NILAVRONILL SHOOVRO

WELCOME

TO

OUR POETRY ARCHIVE

Again it is time for the new issue of OPA. Winter has almost settled down over most of the countries except of the southern hemisphere. Here in the eastern part of the Indian sub continent we welcome winter as bliss. Those of you are living in Europe and America, if you visit our land in winter, you would certainly enjoy your time. Temperature and the overall atmosphere are so soothing for travelling. No more scorching heat of the summer, no more torrential rains of the monsoon or occasional storms, time is now to relax and enjoy. So, everywhere people are in festive mood.  Days are bright and colourful. Nights are brilliant with party times. Publishers are launching new books here and there. Poets are busy with their manuscripts. Celebration of the season is paramount throughout the land. And celebration of life and creativity is paramount in every issue of Our Poetry Archive.

The celebration of life has another side also, where it connects with the universal life. One can call it spiritual also. During an interview with Charles Hobson and Sheila Smith in 1969 poet Nikki Giovanni told, “I’m spiritual. I can’t negate religion (established) I believe in God. I believe that God is everywhere. God is love…..” Yes I think, this is true with many of the poets of Our Poetry Archive. Many would certainly agree with poet Nikki Giovanni. God is everywhere. We are the manifestation of that ultimate truth. Actually this belief works behind our creativity, if we are theist. And this belief can bring us closer to each other in spite of our cultural differences, that we all are the manifestation of the same God. I hope our readers would also agree with this argument if one is theist. Not like an atheist like the writer. But in the same interview poet Nikki Giovanni went further saying, “……I believe that God has to be black. He made people in his image and likeness. Most of the people in the world are black….”

Now I don’t think all would agree with Giovanni’s argument that ‘God has to be black’, except the black themselves. But actually each and every theist does believe that god has made people in his image and likeness. This is true in every age and everywhere. We all know that. This actually means that each other’s God is deferent! Black God! White God! Hindu God! Christian God! Muslim God! Buddhist God! Etc. etc.  This belief is the root cause of all the other cultural and spiritual differences among various races. This is making it too difficult to overcome the barriers among different races and nationalities. One’s God differs with other’s God. Then how can one say God is everywhere i.e. the same God is everywhere? So Nikki Giovanni herself had contradicted her own views. And most of us also do the same. Theism actually has no answers to these contradictions. Either we should believe we are the manifestation of one and only God who himself is not a Hindu or Muslim or Christian or Buddhist; or we should not believe in the existence of God at all.

Recalling Giovanni’s word, “God is Love”; if we want we can replace God with Love and Compassion. Yes you can say, this may be an individual’s personal interpretation, not a universal one. But if I ask you personally, wouldn’t you like to feel Love and Compassion as the driving force of all the universal manifestations? And if we can proceed towards this belief, couldn’t we feel a human affinity among all the races and nationalities? I hope this attitude can overcome many other differences among races and nationalities. This may be the easiest path to pave out a sustainable way to bring out the illusive harmony among all the different races and nationalities, cultures, traditions and heritages. Then we can honestly confirm that we are all equal and are the various manifestations of the same reality, which we call Love.

To save this world from human greed we need to replace God with Love, only then we can realize the calamity of war and destructions. We can realize that producing armaments can never bring any peace or harmony. We can realize that each and everyone is equal and of the same human blood. We are bound with each other not in race or nationality but in love and compassion. So it would be just unthinkable to wage war against others with missiles and other armaments. Only then we can divert the huge military budgets towards the development of our civilization in a true manner. We have to realize that development of devastating armoury and armaments is not at all development or advancement of the civilization. We have to revamp our thinking.

Poetry has also much to do to revamp our thinking. Not the leaders of today’s world but the poets around the world can shape our realizations in a true manner. Poets can bring out that love and compassions through their individual creative brilliance that can provoke our sensibilities to make us more human than an intelligent entity to acquire more power to rule over the world for greed. I think this is where our poetical endeavour should concentrate more and more.  Mere words and poetical metaphors would not be sufficient for any poets. Proper world vision is more important than anything else and the necessity of the time. A poet can make people more human more compassionate more lovable.

We at Our Poetry Archive always carry this dream to bring out this inner human soul which is Love, that universal God like entity that can only save this beloved world for both the theist and the atheist.

Dear readers, so here we are again with this present number of ‘Our Poetry Archive: DECMBER 2018 Volume Four Number Nine.' This is a general issue and we are glad to introduce you with more new poets in this number. We hope readers will also enjoy their talents along with others' poems. This month our Poet of the Month is poet Sunita Paul of West Bengal. Readers will find her interview with our editorial panel much interesting. Our heartfelt thank goes to the poetess for her acceptance to our invitation.

We would also like to request our readers and poets alike, to introduce Our Poetry Archive to their friends and relatives who love the music of poetry.  Anyone who wants to showcase his or her literary talents internationally is also most welcome to OPA. Any talented poet can send at least 3 poems and one current profile picture along with the explicit confirmation of their permission to publish his or her copyrighted materials in OPA. Our mail address is ourpoetryarchive@gmail.com

Thank you.

NilavroNill Shoovro.

From The Editorial Desk

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