Copyright©Yogesh Patel & all respective copyright holders of the material published

 Recipients of our Poet-of-the-Month Honour  

In one hour we will host a dinner, I will serve

paneer rolls stapled with mango-

my creation, and marinated kababs, again my creation.

They will walk through our house and admire my art,

décor, brother's talent, my creativity, our daughter's

old soul- she is three as she shows off her boo-boos or cart wheels,

our house will become a museum all of us pegged on the walls.

And I will subside into a cauldron of shyness, words eyeing me coldly

in the distance as I mumble "I am a poet," "as well." trail off,

conscious of the irony, my rounded belly, a possible migraine

and clutter in the wardrobes. I will not mock humanity like

TS Eliot and write a poem on women coming and going and

drooling. I will love humanity though I would rather write a poem

than have hours vaporize into cumin and hing fumes.

One hour to go, I'm on the floor at Borders the books lined like spice jars,

reading how different poets nibble on the world differently

and leave their crumbs in pages. And I on my knees lick my fingers,

pick their leftovers, taste how they taste the world hoping to see

myself in their tasting. "Mmmm," they will say, "Is it curry?"

And I will patiently explain, "Curry is not a spice but a dish-

any vegetable or meat dish-curry as you call it is actually turmeric.

That yellow hue." Like voice in poetry, I will say to myself.

Later this night I will seize my day and

the poems will splutter into space like mustard seeds.

©Usha Akella 

Usha Akella is the founder of The Poetry Caravan in Austin TX and Greenburg, NY. The Caravan offers readings and workshops to the disadvantaged in women's shelters, senior homes and hospitals.

She has been invited to many international poetry festivals and her work is included in the Harper Collins Anthology of poets edited by Sudeep Sen and other anthologies. She has read at reputed organizations as the Omega Institute, NY and Rothko chapel, Houston.

Poetry Honours

She was awarded the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Prize 2011 by the Siir Festival, Turkey. She was the winner of Maryland Poetry Review's Egan Memorial Contest. She won the informal wine poem award at Struga Poetry Evenings 2006, Macedonia, the first Indian and woman in 45 years to do so.

She was a finalist for the 2010 Pablo Neruda Prize. Her poem 'One hears' was a pushcart nomination. She received the encourageer of the arts award from the town of Greenburgh, NY.

She has read twice for the Sahitya Academy (Considered the highest literary organization in India. She featured with four other poets to represent Indian Writing in English at a 2008 Sahitya Academy poetry event.)

She was interviewed on "The Front Row" for NPR/ Houston Public Radio in October 2013. Her poems have appeared in the Sahitya Academy's journal Indian Literature.

Publications

Her work has appeared and is upcoming in many US and Indian based journals such as The Bitter Oleander, Drunken Boat, Borderlands, Cumberland Review, The Crab Orchard Review, The Maryland Poetry Review, Pearl, Emily Dickinson Journal, Catamaran, Muse India, Ardent! Di-verse-city, Kavya Bharati etc.

for

An Achievement of Excellence as a Poet and Editor

Usha's collection of poems, Kali Dances so Do I...., is published by Authors and Writers India Ltd.

Acquire it from Amazon
Paperback: 58 pages

ISBN-10: 8187738014 

ISBN-13: 978-8187738015

Usha’s latest collection published in May is Rosary of Latitudes.

It is available from

TRANSCENDENT ZERO PRESS,

Houston, USA.
http://transcendentzeropress.org/

A review can be read at:

http://www.museindia.com/focuscontent.asp?issid=61&id=5755

Listen Usha’s radio interview at the following link. You will not be disappointed:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B83DFDcwvFYJbFNCbC1PY0lucGs&authuser=0

Usha searching herself:

http://www.antiserious.com/2015/04/28/my-step-motherland-india/

Editor’s Comment

Vol. 1/Issue 3/2015

Usha Akela is a Diaspora editor at Muse India. Her remarkable poems often muse with our critical observations and stoical experiences as displaced expatriates. Please do not miss some of these gems in her interview, accessible through the link above. She reads a selection of poems in her gentle and soft voice to take us through the remarkable range of her lyrical expressions. This interview really will draw you to Usha's remarkable inner world of poems. Yes, there is a Ghazal in English too, for all those of us who enjoy the form. I think Debjani is the only other diasporic poet who has tried her hand at this.

So silence please, the lady is on the stage...

To

Usha Akella