Yuyutsu R.D. Sharma

Yuyutsu RD Sharma: Kathmandu Poet in New York
By Susie DeFord Apr 5, 2010

I became familiar with Yuyutsu RD Sharma’s poetry on his recent long stay in New York to promote his latest collection Space Cake Amsterdam (Howling Dog Press 2009). Space Cake is a beautifully designed book with artwork by the artist Henry Avignon. In the Beat tradition, the Nepali poet chronicles his travels through Europe and America. Some of his experiences are comical—in the title poem “Space Cake Amsterdam” the poet accidentally eats hash cake in Amsterdam. Some are beautifully imagistic, like “Temple, London,” where he describes seeing a homeless woman at the top of an escalator as if she is “a hillside shrine/ that our goddesses/ always prefer to live on.”

Yuyutsu RD Sharma has published seven previous poetry collections including Annapurna Poems, (Nirala, New Delhi 2008), Everest Failures (White Lotus Book Shop, Kathmandu, 2008) Way To Everest: A Photographic and Poetic Journey to the Foot of Everest, (Epsilonmedia, Germany, 2006) with German photographer Andreas Stimm, and a translation of Irish poet Cathal O’ Searcaigh poetry in Nepali in a bilingual collection entitled Kathmandu: Poems, Selected and New, 2006.  He is a recipient of fellowships and grants from The Rockefeller Foundation, Ireland Literature Exchange, Trubar Foundation, amongst others. His works have appeared in Poetry Review, Chanrdrabhaga,  Sodobnost, Amsterdam Weekly, and several other magazines. Currently, he edits Pratik, A Magazine of Contemporary Writing and contributes literary columns to Nepal’s leading daily, The Himalayan Times and Newsfront Weekly. He recently published his first novel and a book of his prose writing on the ongoing political turbulence in Nepal entitled Annapurnas and Stains of Blood (Niral Publications 2009).

Susie DeFord: What was your first introduction to poetry?

Yuyutsu RD Sharma: My first introduction to poetry took place in holy places in India. My father was a devout follower of Naga ascetics and my grandfather’s place, Nakodar, Punjab, where I grew up, had great religious flavor. Our family deity was a serpent spirit, Guga Sian, and my grandpa and I would go to the shrine during the annual festival. On one such visit,