Voices Across The Ocean - Edited by Rob Harle & Jaydeep Sarangi has been released

NIMBIN, Australia - June 12, 2014 - PRLog -- In deciding to create this anthology we wanted to carry on the theme of our two previously successful publications; Poetic Connections: Poems From Australia and India; and Building Bridges: Poems From Australia and India. The theme is broadly concerned with emancipation. Emancipation formally means, “to set free”, especially from social or political restrictions. Many of the poems in this collection indeed comment on political emancipation such as the plight of Tibetans in exile. However, some of the poems also deal with personal emancipation, that is, seeking freedom from habits or situations which in a sense bind us to unacceptable or tedious routines.

Volumes have been written about the nature and purpose of poetry, one thing we are sure of is that poetry articulates that which the non-poet feels, thinks about and would like to say if they were poets. This collection is about giving a voice to those who are not only non-poets but also may not be in a position of authority, opportunity, power or privilege where so often their deepest feelings about life, love and a yearning for a chance of equality go unheard. As Charles Simic so beautifully says: “Like our ancient ancestors who inhabited an animistic universe, the poet claims the interconnectedness and sentience of all things. This is what haunts: a world where magic is possible, where chance reigns, where metaphors have their supreme logic, where imagination is free and truthful.”

We have tried in our selection of poets to present some well known, well established poets and some relatively young and lesser known new voices. Our aims of equality in gender, race, belief system, education, age and so on has again been realised with more than half the poets being females; of various ages and religious beliefs. The five Indian poets come from the four corners of their country giving a good representation of styles, and in some cases local concerns from the different regions. The five Australians whilst not quite as geographical diverse are from very different backgrounds including an indigenous Australian female poet.

The poems deal with numerous concerns including women’s equality, Tibetan refugees, the curse of drugs and the associated drug culture, Prometheus revisited, corporate greed, psychological effects of war, nature “red in tooth and claw”, religious intolerance, and the plight of young girls and women.

We reiterate that which we said in the previous collections, the matters raised within the poems in this book are serious, urgent, universal and profound. All the poets represented in this volume appear to us as deeply caring and hopeful of a better future for all humans, and even though they may seem as “voices crying the wilderness” in this increasingly crass, mindless world of greed, corruption and political manipulation they are saviours and heralds of a positive future for all of us.

Voices Across The Ocean (Paperback) published by Cyberwit.net is available worldwide via Amazon USA through publisher's site. The book is also available in India at Amazon.in and Infibeam. http://www.cyberwit.net/publications/667

The book features poems of Ali Cobby Eckermann, Bronwyn Owen Allen, Hamish Danks Brown, Nathalie Buckland, Peter Nicholson, Archna Sahni, D. C. Chambial, Sanjukta Dasgupta, Vinita Agrawal, Vivekanand Jha, Rob Harle & Jaydeep Sarangi.