Straggling Through Fire An Anthology of Proemistry

Preface 1 Yes, you are right. It is not poetry; it was not conceived as poetry; it is proemistry: blend of poetry and prose, media and history and, actually, whatever you can put into it, whatever you need to put into it. Proemistry is of the margin, for the margin, by the margin. Therefore, margin is a permanent presence on the pages of the p-book – the process book of process proemistry. And it is ‘our’ book, not ‘my’ book, a collaborative project. The margin has literal as well as metaphoric significance: metaphorically it stands on the pages as a constant reminder to the readers that it is their proemistry and they have got here space for them, to add to it, to expand it, to enrich it with their laughter and sobs, grimaces and smiles, cries and slogans; yes, even slogans. When I say that “I have left two leaves at the end …” for this purpose, I mean it literally as well as metaphorically. And these two leaves can be two hundred pages, or even two thousand pages. Proemistry is full-blooded expression of the agonies of the weak. It is an ongoing genre: neither a proem nor, therefore, a collection of proemistry can ever be complete. Its margin is meant for expansion and inclusion of the agonies of those who are getting ever new pains day by day, from city to city, from vicinity to vicinity, from generation to generation and from region to region. A proemist, hence, may compose only one collection of proemistry and then he with his collaborators – his people, all those who share his dreams and desires – will keep adding to it and so may his generation. We need small proemists: three, four or five or even twenty proemists for three, four or five decades to keep them fresh in our minds, to cure our communal collective amnesia, to keep the road well lit that leads our past to our future. Then after a century hence around 2120 or so, may be – when English language has grown more natural and easy than it is for us in 2020 – the sterile academic generation – one may be able to collect various parts from books and pieces of proemistry to compile or even recreate a representative weltanschauung of the century, or perhaps, ten mini-weltanschauungs, to let the reader conceive a coherent map of the past leading to future to measure the then present and future against the past. The function of proemistry is to preserve the passions we tend to forget because of being excessively used to such deformative atrocities we have been going through for the last seven decades, i.e. since our inception – with rising momentum of amnesia from decade to decade. Lest we should forget our day to day bleedings and bombings, our proems can help us keep our memories of our wounds and losses intact. It is not to keep our wounds fresh; intact memories of wounds also imply remembrance of those who inflicted the wounds and those who received the wounds and, therefore, a way out to stand against the future wounds, and working out panacea for them.