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      • Prose Poems of Tagore by Dr. Bina Biswas >
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      • Kazi Nazrul Islam by Dr. Shamenaz Shaikh >
        • Chapter 1(Nazrul Islam)
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      • Kabir's Poetry by Dr. Anshu Pandey >
        • Chapter 1(Kabir's Poetry)
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        • Chapter 3(Kabir's Poetry)
      • My mind's not right by Dr. Vicky Gilpin >
        • Chapter- 1 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-2 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-3 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-4 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
      • On Poetry & Poets by Abhay K.
      • Poetry of Kamla Das –A True Voice Of Bourgeoisie Women In India by Dr.Shikha Saxena
      • Identity Issues in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel by Dr.Arvind Nawale & Prashant Mothe*
      • Nissim Ezekiel’s Latter-Day Psalms: His Religious and Philosophical Speculations By Dr. Pallavi Srivastava
      • The Moping Owl : the Epitome of Melancholy by Zinia Mitra
      • Gary Soto’s Vision of Chicano Experiences: The Elements of San Joaquin and Human Nature by Paula Hayes
      • Sri Aurobindo: A Poet By Aju Mukhopadhyay
      • Wordsworthian Romanticism in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Nature and the Reflective Capabilities of a Poetic Self by Paula Hayes
      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
    • 2014-2015 >
      • From The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry Adam Wyeth
      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
    • 2016-2017 >
      • Children’s Poetry in India- A Case Study of Adil Jussawalla and Ananya Guha by Shruti Sareen
      • Thirteen Thoughts on Poetry in the Digital Age by Mandy kAHN
    • 2017-2018 >
      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
      • Impure Poetry by Tony Barnstone
      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
  • Print Editions

Poems by Nandini Sahu

 
Sita (A Poem)
Canto XXIV
 
 
I am Prakriti; born of and fading into Mother Nature.
I am Shakti, phenomenal destroyer of Ravana.
I am grace; I stand for mercy, bounty and redemption.     
 
I am the ultimate woman; the glorious mother of Lava-Kusha.
I am Nature; I have inestimable moods and assortments.
I am power; I have innumerable appearances on earth.
 
I am splendor; I transcend the crimson womanly.
I am pure bliss; I float as foam on the sea of frenzy.
I am innocence; born naked from the furrow.
 
I am a teardrop; I stand for the mourning -mortality.
I am a bird; grasped and fluttered to withdrawn regions.
I am a memory; sweltering and reverberating time and again.
 
I am birth; my girlhood is joyous with simmering intimations.
I am growth; I burn in the flame of the fire-ordeal.
I am death; I overpower Ravana, I eclipse evil.
 
I am immaculate; I have the attitude for the tide of sovereignty.
I am mighty; my power lies in ultimate motherhood.
I am divine; my love and grace redeems the universe.
 
I am humane; I suffer like any mortal average.
I am benevolence; let them admire my compassionate pedigree.
I am malevolence; I care no birth, bondage and death.
 
 
 
Sita (A Poem)
Canto XXV
 
 
I am away from Rama since ages, but my eternal monologue continues.
I have been taking births and rebirths, my
thirst unquenched, my heart  passion-drenched.
 
I distribute myself into atoms in my rebirths; in the   
‘sitaness’ of every woman Sita eternally breaths.
I am re-born as Mother Teresa, Florence
 
Nightingale, Lucy Grey, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra,
Atlanta, Cordelia, Desdemona, Penelope, Sylvia Plath,
Athena, Kunti, Draupadi, Gandhari, Shakuntala,
 
Radha, Meerabai, Kalpana Chawla, Kiran Bedi,
 Indira, Nirbhaya, Damini, Lata ,Nandini, Rebati or Anandi.
I live numerous lives, in women, bold and beautiful.
 
In the Ramayana, my incandescent strength
did resolute my character and self-respect.
That was my aura, not to acknowledge opposing infringements.
 
Trijala was another form of Sita in my
incarceration,  in our fellow feeling and feminine bonding.
I was the spark in Mandoodari, who
 
questioned her husband Ravana poignantly
even on his deathbed. I was in Urmila,
in her patient waiting, her merciful self-control.
 
I was in Draupadi, who wandered with her
five husbands in the forest for twelve years
and got disrobed in the Kuru Sabha in
 
their silent protest. I got burnt with my humiliation
in her sinuous open hair. And I lived in her
platonic love for her sakha, Lord Krishna.
 
I lived in Nirbhaya, gang-raped in a
moving Delhi bus; I struggled, I survived, I  perished,
enkindling the fire of truth  amongst mankind.
 
I have heard, Ravana was a great scholar,
A yogic personality, who poised ‘Shiva
Tandava  Stotra.’ Then how could he desire another’s wife? 
 
I was never the subdued woman as painted in
Tulsidas’ Ramacharitamanas. I was eternally
pure, eternally chaste. Sufi poet Mullah Masiha
 
has likened me to the soul. Like soul
that is eternally covered by the body, Sita
is infinitely covered by clothes, never disrobed.
 
 
…
 
(There are a little more than three hundred versions of the Ramayana written over the centuries since Valmiki first wrote it. My poem Sita is, in no way, a retelling of The Ramayana. It is, rather, penned as a poetic memoir of the heroine of the epic, Sita, told in the first person narrative. Sita(A Poem) is seminal to my thoughts on life that find expression in the creative impulse of literature. It has always been with me, sometimes haunting and at others, fuelling the mind in all thought and action. In that sense, it could perhaps be one of my most ambitious, endearing ecofeministic poems. One long poem, it’s presented in 25 sections/cantos. This is a small  part of the 24th Canto and the complete 25th Canto of the long poem.)
About the poet

Dr.Nandini Sahu is an Associate Professor of English in IGNOU, New Delhi, India. She is a poet,creative writer and  literary critic; is the author/editor of eleven books, and has  several research papers published in India, U.S.A., U.K. and Pakistan. Her areas of research interest cover New Literatures, Critical Theory, Folklore and Culture Studies, Children’s Literature, American Literature and ELT. She is the Chief Editor of two bi-annual refereed journals, Interdisciplinary Journal of Literature and Language(IJLL) and Panorama Literaria(PL).

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  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact
    • Media Coverages
    • Copyright Notice
    • VerseVille Blog
  • Submissions
    • Poetry and Essays Guidelines
    • Book Review Guidelines
    • Research Series Guidelines
  • Masthead
  • Editions
    • 2011 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XIV November 2011
    • 2012 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XV March 2012
      • ISSUE-XVI July 2012
      • ISSUE-XVII November 2012
    • 2013 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XVIII April 2013
      • ISSUE XIX November 2013
    • 2014 Issues >
      • ISSUE XX May 2014
    • 2015 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXI February 2015
      • Contemporary Indian English Poetry ISSUE XXII November 2015
    • 2016 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIII August 2016
      • Poetry From Ireland ISSUE XXIV December 2016
    • 2017 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXV August 2017
      • ISSUE XXVI December 2017
    • 2018 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXVII July 2018
      • ISSUE XXVIII November 2018
    • 2019 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIX July 2019
    • 2020 ISSUES >
      • Issue XXX February 2020
      • ISSUE XXXI December 2020
  • Collaborations
    • Macedonian Collaboration
    • Collaboration with Dutch Foundation for Literature
  • Interviews
  • Prose on Poetry and Poets
    • 2010-2013 >
      • Sylvia Plath by Dr. Nidhi Mehta >
        • Chapter-1(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-2(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-3(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-4(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-5(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-6(Sylvia Plath)
      • Prose Poems of Tagore by Dr. Bina Biswas >
        • Chapter-1(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-2(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-3(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-4(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-5(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-6(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-7(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-8(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-9(Rabindranath Tagore)
      • Kazi Nazrul Islam by Dr. Shamenaz Shaikh >
        • Chapter 1(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 2(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 3(Nazrul Islam)
      • Kabir's Poetry by Dr. Anshu Pandey >
        • Chapter 1(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 2(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 3(Kabir's Poetry)
      • My mind's not right by Dr. Vicky Gilpin >
        • Chapter- 1 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-2 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-3 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-4 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
      • On Poetry & Poets by Abhay K.
      • Poetry of Kamla Das –A True Voice Of Bourgeoisie Women In India by Dr.Shikha Saxena
      • Identity Issues in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel by Dr.Arvind Nawale & Prashant Mothe*
      • Nissim Ezekiel’s Latter-Day Psalms: His Religious and Philosophical Speculations By Dr. Pallavi Srivastava
      • The Moping Owl : the Epitome of Melancholy by Zinia Mitra
      • Gary Soto’s Vision of Chicano Experiences: The Elements of San Joaquin and Human Nature by Paula Hayes
      • Sri Aurobindo: A Poet By Aju Mukhopadhyay
      • Wordsworthian Romanticism in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Nature and the Reflective Capabilities of a Poetic Self by Paula Hayes
      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
    • 2014-2015 >
      • From The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry Adam Wyeth
      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
    • 2016-2017 >
      • Children’s Poetry in India- A Case Study of Adil Jussawalla and Ananya Guha by Shruti Sareen
      • Thirteen Thoughts on Poetry in the Digital Age by Mandy kAHN
    • 2017-2018 >
      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
      • Impure Poetry by Tony Barnstone
      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
  • Print Editions