Today I’m trying something different on the blog, writing about a poetry collection. I’ve never quite felt at home with poetry in the way I do with prose, so I don’t know exactly how this is going to go, but let’s see…

Sulochana Manandhar’s Night (translated from the Nepali by Muna Gurung) is one of a series of poetry chapbooks published by Tilted Axis Press under the title ‘Translating Feminisms‘. It’s a set of 25 short poems (taken from an original set of 60) themed around the night, and were mostly written at night.

Each poem tends to revolve around a central image, from night as fertile ground for dreaming…

Night – rich soil of silence
where I sow exquisite dreams,
harvest pleasure,
filling the granary
(‘Rich Soil’)

…to the night as a space of liberation.

My night is no one’s property
is the land in which I feel free
where I no longer fear subjugation
(‘Property’)

It’s striking to me how quiet these poems are: this is not a book about a busy, active night – the night as a backdrop for things to happen against. Manandhar is very much concerned with the individual’s relationship with the night, especially the night spent in solitude. Night is not only something to fear, either: in these poems, the night can also be a source of mystery, wonder, even comfort.

Perhaps inevitably after reading Manandhar’s collection, I ended up reflecting on my own relationship with the night. Chances are that, among these poems, there will be some way of looking at the night that hadn’t occurred to you. Night is a book to contemplate, one that slowly unfurls itself in the mind.

Book details

Night by Sulochana Manandhar, tr. Muna Gurung (2019), Tilted Axis Press, 40 pages, chapbook.