Nepali Poetry: A Brief Introduction
Keshab Sigdel
Editor
Nepali poetry, in the beginning, was influenced by Sanskrit literary tradition. Nepali poetry basically started with 'bhakti', that is, devotional writings. Many of them were based on Hindu religious scriptures. Later when the country went through the phase of unification during the second half of eighteenth century to become a modern Nepal, that religious devotion in poetry shifted to national devotion in the form of heroic and patriotic writings. The Anglo-Nepalese War fought between forces of British East India Company and Nepal during the first quarter of nineteenth century further reinforced such writings. And these two religious and patriotic/heroic traditions reigned for a long time.
It was only towards the middle of the twentieth century, basically after decolonization in neighbouring countries (as Nepal was never directly colonized), and the democratic transformation in the 1950, Nepal opened up for the outside world with diplomatic and cultural relations. Nepali poets and academics had access to Western literature which was gradually translated for Nepali audience. And this was the point from where Nepali literature shifted from the dominion of Sanskrit tradition to what we call modern age in Nepali literature. Depiction of the changed worldview and burrowing from the literary features of Western romanticism were some of the distinct characteristics of the modern writings. Nepali society has since then undergone different political transformations. People's desire for social and political change, criticisms of social and political misdoings, human relationships, and depiction natural world has been the major subject matters in Nepali poetry. Impact of technology on life and relationship, issues of migrations and experiences from the Diasporas are other pressing issues. And obviously, Nepali poetry has been witnessing different experimentations both in terms of theme and the form.
Nepali is the language of majority poetic expression in Nepal. But with the new political consciousness of ethnic and indigenous identity, there are a sizeable number of indigenous poets writing in standard national language but they enrich Nepali poetry with new ethno aesthetic perceptions, myths and subject matters. Poets like Shrawan Mukarung, Toya Gurung and Chandrabir Tumbapo in this anthology bring such awareness in their poems.
Female voices have remained very powerful in Nepali poetry. The participation of women in political and other social movements has informed women's writings with greater concern about equality and freedom. Poets like Banira Giri and Momila Joshi demonstrate such strong rebellion voices.
Similarly, there is a sizable corpus of poetry written originally in English what can be considered as Nepali English literature/poetry. Though poets that belong to this group write about local subject matters as other poets do, but there exists an anxiety in accepting these poetic productions as the mainstream literary endeavours. I have included a few powerful poets like Shreedhar Lohani, Padma Devkota, Ammaraj Joshi, Prakash Subedi and Bal Bahadur Thapa who belong to this group.
This anthology is a humble attempt to give a glimpse of contemporary Nepali poetry to English speaking readers. It includes a range of poets from Madhav Ghimire who started writing in the 1950s (that marks the major political transition to Nepali modernity) to young poets like Thakur Belbase and Chandrabir Tumbapo who started writing in the recent decades.
Except a few poets writing originally in English, poems by all other poets in this anthology are translations from their original Nepali poems. Though twenty six poets selected for this anthology do not obviously make a comprehensive list, but they certainly represent the major voices of contemporary Nepali poetry and offer a range of taste in terms of time they represent, subject matter, form, and consciousness.