say more? That such mastery appears throughout her collected oeuvre is what makes Moniza our extraordinary poet. I must thank Neil Astley and Bloodaxe once again for their kindness and permissions as with some of our previous Poets of Honour, Imtiaz Dharker, Pascale Petit, Vidyan Ravinthiran and Tishani Doshi.
-Yogesh Patel MBE
Poems by Moniza Alvi
Mermaid
after the painting ‘When We Talk About Rape’ by Tabitha Vevers
About human love,
she knew nothing.
I’ll show you he promised.
But first you need legs.
And he held up
a knife
with the sharpest of tips
to the ripeness of her emerald tail.
She danced an involuntary dance
captive
twitching with fear.
Swiftly
he slit
down the muscular length
exposing the bone in its red canal.
She played dead on the rock
dead by the blue lagoon
dead to the ends of her divided tail.
He fell on her, sunk himself deep
into the apex.
Then he fled
on his human legs.
Human love cried the sea,
the sea in her head.
Candle
The fresh wound is a candle
Lighting steps down into the caves.
Among stalagmites and stalactites
The old wound crouches low.
The Sleeping Wound
Hush, do not waken
The sleeping wound.
It lies on its crimson pillow,
red against red.
The long wound in the afternoon.
The long wound in the evening.
Centuries later,
no longer red,
it opens its eyes
at the most tentative kiss.
Happiness
Halfway down the stairs
I hugged it to my chest.
It was the size of a small
collection of laundry,
The shape of the bundle
Dick Wittington carried
on a stick at his back,
or the tiny parcel of spices
(the woody ones)
My mother would lower
for the duration
into a pot of steaming pullao rice.
For the duration.
that would be a fine thing.
To read poets honoured previously here is a roll call; please click on the name.
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