The famous poet and translator Robert Payne says -

“We can understand a people best through their poetry, and the Chinese who have written poetry since the beginning of time have always regarded poetry as the finest flower of their culture.”

It is a fact that only very few countries or races have been able to safeguard and cherish the richness of their culture and literature for a long time. India and China are important names in this regard. India has a variety of languages, which has its effect on literature also. Kritya is bringing out the rich heritage of poetry from India in every issue. This time we are also bringing out a few poems from China. I hope all readers will agree with Robert Payne. A few contemporary Chinese poems are provided by  Denis Mair, Other poems are taken from The White Pony edited by the late Robert Payne. Kritya is grateful to both of them. 

Every language has its own beauty; it cannot remain the same after translation. But good poetry finds its way to the readers’ minds and hearts. I hope my readers will certainly find their way too.


There are other poems in verse and prose as well by poets in India and outside India. I am sure readers will enjoy this variety in poetry.

The Editor’s choice this time reaches out to more than one poet. A few Chinese poets, along with a great poet of our time, Czeslaw Milosz, are included this time. I hope that this variety in the usual fare will delight the readers.

In the section “our masters” again, there is modern Chinese poetry, so that readers will find out the difference between ancient and modern Chinese poetry. The love songs from atharvaveda are also there, as quite a lot of people want to read it.

In the name of poetry again there is an interview. An interview Sam Hamill by Farideh Hassanzadeh ( Mostafavi), as I think the thoughts of poets tell us the direction of poetry. We will talk about poetry as therapy also.

As this issue is centered around Chinese poetry, we invited  Denis Mair , who is quite close to Chinese poetry and who had supplied us a number of translations, to give his views-

“The best way of introducing Tang poetry I can think of is to recommend four great books: 1)Du Fu’s Laments from the South by David R. McCraw, and 2)Omens of the World, 3)The High Tang, and 4)Labyrinths by Stephen Owen.

In terms of aesthetic achievements, Tang poetry made breakthroughs greater than the sum of any parts taken from Confucian and Buddhist philosophy. In its harmonization of means, in its transcendent flavor and time-defying crystalline visions, in its tenderness toward all phases of life, it practiced what moral ideologues could only preach. The best Tang poetry held forth a light-suffused world in which sensations paradoxically imply a spacious field of sympathy, in which particulars point to a dimension of expansive meaning.
The great scholar of classical Chinese poetry, Stephen Owen, tells us that Chinese poetry’s source goes back to the vocation of the diviner. We know that written words in China were first used by diviners to write their inscriptions. A diviner’s calling is to read omens, which open like windows onto the web of connections among living things. Poets in China have built up a deep poetic realm, faithful to their philosophy as a people, based on omens of lived experience.
 

 The dilemma of Modern Chinese poets is how to draw on resources of the Tang poetic realm, still enshrined in their language, amid the clashes and velocities of modernity. There is no way that copying will bring Tang poetry alive, yet its depth informs their language; there is no reason it cannot come alive in new ways. Through the vast river of translation that has flowed into their language, all the problematics of Western poetry are also at their full disposal as well. If the life force of individual poets can carry them through the attendant challenges, they will craft a poetic language worthy of the fruits of two civilizations. In truth, this achievement is well underway.”
by  Denis Mair

 

Friends, kritya is again in your hands. I will be glad to get your response to this issue.


 The paintings depicted here in this issue are by a well-known young artist from India, Vijendra S. Vij. He has given these paintings for the maintenance of kritya as it is a non- profit-making journal. Any one who is interested in buying the original paintings can contact the editor of kritya or Vijendra himself. His contact number is +91 9810464520.

The “sketches “ illustrated on pages along with poetry / articles are drawn by late Prabhakar and his artist son Roshan. Kritya hopes and wishes well for the artistic journey of Roshan.

Other pictures and borders are made by the editor herself.

 
Rati Saxena