POETICA : 8 ‘Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people’. - Adrian Mitchell Poem of the Week Tiger A fragrant whiff Of air came And the tiger then Somewhere in a cage Shivered just a bit Perhaps mangoes are Ripening in the forest He thought and Loosened his body Just a little Swelled his nostrils Exhaling a long breath Like the earth’s length And sprawled flat! Theme Poetry and Translation-1 The New Year is with us. This time let’s take a detour to another important area in poetry. The poem quoted above is by the famous modernist poet, Kedarnath Singh, who died recently in March, 2018. He had been a Professor of Hindi at JNU, the well-known Indian University. As a tribute to his genius, I had translated his long series of ‘Bagh’ (Tiger) poems. Here we have one of that series with its Hindi original for readers of POETICA to serve as an example for our d