POET-PORTRAITS

‘Meditation’ (2024) Copyright photograph by Sudeep Sen

(inspired by photographs shot by poet Sudeep Sen in Bhutan, June 2024)

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by JHILAM CHATTARAJ

   an ekphrastic poem

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Far, in the plains, sun-sleeved daylight

ushers a cool, cobalt evening—

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an echo of a word-shepherd

chanting hymns across hypnotic hills.

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Montage of a medieval city,

lamps illuminating rain-fragrant streets,

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fill my crystal screen—

I hear you breathe; pray to stupa domes

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for bread—peace—

the synthesis of soils.

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Heedless sons and daughters

rupture the earth’s breast.

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Yet all dismay disappear

before your fecund cosmos:

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paddy patchwork— wind-worn prayer flags—

gilded Buddha seizing the expanse of the sky.

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Poet-portraits

preserve the divine—

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dragon-eyed precision

liberates heat

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into the soft wonder of light.

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Jhilam Chattaraj is an academic, critic and poet. She is Assistant Professor and teaches at the RBVRR Women’s College, Hyderabad. She has authored three books: Noise Cancellation (2021), Corporate Fiction: Popular Culture and the New Writers (2018), and When Lovers Leave and Poetry Stays (2018). Her works have been published in the Mekong Review, New Contrast Magazine, One Art Poetry Journal, Calyx, Ariel, Room, Porridge, Queen Mob’s Tea House, Colorado Review, World Literature Today, Asian Cha, among others. She received the CTI Excellence Award in ‘Literature and Soft Skills Development’ (2019), from the Council for Transforming India and the Department of Language and Culture, Government of Telangana, India. Her poem, ‘Sari’ was nominated for the Nina Riggs Poetry Award (2023). She lives in Hyderabad, India.