Never Returned to Pen

Rik Amrit

Dhvani Publication · July 2026

Coming July 2026

Never Returned to Pen

Rik Amrit

A collection of self-translations from three Bengali volumes — rendered into English during the years of pandemic distance. Four movements across forty poems: Displacement, Awakening, Creation, Reckoning.

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July 1, 2026

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From the collection

Below my pillow, tram lines run their course, and beside them, a new crematorium burns electric. I've brought the city into womb-life; with an old handkerchief, I wipe away its tears.

— Archaeological

The Author

Rik Amrit

Poet · Scholar · Editor

About the Book

Rik Amrit is an Indian writer, poet, editor, and independent researcher working at the intersection of literature, aesthetics, and Indian knowledge systems. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of Poorvam International Journal of Creative Arts and Cultural Expressions.

His scholarly work engages deeply with Bharata's Nāṭyaśāstra and Rasa theory. Never Returned to Pen is his second book, following Two Plays.

The self-translations were made during the pandemic years, when returning to Bengali felt like archaeology — and English became the only available instrument of distance.

Four Movements

Displacement

The city as wound and memory

Awakening

Nation, identity, political consciousness

III

Creation

The struggle with voice and authenticity

Reckoning

Love, loss, memory, transformation

"Once etched on paper, the words never return to the pen's embrace — like Krishna leaving childhood's Gokula."

— Never Returned to Pen

"Below my pillow, tram lines run their course, and beside them, a new crematorium burns electric."

— Archaeological

"The ink knows what you don't: it was always blood, just learning to be blue for a more civilised world."

— Daag Achhe Hai

"What makes you Amrit, Rik? Churning — of self, of silence, of the unseen."

— The Question

"Yet it still casts its light upon the Earth."

— Disconnect

"Once etched on paper, the words never return to the pen's embrace — like Krishna leaving childhood's Gokula."

— Never Returned to Pen

"Below my pillow, tram lines run their course, and beside them, a new crematorium burns electric."

— Archaeological

"The ink knows what you don't: it was always blood, just learning to be blue for a more civilised world."

— Daag Achhe Hai

"What makes you Amrit, Rik? Churning — of self, of silence, of the unseen."

— The Question

"Yet it still casts its light upon the Earth."

— Disconnect

Never Returned to Pen

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