CHASE TWICHELL, born in 1950 in New Haven, Connecticut, has lived for many years in the Adirondack Mountains of upper New York State. She has published numerous collections of poetry, and her work frequently reflects her commitment to Buddhist insight. She left a career of teaching behind, to found Ausable Press, an enterprise dedicated to publishing poetry.
: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND COPYRIGHT
Īśa Upaniṣad, translated by Andrew Schelling. From Wild Form, Savage Grammar: Poetry, Ecology, Asia by Andrew Schelling, La Alameda Press. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted with permission of La Alameda Press.
Manikkavacakar and Nammalvar, translated by A.K. Ramanujan. From Hymns for the Drowning: Poems for Viṣṇu by Nammalvar, Princeton University Press. Copyright © 1981 by A.K. Ramanujan.
Āṇṭāḷ, translated by Vidya Dehejia. Reprinted by permission from Āṇṭāḷ and Her Path of Love: Poems of a Woman Saint from South India by Vidya Dehejia, State University of New York Press. Copyright © 1990, State University of New York. All rights reserved.
Mahādēviyakka, translated by A.K. Ramanujan. From Speaking of Śiva, translated with an introduction by A. K. Ramanujan (Penguin Classics, 1973). Copyright © 1973 by A.K. Ramanujan. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
Āṇṭāḷ, Mahādēviyakka, and Lal Ded, translated by Jane Hirshfield. From Women In Praise of the Sacred: Forty-Three Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright © 1995 by Jane Hirshfield. Reprinted with the permission of Jane Hirshfield.
Lal Ded, translated by Andrew Schelling. From Lal Ded, Longhouse. Copyright © 2008 by Andrew Schelling. Reprinted by permission of Andrew Schelling and Longhouse.
Dhūrjaṭi, translated by Hank Heifetz and Velcheru Narayana Rao. From For the Lord of the Animals—Poems from the Telugu: The Kāḷahasṭīśvara Śatakamu of Dhūrjaṭi, University of California Press. Copyright © 1987, Hank Heifetz and Velcheru Narayana Rao. Reprinted by permission of University of California Press.
Jñandev, Muktabai, Namdev, and Janabai, translated by Dilip Chitre. From “Poets of Vithoba: Anthology of Marathi Bhakti Poetry” (unpublished manuscript). Copyright © 2008 by Dilip Chitre. Reprinted by permission of Viju Chitre.
Tukaram, translated by Dilip Chitre. From Says Tuka—I: Selected Poems of Tukaram, Pune: Sontheimer Cultural Association. Copyright © 2003 by Dilip Chitre. Reprinted by permission of Viju Chitre.
Namdev, Janabai, and Tukaram, translated by Arun Kolatkar. From Collected Poems in English, Bloodaxe Books. Copyright © 2010 by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. Reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books.
Akho, translated by Gieve Patel. Copyright © 2014. Used with the permission of Gieve Patel.
“Certain Poems of Kabir” by Ezra Pound. From the English versions of Kali Mohan Ghose, from Translations. Copyright © 1963 by Ezra Pound. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing.
Kabir, translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. From Songs of Kabir, NYRB. Copyright © 2011 by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. Used by permission of NYRB (New York Review of Books).
Kabir, translated by Linda Hess and Shukdeo Singh. From The Bijak of Kabir, North Point Press. Copyright © 1983 by Linda Hess and Shukdeo Singh. Used with the permission of Linda Hess.
Kabir, translated by Linda Hess. From Singing Emptiness: Kumar Gandharva Performs the Poetry of Kabir, Seagull Books. Copyright © 2009 by Linda Hess. Used by permission of Linda Hess.
From The Kabir Book by Robert Bly. Copyright © 1971, 1977 by Robert Bly. Copyright © 1977 by the Seventies Press. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston.
Mirabai, translated by Andrew Schelling. From For Love of the Dark One: Songs of Mirabai, Hohm Press. Copyright © 1993, 1998 by Andrew Schelling. Reprinted by permission of Hohm Press.
From Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems by Robert Bly and Jane Hirshfield. Copyright © 2004 by Robert Bly and Jane Hirshfield. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston.
Mirabai, translated by Robert Bly. From Mirabai Versions. Copyright © 1984 by Robert Bly. Reprinted with the permission of Ken Botnick, Red Ozier Press.
Dadu Dayal, translated by Andrew Schelling. From Dadu, Longhouse. Copyright © 2009 by Andrew Schelling. Reprinted by permission of Andrew Schelling and Longhouse.
Jayadeva, translated by Andrew Schelling. From Kamini: A Cycle of Poems from Jayadeva’s Gīta-govinda, Emdash Editions. Copyright © 2007 by Andrew Schelling. Reprinted by permission of Emdash Editions.
Vidyāpati, Chandidāsa, and Govinda-dāsa, translated by Edward C. Dimock Jr. and Denise Levertov. From In Praise of Krishna by Edward C. Dimock and Denise Levertov, copyright © 1967 by the Asiatic Society. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House. Any third parties must apply directly to Random House for permission.
Rāmprasād Sen, translated by Leonard Nathan and Clinton Seely. From Grace and Mercy in Her Wild Hair: Selected Poems to the Mother Goddess, Hohm Press. Copyright © 1999 by Leonard Nathan and Clinton Seely. Reprinted by permission of Hohm Press.
“After Rāmprasād Sen” by Gary Snyder. From The Back Country. Copyright © 1968 by Gary Snyder. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing.
Rabindranath Tagore, poems 1, 3, 10, 18, 19, 21, and 22, from The Lover of God, translated by Tony K. Stewart and Chase Twichell. Translation copyright © 2004 by Tony K. Stewart and Chase Twichell. Reprinted with the permission of the Permissions Company on behalf of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
Baul songs, translated by Deben Bhattacharya. From The Mirror of the Sky: Songs of the Bauls of Bengal, Hohm Press. Copyright © 1999 by Deben Bhattacharya. Reprinted by permission of Hohm Press.
* The short verse of Kabir and various contemporaries, typically written in two lines, is popularly called a sākhī. The word derives from Sanskrit, sākśī, “with the eyes.” Eyewitness might be a good translation, as the poems testify to something the poet has encountered or met in his or her own life. These testimonies are not hearsay, not old wisdom, but speak to direct experience.
Since Kabir may not have known how to read or write, the notion of “two lines” could well have been alien to him. He would have heard syllabic rhythms or musical phrases.
* sadhana, or spiritual practice
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