Dancing Soul of Mount Everest Creator & Creation (Selected Modern Nepali Poems) Editing Advisors Dr. Govinda Raj Bhattarai Rajeshwor Karki Proposer Dr. Laxman Prasad Gautam Editor Momila Translator & Language Editor Mahesh Paudyal Publisher Nepali Kalasahitya Dot Com Pratishthan [Nepali Art & Literature Dot Com Foundation] (Under the project of Nepal Academy) Dancing Soul of Mount Everest Creator & Creation (Selected Modern Nepali Poems) Editor : Momila Translator & Language Editor : Mahesh Paudyal Publisher : Nepali Kalasahitya Dot Com Pratishthan (Nepali Art & Literature Dot Com Foundation) ©:Publisher Edition : First, 2011 Copies : 1001 Cover Design : Graphic Workshop Layout : Jeevan Nepal Printer : Modern Printing Press Kantipath, Kathmandu, Phone: 4253195 Price : NRs. 1,200.00 IRs. 1,000.00 US$ 25.00 Euro 20.00 ISBN: 978-9937-2-3657-7 DANCING SOUL OF MOUNT EVEREST (an anthology of selected modern Nepali poems) Editorial Context Heart-Transfer/Moksha Esteemed Readers! Here in editorial context, I extend words of gratitude that express themselves, though they might have remained apparently unexpressed. All of your accepted / unaccepted self-reflections shall become collages on the canvas of the history assimilated in this anthology. Dear Feelers! Wherever and whenever questions evolve, the existential consciousness of man keeps exploring the horizon of possibilities for the right answer even without the ultimate support to fall back upon. Existential revelations clearly dwell on the borderline, though it might be in a clash. In the present contexts, at places, questions of Nepali identity, modernity, representativeness, poetic quality, mainstream or periphery, temporal boundaries and limitations of number evolve – wanted or unwanted. Amidst the multitude of these questions, Dancing Soul of Mount Everest has assumed this accomplished form in its attempt to pervade the entirety as far as possible. It will be enough to consider it a historical vigor in Nepali literature. Though many untoward barriers have tried to erect impediments, we have come hitherto vanquishing them, and the present collection of selected modern Nepali poems is presented to world literature with a sense of pride at the accomplishment. Dear Addresses! The volume in your hand does not contain poetic creations alone; it also presents complete literary introduction of one hundred and thirty- nine poets as an additional attraction. For this reason, the present anthology subtitled as 'Creator & Creation', presented under the project of Nepal Academy is a preparatory background for the internationalization of Nepali literature as planned by Nepali Kalasahitya Dot Com Pratishthan [Nepali Art & Literature Dot Com Foundation]. As a matter of fact, Modern Age is nothing but an age of ever- developing tussle of thoughts together with the quest for human liberation with stiff attacks and counter attacks, freedom and equality; and modernity is a process and a trend full of continually developing, holistic and assumptive qualities, in which diverse entities melt into one. In other words, it connotes a newness and new mentality together with the anti-conventional scientific outlook, where the sequence of heartless questions continues to batter the quest for the forbidden truth. Be it humanistic view, or Marxist view or else existential or Freudian view, or socialist or cultural-spiritual view or any other realistic or pragmatic philosophical view for that matter – the freedom characterized by the intensive worldview of all these views, full of stylistic and expressive qualities have been specially prioritized here. In it, along with the outright novelty of subject matter and presentation, the pertinent question of freedom, morality, temporal consciousness and existence cannot be overlooked. If it might not be comprehended otherwise, Gopal Prasad Rimal – the icon of change with answers to moral questions of his time, and the conscious pioneer of prose-poem with stylistic freedom – has been considered the point of departure. The free-verse poetic creations of poets born before 1968 have been placed along the extension of the collection. Poets who started writing in the eighties and got established as poets by nineties, and who have published at least a collection – barring the exceptions – have been made the bases of collection here. Still, it might be stated with no exaggeration that many other influential poets of diverse classical trends and their poetic creations too are the pride of our literary richness. In whatever way the task of compiling Dancing Soul of Mount Everest may have been accomplished, I transfer these word-florets of gratitude to all known and unknown helping hands, and along with the pledge that we shall not repeat in its second part the errors that have figured in this collection, I want to experience Moksha for the present by executing heart-transfer from me to my esteemed feelers. Questions shall, however, remain unanswered…! – Momila Acknowledgements ● Special thanks to secretary and author SP Koirala for his insistent inspiration in the organizational activities from the background ● I extend my thankfulness to art lover and joint-secretary Jal Krishna Shrestha who encouraged us to move ahead beyond hurdles. I expect the same to continue. ● I am grateful to Harihar Sharma, renowned artist and secretary of Nepal Academy whose unconditional assistance has made this anthology possible. Similarly, I owe a great deal to Gyan Hari Adhikari, Ganesh Ghimire and other officials and staff of the Nepal Academy ● I shall always be obliged to my guru Dr. Govinda Raj Bhattarai, who successfully escorted me like an armor through editorial intricacies and ensured the success of this anthology. I also owe him a great deal for writing an introduction that meets the contextual expectations of the world. ● I express my heartfelt thankfulness and gratefulness to poet Rajeshwor Karki, also the vice-president of this foundation but for whose proposal, practical assistance and participation in this project, the work would not have come this form. ● I owe to Dr. Laxman Gautam who complied to prepare the prelude to this anthology just at the very first request. ● I extrent special and heartfelt thanks to Mr. Mahesh Paudyal, an exceptionally talented and highly diligent author for discharging the tremendously important and challenging task of translating that has successfully escorted this anthology to ensure its glorious reach to the international audience. ● I thank authors Indra Bahadur Rai, Ishwar Ballabh, Bishnubibhu Ghimire, Avinash Shrestha, Biplav Dhakal, Biru Bangdel, Sudha M. Rai, brothers Neel Kamal and Punya Prasad Sharma, and others who assisted us during the collection and compilation of the works anthologized here. ● I thank the graphic squad, and special thanks go to Jeevan Nepal and Sabin Shakya for the beautiful layout and cover design. ● I thank my son Sudhir, who browsed through the voluminous Internet archive to fish vital information for this anthology. ● Finally, I thank the entire Nepali Kalasahitya Dot Com Pratishthan [Nepali Art & Literature Dot Com Foundation] family for their relentless help. – Momila Translator’s Note I consider that the offer to translate a work of such a colossal size and invaluable significance that came up to me was a rare honor that a scholar of my age and expertise would get anywhere. I am thankful. Translators’ rubber stamps that rendering across culture is difficult, and accompanied by inevitable loss that occurs in-between, is perti- nent here too. Moving beyond with due acknowledgment of this des- tiny, I would like more to concentrate on what insight of Modern Nepali Poetry I developed after drowning myself into this penance. A student of English literature, I had never before reckoned the eclec- ticism of themes and range Nepali poetry touches. My realizations are two-fold. First, Modern Nepali Poetry has always been aware of the global developments in literary and critical theories, and newest inno- vations in art and literature elsewhere have been aptly accommo- dated in Nepali verses. Even more than the patterns of Modern Poetry in the West – which more or less moves around New Critical approaches modeled on T.S. Eliot, to post-structural ambiguities inspired by Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man, Nepali poetry has shown its allegiance with South Asian poetic models, particularly those of Japan and Korea. This has happened not merely at the formal or structural level as is true for Western poetry. Nepali poetry has adopted (or extended) themes of grave philosophical profundity derived from the colossal philosophical tradition of the glorious East. Second, in collaboration with other genres as well, Nepali poetry has innovated critical approaches uniquely distinctive to Nepali literature. The Third Dimension Movement, for example, cannot simply be grasped by applying any western theoretical or critical tool. Taralbad, though apparently tilted towards Derridian resistance to structural constants – moves beyond the blatant post-structural assumption of the west, and forces newer critical insights. Unlike western poetry, modern Nepali poetry has never lost faith in the supremacy of human values and ethics, and freedom has never been advocated for at the cost of these values. I am sure, the collection will inaugurate the strength of Nepali poetry, and confirm that it does hold the power to shock the global audience, both aesthetically and academically. – Mahesh Paudyal Preface Trends in Modern Nepali Poetry – Prof.