Introduction
In these times of unprecedented violence, war on ecosystems across the globe, what does it mean to hold on to our ideals? To speak and stand up for the environment when the world is ready to take the big, disastrous leap? When clothed in doubt, we look around and find others like us, raising their voices in courage, teaching us to hope.
Inspired by Adam Zagajewski’s Try to Praise the Mutilated World, this edition is our attempt at finding beauty in a crumbling world. Here, through poetry and art, we celebrate the islands and peaks facing a threat. The feature of the month is poet and artist Tansy Troy’s watercolours of the avians native to the Nicobar Islands, threatened by the grand plans of ‘development.’ They are accompanied by her evocative poem, The Conference of Great Nicobar’s Birds.
The Green Poetry section has poems on Kanchenjunga by Andal Srivatsan, an animistic ode to the hills and peaks and all the intricacies they hold. In this edition, we also introduce green poems by young adults and Niveditha Santhosh’s The Rogue is a reminder of the violence inflicted on the land.
The Conference of Great Nicobar’s Birds[i]
by Tansy Troy
We have flown far to conference with you:
to speak not only of our plight, instead
of your own species annihilation.
You may suppose we did not know your plans
for Sambelong: but we belong here, hear
the rootspeak, tremble in the leaf litter
and premonition in ragged cloud.
You might not have thought we would actually notice,
yet if not in storm uneasy tremour,
how would our life as birds have seen us through
eight valleys until we happened upon ourselves
face to face,
wing to wing.
We realised our quest generations ago.
Now we come to alert you, avert you
advise you to take this moment to pause.
What do you want your reflection to show?
A razed forest in your chest, charred stumps for arms, legs
thrusting from your deadened earth void of sound,
void of multitude, head a dearth, though once
your bounty knew no bounds and rooted things,
like memories, took you back to beginnings.
Look again with closed eyes now and listen.
Listen like your life depended on it.
Hear our riotous song in every key
rebinding your severed neural pathways.
We reveal[ii] you to yourself, earth-being;
lest you become forsaken in scorched lands
you wittingly ravaged, we bring to you
our conference.
[i] The inspiration – or rather the backstory- for this poem is the Mantiq al Tayr by the 12th Century Persian poet Farid ud-Din Attar whose epic translates as The Conference of the Birds. The version I prefer is translated by Peter Avery as The Speech of Birds (published Islamic Texts Society, 1999) Like Peter, I have not made my couplets rhyme, instead attempted to adhere wherever possible and plausible to the original masnavi form which stipulates 10 or 12 syllables per line.
[ii] When the bird pilgrims of Farid ud-Din Attar’s epic finally arrive before the Simorgh, their god of Birds, the great being shows them only their own reflections. ‘The journey was in Me,’ he tells them.
Tansy Troy is an India-based educationalist, poet, performer, playwright and maker of bird and animal masks. She conceived and edits The Apple Press, a young people’s eco journal which features poetry, stories, articles and artwork. Tansy has published poetry, articles and reviews in The Hindustan Times, The Hindu, The Scroll, Punch Magazine, Art Amour, Muse India, Plato’s Cave and The Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English. Join her on the journey @voice_of_the_turtle
