Description

An initiative of Red River and Indian Novels Collective

Hummingbirds are distinguished by their dazzling colours, diminutive size, and speedy flight, the only birds that can fly backwards, upside down, sideways, and hover in mid-air. Sighting a hummingbird also signals that challenging times are over and healing can begin. These little birds are also a sign of hope and spiritual significance. They are also critically endangered species, facing the prospect of extinction due to climate change.

Since publishing poetry is considered perhaps the most adventurous or perilous creative journey, curating a poetry series in the name of hummingbirds literally and metaphorically affirms our faith in the commitment and belief in the power of small to achieve the impossible.

Inspired by Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan activist and the first woman Nobel Peace Prize winner from Africa, who pioneered Green Belt Movement, and a great believer in the power of hummingbirds, we believe that our Hummingbirds Chapbook Series, a joint initiative of Red River and Indian Novels Collective, will energise poets and poetry lovers to come together and help create a republic of imagination.

Note from the author: “I am fascinated by the intrigue a poem creates — that elusive fluidity, mystically beautiful like a dream, which I try to capture through the magical weave of my hands. I let the rest of the world go by logic, reasoning, and commerce; my poetry revels in its own madness, wandering in the wild and uncharted, moving around with a pocket full of moonshine.”

Durga Prasad Panda is an accomplished bilingual poet and critic whose writings have appeared in leading journals such as Debonair, Kavya Bharati, Chandrabhaga, The Little Magazine, Indian Literature, Gentleman, and Outlook, among others. His poems feature in several significant anthologies, including the Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English, Shape of a Poem: Red River Book of Contemporary Erotic Poetry, and Witness: Red River Book of the Poetry of Dissent and Rivers Going Home. He is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi’s Indian Literature Translation Prize (2002), and has participated in prestigious literary festivals and symposiums, including the World Congress of Poets (2019). He attended ‘Meet the Author’ programme invited by The National Book Trust (2022). He has also edited a Reader on the life and works of the eminent poet Jayanta Mahapatra for Sahitya Akademi.