Teesta Review: A
Journal of Poetry, Volume 8, Number 2. November 2025. ISSN: 2581-7094
Editorial
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| Theme: Compassion |
Ours is a world on the verge. Global warming is no
longer a distant threat but an undeniable reality that is forcing us to reshape
everyday life while foreshadowing mass migrations: homes will be lost,
cherished places will have to be abandoned, and roots will struggle to seek
new, fertile ground. Vulnerable animal species face extinction or are reduced
to modern-day forms of enslavement, their lives deemed disposable and
ungrievable, just like those of precarious people according to Judith Butler.
Animals too have families, feelings, and the right to live and thrive on the
planet we share. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s words in Prometheus Unbound, “I
wish no living thing to suffer pain”, demand renewed attention, as does his
legacy of respect and care for all living creatures, inherited by figures of
the moral stature of Gandhi and Tagore.
At the same time, the natural world is exploited to
the point of no return. Mother Earth is constantly wounded and pillaged with
little regard for the consequences of such actions. Human interactions, in
turn, are increasingly marred by political agendas and deeply ingrained biases:
in our war-ridden world, many fail to recognize in the “other” a mirror image
of themselves, thus continuing an endless, vicious circle. This failure obscures
an undeniable, albeit often easily forgotten, truth: we are all interconnected
and differences are actually skin-deep. The backlash of hatred and disrespect
will inevitably reverberate back upon those who have contributed to propagating
them.
Compassion is what must be recovered to restore
balance within our multifaceted family, composed of human and non-human
animals, regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, or health. Hence, faced with
alarming news from every continent, writing becomes an influential form of
resistance, and the pen may be viewed as the only instrument of power we
willingly choose to wield.
The contributions gathered in this issue of Teesta
Journal, authored by poets, writers, and scholars from across the globe,
bear witness to the urgency and necessity of compassion in a world that is
dangerously approaching Mary Shelley’s dark prophecy in The Last Man.
Guest Editor
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