The Hooghly Review takes centre stage as their latest publication trends on X and Grok crows ‘Global talent takes centre stage’: read it on Twitter
And what talent! 400 pages of richly inventive work, from playwrights, authors of flash fiction and short stories to poetry. The Hooghly Review is a feast. And it’s all available to read here: The Hooghly Review – Issue 3 — April 2024
I’m very excited to have a new poem included, Icarus Flies. It’s an honour to share my work with a wealth of talent. I managed to squeak in before an early sudden deadline – the Hooghly Review is madly popular and drew an avalanche of submissions. It was a lolly scramble to get work in, let alone accepted.
About the Hooghly Review
The magazine is an exciting new publication from India, with an eclectic approach and international reach. Its popularity is evident from the accolades it attracted in 2023.
I cannot remember how I stumbled upon the Magazine – possibly cruising on X, which is where I usually find networking and publishing opportunities. Prompted by a hunch, I decided to throw my hat in the ring and before long received a friendly email from the editors to say they were willing to take Icarus Flies.
Icarus Flies – What inspired the poem?
The inspiration would make a story in itself! Essentially, it’s a take on the rumours of a Stock Market crash. The hero of the poem, Icarus, is some hapless financier who finds himself down on his luck. Vivid tales of doomed investors leaping from buildings swelled the Internet. My Muses leapt upon the idea, galvanized by the discovery that Sappho was not only a celebrated poet who supposedly threw herself from atop a cliff. She is also a little known asteroid who maps the heavens with clues for the vicissitudes of the Stock Market. She is the fear and loathing creeping in the collective consciousness governing the impulse to strew ruination in finance. The Muses relished the idea – and being Greek in looks and temperament, got to work.
The Muses’ Torment
For a week my Muses harangued me with chortling ribaldry. It was the underpants scene, I’m sure. Imagine two Muses, dressed in flowing chitons and gleaming curls, sashaying into my studio, snorting with suppressed laughter. Like girls. The banter between them generated the poetic material.
I had no peace until I wrote the last stanza of the poem, by which time I was equally mirthful. It’s not that the poem is especially funny. But the Muses have a quirky humour which is impossible to describe. Except that it’s madly infectious and by the end I saw the joke. Sappho is by some divine prank the instigator of the consequences of financial greed. The lovers’ leap so beloved of the poet takes on a bizarre new meaning.
Without further ado, I present the poem as it appears in Issue 3:
And finally on an upbeat note, one of my poetry heroes, Sanjeev Sethi, sang praises for my poem: About – Elizabeth Barton (elizabeth-barton.co)