I find the idea that we write alone laughable, even egotistical. Poetry is a palimpsest that has been endlessly rewritten—it’s a social space we share with others.
—
Jen Bervin
The Poet by Lakdasa Wikkramasinha
- Louis Kahn by Carlos Brillembourg
- Camille Billops by Ameena Meer
- Neal Jimenez by Eric Stoltz
- George Condo by Anney Bonney
- Joe Mantello by Nicole Burdette
- Reno by Linda Yablonsky
- Darius James by Christian Haye
- Derek Walcott by Caryl Phillips
- Michael Jenkins by Bill Arning
Interviews
- The Poet by Lakdasa Wikkramasinha
- The Four Horsemen of Avenue B by Ed Vega
- Sri Lankan Poetry by Indran Amirthanayagam
- Crocodile Tears by Liza Béar
- Three Poems by Sandra Cisneros
- I. by Sivaramani
- Benjamine by Angela Himsel
- Sweetness and Light by Clark Blaise
- Writing In the Air by R. Charan
- Two Poems by Guy Amirthanayagam
- Three Poems by Cory Brown
- To White Knight (MK11) by Reggie Siriwardena
- Animal Crackers by Richard de Zoysa
- Van by David Rattray
- Nallur by Jean Arasanayagam
First Proof
He is the one that, tossing a bomb into
The crowd, takes notes;
The one who, from an unseen distance
Levels on the tripod that black rifle
With sights that see as far as his soul
Trains and levels, manoeuvres for a clear sight
Of the speaker on the platform;
Waits, watching the clock, for the onset of a car
In the left corner of its back seat
Carrying the enemy
The poet is the one who is always preparing
The ambush, the one who
Covers with layers of
Earth and grass and worn weed,
The spiked pit,
And watches from the level of weeds ahead;
The poet is the bomb in the city,
Unable to bear the circle of the
Seconds in his heart,
Waiting to burst.
The late Lakdasa Wikkramasinha was an instructor in English, University of Kelanyia. His Jean Arasanayagam is a lecturer in English at the Government books include Nossa Senhora des Cinglais (1973), O Regal Blood (1975), and Grasshopper Gleaming (1976).
Related
“Draw me a lion.”
So I set my pen
The poet on the politics of the gaze, the migratory act of reading, the anxiety of bilingualism, and the universality of shame.
Two poets reflect on colonialism, iconoclastic writers, and the political dimensions of translating literature under authoritarianism.
Originally published in
BOMB 40,
Summer 1992
Featuring interviews with Reno, Derek Walcott, Neal Jimenez & Eric Stoltz, George Condo, Louis Kahn, Camille Billops, Darius James, Michael Jenkins, and Joe Mantello.
