Entangled
Textual Translation:
...quite literally entangled entangled entangled entangled entangled...quite literally entangled and--roots roots roots coalescing roots--(our) roots coalescing episodically up down down down deep down penetrates into square stone stops down penetrates into square stone...
This piece in Bangla (Bengali) originally appeared in Kaurab
Birds and Birds
Textual Translation:
…and then, uncountable, birds and birds and birds and a flock of birds flying out of my head…
This piece in Bangla (Bengali) originally appeared in Kaurab
Comics
Textual translation:
In front of us, there are trucks and trucks and trucks, and more trucks, more and more trucks, trucks after trucks standing, beside the yellow seats [and the place where], the switched-off sleeves of their t-shirts brush against the dark, gloomy night's sodium Highway no. 7.
Extension:
Since childhood, I have always been mesmerized by the images and text of comic books – funny speech balloons, crossing the boundaries of those small boxy frames and rigid panels. I have always wanted to create a comic strip, but it did not get done. The only thing that I could do is to bring together one of my unfinished poems about a weekend trip with a rejected photograph from the same trip, and make a conscious effort to simulate the eerie ambiance of the first cell of a dark, action comics strip - still without a story, waiting for a hostile moment to begin its journey through the pages of our childhood fears.
Samit Roy is a visual artist and poet who believes that every "successful" art object is the result of a series of interrelated social events, and whose work explores both the visual characteristics of text and narrative elements of visuals. Brought up in the gray zones between urban Victorian Kolkata and its semi-rural suburbs, his work further attempts to articulate a small part of the history of his time and context. He has worked with UPENN's South Asia Center and Department of South Asia Studies, and the Canadian Institute of International Affairs. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Annetna Nepo, Kaurab, Natun Kabita, Otoliths and Black Robert Journal.
