Title: Alliances
Authors: Robert Maddox-Harle, Sunil Sharma and Jaydeep Sarangi
Publisher: Authorspress, New Delhi
ISBN: 978-9355-2948-7-6
Pages: 106
Price: Rs 295.00
Alliances, the anthology of poetry by three poets from three different parts of the world, is an example of how friendships and collaborations are forged through creativity. Robert Maddox-Harle from Australia, Sunil Sharma from Canada and Jaydeep Sarangi from India have lent their voices to bring out a compilation that is a rich poetic exploration of human lives and existence. In this review, the reviewer will not attempt to draw thematic similarities between the poets, because there have not been any such conscious attempts on the part of the poets concerned. Instead, the effort would be to delve into their individualities, which by their very existence, give a feeling of completeness to the book.

Poetry is a medium of expressing one’s deepest thoughts and that can happen when one is true to oneself.
In this anthology of poems, the poets bring in their own voices that rise from their respective geo-political locations, cultural traditions and subjective positions.
Yet the differences do not divide the world into narrow domestic walls, instead merge to create a harmonious, polyphonic world.
Robert Maddox-Harle, the opening poet in the anthology, is from Australia. His poems are a rich exploration of Australian indigenous culture, tradition as well as Christian mythology. He introduces the theme of ‘The Last Judgement’ through allusions to Michelangelo’s painting, T.S. Eliot’s poems and the Hermetic Cards in his first poem here. He draws heavily from tradition and literature, pointing at the end that is inherent in every beginning.
Harle’s poems have a mystic element in them. The poet engages with the primal and the dark, and in the poems like ‘Being’, and ‘No Way Back’, there is an element of foreboding as well. In the poem, ‘Chance Encounter with a Poet’s Psyche’, the poet versifies the process of creation and of ‘chance associations’ that can lead to ‘unique creations’ by ignoring the ‘database of preconceived ideas’. The language that the poet uses is influenced by the contemporary development in technologies while it is also wrapped in the ancient wisdom.
There is a deep understanding of the indigenous cultural practices which enrich the poems as well as an awareness of the post-modern existence that is wiping away the past. In the poem ‘Transition’, the poet draws a vivid picture of the ‘shamanic’ tradition of Australia and how it is being replaced by a ‘postmodern hopelessness’.

In a world of increasing surveillance, the poet Robert Maddox-Herle also raises his voice for ‘free speech’. Referring to the past thinkers like ‘Dostoevsky, Sartre and Wilde/ Solzhenitsyn…’ he rues their ‘efforts wasted’. The poem, ironically titled ‘A Silent Poem’ speaks loud and clear about the need for freedom of expression.
His poems are characterised by deep intertextuality and overlapping consciousness with philosophers and literary personas of the past.
In an Eliotesque manner, Harle’s poems evoke the ‘pastness of the past’ as he creates new discourses suitable to his time and space.
Sunil Sharma’s poems are replete with images from Toronto – bringing its natural and the urban selves together. One of the recurrent themes in his poems is the anxiety of diasporic existence. Sunil Sharma’s first poem in this anthology is an expression of the ‘solitude’ that the ‘isolated community’ faces and how the social media platforms become a means to connect.
In the poem, ‘The Child’, the ‘old man’ revisits his younger self, ‘walking there, in an alien/ corner of the world’. This feeling of alienation, loneliness and a sense of rootlessness that characterize the diasporic life, is juxtaposed against the dreams with which one leaves one’s country, in the poem ‘An Immigrant’s Dream’. The complexities of the sense of belonging is beautifully brought out in Sharma’s poems.
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The local topography is an interesting leitmotif in the poems included here. In the poem ‘Sound, harsh’ while the ‘woodlands and cityscapes’ are painted equally white by the snow falls, the ‘discordant notes’ of an unstoppable traffic underlines the difference between the two spaces. There is an intelligent use of spatial features to invoke a sense of alienation as well as wonder which the poets in exile often feel. Sunil Sharma juxtaposes urban imagery and nature – the woman carrying two bags full of groceries, ‘stops midway / and gawks at the flights of geese’.

His poems are a reminder of how, despite everything, nature is capable of capturing our imagination; in making us believe that however far we may move away, there is a connection, deep down, with our eco-system. This eco-consciousness is significant in the world of plastic materialism. The poet connects us to our core through the nature. In the poem ‘Theatre’, he speaks about, ‘The immensity of sky! / A view unhindered by the lack of the clusters of high-rises’ where one feels like a ‘part of a cosmic show’.
The third poet in the series, Jaydeep Sarangi brings in the twin experiences of the urban and the rural in his poems.
In the section titled, ‘Poems from the City of Joy and the Banks of Dulung’, he blurs the boundary between places and creates a new geopolitical consciousness where the two locations come alive in their subjective relationship to the poet. The first poem, ‘From a Black Page’ speaks about the exodus that ensued due to partition – a slice of history that has become an integral part of the Bengali identity in multiple ways.
The poet easily navigates between the local and the global – not just Kolkata and Jhargram, the poet transcends the provincial in his poems by bringing in a global consciousness. While he talks of his origin, ‘I live beside my river where / my ancestors cultivated, promised to live forever / made grounds fertile and flowing’, he also brings in cosmopolitanism in the lines ‘Kolkata, Toronto and Lisbon have one flow’. Through the latter line, the poet also ties the inherent spirit of this anthology, which brings the three different poets, belonging to these three different cities together.
Identities play a significant role in Sarangi’s poems. He talks about Dalit experiences, postcolonial identities, and going back to one’s roots. In fact, the poet upholds multiple facets of the subaltern life through his poetry. This history is the subaltern’s writing back – ‘through the veins of my nation / I write back in lower case / my metaphors of conquest. The non-existence of cases in the indigenous scripts challenges the hegemony of the upper case of roman alphabets. The idea of dissent is expressed through his going back to the roots, prioritising one’s roots over the glitz and glamour of life. Though roots are significant, companionships are not restricted by it.

Sarangi’s poems on friendship and company warm one’s heart. He says in the poem ‘Friendship’, ‘While swinging with pleasure / we converse late into the night / Words pour on to blank pages / with irrepressible urges, alliances.’ Companionship and creativity merges together in his world to create meaningful poetry, such as this Alliances.
The final section of the anthology is a truly international collaboration with each of the three poets participating in completing a single poem. In these four poems, the collaborating poet-friends merge their individual perceptions to create one harmonious wholeness. The final poem, ‘Love, Multi-headed!’ is a journey of the poets across the college rooms to interview calls, from Gods to Robots, till one finds oneself in the ‘happiness sparkles’ of finally reaching the beloved who manifests ‘life’s promises in myriad hues’.
In the times when parochialism is on the rise, nationalism is gradually turning into a device to sow seeds of hatred and jingoism, these poems blur the boundaries to build a true nation of human companionship and creativity. This anthology proudly proclaims that creativity is borderless and boundless. A must read for the poetry lovers, this eclectic compilation of poems from three meaningful poetic voices delves deep into human consciousness and understanding.
Image Courtesy: Boston University, Maddox-Herle, Wikipedia, Amazon

Nabanita Sengupta
Nabanita Sengupta teaches in Sarsuna college, Kolkata and beyond the college hours, enjoys dabbling in creative and critical pursuits. An academic, translator and creative writer, she has been variously published in India and abroad. Her latest publication is an anthology of poems, In-between Selves.