From the machine that cuts ice to the machine that cuts human beings
against the bright, inhuman glamour
my poetry passes through the middle of burning villages
with rapid fire and sharp shrieks
near the burnt woman
it is my poetry that reaches first;
when while doing this my poetry gets burnt in different places.
And there are those who are even today using poetry for carrying corpses,
filling the oxygen of new metaphors in the lungs of words,
but for him who has been born during the curfew,
whose breath is hot like the summer wind
in the mind of that young coal-miner
it is like a brand new gun that my poetry is recalled.

Hindi lovers, you can listen to a poem by Alokdhanwa, “Goli Dago Poster” here. Thanks to my old friend and comrade, Irfan.

I have written about Alok’s poetry before–if you scroll down on this site, you can find a piece I did for Himal, there’s a related essay I did for Cultural Logic, and here’s the link where you can find my translations of several of Alok’s poems for Critical Inquiry. The above excerpt is from the poem “Janta Ka Aadmi.”