Esther Phillips, Ravi Shankar" />
  • ABOUT
  • PRINT
  • PRAISE
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • OPENINGS
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • CONTACT
The Missing Slate - For the discerning reader
  • HOME
  • Magazine
  • In This Issue
  • Literature
    • Billy Luck
      Billy Luck
    • To the Depths
      To the Depths
    • Dearly Departed
      Dearly Departed
    • Fiction
    • Poetry
  • Arts AND Culture
    • Tramontane
      Tramontane
    • Blade Runner 2049
      Blade Runner 2049
    • Loving Vincent
      Loving Vincent
    • The Critics
      • FILM
      • BOOKS
      • TELEVISION
    • SPOTLIGHT
    • SPECIAL FEATURES
  • ESSAYS
    • A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
      A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
    • Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
      Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
    • Nature and Self
      Nature and Self
    • ARTICLES
    • COMMENTARY
    • Narrative Nonfiction
  • CONTESTS
    • Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
    • PUSHCART 2013
    • PUSHCART 2014
Alone in Babel, Arts & CultureJune 13, 2014

Round 1: Barbados-USA

PREAMBLE

Hello, hello. Do you come here often? In yesterday’s opening match, Bangladesh took an early lead against Venezuela (capturing all of the first five votes) and held a comfortable advantage at half-time, but a massive overnight surge in support for the South Americans carried Rafael Ayala Páez to victory.

Today, the USA and Barbados enter The Missing Slate’s Poetry World Cup, a pairing that brings together two world-class editor-poets. Esther Phillips, representing Barbados, is the editor of Bim: Arts for the 21st century, the contemporary incarnation of a magazine which has played a crucial role in Caribbean literature for well over half a century. Back in 1955, George Lamming wrote that ‘almost all of the West Indians… whose work has compelled the attention of readers and writers in other countries, were introduced… by Bim.’ Esther Phillips was also Barbados’ representative at the 2012 Poetry Parnassus, and her poem ‘Word’ was selected by BBC Scotland to represent Barbados at this summer’s Commonwealth Games.

Ravi Shankar, our American poet, is the founding editor of Drunken Boat and won the National Poetry Review Prize in 2011 for his collection ‘Deepening Grove’. His other awards include a Pushcart Prize and a fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. His poetic style is notable for combining elements from various places on the poetry spectrum: Djellal Marbrook has praised Ravi Shankar’s ‘love of symmetry and classical sensibility’, as well as his ‘refusal to disdain experimental verse.’

                        

Canvas

We bent to enter the dark doorway.
Unlike Alice, we knew where everything
was: an old ottoman under the window,
the crooked table with an oil lamp
set to one side, the bureau leaning
in a corner bearing a few enamel plates,
cups made from empty margarine tins;
two metal spoons. We could find with
our eyes shut the one-burner Primus
stove and the “smut-tot” she used
when kerosene oil grew scarce…

Read the full poem

Camp X-ray

The sweat that pooled in the rubber lining of the goggles was the worst, worse than tang of leather and cut of bit in my mouth from the face restraint, worse than the ear muffs that clamped my head in hundred degree heat, worse even than being forced to pee in a bucket in front of the guards and other inmates to slurs about my wormy prick. Something about the seeping, itchy moisture that couldn’t be scratched drove me craziest as I waited, kneeling on a strip of gravel, hands restrained behind me, for my dinner…

Read the full poem

 

RESULT: USA won by 7 votes

Continue Reading

1 2 View All →

Tags

BarbadosEsther PhillipsPoetry World CupRavi Shankar

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous articleRound 1: Bangladesh-Venezuela
Next articleRound 1: Bermuda-Uganda

You may also like

Pacific Islander Climate Change Poetry

Spotlight Artist: Scheherezade Junejo

Nobody Killed Her

Ad

In the Magazine

A Word from the Editor

Don’t cry like a girl. Be a (wo)man.

Why holding up the women in our lives can help build a nation, in place of tearing it down.

Literature

This House is an African House

"This house is an African house./ This your body is an African woman’s body..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

Shoots

"Sapling legs bend smoothly, power foot in place,/ her back, parallel to solid ground,/ makes her torso a table of support..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

A Dry Season Doctor in West Africa

"She presses her toes together. I will never marry, she says. Jamais dans cette vie! Where can I find a man like you?" By...

In the Issue

Property of a Sorceress

"She died under mango trees, under kola nut/ and avocado trees, her nose pressed to their roots,/ her hands buried in dead leaves, her...

Literature

What Took Us to War

"What took us to war has again begun,/ and what took us to war/ has opened its wide mouth/ again to confuse us." By...

Literature

Sometimes, I Close My Eyes

"sometimes, this is the way of the world,/ the simple, ordinary world, where things are/ sometimes too ordinary to matter. Sometimes,/ I close my...

Literature

Quarter to War

"The footfalls fading from the streets/ The trees departing from the avenues/ The sweat evaporating from the skin..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Literature

Transgendered

"Lagos is a chronicle of liquid geographies/ Swimming on every tongue..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Fiction

Sketches of my Mother

"The mother of my memories was elegant. She would not step out of the house without her trademark red lipstick and perfect hair. She...

Fiction

The Way of Meat

"Every day—any day—any one of us could be picked out for any reason, and we would be... We’d part like hair, pushing into the...

Fiction

Between Two Worlds

"Ursula spotted the three black students immediately. Everyone did. They could not be missed because they kept to themselves and apart from the rest...."...

Essays

Talking Gender

"In fact it is often through the uninformed use of such words that language becomes a tool in perpetuating sexism and violence against women...

Essays

Unmasking Female Circumcision

"Though the origins of the practice are unknown, many medical historians believe that FGM dates back to at least 2,000 years." Gimel Samera looks...

Essays

Not Just A Phase

"...in the workplace, a person can practically be forced out of their job by discrimination, taking numerous days off for fear of their physical...

Essays

The Birth of Bigotry

"The psychology of prejudice demands that we are each our own moral police". Maria Amir on the roots of bigotry and intolerance.

Fiction

The Score

"The person on the floor was unmistakeably dead. It looked like a woman; she couldn’t be sure yet..." By Hawa Jande Golakai.

More Stories

Anchor

“I want you to create new memories. And stories other than the survival game…” Story of the Week (October 3), by Namrata Poddar.

Back to top
One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at maryamp@themissingslate.com.

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

Read previous post:
Round 1: Bangladesh-Venezuela

The opening match of The Missing Slate's Poetry World Cup.

Close