Taj Mahal Review

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An International Literary Journal

VOLUME 3 NUMBER 1 JUNE 2004

Edited by: Dr. Santosh Kumar
Binding: Paperback (pp: 344 Including a separate section of authors bio)
ISSN: 0972-6004 $25
Availability: In Stock (Ships within 1 to 2 days)
Publisher: Cyberwit.net, Allahabad, India
Pub. Date: June 2004
Condition: New

Description: Welcome to Taj! Taj Mahal Review, pp. 344 (June 2004) features Short Stories, Poems by international authors, Literary Criticism, Reflections, Book review and Author Index in a separate section. The poems included in this well-crafted and beautiful journal reveal that Poetry has not lost its significance as a cultural force in our postmodern world. This wonderful journal contains short stories, which are unique and excellent, and revive 'the almost lost art' of short-story writing. Several short stories depict the soul in conflict with itself, human isolation, alienation, love and hate, man-woman relationship, family conflict, the individual's struggle against the contemporary social order, spiritual quest. The social range and scope of these stories seems to be the greatest achievement of the artists. Taj Mahal Review by its continuous service to the creative community is helping Poetry Thrive in World Today. A Journal of original creative writing. It is full of aesthetic consciousness, psychic sensitivity, wonder, astonishing fiction that makes life bearable.

From The Editor

Welcome to issue number five of Taj Mahal Review, June 2004! This nonprofit journal contains Poems, Short stories, Reflections, Literary Criticism, Book Review, and Authors' Bios. I trust this issue will help Poetry thrive in world today, and "open the door which leads to the soul" (Henry Miller, 'Sunday after the War', 1944) .The poems included are spontaneous, and never a servile imitation. The exuberance of several authors will surely dazzle the readers. We also find passion for experiment in literary form.

My heart is full of gratitude towards all selected artists of this issue. Above all, their valuable cooperation and help is a source of inspiration to continue venturing upon the hazardous business of publishing creative writing .Throughout this task of publication I notice the great divide between the poet and the oppressive, commercial powers with no interest in encouraging poetry . The following wise words of St. Francis of Assisi inspire me:

O Divine Master,

Grant that I may not so much seek

To be consoled as to console,

To be understood as to understand,

To be loved as to love,

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned

And it is in dying that we are born

To eternal life.

Taj Mahal Review is indebted to June 2004 subscribers, donors and supporters.

Cordially,

SANTOSH KUMAR

LITERARY CRITICISM

Bill Sherman

WORDSWORTH AND SYLVIA PLATH

Bill Sherman 'was taken aback' by the statement that Wordsworth's 'healing power' is better than Sylvia Plath, who idolized suicide ('Wordsworth's Healing Power', TMR, Dec, 2003). This letter is a genuine interpretation of Plath's poetry.

It is incorrect to say that Sylvia Plath idolized suicide in her poetry."healing power" can take many forms. Note the poem by Lyn Lifshin (enc.) on Plath's death. Further, some in fact would regard Wordsworth's overblown rhetoric in Westminster Bridge as country -bimpkinish, a hick-from-the-sticks visiting the big city; and his late poems wrapped in Toryism, a sellout from the time he and Coleridge wandered about the Lake Country smoking and drinking laudanum and creating English Romanticism. But Wordsworth criticism aside, and the greatness of some poems like The Ruined Cottage acknowledged, Sylvia Plath, in Ariel, the final and posthumous volume, gives us a vision from the abyss, from in the abyss.

It is true that unlike Denise Levertov, say, or Shreela Ray, Plath never found the language sustenance enough. Her poems are full of unrealized desire. She is e. e. cummings of the Night who began to fully realize the implications of having "married a man with a Mein Kampf look \ And a love of the rack and the screw" (Daddy).The terrible alienation she suffered in England plunged her deeper into the psyche, the heart of her womanhood exposed to the reader not as Confession (as in , for example, Anne Sexton) but burning, as Jeanned'Arc in the song by Leonard Cohen. It is superficial to say that she idolized suicide,. Her last poems are cries for help, unheeded. "From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars \ Govern a life." (Words)

Bill Sherman

Margate, N J, USA

27 March, 2004

___________________________________

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;

Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey;

Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,

The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthy

--Byron (1788-1824), Don Juan, canto I