October 7 was National Poetry Day. In recognition of it, the Dost project is pleased to share two pieces of work from a friend and prominent member of the BAME community, Pramod Subbaraman. Pramod is an NHS Dentist who works in Hull, Grimsby and Scunthorpe. He returned to poetry during the first COVID19 lockdown in 2020 and has since been published in the UK and USA in print and online. A poem of his has also been accepted recently in South Africa. He helps run the poetry workshop for NHS workers in the region where he works.

Here, Pramod shares two of his poems with the Dost project. If you would like to share any of your work for publication in the next issue of the newsletter, please email us.

“Kingston”

It is at the end of the line

Nobody goes there, don’t bother

It is a deprived city

Just don’t waste your time

It is one of those ‘has been’ places

Nothing to see there anymore

It is full of drugs and crime

Just read the local paper

It has its problems, no doubt

By try reading a different paper

It is one of those ‘can be’ places

There is a new energy in this city

It does not have to be a deprived city

Just make some time to fix it

It is a destination, Hull is home

Soon, everybody will want to go there

“Kingston” was first published in York-based magazine Forge Zine (https://linktr.ee/forgezine)

“31st October 1984”

That earliest political memory

A boy, seven years old

Sees faces

Worried faces

Of adults in his life

School teachers

His mother

A lot of women

All worried about it

A woman had been killed

A woman just like them

Women who ran his young life

She ran all their lives

The Prime Minister

The Iron Lady of India

He would go on to meet

Other strong women

Even marry one

But the memory

Of that moment

Lingers

There never will be

Another Indira Gandhi

Pramod can be reached on Twitter on @briteeth