Poem Continuous – Reincarnated Expressions

Poem Continuous is probably the most vibrant feather in Kiriti Sengupta’s cap if we consider his career as a translator. The original book, written in Bangla, is authored by renowned poet Bibhas Roy Chowdhury, and translating his poems into English is naturally a big deal. This collection of poems have been dedicated to another distinguished poet, Binoy Majumdar, who, although wrote a considerable volume of poetry, is perhaps best known for his collected elegies called “Firey Esho Chaka” [Come Back, Wheel]. Roy Chowdhury’s poems are related to the erstwhile poets in terms of the grimness of the imageries they use. If Majumder compared grief to be the unmindful hands touching a shingle, Chowdhury makes the moon and the snake fight in a pastoral scene which would again remind you of Shakti Chattopadhyay’s Marxist approach. In fact, one of the poems in this volume has been named after one of Chattopadhyay’s poems.