Affirmations of Life

These two volumes of poetry need to be noticed for more than one reason. This is perhaps the first time that the Sahitya Akademi has published English writings. This is truly welcome in poetry, where even established poets struggle to find publishers. These two-in-one books, ‘double-decker’ volumes as Keki Daruwalla (who has edited and written an introduction to each volume) calls them, of poetry by women give space to three established and one new poet, all of them deserving of this hallowed space. These two volumes certainly fulfill the aims that Sahitya Akademi seems to have set itself in this venture – “to project Indian poetry in English by women writers, so that the larger reading public becomes aware of their nuanced sensitivity and the infinite variety of their concerns”. Aptly, the poets chosen for these volumes, Ketaki Kushari Dyson and Lakshmi Kannan, and Anna Sujatha Mathai and Priya Sarukkai Chabria, and their poems showcase a great deal of variety and nuanced sensitivity.