Poetry from Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay

Photo by Muhd Asyraaf

a revolution
a villanelle

when you ask, things come, a revolution.
Copernicus punished for his ideas of orbit;
the Earth revolves around the Sun.

binary breaking, mad is the sane one
like Socrates and hemlock killed at the pulpit;
when you ask, things come, a revolution.

Galileo sins against king’s religion,
but difference and question equates heretic;
the Earth revolves around the Sun.

the story of Jesus, a divine evolution:
cycles, rebirth, an ongoing circuit;
when you ask, things come, a revolution.

persecution is not holy Absolution,
but Joan of Arc or Archimedes never quit;
the Earth revolves around the Sun.

and you, you may be mid-sermon resolution,
not a misfit, a Book of Change still permits:
when you ask, things come, a revolution.
the Earth revolves around the Sun.
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Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay was one of the five finalists for America’s National Youth Poet Laureate. She was also named as Southeast Regional Youth Poet Laureate in 2016. In her role as the Nashville’s First Youth Poet Laureate in 2015, Mukhopadhyay read original work at the City Council, Mayor Karl Dean’s State of Metro address, Nashville Public Library StudioNPL opening, MyCity Academy Graduation, TEDxNashville CREO Salon, and Mayor Megan Barry’s inauguration. In addition to publishing her book (published by The Penmanship Books, New York, USA), this is our war, Lagnajita was also published in Nashville Arts Magazine, The Tennessean, Chapter 16, and on the Poetry Society of America website and is forthcoming in Tinderbox Poetry Journal and Shanghai Literary Review. She is currently a freshman at Belmont University.