{"id":109042,"date":"2018-04-09T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=109042"},"modified":"2018-04-08T11:50:22","modified_gmt":"2018-04-08T10:50:22","slug":"signals-by-sumeet-grover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/04\/signals-by-sumeet-grover\/","title":{"rendered":"Signals, by Sumeet Grover"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>16 Apr 2018 – <\/em>In this eclectic collection of poems about silence, Sumeet Grover echoes thoughts of nothingness, sublime, and disquiet. Personal and social concerns are expressed that range from moments of intimacy to alienation; his poems project empathy, sensuality, wrath and personal closeness. In the lead poem, Silence<\/em>, Grover notes:<\/p>\n

If silence is all there is,<\/em>
\nit is all the permission I need<\/em>
\nto think, to speak, to express, to imagine;<\/em>
\nto walk, to sit, to weep, to hope.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Similar contemplative insight of one\u2019s core essence is expressed in poem, Now<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Now cannot be touched:<\/em>
\nit has no form<\/em>
\nNow is emptiness:<\/em>
\neven when it fills, <\/em>
\nit cannot be seen.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is a haiku-like brevity in Grover\u2019s observations. In Nothingness<\/em>, he tells us:<\/p>\n

I pause, I wait<\/em>
\nanother day, another hour;<\/em>
\nnothingness\u00a0\u00a0 is a tiring job<\/em>
\nin this body.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Feeling stifled by narrow interpretations of truth in faith based traditions, in his poem Religion<\/em> he tells off a disenchanted character Darioush who is about to die, to abandon his fetish cynicism and instead choose to live:<\/p>\n

I say to you to whisper<\/em>
\nthrough that polythene bag:<\/em>
\n“there is a single truth <\/em>
\na single faith,<\/em>
\na single scripture.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In an ode to women, there is search for a deeper sense of the opposite sex:<\/p>\n

Woman: I am a weary man convicted<\/em>
\nof being woman. I burn every word,<\/em>
\nevery sentence: my spirit runs free.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The monosyllable titles of his poems are the signals of his insightful thoughts, that include self and the subject of his observation. In Tomorrow<\/em>, it is a homeless on the wet street of London:<\/p>\n

Memory is a distant home:<\/em>
\nhe has forgotten we <\/em>spoke<\/em>
\nthree months ago….<\/em>
\nHis memory always distant:<\/em>
\neveryday he asks for change<\/em>
\nfrom me, from old strangers,<\/em>
\nhoping to find his home<\/em>
\nby tomorrow<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Grover’s poems have a profound meditative understanding and experience about our inner and outer worlds, and a poetic eye challenging that duality.<\/p>\n

________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Sumeet Grover is the founder of <\/em>Global Poetry<\/strong><\/a>, dedicated to creativity, human dignity, dialogue and global citizenship. He is a winner of the Portico Brotherton Open Poetry Prize 2014 and was shortlisted for the Jane Martin Poetry Prize in 2014 & 2015. He has authored three books of poetry: <\/em>Signals <\/em>(2017), <\/em>House Arrest & Disobedience (2015<\/em>) and <\/em>Change (2011<\/em>). Grover is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environmen<\/strong><\/a>t<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Bill (Balwant) Bhaneja\u00a0is a former Canadian diplomat and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>. He produces\u00a0the Nonkilling Arts Research Committee (NKARC)\u00a0Newsletter for the Center for Global Nonkilling.\u00a0A writer and peace activist, his recent books include:\u00a0<\/em>Quest for Gandhi: A Nonkilling Journey (2010)<\/em> and<\/em> Troubled Pilgrimage: Passage to Pakistan (2013). He is Vice-chair of Center for Global Nonkilling, Honolulu-Hawai\u2019i (www.nonkilling.org<\/a>)<\/em>. He lives in Ottawa, Canada.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this eclectic collection of poems about silence, Sumeet Grover echoes thoughts of nothingness, sublime, and disquiet. Personal and social concerns are expressed that range from moments of intimacy to alienation; his poems project empathy, sensuality, wrath and personal closeness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":109043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}