POST – May 6-10 2009
MEDICAL doctor, poet and artist, Dr Amitabh Mitra, has a network of poets showcasing their best writing to hundreds of up and coming poets and authors via his website. And now the busy doctor is calling for local poets, who have an interest in writing poems about South Africa's political situation. Before and after apartheid, to submit their work to be included in an anthology of poems to be publish later this year. Mitra, 51, pictured, who is presently the chief medical officer in the Accident and Emergency department in the East London Hospital Complex, is qualified in orthopedic surgery aerospace medicine, family medicine and sports medicine. Mitra, who settled in South Africa in 1992, from Lucknow India, told POST he wished to know more writers, so that he could help them showcase their work. "There are many poets out there who are writing quality poetry but have not published their work. A lot of poetry has been written as struggle poetry But with the advent of democracy poetry which may be voices of dissent, has not been brought together in an anthology" said Mitra, married to Sonia, an English literature teacher who is in her forties. Mitra has had his works published Ritual Silences and Bithika, both of which were published in 1979 and presently apart from his medical work, he edits two journals, A Hudson View – an international poetry journal published quarterly in New York, and lnyathi, a print journal that focuses on Southern African arts. Which Mitra publishes. Recently Mitra found the time to edit and publish Tonight| An Anthology of World Love Poetry which was launched in Oslo in September last year. On his love for creating works of ' art, Mitra said: "Creativity is important for all human beings. One can be creative in practicing medicine' or doing business. For me it means that you don't have to follow a line, because you create your own lines."