(By Farah Siddiqui)
Very few Indian English magazines have the courage to entirely dedicate themselves to poetry. Around the corner of the last decade, the Indian literary print and e magazine revolution has contributed a great deal towards improving the dying readership. This movement which might be termed as a calm movement has grown up from a plant in a bush to a prominent tree and now the increasing numbers of literary fruits have started attracting even the club-life loving youth to come, sit under its shade and enjoy literature.
The Enchanting Verses Literary Review is one of the significant fruits from that tree in India that has attracted some of the best international contemporary poets of today like Sidney Wade, Donald Revell, Miguel Barnet, Nathalie Handal, Mateja Matevski, K Satchidanandan, Martha Collins, Bertha Rogers, Charles Harper Webb, Jayanta Mahapatra, Kishwar Naheed, Perie Longo, Sllave Gjorgjo Dimoski, Rita Dahl, B. R. Dionysius and Doug Anderson.
This magazine often presents a mix of eminent poets and those who have just started taking the feel of qualitative poetry writing. There is no particular theme attached for the issues and there are no fixed editors. Each issue is edited by a guest editor and it improves the chances of bringing fresh literary flavors in each issue. Some of the guest editors from the past issues include Colleen S Haris, Dr. Sukrita Paul Kumar, Peycho Kanev, Melissa Studdard & Hélène Cardona.
The magazine has also contributed a lot in terms of international collaboration with Macedonia featuring an array of Macedonian poets including Mateja Matevski, Sllave Gjorgjo Dimoski, Risto Vasilevski, Todor Chalovski and Vladimir Martinovski. This endeavor has also received a couple of mentions in the Diplomatic Bulletin of Macedonia. In its 13th issue published in June 2011, The Enchanting Verses presented the Enchanting Poet honor to Mateja Matevski who went to win the famous Golden Wreath award from the Struga Poetry Evenings later that year.
In the words of Brentley Frazer, Guest Editor of the eighteenth issue, “The Enchanting Verses Literary Review brings you new work by established and emerging poets from around the globe, writing that is simultaneously urgent and reflective, self-aware and naive, beautiful and unmoved, post romantic and omni-carnal.”
In the words of Melissa Studdard, Guest Editor of the nineteenth issue, “Thanks to The Enchanting Verses staff, and to these equally luminous poets. From them, I relearn the true meaning of the word “enchantment.”
Again, in the words of Hélène Cardona, Guest editor of the twentieth issue, “Through The Enchanting Verses I present to our readers these inspired texts, bridging cultural differences, geographic distances, and awakening the imagination, in our attempt to re enchant the world.”
And finally in the words of the founder, Sonnet Mondal, “A knife turns out to be sharper and more lustrous upon rubbing. Over the past seven years we have endeavored filling this journal with fresh concepts and contemplations. Ups and downs were like hypnotizing waves. The combined effect of roaring and splashing sounds of these waves coming out from somewhere in the core of the vast ocean of poetics has always rendered an undying curiosity in me to dive into its depths. Neither do I see any island in front to rest nor have I gained the power to dive deep and touch its floor. So the voyage continues and here we frame another map for our readers and followers.”
*Farah Siddiqui is a research scholar, pursuing her Ph.d from the University of Allahabad, India. She has recently her maiden collection of poetry titled The Bliss Of Solitude that was inaugurated on 25th of May 2014 in Delhi. She has been featured in The Hindustan Times and some other newspapers. Her hobbies are composing poetry, reading novel and writing short stories. She loves watching movies, attending conferences, and visiting historical places, etc with her friends.
Tags: Book review Sonnet Mondal The Enchanting Verses The Enchanting Verses Literary Review
