Sixty and Done

The final line-up (names in alphabetical order (last name-wise)–for those who are wondering at this arbitrariness)

Usha Akella, Meena Alexander, Anoopa Anand, Jane Bhandari, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Sujata Bhatt, Sampurna Chattarji, Rimi Chatterjee, Pervin Chhapkhanawala, Roselyn D’Mello, Mamang Dai, Kamala Das, Nabina Das, Atreyee Day, Eunice De Souza, Mira Desai, Nandini Dhar, Imitiaz Dharker, Tishani Doshi, Reshma Ghosh, Uddipana Goswami, Anjum Hasan, Abha Iyengar, Mamta Kalia, Meena Kandasamy, Lajwanti Khemlani, Preethi Krishnan, Chicu Lokgariwar, Gayatri Majumdar, Sharanya Manivannan, Meena Menon, Monica Mody, Monidipa Mondal, Anita Nair, Sandhya Nambiar, Suniti Namjoshi, Gopika Nath, Marilyn Noronha, Sukrita Paul Kumar, Meher Pestonji, Joan Pinto, Anuradha Pujar, Ratna Rajaiah, Lekshmy Rajeev, Anupama Raju, Mani Rao, Mukta Sambrani, Bina Sarkar Ellias, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Anindita Sengupta, Shefali Shah Choksi, Yogita Sharma, Menka Shivdasani, Sushmita Srivastava, Arundhati Subramaniam, Pooja Susan Thomas, Sridala Swami, Payal Talreja, Pali Tripathi, Ruth Vanita, Annie Zaidi

I have included the names of the poets from whom I solicited submissions, and the names of the poets who probably decided to give this a try. I think this is just the collection that I have always wanted to read, and that I never imagined I would ever put together. There are a lot of new, new names and I am happy I did that. Someone decided to give me a chance because they liked my way with words and that’s why I am where I am today. So, I haven’t been swung around by established names alone. I loved doing the selections and I love the ones I have handpicked. I did love a few other poets (I mean, their poems), but sometimes the theme didn’t match. And to those who can’t see their names here, I am not sending any rejection mails. If it isn’t here, it isn’t in the book. That’s all. Besides, Sunil Poolani might be using a few great poems that didn’t go into this book for Urban Voice (with the poet’s permission of course). So, it is not a complete rejection, really. Thank you dears for making this so wonderful.

The pre-press will swallow the rest of July and some part of August. The book will be out in early September 2008.