The new edition of the world-renowned Himalayan poet, Yuyutsu Sharma’s book, Some Female Yeti & Other Poems has been released recently. This is third poetry collection written during 1990 Democratic Upsurge in Nepal.
The book includes the poems well known in Nepali literary circles including “Gopal Prasad Rimal,” “Laxmi Lekali,” “Buddha,” “The Democracy,” Tihar, “Pashupati,” “Kathmandu,” “The Mother of Stars,” “Swoyambhu,” and “The Temple.”
Divided into two segments, “The Secret of the Mountains” and “Fire Festivals,” the book explores fresher contexts of human struggle, fusing personal and public to conjure a vision of suffering humanity.
The poems deal with the specific era of Nepali history when women were raped and human rights were abused. In the last section of the book, the poet evokes the image of his beloved poet Gopal Prasad Rimal whose prophetic lines ring a vital cord in the heart of Nepalese society even today, “ A day comes but once in an Age.”
In journalist and media person, Sharad Pradhan’s words, “Yuyutsu’s poetry has long been a part of the Nepalese consciousness: we use his more aphoristic lines as a paradigm of contemporary Nepali political and social changes.”
Poems in the collection represent Yuyutsu Sharma’s earlier Nepalese polity focused work before he started travelling to the Himalayas and in the last decade became known as a Himalayan poet for travelling the globe and reading and teaching poetry all over the world. He has published seven more collections, including most discussed, Annapurna Poems, Quaking Cantos: Nepal Earthquake Poems and A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems.
Recipient of fellowships and grants from The Rockefeller Foundation, Ireland Literature Exchange, Trubar Foundation, Slovenia, The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature and The Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature, his books have been translated into French, German, Slovenian, Spanish, Italian, Korean, Hebrew and Chinese.
He has held workshops in creative writing and translation at Queen's University, Belfast, University of Ottawa and South Asian Institute, New York University, New York, Heidelberg University, Germany, University of California, Davis, Sacramento State University, California and Columbia University, New York.
