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An
International Literary Journal
VOLUME
2 NUMBER
2 DECEMBER 2003
Edited
by: Dr.
Santosh Kumar
Binding: Paperback
(pp: 384)
ISSN: 0972-6004 $25
Availability: In Stock
(Ships within 1 to 2
days)
Publisher: Cyberwit.net
Pub. Date: Dec. 2003
Condition: New
Description:
The poems included in Taj Mahal Review, (December 2003) explore a great variety of topics. We find nothing doubtful or pessimistic in several poets, who seem to dwell in the infinite realm of spirit. On the other hand, some poets included in Taj Mahal Review criticize the new dictatorship of materialism over the soul,
the cruel values of globalized world, full of people who have become "nothing but naked, eternally restless minds."
Many poems in Taj Mahal Review have the subtle appeal of music. The poets appear to be influenced by Aristotle's maxim: "Think like a wise man, but express like the common people." The short stories reveal deft characterization and plot construction marked by psychological intensity. TMR also contains Reflections, Book Reviews, and a separate 23 page section providing biographical details of each author. TMR is beautifully bound, a journal that will compare favorably with several international publications, since it has been designed and produced after a careful copy-editing.
Only
20 
I
will not serve that in which I no longer believe
whether I call itself my home, my fatherland or my
church, and I will try to express myself in some
mode of life or act as freely as I can and as
wholly as I can, using for my defence the only
arms I allow myself to use- silence, exile and
cunning.
--James
Joyce (1882-1941), A Portrait of the Artist as
a Young
Man, Ed.
by Seamus Deane, Penguin, p. 268-269.
From
The Editor
Welcome
to Taj
Mahal Review,
December 2003! May every day of this New Year bring you Happiness, Love and
Prosperity. Happy New Year! I'm greatly indebted
to all the authors, who with their subscription
and friendliness made this issue number four
possible. Here are several poetic voices trying to
unravel "the burthen of the mystery, \ the heavy
and the weary weight \ Of all this unintelligible
world." The multiple ways connect these poets,
short-story tellers and essayists together. A
global feel with artists around the world .It is
my earnest hope that the impulses, desires, a few
admonitions, some brilliant, acute observations
will surely comfort our world tormented by the
insolence of violence, terrorism, "the whips and
scorns of time." Again, I offer my sincere
thanks and obligation to the generous artists, who
through their kind donations and subscriptions
helped us in bringing out this issue.
SANTOSH
KUMAR
Chief
Editor
Postmodernism
Prof.
Bill Sherman from NJ, USA is Ph.D. in English & American
literature. He has taught at the University of
Hull and The University College of Wales. He is
the author of Tahitian Journals: In Search Of
Taata Mata, published in London by Hearing Eye
Press and Editor of Branch Redd Review. Eric
Mottram says, "A certain wry self-knowledge
surfaces in William Sherman's letters, and its
humour and obsession articulates his
writing."
These
letters by Bill Sherman deal with Postmodernism,
one of the most vital issues in contemporary
aesthetics.
Letter
# 1
Dear
Dr. Kumar,
TMR#3
arrived today. As always, your publications are
beautifully produced. It was a bit of a shock (albeit a good one)
to see my gall-filled peevish (hard not to be
peevish in "the belly of the beast" as
Che had put it) Letters in print, but perhaps they
will take a reader or two to some of the work and
issues involved, alluded to...Even though I am now
getting up in years, I still hope that I might
return to India someday before biting the dust,
and if you ever want to set up any
lectures/readings/seminars, please don't hesitate
to get in touch.....Thank you again for your care,
especially in the proof-reading and properly
printed phraseologies/spellings of the Letters,
and in the Notes section, where you make me appear
rather distinguished. As they say on Rapa Nui (Easter Island):
We
Are Nothing, I Salute You!
Letter
# 2
.your
question as to postmodernism, there are so many
descriptions and definitions, the best of which
DISCLOSE rather than "describe" and you
would have to elaborate further for me to comment
on your saying it is a "disturbance from
within"....I have found Jean-Francois
Lyotard's text, THE POSTMODERN CONDITION useful, as well as an anthology first published in
the 1960's and titled THE STRUCTURALIST
CONTROVERSY. Charles Olson, an American poet and
historian, believed that the postmodern would come
to mean a fullness rather than a fragmentation,
but he would be in the minority in this respect. Personally, I believe that which we have
called Modernism began to come to a conclusion
with the death of Yeats (1939), the beginning of
World War 2, the extermination camps, the use of
nuclear weapons; but it is all a continuum, is it
not? And
one cannot view it as a linear development from
modernism, since, in poetry, the work of Fernando
Pessoa is
quintessentially postmodern, and he died in 1935. Paul Celan would also serve as an example
of a postmodern poet....Someone once said: The
Postmodern? Can't
we find a better word than that! Are we still stuck in the 19th century with
impressionist/post-impressionist?
Letter
# 3
I
don't know the book to which you refer (Charles
Jencks) but yes, it makes a kind of sense. As Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition: A
Report On Knowledge, writes: the postmodern
"denies itself the solace of good forms, the
consensus of a taste which would make it possible
to share collectively the nostalgia for the
unattainable...it searches for new presentations
not in order to enjoy them but in order to impart
a stronger sense of the unpresentable." re: Shakespeare, all great artists
transcend categorization. Postmodern is a convenient label to be used
if helpful.
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