A GREAT scholarship awardee, Sneha Subramanian Kanta is pursuing her second postgraduate degree in England. A dedicated scholar of postcolonial literature, her work is forthcoming in Diaphanous Press, Shot Glass Journal, Brickplight and elsewhere.

Immigrant Lineage

I was Ahilya
standing by the Jhelum
out-stretched were landscapes
of shikaras and
a forlorn post office.

Nobody has come here
since many yesterdays
the two rupee note is
archaic, and safely ignored.

Baba tells me this is kalyug –
saints won’t open their eyes,
nor will the world resurrect;

while I play with a white dove.

.

Two Ships Sail at Night

Far from the distance I watch through
the moonbeam be-speckled window the
ocean.

Two ships glide over the silvered oceanic
waters and time ceases to exist in the wide
expanse of this metaphoric existence called
life.

Though distant they are, the glow of night
smears the candled-wax moon firmament
and dances as open lines of turquoises
bloom.

How many moments of darkness are there
in this one life, and how they encounter on
a daily basis ― still there is silence to then
convey.

We must be the two ships as figurative
language may have our semblances: cut out
in the folds of night, while murmuring our
quietness.

When death comes in the fortitude of a dark
yellow day, abstractions of purple and blue
of this midnight our paths begin will linger
on.

.

On Congruence

The literary legacy was borne by no torchbearers: they were
all the same. Held upon the backbone of curfew and war,
hybrid in their essence of regions they went through. Or
the Dravidian invasion was part-meeting — though humans
deconstruct everything as war. Pertinent fear in their eyes,
swallowing the ramshackle of camps and contingencies
on the threshold of everyday death.

6 thoughts on “Three Poems By Sneha S. Kanta

  1. This is what modern day Indian English poetry must encompass – a fine texture of the sociopolitical climate and growing intolerance – voices like yours make the cut for change.

  2. This is what I term responsible writing. The act of writing assumes many forms. You’ve literally dragged issues out of the closet of an Indian mindset and brought them to the fore to begin discussions. This is truly post-independence poetry. Lovely work – full of volume and density that cannot be ignored.

  3. Fantastical. If I had one word for each time I read your work, it would have to be “beyond”. Thank you for this!

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