This week, NDQ 88.1/2 went off to the printers. If you’re a subscriber look for your copy sometime in the next few weeks. 

As part of the celebration, it is my pleasure to publish here Sanjeev Sethi’s poem “Chronicle” which will appear as the final contribution in the next issue. As a little gesture to be sure that this poem doesn’t go unnoticed, I offer it here.

I think the themes of the poem offer a sense of finality suitable to both the end of an issue, the sending of an issue to the printer (“always on spec”), and for those of us in academia, the end of another academic year. 

Chronicle

Never orgulous
of one’s orbit,
always on spec.
It’s nothing like
what is on the screen
or telly.
The terrain is rugged,
shoulder is frozen.
I grow home
on heartland of demurrals.
Paragraphs of pamphlet
are orchestrated
by the quill of iffiness.
‘No comments’ obscures
a string of squibs.
In camouflage is continuation.

~

Sanjeev Sethi is published in over thirty countries. His poems have found a home in more than 350 journals, anthologies, or online literary venues. Wrappings in Bespoke is joint-winner of Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux organized by The Hedgehog Poetry Press UK. It’s his fourth full-length collection. It will be launched in 2021. He is also slated to publish Bleb a Wee Book from Dreich in Scotland soon. He lives in Mumbai, India.

88.1/2