Bridgeable Lines: An Anthology of Borderless World Poetry in Bengali
The Anthology published in Kolkata International Bookfair 2019 and launched by Murat-Nemet-Nezat, Elizabeth Willis and Adeena Karasick.
12 American Contemporary Poets participated in the project:
Charles Bernstein
Murat Nemet-Nezat
Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge
Peter Gizzi
Eileen Myles
Michael Boughn
Elizabeth Willis
John Bloomberg Rissman
Eileen R Tabios
Bob Holman
Adeena Karasick
Peter Valente
Editor’s Introduction: Beyond the Border
PROJECT TITLE
Simanaheen Biswa Kabita Bangla Bhashay
(Borderless World Poetry in Bengali)
This is to inform all of you, that we are undergoing a project, namely “Simanaheen Biswa kabita Bangla Bhasay”, (“Borderless World Poetry in Bengali’) headed by Runa Bandyopadhyay (Poet, Translator) and Aritra Sanyal (Poet, Translator).
A poet like a normal human being evolves from time to time. The change, which comes naturally, leaves the poet with desire to seek a new language that can express the new format of his writing. We are, as a small part of the community of poets writing in Bengali, acquainted with the developments in our literature. But that is never enough to have a glimpse of world poetry. In our quest for an answer to this, we, on behalf of Aihik, a Bengali little magazine, adopted this mission to transcreate a part of the current profile of world poetry, for the entire Bengali reader of 100 millions.
Primarily, we have decided to select a few numbers of eminent European and American poets, who, we believe, are aware of the influence of Bengali Literature on the Literature around the world. We will talk with them, and have their consents for transcreation. Therefore this project is a joint venture of poets and transcreators.
Hope, we will make this project a grand success, and get a wide response from India, Bangladesh, NRI Bengalis and European and American poets around the world.
Thanking you all,
Yours faithfully,
Tamal Ray
Editor, Aihik
11/03/2018
Editor’s Introduction: Beyond the Border
Runa Bandyopadhyay 