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SONGSOPTOK.



 


Songsoptok is proud to present its 2nd issue this month. We bring to you this month almost 40 publications from talented writers and poets from all over the world. We are confident that you shall appreciate the quality of our posts.
Our first issue was published on 9th May 2014. In this one month period, quite a few important events have taken place. The marathon general elections in India finally ended with the results declared on 16th May. The National Democratic Alliance, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, won a sweeping victory and Mr.Narendra Modi was sworn in as the Prime Minister, ending the long supremacy of the Indian national Congress. Terrorists in Nigeria detonate bombs at Jos, killing 118 people. The Royal Thai Army overthrows the caretaker government of Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan after a failure to resolve the political unrest in Thailand. Fighting continues in Ukraine with very little hope of any solution in view. Islamist militant group Boko Haram claims responsibility for kidnapping about 280 girls from a school in northeast Nigeria resulting in a worldwide protest movement.
In this politically turbulent world resembling shifting quicksand, men and women continue to dream and to believe and to fight. We dedicate this month’s Songsoptok to such a person – a poet close to the masses, who spoke the everyday language, a writer, a teacher, a warrior- who left us on 28th May – Maya Angelou.
Maya Angelou was born on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri and brought up in there, growing up in an environment of brutal racial discrimination. An indomitable spirit with a firm belief in the underlying goodness of human beings, Dr. Angelou studied and mastered several languages, toured the world and finally returned to the US in 1964 to help Malcolm X build a new civil rights organization - Organization of Afro-American Unity. Following the assassination of Malcolm X shortly afterwards, Maya Angelou moved away from activism for a time and started concentrating on her artistic career.
‘I know why the caged bird sings’ was published in 1969 and brought her international recognition and acclaim. She was hailed as a new kind of memoirist, one of the first African American women who were able to publicly discuss their personal lives. She was called "the black woman's poet laureate", and her poems have been called the anthems of African Americans. Her defiant, politically charged, feminist approach to poetry inspired a whole generation of women writers and activists.
She spoke an earthy language which everybody could understand. Her poems and other forms of writing has inspired a host of women writers and activists, quite a few of them Afro-American. Her strong voice spoke out boldly, revealing everything, hiding nothing about what it was to be a woman. She spoke about desire, about love, about a host of things but above all, about courage. Maya Angelou was this generation’s voice of courage, using words hard hitting and melodious, unabashed, undaunted, forever optimistic.
We dedicate this second issue to her and hope that we shall be able to carry on her legacy and help build a world more equal, more just and more harmonious.
Rest in peace, dear poetess, and let your spirit guide the future generations. 




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