Yuyutsu Ram Dass Sharma (; born January 5, 1960) is a Nepalese-Indian poet and journalist. He was born at Nakodar, Punjab and moved to Nepal at an early age. He writes in English and Nepali.
Life and career
Sharma received his early education first at DAV College, Nakodar, Punjab, and later at Baring Union Christian College, Batala and University of Rajasthan. While at Rajasthan, Sharma met American poet David Ray while assisting Ray on an issue of New Letters. Ray introduced Sharma to the work of prominent American poets such as William Carlos Williams and Allen Ginsberg, and encouraged Sharma to publish his own work. Sharma has called meeting Ray a "watershed" moment in his life.
Yuyutsu remained active in the literary circles of Rajasthan and acted in plays by Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Harold Pinter, and Edward Albee. Later he taught at various campuses of Punjab University, Chandigarh and Tribhuwan University, Kathmandu.
He met German Photographer Andreas Stimm in 2004 and his collaboration with Stimm resulted in three books of picture/poetry: Nepal Trilogy:Photographs and Poetry on Annapurna, Everest, Helambu & Langtang.
In 2006, he published The Lake Fewa and a Horse and later in 2008, Annapurna Poems, Selected and New. According to a review of Annapurna Poems by critic Jim Feast, Sharma operates "at the edge of a belief system or way of living that has fallen short", a position from which great poetry emerges according to essayist and American poet laureate Allen Tate.
His 2009 poetry collection Space Cake features artwork by Henry Avignon. Reminiscent of traditions in beat poetry, it chronicles his travels in Europe and America, including an episode in Amsterdam where he accidentally consumes a cannabis edible, from which the collection gets its title.
In 2016 he published Quaking Cantos, a collection inspired by the 2015 Nepal earthquakes featuring Sharma's poetry and photographs by Prasant Shrestha. In the Kathmandu Tribune, Arun Budhathoki wrote that it "immortalized the tragic event and captured the bitter memories of the Himalayan on a grand scale". Andrea Dawn Bryant called it "stunningly heart-wrenching, albeit healing".
In 2020 he published Panaharu Khali Chhan, a collection of poems in Nepali, many translated from English. Critic Bibek Adhikari wrote that "reading Sharma in English is a delightful experience; reading him in Nepali, a somewhat bewildering and disconcerting one".
Sharma is the editor of Pratik, A Quarterly Magazine of Contemporary Writing. As of 2020 he was a visiting poet at Columbia University. He is the recipient of fellowships and grants from The Rockefeller Foundation, Ireland Literature Exchange, Trubar Foundation, Slovenia, The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature and The Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature.
Poetry
Lost Horoscope: New Poems , Nirala, New Delhi, 2023
The Second Buddha Walk: Inspired by the Second Buddha: Master of Time Exhibit at Rubin Museum, New York , Nirala, New Delhi, 2018 Quaking Cantos: Nepal Earthquake Poems , Nirala, New Delhi, 2016 A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems, Nirala, New Delhi, 2016 Nine New York Poems: A Prelude to‘A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems’, Nirala, New Delhi, 2014 Milarepa's Bones, Helambu:33 New Poems, Nirala, New Delhi, 2012 The Nepal Trilogy I-III Photographs and Poetry about the Nepal areas of Annapurna, Everest, Helambu & Langtang, www.Nepal-Trilogy.de,·www.Nepal-Trilogie.de) (english-deutsch, Epsilonmedia, Karlsruhe Germany, 2010 www.AroundAnnapurna.de: A photographic and Poetic Journey around Annapurnas, Nepal, Epsilonmedia, Karlsruhe Germany www.WayToEverest.de:A photographic and Poetic Journey to the Foot of Everest, Epsilonmedia, Karlsruhe Germany, 2006 Annapurna Poems, Nirala, New Delhi, 2008 Everest Failures, White Lotus Book Shop, Kathmandu 2008 Space Cake Amsterdam and other Poems from Europe and America, Howling Dog Press, Colorado, 2009 The Lake Fewa and a Horse, Poems New, Nirala, New Delhi, 2005, 2009 Poèmes de l'Himalaya, trans. by Nicole Barrière and Camille Bloomfield, L'Harmattan, Paris, 2009 Poemas De Los Himalayas: Bilingual Spanish/English Poetry Collection, Translated into Spanish with an Introduction by Veronica Aranda, 2010, Cosmopoeticia, Cordoba, Spain Some Female Yeti & other Poems, Nirala, New Delhi, 1995 Hunger of our Huddled Huts & other Poems, Nirala, New Delhi, 1989, 2011 A Prayer in Daylight, Poems, Nirala, Jaipur, 1984