Yogesh Patel will hold all rights here as long as people will put their money in poet’s hat!

Helping fellow diaspora poets

The Freedom of the City of London

Diploma for the Excellence in Poetry in Scottish International open poetry competition

Became FRSA in 1978

Freeman of  the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers.

F R Vanson Memorial Award of International Poetry Society

Trophy from Gujarat Samachar & New Life Newspapers

The Word Masala Foundation

My copy of the Bottled Ganges arrived safely. I had a quick read and enjoyed it greatly. I liked The Values, of course, but also God and the Translator and A Dialogue. I look forward to reading others.

The Lord (Prof) Bhikhu Parekh of Kingston upon Hull

I enjoyed reading your collection of beautiful verses and was moved by the thoughts these conveyed. May I single out, "A Crow Without Skin". The mention of Enoch Powell, the Britishman and Brahma made my day.

Please keep writing. I for one will always enjoy a touch of sarcasm accompanied by reality in many of your poems

The Lord Dholakia of Waltham Brooks OBE DL ,The Deputy Leader:Liberal Party

 Yogesh Patel observes both the mundane and the unexpected, and is fearless in writing what he observes. In his poem, 'Optimism', he writes that 'In the middle of  Kurukshetra / Arjun is scratching his head off'! These are poems by an 'outsider' - always a useful perspective in the world of poetry. Patel writes of his alienation 'In the country I was born', in the motherland, and in the land whose citizenship he has embraced, and in so many other contexts. With his typical brand of irony, he ends with the observation that: 'Even though / I am a Freeman of the city of London / "They" truly have the Freedom of Speech'. In 'Neither Here Nor There' he comments that truth can be 'As ugly as they come', but no one can shut up this irrepressible poet. His words are important, so let us read, absorb and enjoy.

Dr Debjani Chatterjee, MBE  

Business

Consultants4vat

IYogesh Patel is Jonah, Ishmael, Queequeg and Moby Dick himself: he knows what is owed to whales, how mighty and how vulnerable they are, and what we owe them by way of nourishment and light. His whales are enormous symbols swimming all the seas of the world and

defining us as they go.

Michael Schmidt OBE FRSL, General Editor, PN Review

With marvelous twists and turns of language and breath, Yogesh Patel's book length meditation draws us into the life and death of the young whale lost in the Thames river, a poignant icon for the migrant self. The voice moves through wit and sparks of joy, through bitterness and loss, rising into a fine balance -- the metamorphic life of the speaker pitched to the rhythmic harmonies of poetic language. 'Come swim with me/ swim the lithe language' the poet tells us and we follow him across the dark yet clarified borders of the past, through the difficult present, into the fluid zone of the

imagination. Swimming with the Whales is relevant to our lives in a world of nationalisms gone awry, where our common humanity is so often ignored.

Meena Alexander, Guggenheim Fellow in Poetry Distinguished Professor of English, City University of New York  

Our endangered world is celebrated by Patel in poems that hop, skip and transform the mundane into a magical adventure. No

subject is too distant for Patel’s keen eye and leviathan powers.

Daljit Nagra

Swimming With Whales leads us into a liquid, liminal language-space. “The whale dives as a question”: a curved gesture uniting air, water and a land we cannot see. In the moment of reading, the reader moves in the shape of this curve, towards meanings on the other side of words.

Zata Banks, Founder-Director: PoetryFilm

Swimming with Whales

Bottled Ganges

Honours & Awards

Member

A former co-editor of Skylark (India), Yogesh Patel has published international contemporary poetry since the seventies. Currently, he runs the Word Masala Project to promote writers and poets of the South Asian diaspora. He also edits eSkylark. He writes a regular coumn for Confluence. Additionally, Yogesh is a founder of the literary charity, Gujarati Literary Academy, and has served as its president. He was a Fellow of the International Poetry Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He was awarded the Freedom of the City of London and, as a trilingual poet, has four LP records, two films, radio programmes, children’s book, fiction and non-fiction books, including poetry collections to his credit.

Apart from being a recipient of the IWWP award, the International Scottish Diploma for excellence in poetry, and an Hon. Diploma from the Italian University of Arts, he has won the Co-Op Award for poetry on the environment. By profession, Yogesh is a qualified optometrist and an accountant. A short list of his work and achievements is available at www.patelyogesh.co.uk

(Yogesh has been published by Under the Radar, IOTA, Envoi, Understanding, Fire, Orbis, IPSE, BBC, Muse India, Confluence, Asian Voice, Skylark, and others. He is also anthologised in MacMillan, Redbeck and other anthologies. He has read at many prestigious venues, including the House of Lords and the National Poetry Library, Southbank Centre.)

Award presented by Baroness Flather. (R>L) Yogesh Patel, C B Patel, editor of Asian Voice and

Divya Mathur, founder-director of Vatayan