Indian English Poetry A Study In No-Men As Litterateurs, The Novice Research Students As Reviewers Calling Critics Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Indian English poetry
Frankly speaking
Is
Indian poetry in English,
A motley crowd
Of rag-pickers,
The knapsack men
In turban, dhoti and kurta
And with a lathi
The Hindustani men.

The no-men as poets,
The no-men as the critics of it,
Poetry of exchange journals,
Mutual admiration,
You admire me,
I shall admire you
And the critics critics not
But research students,
Review-writers
Collecting to call it criticism.

Indian English poetry
Is poetry of friends and colleagues,
Minor voices, slender anthologies,
Books not, booklets,
Firm published not,
Self-published
And self styled poets as authors,
As study in rhymed doggerels
And petty poets,
Broken stanzas, lines of verse
Meaningful not, un-meaningful verse.

The critics as no-men research scholars,
Reviewers,
Un-mustachioed students
Waiting not,
Impatient to call them critics,
The small poets too lying in wait
To be the poets
Of this virgin field of literature,
All lying in wait to be great men.