Two Poems in the Seven Sisters Post :-)

Two poems appeared in the Literary Supplement, 'Postcript', of the Assamese Newspaper, 'The Seven Sisters Post' on sunday, 18th March 2012. These poems focus, as does the entire newspaper, upon North-East India. You can see the scanned paper here http:// http://%20http//sevensisterspost.com/epaper/SUNDAY_8198381803/
You can also see them at http:// http://%20http//www.nelitreview.com/2012/03/ipen-poems-by-shruti-sareen.html, though this site is under maintenance till about 25th March 2012. They're okay-ish poems, but I'm glad they found a happy home... :-)

Here are the poems below... :-)

This poem is about the Indian bullet.
It is about Naga tribes in Manipur
and the Meghalaya which was
... a part of Assam. This poem
is about the island of Majuli.
This poem is about the fertility of guns
and the orality of bullets.
It is about the reality of the unknown.
It is about you, and me, and them.
It is about us. This poem
is also about flowers.



In the Tea garden of Tebhaga

I don't have even two bighas of land
I work in a tea garden
as a labourer.
I don't have money, it's the famine na
There is nothing to eat, so
I eat khichdi everyday.
There are three daughters, a family
They don't have clothes, so
After washing them they wait
for the clothes to dry.
The zamindar's men come to sell water
I tell them "no money.
don't want water."
The bastards, they pour the water on the ground
and ask me for payment.

On blogging, publishing and naivete

Dear Heartstrings and dear blog-readers,

I haven't been posting poems here lately. I just wanted to say that that really doesn't mean that I haven't been writing. It's just that I have woken up to dangers and threats and norms, and, quoting the title of Nitoo Das' once-upon-a-time blog post 'Blogging and Naivete' have realised that it's high time to stop being naive. Now, my reasons for being naive may be similar or may be completely different from the ones mentioned in that post.

My reason for choosing not to put up unpublished poems on this blog anymore is because many magazines and journals consider blog-publishing as real "publishing" and everybody wants only unpublished stuff as submissions and contributions. Once, twice, thrice, I can bend and twist the rule, but not the fourth time. To be ethically correct, and to play by the rules and norms, I decided not to put up unpublished stuff here. I am not very worried about plagiarism because I do not yet think my poems are good enough yet for anyone to want to plagiarise them. However, it's a two-in-one thing, if I don't put up unpublished stuff on the blog, it acts as a deterrent to plagiarism as well. and published stuff is always copyrighted. beyond that, if someone wants to copy, they can copy from just about anywhere, why just the blog, heck!

I delayed putting up this post quite a bit. Two months ago, it almost broke my heart to desert my beloved blog. But I didn't want to "close" this blog just now and to keep it only for a few "invited readers". I'd rather not do that just yet. A lot of people visit this blog, and I really value and appreciate that, and I can't build an identity roll or list! So I ultimately decided to keep this blog public, as it is, but to put up poems only after they have been published.

I can always diversify and put up other things besides poetry! Though I do hope that the poetry will keep running alongside intermittently too! :-)