Majestic Nights: Love Poems of Bengali Women

by Carolyne Wright (Translator)

How do Bengali women love in times of social transition and political upheaval? These poems look at how Bengali women tell their truths of the heart and mind through their struggles for equality, opportunity, and recognition in a changing society. The poems follow a subtle trajectory through the stages of first love; marriage; separation; aging and death; and ultimate supreme, universal love, of which romantic love is an imperfect reflection. Carolyne Wright spent four years collecting and translating Bengali women’s poetry. Wright is a poet herself, and her most recent collection is A Change of Maps .

Genres: Poetry

128 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2008

Reviews

[Sayantani Dasgupta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tiny powerhouse of a book for its poems on gender, love, relationships, marriage, widowhood, Sati, religion, mythology, history and feminism. I especially appreciated learning about the 12th century poet Khana whose words were brutally silenced. My favorite in this collection--Mallika Sengupta's The Earth Chooses her Own Husband. Poignant, musical and beautiful.

[EIJANDOLUM]

“Come, kiss me,
with your tongue, lips, arteries and veins
let me teach you that language
that's eternally elusive in the ear,
that whispers in the blood.”

(Nabaneeta Dev Sen)


“Far away among the stars, among your stars
a body of shadows, hard darkness,
a poisoned arrow,
tremors, tremors of earth, tremors of plowed earth,
a vortex of blue agony in an unflinching fist,
(or perhaps the ecstasy of prayer?). Ah,

the most ancient virtue within the first sin.”

(Nabaneeta Dev Sen)


“You're in my core, call me by any name.”

(Shahera Khatun Bela)


“The majestic night, the dark of night,
The thirst-allaying moonlight.
In the forest of long grass, white flowers bloom.
Radha is sitting in wait, alone
In her happiness divine...
The lost story of all time.”

(Dilara Hafiz)

~

What an anthology!
To re-read.

[Sujash Purna · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems show you the stark reality of a society overloaded with patriarchy. In places they punch you in the gut when you realize the double-standards placed carefully to deprive women of freedom. Wonderful translation by Carolyne Wright!

[V]

A number of these poems have beautiful imagery, but for most of them I didn't see a lot of music in the language, which of course isn't the fault of the writers but the translators. I'm kind of a form nerd. For me, the most interesting thing about poetry is how different languages developed different sound-systems to create rhythmic language. It's not all rhyme and stresses, ya know. Old English used alliteration. Chinese uses alternating tones. Not surprisingly, contemporary free verse poetry doesn't hold my interest for very long. I would have appreciated learning something about Bengali poetic forms in this book, at least in the introduction. There is one poem that uses rhyme, but the content in incomprehensible.

Still, there were a few poems and passages that struck me as incredibly beautiful. Below is my favorite verse; it has something Rimbaudian, I feel:

So again and again I must return to this sad geography
leaving behind the dreamless houses and dust-dimmed wayward roads.
There are no fingers soft as earth, no golden
sheaves of rice in the crop-fields.
Asphalt-gray colors call to me with their outstretched hands
and a terrible loss straddles my heart.

("Disagreement," Ruby Rahman)

[Julene · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went to hear Carolyne Wright read from this book of translations at the University Bookstore in Seattle. She described how crafted the poems into an arch of a love relationship going through it's different stages from early infatuation to the long term stability of relationship. This 81 page book encompasses poems by women from SE Asia, in particular Bengali, India; all contemporary authors many of whom she has met. Carolyne speaks Bengali fluently and has a long interwoven history with this part of the world. She brings this knowledge to the book, and what I love about it is her notes in the back that give deeper insight into this culture.

In, "Dark and Handsome," Taslima Nastinan writes, "Give me a night twelve years long/in which to see you."

In the poem, "Hope," Rajlakshmi Devi writes, "I never hoped you'd love me./As though, if I leaped, I'd find a foothold/Even as the bottom of the sea./As if, left to drift in the current,/The boat would find its way to shore./To my highest question—what worthy inquire,/I never hoped to find an answer."

This book is full of lovely poetry, I'm so glad they have been translated and brought to us by this accomplished poet.

[Shaindel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pleasure to read! I truly enjoyed reading these beautiful poems and learning about these women poets of the Bengali culture.

I interviewed Carolyne Wright on my radio show, and we had a great discussion about this book!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onword/2...