Kisses, Not Done Yet

The most coveted yet painfully suppressed theme in contemporary Bengali poetry is the beauty of the body and sex that wakes in the depths of male-female love. Only a little portion of that beauty has been revealed by a few brave poets who have attempted to illuminate that darkness from its depths in their lyrics. The rest is still difficult to find. The beauty of men and women’s bodies and works is found in the most profound sense and perception of poetry as well as in the thoughts and consciousness of human life. Extensive excavations are necessary to find diamonds, and so is this beauty found in the thoughts and consciousness of human life, and in the body and work of men and women. This beauty is the chief subject of life and thought; to neglect it in poetry without searching as widely as the search for diamonds is to neglect the most fundamental thing in life, which keeps the poem incomplete and stilted. In his introspective poems, poet Mamun Ashraphi attempted to break poetry free from this protracted period of immobility after spending more than thirty years delving deeply into thought and research. By plunging into the vast ocean of love and lust, he pulled a gem out of hidden beauty from its depths. In the final stages of life, some of his poems depict the idea of dying. Death is the pure truth and the desired thing of life. By savoring the endless juice of the poems produced in this book on an ancient subject, I hope the reader will gain nourishment for fresh ideas and reconsider the significance of presenting this subject in fresh ways in contemporary Bengali poetry.