Spirit-Illumined Son of Song In 1945 Prof. V.N. Bhushan brought out an anthology of poems in English by Indian writers, Kiranavali 1: The Peacock Lute. While presenting two of K.D. Sethna's poems the editor, after a quick biographical sketch, made a very perceptive, though brief, assessment of his poetry with its roots in the Aurobindonian spiritual aesthetics. We reproduce the same here, being one of the early evaluations of this genre of poetry which has yet to receive its full acclaim in the critical circles. -Editors SILENT, unobtrusive, and ever inward-looking, Mr. Sethna leads the vanguard of poetry in his famil

The Mind and Spirit of Our Age Dilip Kumar Roy's Interviews with Five World-Figures The review of Dilip Kumar Roy's Among the Great was first made by Amal Kiran in Mother India edited by him: We present in the following the article fully as it appears in his book The Indian Spirit and the World's Future. The clarity of thought and expression, as well as the grasp of issues involved, is absolutely remarkable; in the process, as the discussion proceeds, the alert commentator throws several sidelights on the eminent personalities concerned. - Editors Among the Great1 - a book of conversations packed with pleasure

A Priest of the Muses ...Carmina non prius Audita musarum sacerdos Virginibus puerisque canto. [Horace (Odes I)] THE appearance of a volume of poems of the highest quality is a rare event in any age, and in our own can be considered almost a miracle. Lovers of poetry can throw away their mourning clothes! The muse of poetry is not dead but has been sleeping, her dreams foreshadowing glorious things to come: Not only poems superbly crafted but a new kind of poetry, truly the carmina non prius audita - songs never heard before - for which Horace claimed the tide 'Priest of the Muse' in ancient times. Bu

( A letter from Albert Einstein) Page - 34 ( An Award ) Page - 35 ( A letter from Kathleen Raine) December 31st, 1993. Dear Friend, What a happiness to hear news of you after so long.... I have been reading your poems — what a beautifully produced book, with the Golden Bird (one of Rimbaud's?) on the cover. I at once read your introduction, most of the first section, and then, with great interest, the poems with the comments by Sri Aurobindo, whose insight into the different levels from which poems originate is so true and so valuable. As you know I share AE's view about

Sri Aurobindo and the Dominant Intellectual Paradigms of our Age IN HIS centenary tribute to Sri Aurobindo, K.D. Sethna (Mother India, 1972) observed: "This age, seen in its many-sided whole, will show itself secretly Aurobindonian. Sri Aurobindo will stand out as its truth-source and truth-focus, its natural gatherer-up and destined fulfiller." I present in this paper some evidence that will substantiate Sethna's claim about Sri Aurobindo. I shall show briefly what light Sri Aurobindo throws on some of the most influential intellectual paradigms of our age, such as, the liberal conception of man enshrined in the Western democracies,

An Introductory Note Apropos of a Sneer at the Subject by Auden Amal Kiran as historical scholar and literary analyst is unmistakably evident in his attempt to solve the enigmas of Shakespeare's sonnets, as presented in his "Two Loves" and "A Worthier Pen" published in 1984 by Amold-Heinemann. Not only does he dismiss W.H. Auden's pronouncement that such an undertaking is a foolish waste of time, but very methodically cuts the obscure ground to get at a possible clue to the problem. The following prefatory note by him is quite illustrative of this sharp researcher's painstaking work which perhaps needs a proper recognition in the respe

Frontispiece: Amal Kiran in his Study (September 1994) Amal-Kiran Poet and Critic Edited by Nirodbaran and R. Y. Deshpande

-35_The Locus of K D Sethna^s Poetry.htm The Locus of K.D. Sethna's Poetry IN 1927 a young Indo-Anglian poet drawn by the new spiritual philosophy of Sri Aurobindo came to his Ashram in Pondicherry. The name of the young man was K.D. Sethna. He was twenty-three and two years earlier had published a book of poems. He was not happy with the life he had been leading; he had felt that he "had waited overmuch in the ordinary life".1 In the presence of Sri Aurobindo he found what he aspired to. Sri Aurobindo does not teach a world-shunning life-negating spirituality.  "It is an error," he says, "to think that spirituality is a thing divorced from life."2 And Sethna knew th

SECTION THREE A Name sung by the poet fame A Golden Bridge to Sri Aurobindo IN THE Ashram who does not know Amal Kiran ? He is not only known to all but much loved by them. Mother India under his editorship is a wonderful magazine one eagerly waits for every month. It is through Mother India that I first met Amal. To be precise, his letters on Life-Poetry-yoga first drew me to his glowing heart and brilliant mind. His, I found, is the heart that "knows strange depths".1 It is indeed a beautiful sight to see Amal coming to the Ashram, to the Samadhi, to Sri Aurobindo and

SECTION FOUR The Wide Magnificence of Mood Two Birds: A Painting by Amal Kiran used as a frontispiece as well as a cover-jacket for his collected poems The Secret Splendour, 1993 edition Page - 435 A Pencil sketch of Yama by Amal Kiran made in his Savitri-copy in the blank space at the end of Canto Two, Book Nine 1951 edition. Page - 436 A Pencil sketch of Arjava by Amal Kiran, kept as a frontispiece in his copy of Poems by Arjava (J. A. Chadwick), 1941 edition Page - 437 A