Translated from the Gujarati to the English by Gopika Jadeja
Histories roar within me
at orders
from their fingertips
A puppet,
I dance on
to fill the empty stomachs
of my tribe
I too
have a story to tell
Large as the sea
but
I am merely
a puppet.
Priyanka Kalpit is one of the very few women writing Dalit poetry in Gujarati. She has received the Dr. Ramanika Gupta Award by the Gujarat Sahitya Sangam and also the Kabir Award for Literature by the Government of Gujarat. Translations of Priyanka's work have appeared in
Indian Literature,
Muse India and other journals and anthologies. Her collections of poetry are titled
Haanshiya ma hoon (2001) and
Ghasarko (2011). A collection of haikus and another of poetry in Gujarati with a focus on women and the self are forthcoming. She lives in Mehsana, Gujarat.
Gopika Jadeja is a bilingual poet and translator from India, writing in English and Gujarati. She publishes and edits a print journal and a series of pamphlets for a performance-publishing project called Five Issues. Her work has been published in
MPT, Wasafiri, Asymptote, The Wolf, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Indian Literature, Vahi, Etad and others. She is working on a project of English translations of poetry from Gujarat. She currently lives and works in Singapore.
