Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 2, Number 2. November 2019. ISSN: 2581-7094
Editorial
“Destiny” by John William
Waterhouse, 1900.
The
word “destiny” engages the focal point of action regarding human endeavor, and
comes from the Latin word destinare,
which means “making firm, or determining”. Like the word destination, it
includes both a direction and a plan. The general interpretation of this word
has to do with naming the end toward which we move, toward which we aspire, and
toward which we enlist our physical, mental, spiritual and creative energies.
Destiny, therefore, it points
to issues of great interest in a number of important areas of human creativity such
as philosophy, theology, physics, psychology, and, of course, poetry.
Because
of its ontologically complex nature, destiny necessarily encompasses multiple
possibilities and, ,
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re
destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach
the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the
way.
(
Cavafy)
We
shall not cease from exploration
And
the end of all our exploring
Will
be to arrive where we started
And
know the place for the first time.
Through
the unknown, unremembered gate
When
the last of earth left to discover
Is
that which was the beginning;
At
the source of the longest river
The
voice of the hidden waterfall
(T.S.
Eliot)
The
poems featured in this issue of Teesta
give language to the stories of our beginnings, our passages, our ambitions,
and our enduring struggles, and suggest that our destiny is to live without
closure, without a final reward of our purpose, and that part of finding one’s
destiny means understanding, letting go, and finding redemption from the past. This
journey of self-discovery is our
destiny: it may be a chosen one, or it may be thrust upon us, but in either
case, it gives us our identity, and defines us both as individuals and as a
community.
Readers, and
readers of poetry in particular, are seekers: going in search of our personal
and collective destiny is a humbling task, and this issue of Teesta interrogates this enigmatic ride “through
the unknown, unremembered gate” via the voice of poets coming from different
walks of life. Their works account for the often-unintelligible dilemmas of the
human experience, and are aspects of a higher system of necessity: they exude
concreteness and vividness, but are also filled with ambiguity, paradox, contradictions,
doubts, and impossibilities.The rhapsodic
imagination reminds us that destiny retains a mysterious element: in the light
of this, I hope that this issue of Teesta will challenge ideas, shake certainties, raise questions, and
leave the readers with the desire to return to these poems again and again.
(Guest
Editor)
Teesta
Review: A Journal of Poetry