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| PLT:
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Congratulations, Debashish, on this brilliant poetry journal; how many issues have so far been edited and how did you and Jim Dunlap get together to initiate this project? |
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| D. H.: | Thanks, Robin. So far we have released three issues; fourth one is due and will be online in another month. TAP started more than a year back as a monthly magazine. Owing to various commitments and constraints we decided to make it a quarterly from the second edition. I was in touch with Jim (Dunlap), throughout this period. He has given me valuable suggestions and has forwarded many wonderful poets to TAP. He joined TAP, formally as an associate editor, from the third issue. |
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| PLT:
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This may seem to be a hack question, but I have to ask it, as it is a provocative name about which you originally said, we are not selling mushrooms…; so for the sake of our readers, having entitled this Journal The Alchemy Post, what relation (if any), do you see between Alchemy and Poetics? |
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| D. H.: | First, I would like to clarify that The Alchemy Post is a literary journal: that includes stories and visual art (and we want to include literary criticism, reviews, etc.). The Alchemy Post was launched as a result of a quest. Part of it was purely personal (a Cuelho-esque situation), and the rest of it was a result of my growing interest to set an online platform for art and poetry lovers. Alchemy is a quest for the elusive: be it transmutation of base metals, or be it some kind of an elixir. Base metals could never be converted to gold, or even that ultimate elixir remained elusive, but the quest remains; only the form has changed. If Charlatans who spent years and years in their attempt to convert lead into gold were alchemists, Newton and Einstein were also the practitioners of the same philosophy, and so were the Curies, Fermi and Oppenheimer, and so were T.S. Eliot and e.e. cummings. Transmutation remained as a symbol, the quest has changed its form: to particle nature of light or even gravity (Newton), to radioactive transmutation (Curies), to harness energy from the artificial transmutation (Fermi and Oppenheimer), to postulate conversion of mass into energy (Einstein), or to come out of straitjacketed writing (Eliot and cummings). If you consider “Poetics” as “a theory of poetry”, then of course it has been evolving. From the times of Heraclitus, when there was no distinction between philosophy, natural sciences, poetry, mathematics, when people believed in Earth-centric universe, when most of the things that we know now were mysteries, to the times of Heaney or Hughes, poetry has seen many theories made and broken. The evolution of poetry is a result of a quest, a continuous alchemic journey, a journey to understand and encapsulate life and times, a journey that has seen many torch bearers and will continue… If you consider “poetics” as “a theory that is applicable to every human activity” (considering Les Murray’s definition of poetry), even then poetics is alchemy. |
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| PLT:
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In a previous issue, you impressively put poetry into your own system of classifications; also, you seem to like to relate poetry to visual art. It seems a good method to enable writing and visual art to appear together in a journal; perhaps wecould view some here from the previous issues? |
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| D. H.: | I am glad that you like the idea of keeping poetry and visual art in the same journal. I love reading about the life and times of the people having varying points of views, images, symbols, but first each poem must organically grow in my mind. Imagery and stress patterns should convey the emotional complexes as is. Images should have continuity (thematic), and line breaks should ensure proper tension. There shouldn’t be capricious stanza breaks and indentations, unless the randomness carries a special subliminal message. I am impressed by the quality of submissions. Taylor Graham’s “Rebirth”, Sara Russell’s Darcy’s Sonnet, Ward Abel’s Loop and Jim Dunlap’s “The Pentagon Version of Onward Christian Soldiers” are among those poems that I am proud to have published. Serik Kulmeshkenov’s Natalia Chebotar and Ione Citrine’s Tsunami are among the most memorable visual art pieces. |
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| PLT: |
The visual art section and of course the short stories do give an added dimension to the journal, are there any special kind of submissions in this latter area that TAP would be interested in? |
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| D. H.: | We are looking for well written science fictions (approx. 4,000 words) for the fifth edition. We have already short listed the entries for the fourth edition, and notified the entrants. |
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| PLT: |
Well, thank you for your views; we are sure our readers will be appreciative enough to expect your next issue in anticipation, which is by the way due when? |
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| D. H.: |
Thank you, Robin, for granting me the opportunity to express my views. Now about the second part of the question: the fourth edition of TAP will soon be in the web, sometime around the third week of November. |
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| PLT: |
So far your poetry has never appeared in TAP, perhaps out of too much modesty; however, we are fortunate this time to have some of your own prestigious work appearing in our feature poets section; many thanks… |
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| D. H.: | I couldn’t see a place for my poems in the journal for the first three editions; though I had a short story (well not exactly a story, more of a story idea) in the first edition. A freakish accident and personal life have kept me from writing anything new. But, I should be able to publish some of my work in the forthcoming issue, so stay tuned. I feel deeply honored to get a place in the featured section of your prestigious magazine. Thanks, once again. |
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