Uncut Poetry presents Red River Sessions

Sunil Bhandari
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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.

  1. Shobhana Kumar & K Srilata - Two Voices. One Echo.

    MAR 4

    Shobhana Kumar & K Srilata - Two Voices. One Echo.

    This episode is a conversation about translation — but also about voice, memory, the body, and the extraordinary journey of carrying one poet’s interior world into another language. i, Salma is not simply a translated collection — it is the bringing together of poetry, lived experience, and linguistic transformation. And at the heart of this process are two translators whose own literary sensibilities shape how we encounter Salma in English — K. Srilata and Shobhana Kumar. Salma is the pen name of Tamil writer Rajathi Samsudeen. Overcoming orthodoxy and having been confined within her home, Salma has now become an international literary figure and spokesperson for women’s rights. Her works have received acclaim globally and she is renowned in contemporary Tamil literature. With three volumes of poetry, three novels, two collections of short stories and a travelogue, Salma has made her mark as a distinctive Indian literary voice. She is also a a committed public servant and activist, and represents her constituent Trichy in Rajya Sabha. i, Salma is a collection of her poems, translated into English by poets K. Srilata and Shobhana Kumar. Shobhana Kumar is a poet, translator and chronicler of industrial, corporate andleadership histories. Her book of haibun, A Sky Full of Bucket Lists, won theRabindranath Tagore Literary Prize for 2021-2022, and The Touchstone DistinguishedBooks Award (HM), 2021, instituted by The Haiku Foundation, United States. She is currently working on two collaborative translation projects, which you will hear of in the course of our conversation. Shobhana is also the founder of Small Differences, an NGO that works with  marginalized communities, including transgenders, single women and children, and serves on the board of several renowned NGOs. Srilata Krishnan is a poet, fiction writer, translator and academic. A Fulbright fellow and a recipient of the Charles Wallace Writing Fellowship, her books include seven collections of poetry including the best-selling “Footnotes to the Mahabharata, a novel Table for Four longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2009 and a non-fiction title This Kind of Child: The ‘Disability Story' named by The Better India in their list of Eight Best Bookson Disability. Srilata has also edited several anthologies and published translations. She is currently Distinguished Visiting Professor at Shiv Nadar University, Chennai and co-curator of the CMI Arts Initiative. i, Salma is important not only because it introduces Salma’s poetry to English readers in a sustained way, but because the translations preserve the emotional intensity and political courage of the original work. At its heart, i, Salma is both a literary journey and a human one — a movement through silence, resistance, memory, and becoming. 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 ⁠Uncut Poetry⁠, a much-loved poetry podcast. You can find books published by Red River online at  redriverpress.in , on Amazon and in select bookstores.

    1h 14m
  2. Sucharita Dutta-Asane - Sculpting Stories, Growing Roots

    11/09/2025

    Sucharita Dutta-Asane - Sculpting Stories, Growing Roots

    Stories have their own quiet revolutions. Some are whispered in small rooms, some are sculpted in solitude — and a few are nurtured into existence by those who believe that words, even when silenced, find their way back to light. My guest in this episode is one such believer — writer, editor, and literary catalyst Sucharita Dutta-Asane. Her stories, from 'Cast Out' to 'These Tongues That Grow Roots', travel through the unmapped territories of memory, exile, and belonging. As an editor at Red River Story, she’s also helping a new generation of writers find their voice — and their courage. In this episode, we talk about sculpting stories rather than butchering them, about the delicate art of editing, and about the quiet wars that shape her fiction.This podcast series is brought to you by Red River, which is the premier independent publisher of poetry and stories, and Uncut Poetry, which is the immensely popular poetry podcast of original poetry. You can hear Uncut Poetry on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Gaana, or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can find books published by Red River online at  redriverpress.in , on amazon and in select bookstores. If you enjoyed this episode, talk about it, write about it, and subscribe to Red River Sessions, so you don't miss even a single episode.

    1h 20m
  3. Priya Sarukkai Chabria - Between the Story and the Silence

    09/09/2025

    Priya Sarukkai Chabria - Between the Story and the Silence

    I spoke to Priya Sarukkai Chabria for more than an hour. Time literally flew. And though my cache of questions was largely over, when do we ever want a good conversation to end. So this is where we ended - we have decided that I will visit her in Pune, with the proviso that I will tell her my favorite drink from before. And we will pick up the thread of the conversation from exactly where we left it and simply carry on.... Priya is brimming with stories and ideas and projects. And her love for cinema and art and environment and poetry and fiction give her the ability to examine things from multiple perspectives. It is sheer joy spending time with her. She is, of course,  a poet, writer, translator and literary curator. Her publications include five poetry collections, two SF novels, translations from Classical Tamil, and literary nonfiction. She founded Poetry at Sangam, an online literary community, and along with poet and novelist Mrinalini Harchandrai, edited the anthology The Dragon’s Heart: World Poetry in Translation. Priya has performed in multidisciplinary collaborations across India. Her engagement with Sanskrit aesthetics and Tamil Sangam poetics has been widely published in literary platforms. Her latest book is EARTHRISE STORIES, published by the inimitable Dibyajyoti Sarma of Red River Story. Catch her reflect, muse and wonder in this brilliant episode of Red River Sessions,. This podcast series is brought to you by Red River, which is the premier independent publisher of poetry books and ⁠Uncut Poetry⁠, a much-loved poetry podcast. You can hear Uncut Poetry on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Gaana, or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can find books published by Red River online at  redriverpress.in , on amazon and in select bookstores. If you enjoyed this episode, talk about it, write about it, share it. And subscribe to  Red River Sessions so you never miss an episode.

    1h 24m
  4. Gayatri Majumdar - Remembering by Not Holding On

    08/03/2025

    Gayatri Majumdar - Remembering by Not Holding On

    How often would you meet a poet who stays in a town steeped in the calm of spirituality but whose shoreline is sprayed with the spume of a restless sea? Well, Gayatri stays in Pondicherry, an absolute favorite place of mine. And I have been wanting to speak to her for ever and more! And when we finally did get to it, the conversation just flowed. For an hour we spoke of cities, books, poets, Sri Aurobindo, Agha Shahid Ali, Auroville - and pretty much everything in-between. Her latest book 'A Warm Place with No Memory', published by Red River is a veritable journey of possibilities. Her poetry remembers not by holding on, but by allowing things to pass through; she chisels the abstract into form, making the ineffable quietly useful in the rhythms of ordinary life. She finds poetry in the practical. As editor, publisher and founder of critically acclaimed Indian literary journal, The Brown Critique, for over two decades, Gayatri has published hundreds of established and emerging poets from India and other countries. She began her career as a journalist in Press Trust of India and The Independent (India) in Mumbai. Her career also encompasses leadership in the publishing industry and work in NGOs. Gayatri’s books include A Song for Bela (a novel); poetry collections Shout, I Know You are Here, The Dream Pod; non-fiction The lotus of the heart, and Brown Critique Home anthology. Her poems and prose have been published in major journals and anthologies. She is currently working on her next non-fiction title. As co-founder of ‘Pondicherry Poets’, Gayatri has been curating the annual Pondicherry/Auroville Poetry Festival.  ‘The Brown Critique-Gayatri Majumdar' YouTube channel features poets and musicians regularly. While Brown Critique Books has published a handful of mostly non-fiction titles over the past few years. Gayatri is associated with Sri Aurobindo Society, specifically handling the publication of books, eBooks and audiobooks through AuroPublications. Catch her reflect and recite in this second episode of the second season of 'Uncut Poetry presents Red River Sessions'. 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. Buy Gayatri's books and those of other fabulous poets at redriverpress.in.

    1h 7m
  5. Basudhara Roy - Writing from the Body

    02/16/2025

    Basudhara Roy - Writing from the Body

    Basudhara and I finished our conversation at 10 pm. One hour forty-three minutes. And my heart was full. We'd started off thinking we should aim for a thirty to forty five minutes talk. I'm just glad it wasn't to be. There is something reassuring about Basudhara. Because she speaks with conviction, of being completely honest to the moment. Thoughts, images, opinions, all, take shape like a building which is linear, with stark lines, but a place you know is warm and welcoming. Her latest book 'A Blur of a Woman' is the one I will be gifting the most this year, and possibly beyond. The poems are tender and hard, heartbreaking and life-affirming, as she bleeds her heart to open our souls. In this fabulous conversation, which I wished hadn't ended, she talks, amongst a million other things, of her provincial life, of how poetry improves on marination, how a poem can be obstinate to change, how illnesses define trajectories, and how Keki Daruwalla showed her why greatness is nothing but grace in ordinary things. Basudhara says writing is "a struggle to keep affirming life's movement, its open-endedness, its journey of becoming as well as its right and necessity to become". Basudhara teaches English at Karim City College in Jamshedpur. Creatively and academically drawn to themes of gender, mythology and ecology, her five published books include a monograph and three collections of poems - Moon in My Teacup, Stitching a Home and Inhabiting. Her work has featured widely in anthologies and magazines, including Chandrabhaga, The Punch MAgazine, Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English, Helter Skelter Anthology of New Writing, The Dhaka Tribune, EPW, and Madras Courier, among others. Co-editor of two poetry anthologies and a firm believer in the therapeutic power of verse, she writes, reviews, and sporadically curates adn translates poetry from Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India. Catch her muse, reflect, recite in this first episode of the second season of 'Uncut Poetry presents Red River Sessions'. 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 and curated prose, and Uncut Poetry, which is a much-loved weekly podcast of original poetry. Buy Basudhara's books and those of other fabulous poets at redriverpress.in

    1h 43m
  6. Sophia Naz - The Importance of Transitions (Part 2)

    04/22/2024

    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.

    29 min
  7. Sophia Naz - The Importance of Transitions (Part 1)

    04/21/2024

    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.

    37 min
  8. Sukrita Paul Kumar - The Meaning of All Things

    08/07/2022

    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

    1h 18m
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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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