11 episodes
Uncut Poetry presents Red River Sessions Sunil Bhandari
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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Poetry is pleasure which reaches the soul. It reveals, disturbs, stirs, revives. Anyone who has read, and lived, a poem is a person who has been touched inside out.
But how often have we read a poem and wondered about the poet behind those words. Who wrote those poems which we love so much? What did they go through in their lives to enable them to write the words which touch us and make us better persons.
Welcome to Red River Sessions, India's podcast of poets & their poetry. Presented by Uncut Poetry, the poetry podcast, & Red River, the acclaimed independent poetry publishing house.
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Sophia Naz - The Importance of Transitions (Part 2)
This is the second part of the conversation with Sophia Naz.
Sophia Naz is a bilingual poet, artist, author, editor and translator. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize; in 2016 for creative nonfiction and in 2018 for poetry. Her work features in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Poets, The Night Heron Barks, Singing in the Dark: A Global Anthology of Poetry Under Lockdown, Berfrois, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Rattle, The Punch Magazine, Poetry At Sangam, Poetry International Rotterdam, The Adirondack Review, The Wire, Chicago Quarterly Review, Blaze Vox, Scroll, The Daily O, Cafe Dissensus, RAIOT, Ideas And Futures, Chapati Mystery, Guftugu, Pratik, Gallerie International, Coldnoon, VAYAVYA, The Bangalore Review, Papercuts, Madras Courier, The Yearbook of Indian Poetry and many others. She has authored the poetry collections — Peripheries (Cyberhex, 2015), Pointillism (Copper Coin, 2017) Date Palms (City Press, 2017) Open Zero (Yoda Press, 2021), and Shehnaz, a biography (Penguin Random House, 2019).
Bark Archipelago is her fifth collection of poetry.
This is a peerless episode from Red River Sessions presented to you by Uncut Poetry. In Red River Sessions, we talk to published poets about their poetry, their craft, and what haunts them. It is brought to you by Red River, which is the premier independent publisher of poetry books and curated prose, and Uncut Poetry, a much-loved poetry podcast. -
Sophia Naz - The Importance of Transitions (Part 1)
I first met Sophia at the Delhi Poetry Festival last year. We were both in the same session, reading our poetry, and the session got delayed. We had a good time furiously cribbing about the delay. Of course, we finally got to our poetry, and I was completely floored by what she read.
Her poetry was cerebral, fun, layered - it was like an intellectual puzzle that needed to be uncovered, layer by layer.
So when Dibyajyoti Sarma, the heart and soul of Red River Publications, asked me to have her as my first guest to begin the Second Season of Red River sessions, I was completely delighted.
Before we started this conversation, we promised each other that it would be no longer than 20 minutes. You can see where we ended finally. I decided not to edit much of the conversation because it was so delightful and stimulating - and there were so many interesting things which Sophia had to talk about.
Sophia Naz is a bilingual poet, artist, author, editor and translator. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize; in 2016 for creative nonfiction and in 2018 for poetry. Her work features in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Poets, The Night Heron Barks, Singing in the Dark: A Global Anthology of Poetry Under Lockdown, Berfrois, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Rattle, The Punch Magazine, Poetry At Sangam, Poetry International Rotterdam, The Adirondack Review, The Wire, Chicago Quarterly Review, Blaze Vox, Scroll, The Daily O, Cafe Dissensus, RAIOT, Ideas And Futures, Chapati Mystery, Guftugu, Pratik, Gallerie International, Coldnoon, VAYAVYA, The Bangalore Review, Papercuts, Madras Courier, The Yearbook of Indian Poetry and many others. She has authored the poetry collections — Peripheries (Cyberhex, 2015), Pointillism (Copper Coin, 2017) Date Palms (City Press, 2017) Open Zero (Yoda Press, 2021), and Shehnaz, a biography (Penguin Random House, 2019).
Her latest collection of poetry, Bark Archipelago, published in March 2023 from Red River in India and Weavers Press San Francisco in USA.
This is a peerless episode from Red River Sessions presented to you by Uncut Poetry. In Red River Sessions, we talk to published poets about their poetry, their craft, and what haunts them. It is brought to you by Red River, which is the premier independent publisher of poetry books and curated prose, and Uncut Poetry, a much-loved poetry podcast. -
Sukrita Paul Kumar - The Meaning of All Things
Sukrita says - "Literary success lies in the joy I get while in the very process of writing and then the glee in actually being able to finish a poem. The rest of it is rather superficial and temporary."
Welcome to Red River Sessions, which is a collaboration between Red River, the premier independent house for poetry and Uncut Poetry, the much loved poetry podcast. I am your host Sunil Bhandari, and in this episode we are speaking to the renowned poet Sukrita Paul Kumar.
Sukrita was born in Nairobi, Kenya and emigrated to India when Kenya obtained its freedom from the British. As director of a UNESCO project on 'The Culture of Peace', she edited Mapping Memories - a volume of Urdu short stories from India and Pakistan. She has published several collections of poetry as well as academic books and critical writing. She's recently edited the The Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English 2020-21 along with Vinita Agarwal.
And with Red River she has published the sparkling and incandescent Country Drive, co-written with Yasmin Ladha.
Get the book on Amazon.
So Sukrita and I had discussed the general drift of questions for the interview. Instead what transpired was a completely freewheeling conversation - and what a talk it turned out to be!
We talked about Plath, death, influence of talented fathers, the blessing and curse of poetry, the meaning of life, her first book, about maintaining innocence in fractured times, Jiddu Krishnamurthy’s teaching on focus, the criticality of independent publishing houses, the thrill of holding onto a tree, and a hundred other things!
This is a peerless episode from Red Rivers Sessions presented to you by Uncut Poetry. In Red River Sessions, we talk to published poets, about their poetry, their craft and what haunts them. It is brought to you by Red River, which is the premier independent publisher of poetry books and Uncut Poetry, a much-loved poetry podcast.
Following are the details of the music used in this episode -
Music: 1000 Lichter by Sascha Ende
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3161-1000-lichter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist website: https://www.sascha-ende.de
Music: Adventure by Alexander Nakarada
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/6092-adventure
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist website: https://www.serpentsoundstudios.com/
Music: Sentimental Travel by MusicLFiles
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6968-sentimental-travel
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license -
Shobhana Kumar - A Talk Full of Bucket Lists
To know Shobhana is to know the essence of grace and gratefulness which suffuses her work. I have time and again, on reading her poems, kept the book down and held back my emotions. She gets to the heart of the matter with quick acuity, but an understanding, which is gentle, kind. She holds the reader close to her heart, as she leads him through her hurting poetry.
Shobhana Kumar has two collections of poetry: The Voices Never Stop (2012) and *Conditions Apply (2014), from Writers Workshop, Kolkata. Her work has been anthologized in journals and books of poetry and Japanese short forms. Her poem, ‘Just Married’ was selected and translated by Gulzar in his monumental work, A Poem a Day, published by HarperCollins. She has authored six books of non-fiction covering biographies, corporate, industrial, and educational histories. Her short stories have been published or are forthcoming in a few anthologies. Kumar is Poetry Editor of Sonic Boom Journal and its imprint, Yavanika Press. She is also part of The Quarantine Train, a poetry workshop founded by Arjun Rajendran. She works in the spaces of corporate communication, branding and advertising, and education. Along with a group of friends, she runs Small Differences, an NGO working with elderly, abandoned people and the transgender community.
Her latest book “A Sky Full of Bucket Lists” is published by the finest independent publisher of poetry Red River. It was chosen by the redoubtable Arundhathi Subramanian as one of the finest books of 2021.
It can be purchased on Amazon or Papyrus
She spoke to me at length about her poetry, her growing up in Lovedale, the work she does in her NGO and why Mary Oliver is such an inspiration.
This is a peerless episode from Red Rivers Sessions presented to you by Uncut Poetry. In Red River Sessions, we talk to published poets, about their poetry, their craft and what haunts them. It is brought to you by Red River, which is the premier independent publisher of poetry books and Uncut Poetry, a much-loved poetry podcast.
Following are the details of the music used in this episode-
From my Heart With Love by MusicLFiles
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6267-from-my-heart-with-love
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Sentimental Travel by MusicLFiles
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6968-sentimental-travel
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Adventure by Alexander Nakarada
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6092-adventure
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Midnight Tale by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/4710-midnight-tale
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license -
Bina Sarkar Ellias - The Renaissance Rebel
Bina stole my heart from the time I met her, a few years back, in a poetry extravaganza where I was the Master of Ceremonies and Bina headlined a stellar galaxy of poets. She was there with her husband, the renowned photographer Rafique Ellias, and I knew I was in the presence of two wonderful souls from the first hello. Her poetry had a power which her slender frame and gentle voice belied. And as I came to know the breadth of her interests and the depth of her commitments to causes, I became a lifelong fan. Bina is the very definition of a Renaissance woman, if there ever was one.
Bina is a poet, of course, but also an editor, designer and publisher of International Gallerie, a global arts and ideas journal (www.gallerie.net) founded by her in 1997. She is also an art curator, having curated several important exhibits of renowned artists. She taught herself graphic design and has been invited by artists, galleries, photographers, poets to design their books and catalogues.
Her books of poetry include The Room, Fuse, When Seeing is Believing and the latest Song of a Rebel and Other Selected Poems brought to you by Red River Publishers. Her poems have been translated into Arabic, Urdu, French, Greek and Chinese. And FUSE has been taught at the Towson University in Maryland, USA.
In this engaging and story-filled episode of Red River Sessions, Bina talks how the rebel in her governed her choices as a child, in marriage, in starting her own magazine - and how a life well lived is the one in which you back your own choices.
Her latest book, Song of a Rebel and Other Selected Poems, published by Red River, can be purchased at -
https://www.amazon.com/Song-Rebel-Other-Selected-Poems/dp/8194816432
https://papyrus.catalog.to/s/gallery/papyrus---the-book-store/red-river-poetry/brf/product/-MgKpqKzd-kWu8aQ2RP2
This is a peerless episode from Red Rivers Sessions presented to you by Uncut Poetry. In Red River Sessions, we talk to published poets, about their poetry, their craft and what haunts them. It is brought to you by Red River, which is the premier independent publisher of poetry books and Uncut Poetry, a much-loved poetry podcast.
Following are the details of the music used in this episode-
Sentimental Travel by MusicLFiles
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6968-sentimental-travel
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Melodic Interlude Two by Alexander Nakarada
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6394-melodic-interlude-two
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Sadness Background Piano And Cello by MusicLFiles
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/8315-sadness-background-piano-and-cello
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Flucht (Romeos Erbe) by Sascha Ende®
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/3146-flucht-romeos-erbe-
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Imagefilm 002 by Sascha Ende®
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/46-imagefilm-002
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Publish by Sascha Ende®
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/25-publish
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license -
Siddharth Dasgupta - Within the Algorithms of Desire
"Ishq, the word reverberates
Sending ripples
of erotic Blue
Across the naked promise
Of what her body
chooses to preserve
And what her body
chooses to predict
Mizaaj, the mood
Reciprocates
It hovers on the edge
of cliffs drawn
from breath
Each lust left
desiring the
Intensity of you
If desire has a leitmotif
Then let in be the mark
upon her knee
And the exhaled prism
of a single word
Alfaaz
Its two syllables
pouring life into nothing
The freshwater dramas
of ethnic corsage
Laila Rukh
beckoning waves
with a swirl of black
And the nude infidelities
of a word smothered
in mist,
Intezaar…"
("One Indian City, Two Indian Lovers" from Siddharth Dasgupta's The Moveable East)
When I read Siddharth Dasgupta's latest book of poetry, I had a sense of light bursting out of the pages - even when he delved into darknesses. He writes of places with an intimacy which brings with it an overwhelming sense of desire, loss and loneliness. He says "Poetry is a daily prayer" and every poem of his is a testimony to that.
Siddharth Dasgupta is a writer of poetry & fiction. A Moveable East is his fourth book; others include Letters From an Indian Summer (Fingerprint) and The Sacred Sorrow of Sparrows (Niyogi). His words have appeared in literary journals across the world, while he has read in places like Mandalay, Bombay, Galle and Istanbul. Occasionally, Siddharth explores fragments of travel and culture for a smattering of publications. He lives within the swirling nostalgias of the city of Poona.
He can be reached at -
Instagram - @citizen.bliss
https://citizenbliss.squarespace.com/
His latest book, A Moveable East, published by Red River, can be purchased at -
https://www.amazon.in/dp/8194509386
and
https://papyrus.catalog.to/s/papyrus---the-book-store/red-river-poetry/brf
This is a peerless episode from Red Rivers Sessions presented to you by Uncut Poetry. In Red River Sessions, we talk to published poets, about their poetry, their craft and what haunts them. It is brought to you by Red River, which is the premier independent publisher of poetry books and Uncut Poetry, a much-loved poetry podcast.
Following are the details of the music used in this episode -
Melodic Interlude Two by Alexander Nakarada
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6394-melodic-interlude-two
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Flucht (Romeos Erbe) by Sascha Ende®
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/3146-flucht-romeos-erbe-
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Tranquil Fields Peaceful by Alexander Nakarada
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/5769-tranquil-fields-peaceful
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Cinematic Background Sad by MusicLFiles
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/8181-cinematic-background-sad
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Sentimental Travel by MusicLFiles
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6968-sentimental-travel
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Customer Reviews
Welcome addition to the poetry world!
This is so exciting! I’m so happy that finally podcasts are recognising the incredible talent of Indian poets!! And Divyajyoti’s story of starting Red River publishing house is incredible. What can’t passion and belief not make you so!