Translated by Raj Karamchedu
About The Poems For most Indian readers in English, contemporary poetry in Telugu lies below the horizon, its existence sometimes reported but never directly encountered. But even from this very small sample of the work of three Telugu poets, translated by the novelist Raj Karamchedu, it’s clear that this is a field as exciting as any other in Indian literature. Whether it is Siva Reddy’s poem about two human subjects and a burrow, Varavara Rao’s remarkable poem about speaking corpses and deaths in police custody, or Ismail’s unforgettable image of a real turtle inside a well and a metaphorical one inside the human mind, here are voices, images, rhythms and metaphors that proclaim a burning faith in the power of poetry to both reveal and imagine the world afresh.
Burrow
by Siva Reddy
I have a way
I will crawl away into it
But, she has what
Darkness with no trails
Iron walls dug in all around,
Nowhere she can go
Wherever she goes,
It is back again to within—
In it is way too dark
Brooding, agonising
Into the emptiness
Head split in
Thousand empty pieces—
No choice
Each and everyone
Must search for himself
The burrow that leads
Out of life
Demon Ghost
by Varavara Rao
Hauling the carcass from the lockup
Over my shoulder, I was walking
I’ll let you in on the story of my death
Said the corpse
Tell me if it was a natural death
Or was it a murder
Carcass, and on top of it, speaks while in the lockup
Could only mean a murder, I said
Though pleased at the truth’s voice
For the living to speak is a crime
So the corpse disappeared
Showed up in some other lockup
Turtle in the Well
by Ismail
Hearing that the turtle was found in the well
We ran like a monkey’s herd, all we children
When we peered into it, we saw our own heads
And the sky and the blue horizon
Picking stones and shards we stirred all the water
Not only the turtle didn’t float up
But even our heads disappeared
As the sky’s dark blaze, lighting up the rim’s far end, went into the well
With our heads in I stared still at the perturbed water
There! Behind my eyes
Burrowed inside the skull
Sitting still, is the turtle
A Grave for a Poem
by Ismail
Digging the poem deep is the poet
Beneath tons of dirt
Beneath tons of heart
Lies covered the poem
Who buried it this deep no one knows
Got to dig days and nights
And get the coffin out
Maybe it’ll come alive
At the touch of a breath
Digging the poem deep
When the casket lid opens
Every time the corpse that comes out alive
Is the poet himself