Vivek Sharma/ Poetry & Writing

 
 

Published in

  1. ‣Poetry (Dec 2007): “Letter to the Editor” Read here

  2. ‣The Cortland Review (Feb 2008): “Your Face” * Read or listen here

  3. ‣New Verse News: “Half-Happy with India Turning into a Trillion Dollar Economy” (Nominated for Pushcart Prize) Read here; “Mumbai Burns” and “Beaten but not Bruised”

  4. ‣Atlanta Review (Spring 2009): “Maghi Tyohaar: The Goat Festival” ** (Reposted at my blogsite)

  5. ‣Kartika Review (Summer 2009): “Coke Story” ** (Read here)

  6. ‣Bateau (Spring 2009): “My Verses” *

  7. ‣The Cortland Review (2009) Read or listen: “Breadwinner” **

  8. ‣Nilab (July 2010): “Introspective Desi” ** (Reposted at my blogsite)

  9. ‣Mythium (Forthcoming): “Twenty-first Century Incarnation of the Snake God” **, “Lotuses of Misquotes”, “Vedanta” **, “Flotsam”, “You’re a Festival”

  10. ‣Nefarious Bellarina (Fall 2010 & Spring 2011): “Naked Translated World”, “Punjabi English”, “Bottoms-up Girl”(Read here)  and “Devout your Lips”* (Read here)

  11. ‣Poets for Living Waters (Fall 2010): “Missive to Ancestors” * and “I must”.* (Read here)

  12. ‣Breakwater Review (Fall 2010): “Fatherless” ** (Read at my blogsite)

  13. ‣Mastodon Dentist (Fall 2010): “Choicest Wife for a North Indian Son” (Reposted at my blogsite)

  14. ‣Muse India (March 2011): Commit to Amnesia my Name*, 1990**, Eclipsing the myths and discovering America**,  Saffron, Gifted Loneliness*, Dinkar’s Fist and Lexicon of God*. (Read at Muse India)

  15. ‣A Handful of Dust (June 2011): “Explosive Droplets” (Read here as a repost)


  1. *Ghazal in English (9)

  2. ** Village poems (9)


Hindi Columns and Verses for

-Divya Himachal (Newspaper in Himachal Pradesh, India)

-himachal.us (Web-based newspaper associated with NGO My Himachal)

-aakhar.org


Contributing writer

My Himachal website: (http://himachal.us)

Blogzines: desicritics.org & blogcritics.org

and so on


Poetry Recitals

Hindi

14th Annual India Poetry Reading, Harvard University, Cambridge. May 2010

12th Annual India Poetry Reading, Harvard University, Cambridge. May 2009

Shaam-e-shauq (Invited), Monkey Town, Brooklyn, New York. March 2009

Hindi Urdu Sanjhe Bol, Emory University, Atlanta. Dec 2007

Hasya Kavi Sammelan, IIT Delhi. 2000

Hindi Divas, IIT Delhi (1997-2001)


English

Solo reading in Artists Beyond Desks (ABD) series at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA 2010.

Bay state underground series, 2010.

Summer Seminar for Writers at Sarah Lawrence College, New York (2006, 2007 & 2008)


Other writings at

Random Thoughts of a Chaotic Being (@ Blogspot, here)

Book Reviews on Amazon (Read here)


*The image from a recital at Hindi Urdu Sanjhe Bol at Emory University, 16 Dec 2007

Books

Saga of a Crumpled Piece of Paper (63 Poems, English)

ISBN: 9788181578518; Publisher, Prof. P. Lal, Writers Workshop, Calcutta.

Limited Edition. Gold embossed, hand-stitched, hand-pasted and hand-bound by Tulamiah Mohiuddin, with handloom saree cloth & printed by Abhijit Nath in a Lake Gardens Press.

Book can be ordered from Scholars with Borders, More info about the book.

About Me















I started collecting my poems in 1990, though I remember writing verses in English before that. It turned into a passion at IIT Delhi, but I had limited skills as a poet back then.


I was fortunate to find a mentor in Thomas Lux at Georgia Institute of Technology. I address Thomas Lux as Gurudev, and Gurudev Lux ensured that I learned the work ethic and craft of poetry. He patiently commented on over a hundred poems in three years, and I hear him in my head while I revise  or revisit my work. 


I am immensely grateful to the generous grants by Bourne family and by Bruce McEver for establishing poetry (chairs) at Georgia Tech. Thanks to them, I got the opportunity to study with Gurudev as well as Chard DeNiord and Laure-Anne Bosselaar, among others.


I also attended Summer Seminar for Writers at Sarah Lawrence where I studied with Stephen Dobyns and Stuart Dischell, and made many excellent friends (Dean Parkin, Charlie Cote, Ron Egatz were the most entertaining ones).


I have learned the most about poetry from my love for Indian classics (Ramayana, Mahabharata), for Kabir and Rahim, for Harivansh Rai Bachchan and Ramdhari Singh Dinkar and from Bollywood songs.


Tagore, Ghalib, Rilke, Neruda, Lorca, Agha Shahid Ali, Faiz,  Pushkin, Hafiz, Sahir, Gulzar, Akhmatova and many more have taught me that good poetry transcends space, time and cultures.


I love to read fiction (and plan to write some). I admire works by: Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostovesky, Maugham, George Orwell, DH Lawrence, Orhan Pamuk, EM Forster, Virginia Woolf, Proust, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Victor Hugo, Fanishwar Nath Renu, Dharamveer Bharati, Premchand, Yashpal, Chekov, Chinua Achebe, Borges, and many more.


I enjoy reading books on philosophy, history of religion and science, and essays on the craft of poetry and fiction. Representative books on this shelf are Orientalism by Edward Said, A People’s  History of The United States by Howard Zinn, Best Words, Best Order by Stephen Dobyns, Collected Essays by George Orwell, Masks of God by Joseph Campbell,  Chaos by Gleick, History of the Theories of Rain, Upanishads & Bhagavad Gita, Eastern Religions, Western Thought by S. Radhakrishnan, Sadhana by Tagore, to name a select few.