Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
Our pulp fiction is pulped too fine
Rising up it irritates the sine-
-uses, giving headaches and fevers
In Fahrenheit of ninety-nine.
Every hero in lit prose
Makes the nation preen and pose
Blowing pollen on the west
Giving it a runny nose.
Stories of the global south
Of reddened eyes and cottonmouth
Will try to claim postcolonial angst
But in fact they are mouldy growths.
Our novels are but spicy stews
With peanuts slipped in for the chews
We try to match the great canon
But all we write is achoo achoo!
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[1] A play on Fredric Jameson’s essay ‘Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism’ that claims all third world literature is a ‘national allegory’.