Singing in Mariupol

Author: Joe Winter
Pages: 88
Year of Publication: 2023
Price: Rs 400
ISBN: 978-81-961291-6-3 (9788196129163)

About the Author
Joe Winter was born in 1943. He took up poetry at university where he studied Latin and Greek and English Literature. From 1967 to 1993 he taught English in London comprehensive schools, and in 1994 moved to Kolkata where he taught part-time before returning to England in 2006. In Kolkata he wrote a number of articles for The Statesman and other journals on literary and general topics. He has published translations of Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali, Lipika, Atmaparichay (as co-translator), a selection of Tagore’s poems first to last (The Golden Boat); a selection of the poems of Jibanananda Das (Naked Lonely Hand), and Das’s Rupasi Bangla (Bengal the Beautiful). In addition he has published an account of his stay in India (Calcutta Song). His more recent works are translations of Beowulf and the Middle English poem Pearl; a reading of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Two Loves I Have); and an exploration of Hamlet (Hide Fox, and All After).

Teaser

An extract from

YEVGENIA’S DIARY

Bodies littered the ground, black eyes staring back at horrified children

people were drinking water from puddles

many were unable to cry

I shall remember Anastasia

a 19-year-old student shot and killed

taking food and aid to the beautiful city of Chernihiv

now the bus, once white, now black from fire and bullet-holes

lies buckled on the road

Kyiv is burning

on the banks of the Dnieper the forest is on fire

the airport too, the houses, shops, apartment block

and round the flames a circle of silence

there are moments of death-visitation

in the mind, of being too tired

to be awake any longer to the message of the sky

to the inhumane voice, to this weather

I shall lie down on a forest path and let it come to me

Contents
25 poems spread across 6 sections