Poems by Anupam Singh
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Pirate
To swim alongside each other we descended into the saltiest of waters we loved to lease water O Pirate we both sank our boats tossed our oars we learnt to swim on each other’s back waterdrop sweatdrop and that immortal particle of the body deeming all of them worthy of worship we aroused each other even more all those drops and your love O Pirate are glistening on my forehead a ray cold as water is budding from my eyes look at this my body flowered with satiety stealing and tasting each other’s water we sowed waterseeds that water has now sprouted shoots look how they ripple this conjoined stream of water had neither ego nor id even then each tributary had a distinct taste this steep wave spreading to a distance contains but our water O Pirate the same water there was only one fire that had brought us to water only one mud that’s breaching the dykes and merging with water O Pirate we’ll pay the price for this water Translated from the Hindi by Sarabjeet Garcha I’ve Carved My Own Man My elbow on his thigh I’m smoking a cigar I’ve hidden my autumn in his cap all heroines envy me for I’ve carved my own man I said He’s not a man but a demon who lives in Venuvan* and rides a lion but pressing my elbow on his thigh I smoke that’s enough to defeat him and make him confess he says many women have slept on his thigh but he hasn’t seen such indifference and defiance in anyone they were ewes bleating in fear they were all cows of the regime having smoked when I rise from his thigh he’ll need some other task I’ve released all my Arabic horses so that one man can work *Venuvan, a popular pilgrims’ destination in Nalanda, Bihar, is one of the first sites that the Buddha received as a gift from Bimbisara, the then king of Magadha. Translated from the Hindi by Sarabjeet Garcha |
Anupam Singh was born in Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh, in 1986. She studied at Allahabad University and Delhi University. Her poems have been published in several Hindi literary journals. She has been actively involved in women’s and people’s movements. Her first book of poems in Hindi was published in 2022.
Sarabjeet Garcha is a poet, editor, translator and publisher. His five books of poems include All We Have, A Clock in the Far Past and Lullaby of the Ever-Returning, in addition to a volume each of poems translated from Marathi and prose from Hindi. He has translated several American poets into Hindi, including W.S. Merwin and John Haines, and several Indian poets into English, among them Mangalesh Dabral and Leeladhar Jagoori. He has received the Fellowship for Outstanding Artists from the Government of India, the International Publishing Fellowship from the British Council, and the Godyo Podyo Probondho Award. His poems have been translated into German, Spanish, Russian, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi and Hindi. He is the founder and editorial director of Copper Coin (www.coppercoin.co.in), a multilingual publishing company based in Delhi NCR.
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