Friend, and one of the sublime minds in the 60's poetry scene of Bengal. Pradip Choudhuri (Feb 5, 1943 – Apr 25, 2021) was a poet of extraordinary courage and irreverence and formed the link between the Hungryalism movement of Kolkata and the Beats of America. He was a prolific writer in Bengali, English and French, apart from being the publisher of Pphoo - trilingual magazine that published the likes of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Brion Gysin, Kaviraj Dowden, Claude Pélieu, Jeff Nuttall, Carl Weissner, Harold Norse, Charles Plymell, Ed Sanders, Norman Ogue Mustill, Charles Bukowski and other Beat luminaries

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Pradip passed on from Covid 19 related complications at dawn April 25, 2021.

 

As we grieve, here is an old interview he gave for The Odd Magazine to Snigdhendu Bhattacharya, and a poet-approved, unpublished translation of his famous prose-poem Poetry Dharma by Sreemanti and Snigdhendu. Also read an obituary written by Odditor Sreemanti Sengupta published in The Wire Magazine.

 

Rest in power, poet!