Poet Vijay Seshadri, How To Take To Him, Read His Poetry? Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Born in Bangalore on Feb 13,1954
Which is now Bengaluru,
But clutched along to Ohio
At the age of five
Where his father went to
Or got destined for
The overseas job
An Indian American
Or American Indian,
How far Indian are those
Who live abroad?

A B.A. from Oberlin College,
An M.F.A. from Columbia University,
The author of Wild Kingdom,1996,
The Long Meadow,2003,
3 Sections,2013,
He taught at Sarah Lawrence College.

A poet of the ancient, archetypal meadow,
The orchard,
Change in scenes,
Disappearances,
Loss of values
Seen in the aftermath of
The Sept.11 attacks,
A poet recollecting.

To compromise and cope with
Americanness
And the sense of Americanism
Going with the beat and rhythm of it,
Vijay Seshadri
Took to
The malaise and bruise of it
Reminiscing and ruminating.

His poetry is a poetry of
Upheaval and repercussion,
Rehabilitation and belief,
Settlement and adjustment
Rooted into an Americanness
Which but adds to verve and strength
Never aloof and separate from.

It is better to call him an American poet
And discuss him as
Because India recognizes only
When the same writer is acknowledged
In foreign
Otherwise knows it not
Them before the awards.

We shall call him an Indian poet
Only when he returns back to,
But can we dispense with
His American recognition,
It is America which but
Recognized him first
Rather than India
The motherland.