Poetry from Bengal: The Delta Rising: An Anthology of Modern Bengali Poetry

Abstract

Certainly in states the cover summary of Poetry from Bengal, where the poet is never far from the life of the people . . . the mind searches for truth, as this selection shows, with all the agility of the ascetic and the brilliance of the fierce Indian sun. Thus Forest Books launches the UNESCO Library of World Poetry. The minds of poets anywhere must search for truth, but that imperative has had particular effect on Bengali poets. In one of the most pivotal cultural collisions during the British raj, Bengalis, always intensely proud of their poetic traditions, turned to them for both reassurance and orientation. From the 1880s until his death in 1941 the preeminent figure was Tagore, who left subsequent generations of Bengali poets with a dilemma: he refined or experimented with so many forms, styles, and vocabularies, how were they to get out from under his shadow? Buddhadeva Bose, a leader in the first post-Tagore generation of poets, wrote in his 1948 survey of Bengali literature, An Acre of Green Grass: Rabindranath Tagore is a phenomenon. . . . What I am thinking of as Rabindranath' s unique merit is his quantity, his immense range, his fabulous variety.