Eight poems in Thumb Print Magazine

Happy to say that Eight poems were published in December in The Thumb Print Magazine. Ananya Guha is the poetry editor. You can read them here.
I am also putting them below:


Passport-sized-photographs


A dummy, a mannequin,
a wax work doll. An object
to be stared, commented, laughed at.
A robotic machine. Controlled
by a set of commands.

“Shift your face to the left
your neck is not straight, your face
not level with the ground,madam.”

The holy mantra for photo-production
needs me to wear a plastic smile on demand
of correct length and breadth measurements

The canvas of my life
is replaced by a cheap blue one
Dirty too. I persuade him
to make it grey.

And I wonder how many sittings
and how many, many rehearsals
would capture my flyaway spirit
and inject a whiff of my soul
into this two-inches-of-gloss
this millimetred smile?

***

Things Fall Apart

Things fall apart
and bury
a piece of my heart
under rubble.
My shrieking, protesting heart
alive and awake
is buried under rubble.
reams of paper fall apart
an earthquake hits me
tremors shake the ground beneath me
treasured memories, lost loves
covered by debris
scarred forever
struggle to survive

***

A Fruitless Search for Faith

You believe in jesus
in krishna, in ram
fasting, chanting, praying
you offer flowers to lakshmi's painted smile
taking it as benign and kind.

Faith fills voids, gaps in our selves
making us whole
fills gaps too in what we worship
Only completeness can give of itself
and make us complete.

I have always been an atheist
agnostic, free thinker, whatever
a disbeliever.
I never believed in god.

I have faith in a woman
in pain, in fear
in times of trouble
I believe in her.

gathering shards of my broken self
filling empty spaces in me
making myself whole, through her
my image of completeness.

But a woman has no painted smile
I can imagine as benign and kind
she breaks me into a million shards
and I struggle to make myself whole
through her.

Ironical. Paradoxical.
Life has made me cynical.
a wry smile on my face,
I wonderwho was the bigger fool
You or I.

***

On a visit to Baircha Lake

Arms entwined around branches
I become part of the tree
Swinging, swaying with the breeze
hair floating, branches waving
up-down-up-down-up-down
The rhythmic movement reminds me
of the rowing oars on a boat
Down below, the waves lap and dash against the rocks.

***

Mango Blossoms

Laden boughs
Hang heavy, thick with blossom
creamy-white profusions
sweeeter than perfume
yet wilder...
Here and there, green mangoes
peep through your arms
green parrots nestle within you
for close comfort
oh beautiful lady!
pregnant with the hope of things to be
your loveliness
is too much
for this summer evening.

***

A Traveller

Frozen Russian snows
Bitter cold
a weary traveller
bundled in a shawl
selling gay carpets.
He has been travelling...
travelling all night
Lines on his face,
the look in his eyes
speak more than my words
resting but briefly against a wall
scribbled over with
meaningless nothings
What is life for him?
The nonsense? the gay carpets?
Or the look in his eyes?

***

Betrayal
(this poem is dedicated to IP College)

The branches of your trees are the veins
Of my blood. Your arches deep rooted
In my bone marrow. I was bound to you
from before my birth, ever since the days
My grandmother walked these paths.
I resisted you at first, I know, but I grew
To love you. Facilitated and supported
By kind hands warm smiling faces.
I had grand dreams of repaying you
With something good, something big
A token of my debt and gratitude.
And I betrayed you. Heady with passion
Drunk on folly, I seem to myself
A creature foreign to me. A person
Who could not be me. Who is not me.
Sometimes we are in the mode
Of desperate denial. Then when reality strikes
We cower, we shield ourselves, we plead
That our intentions were pure, devoid of evil design
We beg to believe that all was not bad or wasted
We abjectly try to clutch on to the past that formed us
Sometimes when we live in a dream of belief, we forget
Reality. Then we must learn the hard way,
When sour, harsh lessons wake us up.
Suffice it to say: I betrayed you. Period.
Betrayed the kind hands, the warm smiling faces
And everything they brought me.
But you are home. The crooked branches of your trees
Are the tangled veins of my blood. The arches
Of your low roofed buildings are etched
Into my bone marrow. I will be back, sometime,
I will return. I will make amends.
Will you accept me then?

***

Stub Tales

Spiralling smoke rings
Rise with an introspective air
And a husky philosophical smell
Akin to nostalgia
Telling stories.
Glowing embers
That feed on nicotine
That feeds on human despair.
This stub
Stamped mercilessly by feet
Ash oozing out of its mouth
Lies near a green can
‘Use Me’

***

Disqualified! Clarification and an apology

Folks,

This is to say that I have been disqualified from the aforementioned RLP India awards longlist. This is because it appears that quite absent-mindedly and inadvertently, I did not follow all the rules of the contest. So it appears that all the five poems were supposed to be unpublished, but I made a mistake. I had also sent one or two of those poems to some magazine at some point and then forgotten about it or become confused regarding the rules or whatever. I will not go into the details. I will merely say that my name is no longer there on the list. My apologies for my carelessness.

and here's to poetry... more and more poetry, as long as I can write, and write more, and write better, and read more,and... and live and relive, the kingdom has not been lost. :-)

Longlisted for the RLP India Poetry Award :D and a publication

Dear folks,


So here's some good news. :-)


Read Leaf Poetry had opened its India Office only this year, and Linda L. Ashok has been pretty much the main person co-ordinating it. This was a national all-India poetry competition where one had to submit five poems each. The award ceremony was recently held in Hyderabad. So, there are 2 winners, some 6-7 people in the shortlist including biggies such as Sumana Roy and Sudeep Sen, and some 17-18 people in the longlist including the likes of Abha Iyengar, Sivakami Velliangiri, even my peer and room-mate, Anjumon Sahin, and well yes, yours truly. :-)
So, happy to be longlisted! I still get to be somewhere in the top 27, so perhaps my poems aren't bullshit after all! :D


errrrm, and there was another publication in eFiction India last month. I am putting up the poem 'Pain' here.


Pain


It is wrenched out of one, moment
by slow torturous moment, hanging
heavy as dread, as one day
becomes the next and flows into the stream
of months and years. Tear by tear, drop
of blood by drop of sweat, it oozes out
Pain makes you yearn. Pain
Then proceeds to teach you the supreme arts
of patience and control. This suffering
is extraordinary. It is the lowest and
it is the highest too. This exquisite hurt
that howls, shrieks, torments and ravages
and ultimately becomes the two syllables
of your name. But it never goes away.
It never quite lets you forget.
It makes you learn to submit. There is no other way.

'Of Lovings and Endings' and 'Fear' published in eFiction India

Hey all!

I have a couple more poems in eFiction India: 'Of Lovings and Endings' in the August issue and 'Fear' in the September issue. There is an entire selection committee but the poet and academic, Ananya S Guha is the main poetry editor. I am reproducing the two poems below.

Teaching in Dyal Singh College (Delhi University) for a few months as of now. Trying to make the most of it, and realising that I love to teach. :-)

A young department friend and junior Mihir Vatsa has won the Srinivas Rayaprol poetry prize this year! How awesomely cool is that!! :D


Of lovings and endings

and you saw that it was growing
and it wasn’t really going
and you saw that it was thriving
and blooming and abiding
and without incentive surviving
and you wanted an ending
and you wanted it stopping
and you were tired of my inging
and irritated with my anding
and perhaps you were sick with waiting
and you wanted to break my ‘loving’
you simply wanted a period.
A full stop.
and achingly, heartbreakingly
you are making sure you get one
finally. Now.



Fear

It slips in stealthily, through cracks
of sunlight, chinks in curtains, split
seconds, spare moments
when you're patting your hair or twiddling
with the ring on your finger. Eliot
could show it to you in a handful of dust.
It is the hollow silence, the amorphous
blackness at the centre of your being
which threatens to disrupt and engulf you
Fear of the depths, of the heights, of reaching
beyond horizons. Fear of the deep black pit.
Fear of you. Fear of words, silence, going, coming,
staying away. Fear of time. Fear of myself. My thought-ghosts.
And the fear balloon grows bigger and bigger
until I forget what I am afraid of.
And then, there is only fear.

'Ode to Civil Lines' published in E-Fiction India

Hello folks! There's a magazine in America called E-Fiction and it has several branches such as E-Fiction Horror, E-Fiction Romance and so on, and now even E-Poetry, their newest branch. So E-Fiction India is an Indian branch which began around nine months ago, managed by Indian folks. It has a hard copy as well as a soft copy version but you mostly have to pay for it, though on certain dates they allow you to download it for free. E-Fiction India publishes other genres such as poetry as well.

I have a poem published in the June issue, 'Ode to Civil Lines, Delhi, October 2010'. It is elsewhere on this blog as well, but this is a slightly edited version. and so, here goes, my attempt to put my love for my beloved Civil Lines into words...


Oade to Civil Lines, Delhi, October 2010


Dusky darkness steals tiptoes softly
cradling the white fragrance
of the raat rani, shefali, frangipani.
The moon between the two tall palms
is a boat,the star is a kiss on the sea-sky.
At 7pm in the grounds of IP college
spirits and gods and trees converse
mysteries like flying insects are suspended in mid air.
A silhouette of blue smoke seems strangely kindred
At odd hours, this spirit creeps out to share this tryst.
Six years have made it a translucent omnipresence.
Then the smoky spirit glides down the street
pervading ,absorbing atmosphere
which mutates into night smells
jostling against food smells, sounds and lighted
shops, autos at the gas station
cars teeming with yellow cat-eyes
Sights, sounds, memories, smells,feelings
are brewed together, the logic of boundaries
comes undone. The spirit traverses
by-ways of winged hopes,
feathered dreams, nostalgic idylls
of rajpur road, under hill lane, sri ram road
and ram kishore road, that take me across
time and space, desires and sorrows
back to the room of my own I call home.
My five feet four inch fifty kg body
may measure acres, square miles, cities
but a whiff of smoky translucence
will always glide down bylanes of dreams
and memory at 7pm, in the IP grounds
the place that brewed and stewed and cooked
and sprouted me.

creative writing workshop with Anjum Hasan

and yes, while mentioning some of the "literary" and poetic highlights of the past few months, I simply cannot forget Anjum Hasan's visit to Delhi, her creative writing workshop in JNU with a select group of 15 participants, her readings and other events which I either attended or had short glimpses of :-), and last but not the least, a much prized one-on-one conversation between me and Anjum in the auto and in the metro! :D
and Anjum really liked my poems. yes, she must've told me that at least 3 times. now, isn't that splendid! Thrilling, rather! oooooo!! It is Anjum Hasan after all, you know.

so life at the personal level has sort of been in the doldrums and it has been painful and it hurts and you go all angsty and you dunno how to pick yourself up and what to do, but thank heavens, there is something called writing and something called poetry which can help you heal. So you see, I've been trying to do some of it these past few months. and I mean to keep up. :-)

and yes, some more! I had four poems published in Brown Critique, the journal run by the well known poet, Gayatri Majumdar. So it caused much happiness to hear from Gayatri that she "really liked my poems". well, so I'm putting these ones up here, cos it's been a while now since then.

and yes, I must mention that I participated in a competition Poetry Against caste which was organised by Caste Away- a Delhi initiative in partnership with a group from Delhi university as well as Kavi-the Poetry Art Project, and this competiution was judged by another young well known poet, our dearest Meena Kandasamy. There were 2 prizes, neither of which I won, but Meena was kind enough to make a third "special mention" for my poem 'Hypocrisy' which was later published in Brown Critique. It is the last one in the poems that follow below.

Shruti Sareen                                                                                                                          4 poems
My Heart Is a Poor Student

For perhaps the 50th time in two weeks
I pick up my heart. Open it. explain to it.
The same words I have repeated
the evening before, I have gone through
the same arguments, the same reasoning.
But my heart is stupid. It is a fool.
... It forgets it all, and I have to explain it
all over again. My heart is stubborn. It asks
too many questions. It disbelieves. It does not
accept. My heart is too soft. That is its biggest
failing. It whimpers with a scolding. It cries
when beaten with a stick. My heart
is a poor student. An easy teacher may have
felt sorry for it. But perhaps you need
to be strict with this heart to the point
of sadism. Or sadomasochism. Banish it
from the classroom. Imprison it within walls.
Sting-slap it. Make it submit. Scream at it
until it is ready to learn. Until it is
pliable. Until it admits its faults. Until
it is willing to work hard. Until it learns
strength. Then the heart will be re-admitted
back into the classroom. With weak students
like my heart, you may sometimes
have to use force.


Drama

It is dialogic like a debate. It has
two sets of choruses. They present opposing
points of view with great melodrama and
emotion. The stage of the theatre is me.
Chorus one is Guilt and Chrous two is
Desire. Chrous two speaks first, it is more
... impatient. It begins with you, it ends
with you, it seems to like talking about you
in the middle too somehow. It seems to think
it the most natural thing. It does not realise
that something is wrong. Chorus two desires
and desires and rails against its punishment,
it cannot wait for it to end. Then,
Over to Guilt, Chorus One. This one
eats into you slowly like a worm does
into an apple. It chastises and
castigates the self, it labels you wicked,
evil, criminal- and leaves you squirming
like the vile worm. It makes you regret
who you are. That is its biggest weapon.
and everything you've ever done.
It makes you rot in hell. This
is the moment of anagnorisis. This
is where the hamartia turns into
peripeteia. Without the fatal flaw,
there would be no play, no hero,
no epiphany either. This is the end
of Act 4. The curtain drops.

Some day, there will be an Act 5
of peace, resolution and hope.


Birthing

A tender newborn green
they emerge from knotted nodes
and nodules that protrude a trifle
crooked from the tall, straight bark
their crown tops high in the sky. The barks,
by and large, are weathered old
... bare browns, except for the birthings.
The new from the old. It must be
so painful. It must hurt so much,
I think, for the green to emerge
from the brown. And for the green
to grow, covering the brown.
The brown would have this concealed
grief, and this submerged heartache
and so much courage, to give
birth to spring.


Hypocrisy

We are the bhadralog. We
the middle class. We, the marxists
we the elite, we the educated.
We are the leftists-ah!
We sit in AC seminar rooms and have
dalit conferences. with biscuits and cakes
and endless streaming cups of coffee.
Sitting in our armchairs, we
denounce the corporates and valourise
the proletariat. We clap, we
back-pat, we volunteer too.
We also take out time for our classic look-
my kajal, my kurta- hey, I'm not your
lip-gloss wearing girl, no way! and he?
His beard is a sign of intellect, can't you see?
The conference ends at 5pm and on our way
back home we see: a woman cleaning a toilet,
a beggar counting coins, some newspaper
flashing some dalit suicide. and we
retreat into bhadralog respectability.
We return to our cleansed and comfortable worlds
'Oh dear, oh dear, so terrible', we say
but what can we do after all? We are tired.
We have done so much all day.

Poems published in Our Private Literature and accepted for North East Review

So, it gives me much pleasure to say that 'Flowers for your Hair' has been accepted for publication by North East Review. For obvious reasons, I cannot put this up here until they have actually published it and some time has elapsed before that, but put it I will. So watch this space!


In the meantime, 'Sad Ootin' was published in another newbie journal that is published from North east India. This issue centred around "Protest". Okay, so I'll leave you with Sad Ootin!

Sad Ootin

Ootin is an elf

With a Piglet face

Pixie ears, needle

Eyes and nose.

A flick of my wand

And Ootin appears

Bowing low to the ground

From his waist. Thy wish,

He says, is my command.

Ootin has a fractured soul

A split face, and creaky arms

That need oiling. He also has

A cracked tongue.

Ootin slaves hard night

And day, catering to my whims

He cleans, cooks, washes, sweeps

And sometimes, he brings stolen

Honey from bees, or nectar

From butterflies. Ootin

Does my shopping

So I stay home. He also

Does my work.

I need to keep Ootin busy,

Very busy. Ootin, you see

Is under a curse

When he finishes work

He does mischief, he sticks things.

Yes, he sticks doors and windows

So I can’t open them. He sticks holes

In clothes, so I can’t wear them.

He sticks pots and pans,makes

A mountain of them. He once stuck

A child’s mouth, so it wouldn’t open.

For this, he is punished, yes

of course he is punished.

He is burnt in the fireplace

And beaten with a stick.

Poor Ootin. Sad Ootin.

His is a sad life. Ootin,you see,

Can stick things, but he cannot

Stick his fractured soul, his cracked

Tongue, or his creaking arms.

Otherwise

He could have been free. 

Hello folks! It has been a long break, which is shameful and unforgiveable considering that I promised around New Year's to be regular. Well, so this is a week well past the 23rd of May, when this blog turned 5. Heck, whatever. Not in a very celebratory mood. The blog is hardly alive anymore. anyway, we'll keep you running for a couple of years more, Heartstrings, I promise.Then errrm well, we have become sorta ambitious here and we have other plans from life, so we might make Heartstrings a bit more professional and give it a new name, a new look, and a new home. :-)

hmmm... here's a few short updates:

I am now enrolled in Delhi University for a PhD on "Emerging Feminist Trends in Indian Poetry in English". Looking at mostly all the delightful women who have been writing poetry around gender issues in the past 15 years. :-) 

I presented a paper in JNU in the Indian World(s) of Indian English Literature seminar on the topic- "Frontiers- Dividing and Connecting Places: in the poetry of Arundhathi Subramaniam, Anjum Hasan, CP Surendran, and Tabish Khair" (14-15 March 2013)

Presented another paper at Jamia Millia Islamia in the seminar 'Food for Thought' on 18th April 2013  entitled " Food, Love, and Self in Indian Women's Poetry in English" This one will probably be published a little way down the line as well.

and yes, besides presenting papers for the first time in my life in places besides IP College (oh heck, Indraprastha college for Women, there you go!) and Mphil seminars, I have also begun proper formal teaching for the first time in my life. :D
oh well, we start small, it's not a fairytale world, so I taught in 3 different Delhi University colleges all within 3-4 months, filling up for other teachers who were on leave! well, may the job hunt continue and may more opportunities reveal themselves!

and yes, the "real" poetry bit comes up in another post rightaway. :-)

Paper on Anjum Hasan's poetry published in Muse India!

Hello folks!

And a happy new year!

I am surprised to find that I have shamefully neglected this blog of late, my last post is almost 5-6 months ago! I will definitely take it as a new year resolution to be more regular with this blog, even if I am no longer putting up every poem that I write!

Hmmm... amidst much upsetting upheaval in my "personal" life, and an ongoing fruitless (and hopefully not hopeless!) job hunt in my "academic and professional" life, I just got some good news which will do just as well as some other kind of cheer to begin the new year with.

I have a paper on Anjum Hasan's poetry collection Street on the Hill published in Muse India. Issue Jan-Feb 2013. First time I'm getting a real paper published that feels satisfying! oh well, not such a big deal either, really. This paper has been culled from my Mphil dissertation on "The Imagined and the Inhabited City in the poetry of Arundhathi Subramaniam, Anjum Hasan, C.P.Surendran and Tabish Khair". This issue of Muse India focusses on Indian Poetry in English, as well as on the Marginalised Literature of the North East. My paper is in the latter section. To read it as well as other interesting stuff (and there IS real interesting stuff in BOTH the sections), just follow this link.

And watch out for more blog posts soon... I promise!

Two poems in Vayavya

Vayavya, a literary journal, is an initiative of Mihir Vatsa, a young Delhi University literature student. I am glad he asked me to send my poems for this issue, which happens to be the fourth. The journal is creditable, do check it (and my poems) out here.  (delighted at my newly acquired skill of putting hyperlinks, I like to show off :-) )

I am also putting the poems below. Old ones, these, but old favourites :-)

Jealous-green



From a sober olive green
dark, sombre, brooding jealousy
to bright emerald which screams
its insecurities to your face
to jade- moss- parrot green
to the sickly green pallor
of vomiting food or
unpalatable emotions.
I have turned all
greened all, screamed
from the pain of burning
a yellow-red-orange flame
which I try to simmer down,
swallow down, green-it-down
before it rages and runs amuck.
I wonder what's green about
Envy.

 
 
How to Make a Juda


A wealth of hair
wound around my hand
twisted, just so
with a flip movement, there.
And then there's the inner filling
the stuffing
which must be put in
just right, neither caving in
nor protruding
ouch! That was tricky!
A cautious patting of the bun
to affirm its roundness
its smoothness, neatness
And the wooden stick
with its carved, crowning head
is now inserted
at just the right angle.
Or a pencil or a paintbrush
would do as well
if sticks are few.
Holding up a mass of hair
with a single stick
and grace
that comes from minimalism
The art of juda making
like the art of poetry
is of delicate precision

Three Poems in Muse India

Three poems are up in the July-August issue of Muse India  which deals with the theme of  Monsoon- 'Varsha Ritu'. You can see them here.  (let me mention here that I am vastly proud of my newly acquired skills in putting hyperlinks and on top of the world)

I am also putting the poems below :-)



SUMMER RAIN



The amaltas in the distance glows yellow
The newly washed world is sparkling and clean
The rain has clothed it with a rainbow hued sheen
Splashing and tweeting in puddles flock sparrows.

Parakeets stick their heads from tree hollows
The gulmohur leaves laugh verdant green
Forming a feathery, whispery screen
The orange melons in the fields dream mellow.

Here and there you can spy ripe mangoes
I wish a blue throated peacock would preen
That would be a splendid sight to have seen
Eagerly pecking at the fruits crowd crows.

With the stormy winds I want to dance
Filling each pore with a touch of romance.




LANDOUR DAYS


It was a gift
To lose myself in Landour greens
In the june heat
A gift of blue purple rain clouds
Raintrees rain birds in the mountains
And rivers making love to the sky
It was a gift of song and laughter
Ruskined epiphanies
Bonding unsullied Garhwal beauty
It was a mother’s gift
To her daughter at sixteen.

Years later I was to know
Of your Landour trips
And to treasure the fact
Landour desires oozing out of me.



RAIN



Music of the aeolian harp
melody of flute and lyre
It is the sound of heavens laughing
the thunder is the tabla beating
destroying habit
enforced freedom from routine
I tune in with the rhythms of this dance
to be set free.

a 'found text' poem in hindi

Wanting to try my hand at writing a poem in Hindi, my mother tongue. Again something for which TAM gave me the opportunity. This poem was written using the words of an interview. There were a set of questions and we interviewed each other and wrote down the other person's answers. Then we chose interesting words from these answers and created a poem out of it. My found text poem in hindi is about found text itself. This one is purely for laughs and is not meant to be taken seriously! :-)

‘Found text” poem in hindi written by using words from interview answers




Yeh kavita doosron ke likhe shabdon

Ko apna banati hai, punah parakh kar

Naye raaston se jaanti hai, aur unke

Zyaada karib aa jati hai.

Yeh puranay shabd kuchh naye kapde, kuchh

Naye arth pehen lete hain, jaise

Ek girgit apna rang badalti hai.

Jakde hue shabdon ko khula

Chhod deti hai aur ve shabd

Chand tak udaan bhar lete hain.

Shabdon ko sunkar rang

Dikhayi dene lagte hain, aur naye ghar,

Ek naya sheher bunate hain.

translating Neeraj's hindi poem into english

This is purely informal and just for fun! Trying out my hand at translating from hindi to english, for the first time! again, something I have long wanted to learn how to do. TAM just gave me the opportunity to experiment. :-)



Translation of ‘Jab teri yaad aayi’ by Gopaldas Saxena Neeraj, from Phir Deep Jalega, pg 140


The original hindi poem follows after my translation



When I remembered you



I wrote a song for your tresses, for your fierce glances,

and the ghazal composed itself, when I remembered you.



Sleep fled my eyes at night

Flew away like a scent

When the wind kissed

The henna on your hands

It rained from every direction- when I remembered you.



Like a yogi chanting prayers

I began to sing with every breath

A face coming and going

In front of my eyes

Home became a palace- when I remembered you.



When I uttered your name

Diyas lit up my heart

When I found you near me

The blackest of days turned fair

My world changed- when I remembered you.





Jab teri yaad aayi



Zulf par geet likha, sher nazaron pai kaha

Ban gayi khud hi ghazal- jab teri yaad aayi



Khushboo ban banke uri

Neend raaton ki meri

Jab hava choom gayi

Mehendi haathon ki teri

Barse har simta keval- jab teri yaad aayi



Ek jogin ki tarah

Saans har gaane lagi

Shakl nazaron mein koi

Aane aur jaane lagi

Ghar bana rajmahal- jab teri yaad aayi



Naam jab tera liya

Jal uthey dil mein diye

Paas jab paya tujhe

Kale din gorey hue

Gayi duniya hi badal – jab teri yaad aayi

Visual for a Spanish poem on artichokes

This was a visual made during the TAM workshops. There was a Spanish poem on artichokes. We heard an English translation of it once. and then we had to make our own varied adaptations, translations, transcreations of the poem in whichever manner we wanted to. I decided to take this as an opportunity to experiment with the visual medium, something I've always wanted to do, but never had the courage, really. This is a visual translation of the Spanish poem. ideally, it should have included a gun too, something I conveniently chose to do without. :-)

TAM poetry workshops, and Happy 4th Birthday, blog!

From October 2011 to April 2012, I was fortunate enough to be part of a series of Text-as-Material poetry workshops organised by the poet, Vivek Narayanan at CSDS, Sarai. These workshops have truly done what they set out to do, that is, taught me to see texts, all kind of texts, as materials for more work. We experimented a lot with "found text". Found text is text taken from anywhere, newspaper reports, interviews, other people's emails, advertisements, finding words from there which, as Vivek says, "do something to you", and seeing how these words written by another can actually be used by you to express something that you might have otherwise found hard to express. Again, as Vivek says, in poetry, discipline can lead to more freedom. For example, writing in form with a specific rhyme scheme and metre can at times help a lot of things emerge which otherwise perhaps may not have. Similarly, found text, as another way of disciplining that helps one find freedom. :-)

Over the course of these workshops, I have begun to see the inter-relationship of all art, of a photograph, a painting, a poem, an advertisement, an email... a poem can emerge out of just about anything. I can translate/adapt a poem into a pictorial visual representation. Experimenting with art work, hindi poetry, translation, in the immensely freeing, creative, and non-judgemental space of the sarai basement was a beautiful experience. and plus, I got to know the loveliest of interesting people, thanks to these workshops, oh so many of them! :-) Looking forward now to the chapbook publication we hope to have in a month or so, although formally TAM is at an end...

And yes, Happy Fourth Birthday, beloved blog! :-) You have survived through many stages of my writing, and I hope you will live to see many more. Amen!

CaPoWriMo 2012

Hello folks!

I am doing the Caferati Poetry Writing Month CaPoWriMo this April for the third time running. to see the Caferati cues for each day, you can visit http://www.caferati.blogspot.com/
To see my April CaPoWriMo 2012 poems, you can add me as a friend on facebook and read my notes there. If you're not on facebook and you still want to read them, of course you can always email me at shrutanne@gmail.com and ask me for them. :-)

Sorry blog, but this is the way it's going to be, it seems!

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! :-)

Four poems in Muse India (Jan-Feb 2012 issue)

Four poems out in the Jan-Feb 2012 issue of Muse India. The annual issue edited by Prof GJV Prasad. The poems are 'Making Love', 'Red: a sonnet', 'Nasturtiums', and 'Lost in your House'. The poems are elsewhere on this blog. 'Nasturtiums isn't, so I am putting it here.
Do check out the Muse India issue at Four poems out in the Jan-Feb 2012 issue of Muse India. The annual issue edited by Prof GJV Prasad. The poems are 'Making Love', 'Red: a sonnet', 'Nasturtiums', and 'Lost in your House'. The poems are elsewhere on this blog. 'Nasturtiums isn't, so I am putting it here. Do check out the Muse India issue at http://www.museindia.com/featurecontent.asp?issid=41&id=3082 It has, among others, Priti Aisola, Uddipana Goswami, Temsula Ao, and Tabish Khair. :-)



Nasturtiums

The curves of your leaves
ache
for ripples of water to reflect them
... They contemplate escape from pots
They dream of the memory of the pool
they must have surrounded
when Narcissus looked into its mirror
and fell in love.
They wait eagerly
for the orange laugh of blossoms

Two poems in Reading Hour and some news!

Two poems published in Reading Hour-Jan-Feb issue. I am copy-pasting the two poems below so that you can read them here. :-) 'Home' and 'The Weft and the Warp'. The Weft and the Warp is a sort of love poem, how poetry can connect and unite two people, and Home was written for Civil Lines, Delhi.

Home

There are floating roots and
aerial roots, but I
prefer under-the-ground ones.
Cold winds may blow and tempests
may rage, I may
be hungry and broken
But in Emily Bronte-ish fashion
“Nothing drear can move me
I will not, cannot go”
faith may seem to totter and
angst may seem to win
But, in the words of a childhood
'Chapni' tale
“The world is big, it's fun to roam
But the nicest, nicest place is home”

The Weft and the Warp

Snip. Snip. Click. Swish.
A whisking metallic sound
breaks silence with a tone of finality
scissors cut cleanly through cloth.
Hearts too are torn and ripped
like cloth, mine has frayed edges
jagged threads stick out.
the knit is lost without the purl, the weft
goes in search of the warp.
A new thread can stitch them
into a patchwork compromise
Poetry can sew hearts and
my warped lines
woven with doubt, hope and insecurity
the head bent in prayer
ardently long to find
the weft of yours.


And the news? Just the possibility of being invited by Toto Funds the Arts to bangalore for a poetry reading sometime this year. if that would happen, it would be my very first! and so exciting! :-))

And yes, Happy New Year and all that!

Viewerscope/ Solipsism

Viewerscope / Solipsism

In a flash, I can turn
Darkness into light.
In a zooming jiffy, people
Become larger than life.
All I do is change the metaphor,
Really. I mix a tinge of black
With the red to make it maroon.
I can make a big tree and
A small boy. Or vice-versa. I can make
Moons fly, I can make men stand
On their heads, I can overturn
Buildings. Perhaps empires too.
I can turn that frown
Into a smile. Just a concave
And a convex difference, really.
I can make things blurry, I can
Make ‘em clear, I can make
The merry go round go faster
And faster. I just need
To change the lens, really.

Metempsychosis: a poem for Virginia Woolf

Metempsychosis: a poem for Virginia Woolf

Me-tem-psy-cho-sis
Said Joyce, is transmigration
Of souls.
If a soul from any earthly body
Flew into me, it was your own.
Perhaps it was made of fire and dew
In a rainbow. I have a spirit
Fashioned of your spirit.
You unearthed dormant rage in me
And let it live. You made me see
Myself in a mirror, fashioned out of
The clear depths of a river.
You helped me accept
This image in the river, you led
Me by the hand, whispering softly
Oh, ever so softly!, you lifted me
To ecstasy, you made me plunge
Into deep pain, you played
Havoc with my soul. I am a half-full
Cup of grief
And you make me whole to the brim
As you lead me
To ever-widening
Moments of being.

Parrot Parody

Parrot Parody

You hear them chattering
in the hidden green, long before
the red of its curved mithu-parrot beak
comes into view.
Leaf green, parrot green
Bright emerald green.
Tai-tai-tai-chai-chai-to-ta-to-ta
Preening, pirouetting
Prancing, dancing, proudly pecking
Strutting they seem to parody
A bunch of noisy women.
I fly with them to my favourite places
To you, and you, ..... and you.

Diwali- a Holy Night

Diwali --a Holy Night



















This amavasya night
This glow of candles
This lit-up darkness
Makes me believe.
Tracing your name
In smoke-trails with the phuljhadi
Makes me believe.
Green-yellow lights wind snakily in the lawn
Up-vine-down-trellis, strangely eerie
The burning flame in me grows stronger
Creating magic with quicksilver heat
the flame of my belief in you.
This is the flame which lights me regardless
All doubts scatter in surrounding darkness
Rangoli patterns my fingers etch draw life
From this flame which makes
This smoke-strewn, flame-strewn
Night holy.
I am the blue of the flame
Beyond touch, beyond reach.

Horizons

Horizons

Vermillion sun
In purple sky
Dips down dusk, as pink
becomes ink. A pale moon
Faintly shivering hovers.
Lowroofshighroofsbuildings
Acrid smoke mixes with winter fog
Scraggly paint peeling off bare walls
Dotted lights in twinkling windows.

---- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --- -- -- -- -- ---- ---

There is life beyond the horizon, my friend.

Self-Preservation

Self-Preservation

I seek you within the pages of this book
I seek you through your words, I seek you
Through mine. I seek you within
An anonymous crowd. I seek
To resurrect you through memory
In flesh and blood. I type your name
In the facebook search bar, in vain.
And then I seek to believe in you
Through memory fantasy words silence
Dead, self preserving habit
Has made me say itsokayitsokayits
Okayitsokayitsokay for too long.
Because I know I must say
Itsokaytohurtallover
I know I can’t fuckyouoff
I can’t discard you like a useless
Scrap of waste-paper.
Dead, self preserving habit
Has taught me to smile.

Snails

Snails

It is a snail
Withdrawing the tip of its head
Into this stony shell.
Poking its nose out, blink-ing
its eyes, removing itchy sand
Moving inside this hard resilient cover
For protection against barbs
It plods through life, secure
In this shell, fashioned by words
And sometimes by empty silence.
But you never knew. You took it
For a piece of gravel
And trod on it.

Babble

Babble

I speak incessantly.
I talk. I repeat myself.
I repeat, I repeat myself
Over and over again
I overdo it. I overspeak.
I speak to myself.
I am so afraid of the depths
Of silence.
But when I come to you
When I come to the depths of me
I gaze blankly at the wall.
I am in the other world now,
Gazing, my eyes moist and glistening
In trying to find you within myself
I have reached the depths
Of a silence
That is almost Joycean.

What Ifs

What ifs

What if I fall on the highway, crushed
under a car superspeedrushed?
What if, some random day
I take a bus to nowhere , and run away?
What if I apparate in Ithaca Lesbos,
Houyhnhnms Hogsmeade Ozma’s Oz?
What if horses were green, and elephants blue
And all of us lived imprisoned in a zoo?
Squibs giants dragons house elves all
Lived amicably in one big hall?
What if I could become YOU
Or look into your mind if I wanted to?
What if Hitler’s mother was a Jew
What if I had never met YOU?
What if I went into delirium
Did crazee stuff with fraught e-qui-librium?
What if poems were written dia
Gon
alley
and life lived synchronically?
And what if a poem stubbornly resisted
To fit and sit, no matter how you persisted?

Making Love

Making Love

I want to make love.

I want to make love
To the glittering, frosty edged moon
That cuts through the cold,nipping air
Like a curved sickle.

I want to make love to the full moon
I want to worship this purnima, I want to gaze
Longingly at this white misty dream forever
As it plays hide and seek with the clouds.

I want to make love to this lone tree at night
when its bare branches make love to the moon
I want to hug this tree, and rub my cheek
Against its grizzly trunk.

I want to make love to the whispered secrets of the forest
Aflame with pink, yellow, and orange
I want to make love to the firy red leaves
Of the fall, the hidden violets,the thickest green verdure

I want to lose myself in this green and make love
To the rhythmic beats of the barbet
To the golden notes of the koel, the red of the bulbul
To the magpie, the hoopoe, the jays and the squirrels.

I want to make love to them. I want to make
Love to this river, it speaks to me in meanders
Reflects my dreams and the leaves of the trees
The waves frolicking, carrying me, playing with me

And I want to make love to you
I want to worship you, I want to hug you
I want to touch your hair. Softly.
Making love to the trees and the moon,
The birds and the river was after all only
A way of making love to you.


I also want to cry.

Crow- Cawnversations

Crow-Cawnversations

A flutter of wings
a whirling blur of black
four pointed beaks
between two stringy wires overhead.
The crass cawing of this crowy crew
Screeching themselves hoarse
fills the air with raucous shrieks.
One inquisitive pair of eyes
With spread-eagled fan-like wings
Swoops down low to my ear and cries to me.
In every black blurry flight
From one stringy wire to another
He swoops down low and crows to me
Is he angry, do I intrude? Is he
crowriously curious? Or,
does he croon and make love to me?

Shapeshifty

Shapeshifty

A dragon
With a huge hump,
perhaps pregnant
And a short tail
Dissolves itself
In the sky.
Its camel head
Reared up, stretches
Into blue-white nothingness
As clouds de-form and re-form.
The whispering leaves
Of the white eucalyptus
Are fragile shadows, spying
Eavesdropping on clouds
as winged dreams
become the sky, dissolving
evolving wild horses
on a shapeshifty terrain.


---> the title of the poem 'Shapeshifty' is not a proper lexical word but has been taken from a poem titled 'Shapeshifty:a poem for Meret Oppenheim' by Nitoo Das.

Sad Ootin

Sad Ootin


Ootin is an elf
With a Piglet face
Pixie ears, needle
Eyes and nose.
A flick of my wand
And Ootin appears
Bowing low to the ground
From his waist. Thy wish,
He says, is my command.
Ootin has a fractured soul
A split face, and creaky arms
That need oiling. He also has
A cracked tongue.
Ootin slaves hard night
And day, catering to my whims
He cleans, cooks, washes, sweeps
And sometimes, he brings stolen
Honey from bees, or nectar
From butterflies. Ootin
Does my shopping
So I stay home. He also
Does my work.
I need to keep Ootin busy,
Very busy. Ootin, you see
Is under a curse
When he finishes work
He does mischief, he sticks things.
Yes, he sticks doors and windows
So I can’t open them. He sticks holes
In clothes, so I can’t wear them.
He sticks pots and pans,makes
A mountain of them. He once stuck
A child’s mouth, so it wouldn’t open.
For this, he is punished, yes
of course he is punished.
He is burnt in the fireplace
And beaten with a stick.
Poor Ootin. Sad Ootin.
His is a sad life. Ootin,you see,
Can stick things, but he cannot
Stick his fractured soul, his cracked
Tongue, or his creaking arms.
Otherwise
He could have been free.

Six Poems Up In Muse India Sept-Oct 2011

Six Poems published in the new September-October 2011 issue of Muse India. The issue this time is around the theme of Literature of Young Adults. The six poems that have been published are:

The six poems are -- "The Midnight Black" ( it is about kajal/kohl)
"Anyways" (the over-usage of this word which isn't even a word, really)
"Dear Old Eighteen" (a letter to my past eighteen year old self)
Flee Fly Floo (an attempt at nonsense verse and amphigory)
The Ladies' Car (about the new ladies car in the Delhi metro)
and, "Requiem for a Dream" (which shows the big impact teachers have on students but which, i think, they little realise).

You can read them here. http://museindia.com/featurecontent.asp?issid=39&id=2837
You can also read a lot of other people's work there, so I hope you check it out! :-)

Graveyard Ghosts, or, I Flee From Them

I buried these traumatic fears
and this pinching hurt
I buried them alive
I dug them a grave, I made
them a coffin, I disowned them
And I left them to die.

But my disobedient passions
burst out of the grave as ghosts
They pursue me and stalk me
and sometimes, they find me
Like the accursed Eumenides
Desperate to live, I flee.

Immunity

The holes in my eyes

Were burnt into them

As yours bored into mine

Piercing the insides of my head

With the swift sharpness of arrows

Examining my soul.

Barbs from your mouth scalded me

Cut me into meat-pieces.

I thought I needed to develop immunity

From you.

Night, and night follows day

I operate like clockwork,

Sleepwalking, gliding, dragging my steps

Searching for your face unconsciously

In likely and unlikely places, I know

I need immunity now, not from you,

But the absence of you.

View Counterview

Head Hanging backwards
over monkey bars at age eight
Feet at the top, the world
turned topsy turvy.

Head hanging backwards
over the boat, the river became
My sky, and surreal reflections
My world.

A sidelong glance at your face and
My heart leaps up and I behold
Worsworthian rainbows
in the sky.

I thirstily search among crowds
The next face could be yours, after all
And will o'the wisp memories become
my shadowy companions.

In Sandy Shores

Blown by every wind that flows

Hither-thither, I am a reed

In sandy shores.

where does the wind

Come from, where does it go?

Toppling ,uprooting me

Winding its way into large pores

Of the sandy soil in which I grow

At the water’s edge.

I must recede within the interior

I must find the clay of the mainland

I must abandon this life of rootless edges

And growing on risky precipices.

They told me clayey soil has smaller pores

Where windy-watery intruders may not nose

Where warm and secure rootholds oppose

Every windy-watery stream that blows

And every firmly rooted reed thrives and grows.

Cocooned

You lie enclosed in your cocoon
And I sleep oblivious in mine.
Neighbours,
We live as strangers.
Only the whispering wind brushes
Us together, and we touch, at times.
Stray insects that crawl over you
Crawl over me too.
When the cocoons burst, will we
Recognise, will we realise
That we are sisters born
Of the same butterfly?

Broken Things

Broken things

Are broken.

Yes, you may cradle them

Cry over them, try

To mend them, sew them, patch them,

Use feviquick glue on them, break

Unbreak your heart , say

That time will heal them.

But broken things

Are broken.

Yes, they can be mended

Broken things perhaps

Can even be made whole again

But even broken things made whole

Can never me made the same again.

Sorrow runs deep through cracks and crevices

Refuses to go away again

Do not try, do not desire

For broken things exude flyawayspirits

Which visit you, haunt you, talk to you

But can never be brought home again.

Punctuation Marks

Punctuation Marks

You fill the empty pauses, you are
A comma. You are the parentheses
Of daydreams (this comes in useful
In classrooms, trains and market places)
You hover like quotation marks
Around every word I say,
The backdrop of this play.
My life is a story, it has coils of words
With events, characters, colours
An intricate plot and an open end.
This rapid river sometimes
Has lighter tones, which turn shady
And cloudy in places. But it has
No pauses, it is unpunctuated.
you are the colon
The semi colon which gives meaning
The genotext of this phenotext.
You are the accent, you mould
My pronounciation. Dot my I’s and
Cross my t’s, You are
The language of my imagination.
The story would still be a story
Without the punctuations, but it would
Be endlessly garbled speech
You, even in absentia, are just the full stop
I come home to. Period.

Six Poems Published in Kritya

Six Poems are up in Kritya- an online worldwide journal of poetry based in Kerala. The poems are 'Asomiya', 'Irom Sarmila- a ghazal', ' a photo-poem for Nabina Das' Mer-City picture', 'On Poetry and Photography' , 'a poem in response to J M Coetzee's Disgrace' and, 'Choices'. You can see them here-- http://www.kritya.in/0702/En/poetry_at_our_time.html

They are elsewhere on this blog, of course, but I am not posting them again, as six poems take up a lot of space. Scroll down, or use the search button, or better still, just use the link! :-)

I realised some of the links in Blood Prints in Web-Worlds don't work because the url's had changed, so anyways, now they work! All the links are "clickable"!

Two poems are up on the Ultra Violet website

Two poems "Being Belindas" and "Almost Rape" are published on the website Ultra Violet-- a site for Indian Feminists. You can read them here-- www.ultraviolet.in
I am also pasting them below, although they are elsewhere on this blog as well.

Being Belindas
(a response to Pope’s Rape of the Lock)

The mirror hangs before me
My long face stares back at me
a pointed chin
whose rounding I dread
A tiny forehead
gleaned from the thick mass
of black hair surrounding it.
At the black hair
now streaked with red
I oscillate between
fascination and nostalgia
The hair, mostly helter-skelter
sometimes, precise in a bun
A glazed eyeball
with its bit of plastic-glass lens
A newly pierced nose–a shade too large
showing off that li’l bit of green
My ears trying to seek attention
with their multiple studs and rings
which I regard as pets
And a moody mouth.
but on the whole, a faceI can live with.
My skin the colour
of burnt caramel
a thin, supple body
I am unashamedly
in love with.

Bottles and vials lined
in an array on the slab beside me
the daily ritual
of cleansing, toning, conditioning
the creams and the perfumes
the chief kohl that lines my eyes
the earrings in their silver box
the cupboard with its
greater assortment of clothes
than i could ever wear
the occupational hazards
of being a young girl.

Oh Pope, and other misogynists!
We love being Belindas
and Belindas we shall remain
with our bottles and our vials
our bibles and our billet doux
and we rebel against rapes
of our locks and otherwise.
our bodies and their vagaries
and tricks we play with them
are ours.
And not playthings or objects
for your phallus
or that inglorious phallic symbol
your pen.


Almost Rape

“bhaiya, is this the rajiv chowk metro?”
“yes, take the next metro that comes”
“ok, thank you”
“do you live here?”
“No, I just came to visit someone”
“I work here, in the metro”
“ok”
“in the metro bathroom, come with me, I’ll show you the bathroom”
“I can’t! The metro comes in 2mins now”
“so what? It will come again soon. Let me show you the bathroom”
“I can’t! I have a very long journey ahead. I can’t possibly waste time and go with you.”
“Madam, the metro is very quick and fast, your journey will not be long. Come with me to the bathroom, please come with me to the bathroom……”

"Split-Selves" published in Reading Hour

"Split-Selves" has been published in the May-June issue of the Reading Hour magazine... :-)
It is elsewhere on this blog, of course, but I am still re-posting it here: (and happy 3rd birthday all over again, beloved blog)

Split-Selves
I was born whole, yes,
but the Fates that decreed me a gemini
split me into two
The quiet, serious me and...
the wicked rebel.
Freud further split me into three
the yearning in me, the stoical
reason in me, and the balancing act
of yearning and reason in me.
I inherited my mother's hair
my father's eyes, my mother's mouth
and nobody's nose. I mean, Nobody knows.
And anybody's height. and whobody's brain?
But my grandma's memory, that's for sure.
This body of mine that now lives in delhi
is part gujju-part tamil, half punjabi and
used to live in Benares. But even that
is history. Places proliferate
and multiply.Yes, I believe in post-modernism
yes, I believe in pluralities, and liminalities
of Identities.
But sometimes, I yearn
to carve an imaginary
unified Identity

Happy 3rd Birthday,Beloved Blog!! and a poem :-)

Happy happy 3rd birthday, dearest, beloved blog!! You have become an integral part of my existence which I cannot imagine myself without, over the course of the past 3 years. I have started considering myself an experienced blogger :p, and I have thoroughly enjoyed poetrying and blogging more and more. Ummm... yes, so exactly 3 years today, and here's this poem I just wrote. And no, the poem has absolutely no connection with the blog completing 3 years.

Evidently Not Enough

A few dozen poems
and tear filled buckets
Those night vigils
and those greened-down screams
were evidently not enough.
Not enough to corrode
the heartstrings which tie me
to the presence of your absence
Living with this presence, carrying
this absence, trying to become
like you, I wait, groping to pass
the test which would be called
Enough.

CaPoWriMo-- April 2011

CaPoWriMo April 2011 Confessions!!

Yay!! I did the Caferati Poetry Writing Month for the second year running!! :-)
okay, so last time was the first time, I had a lot to say about my experiences and I remember I did in just such a post. This time I knew that what it's like to have given themes, play around with them and write voraciously. I'm glad I got the chance to explore certain new kinds of poems like the photo-poem and the nonsense one. I'm very glad of CaPoWriMo because unless you begin to write, you don't realise you can make such interesting poems out of out-of-the-way, seemingly banal topics. Last year I was free. this year, balancing it with work wasn't easy. In the middle, I decided to give it up, and did. then I got a fresh burst of motivation and wrote, wrote wrote voraciously, even at the cost of my studies! It also helps me see at a glance the progress I might have made over the period of a year. taking stock, so to say. Well, so it's done. 27 poems, not 30, I will confess. Last year I wrote 25. come on, some topics are either un-writeable, or you've written enough on them before or well, whatever. or you run out of steam after writing 25-27 poems on consecutive days!!
Thank you, CaPoWriMo, my writing times were usually right-after-breakfast, and right-after-dinner, now it feels sooo wierd to have no poem to write at such times, I don't know what to do with myself!!

Day 1-- The Pensieve, day 2-- the Midnight Black

(using unusual words )

The Pensieve

Strands of thoughts swirl madly
with unbridled energy. Stray-
fore and after-thoughts gush
in random confusion. Melancholy
and hope conjoin in the mind's
magical potion. They overspill.
Dumbledore's Pensieve cannot contain them and
They escape into air as effervescence


( something you wear everyday or a trinket you use)

The Midnight Black

Arabian eyes. Oriental eyes.
Wicked, mesmerising, soulful
eyes, Witch eyes, big-fish-eyes
Laughing, black buttons of
eyes. Kohled eyes. Kajra eyes.
Heavy sooty beauty eyes.
Clothed eyes. And a playful
pencilled-kajalled
twirly-swirly moustache

Day 3-villanelle

(pattern of rhyme scheme and line repetition. In "a" and "b", the rhyme is repeated. In A1 and A2, the entire line is repeated. A1 b A2, a b A1, a b A2, a b A1, a b A2, a b A1 A2.)

Why did you go?
I am sick with fear
I want you to know.

It cannot be so
Eyes fill with bitter tears
Why did you go?

How do I express my woe
It is not a trifle mere
I want you to know.

In vain I cry hello hello
I cannot find you, far or near
Why did you go?

My heart aches with sorrow
Without you, my world is drear
I want you to know.

You will not answer, No?
I wish you would hear
Why did you go?
I want you to know.

Day 4- a photo poem for Nabina Das' sketch 'Mer-city'

written for Nabina Das' sketch "Mer-city"


I am a riverine nymph
with long black woman hair
and a forked-fishy tail
But my fishy tail won't swish.

Long ago, I was an earthly woman
my wild roving heart and spirit river-
-dreamt, river-walked
But now, my fishy tail won't swish

I river-talked, river-loved
and thought I could become the river
my dreams swam, my thoughts glided
But my fishy tail won't swish.

One full moon night, I climbed
out the window, downhill to the river
My heart laughing and singing with merfolk
But my fishy tail won't swish.

I puffed, I dragged, I sprouted
a tail of brick, it held me back
I could not reach the water
And my fishy tail won't swish.

Restless as a Byronic wanderer
between the river and the chains
On the yellow sands of the nodi Luit
But my fishy tail won't swish

Day 7- Sport with Sport , Day 6-- haiku

(a poem on sport)
I could sport a new look
hippie clothes, a trendy bag
I could be sportive and sport
a beard, or a moustache
a sarong, a kimono, a feather in my cap
ridicule me, make sport of me
I would be sporting and take it in play
I could ride hobby horses and rocking horses
But from a sportsfield I'd run away!


Haiku (syllables-- 5-7-5)

wicked poppy seeds
scarlet waxy jealous anger
opiate cocoons

Day 9- A Red Sonnet ;-)

Sonnet-- Red

In a riot of colour, the lawn is ablaze
The red silk cotton tree seen half a mile away
Hanging brooms of bottle brush scarlet sway
The waxy crimson poppy petals glaze

My aching-breaking heart bleeds passion red
My angry jealousy burns all flame and fire
My impish wickedness jumps, plays, never tires
And I mourn the loss of something dead.

Red is the knowingness of menstruation
Jane's rebellious rage in the Red Room
Anne Shirley's red haired temper when it fumes
Little Red Riding Hood's cruel deception

Red is intensity of a passionate kind
That which I lost and yearn to find.

Day 10-- on Poetry and Photography

(a poem for a gadget. the camera is implied, not visibly present in my poem)
I need a decent title for this one!! For now, randomness on poetry and photography!! :-)

The play of light and shadow
hides fault lines
and seeks to delude
Focussing and zooming
craftily make the backdrop
pale away. the angle and
the perspective are tricks
artificers use to lure the senses
Cuckoo's eggs in crows' nests
Art designs illusions, conjures
to deceive, magics
wizards the banal to look romantic
Photography is an art, poetry too
They do it exceptionally well
A photo is a poem which rhymes
metres, line breaks truth into lies
A poem which seduces the most apathetic reader
willing suspension of disbelief
into accepting secrets of my heart
which you threw into the bin yesterday.

Day 11-- Asomiya

(a poem about a language you cannot speak, read or write but have an associaton with)

Asomiya

You are the allure of a bihu geet
the mystery of matsyagandha
you are turmeric, you are plantain plant
and I a pure virgin girl
you are the secret in the folds of this mekhala
the mad fervour of the bordoisila
you are in my ahom stole, in my ahom bag
but I can reach you only in translation
you are poetry, bihu dance and melody
hiding in the clining mist
you hug the Luit river in your fold
you kiss me, caress me fleetingly
I feel you, love you, wonder you
But I do not know you.

Day 12-- For Nadia :-)

a poem about a distant relative you don't know too well

For Nadia

An aunt in the U.K.
who is a twin and who visits
every five years, was an exotic
mystery to my child eyes.
An aunt so un-auntish
so much an elder sister
a friendly cousin, only ten years
older than me. Poof, what's a decade!
An aunt who initiated me into card games and
the beloved Anne of Green Gables
Small and slight with short trimmed hair
her distinctly accented "shrew-tea"
sharply cuts across time
leaving indelible imprints in my memory
An aunt I want to carry back home with me
An aunt so cool to marry at thirty five
An aunt with an aura
which the passing of timeless years
could never fade.

Day 13-- Purple Acrostic, Day 12-- Irom Sarmila Ghazal

Irom Sarmila-- a ghazal

Do eleven years go in vain, Irom Sarmila?
As she lies in worse than pain, Irom Sarmila.

People are killing and dying in Manipur
Are those deaf ears in power insane, Irom sarmila?

They put her in jail and her demand on the shelf
She from food and drink for us abstains, Irom Sarmila

How long can we sit in apathetic silence
Let's join her, protest, complain, Irom Sarmila

She has unflailing courage that does not give up
Shruti wants to learn your refrain, Irom sarmila.



Acrostic

Poignant poetry of a twilit sky
Unearthly symphony
Rivers and seas and storm tossed waves
Pregnant as hope, passionate as dream
Love and love's longing and Shug-Celie
Eggplants, big elephants ears, eerie.

Day 14-- Anyways

write a poem about an overused word.

Anyways

Anyways. This poem
is about Anyways.
Anyways is such a cliche
Let's write a poem about Anyways
anyways.
Anyways to drop the subject
and anyways to change the topic
of Anyways.
Anyways is my boredom
Anyways is incomprehension
Anyways is anticipation
of rejection. Anyways.
Anyways expresses everything
without needing expression.
Anyways is not a lexical word anyways.
But who cares? Anyways is "our" word
anyway.
Anyways so I decided to write a poem
about the delightfulness of Anyways. Anyways.

Day 16-- Women Help Desk, Day 15-- Scarred

a poem about a scar or a person with a scar

Scarred

The beauty spot of the angel
the kiss of the sun
Voldemort's Dark mark
it brands you, stamps you
good and evil vie for you
it makes you so uniquely you
yes, you you you!
You marked and scarred you
Blyton and Rowling hold you in deep suspicion
And mothers tell you thet the fairies love you.


a poem about something written on a billboard. well, it wasn't a billboard but it was a board all right. :p
Women Help Desk

'Women Help Desk' says the board
brightly painted in red, blue and white
staring boldly at the back entrance.
A large desk in a tiny cabin
to help women.
All day the women come and go
The desk always ready to help them
Always there to help them
But recently I found
the big desk in a small cabin
and a woman.

Day 18 ~River~

write a poem about the first face that comes into your head.

~River~ :-)

Frizzy ribbons
stream down like unruly black Rivers
A face revealed
A face concealed
The forehead cries Asomiya
and the lips take up the refrain
Kohled eyes that murder me
Kohled eyes that consecrate me
Straight-set lips that smile poetry
when they look at you
The erotic ring of silver in the nose
Pottered masks make faces in the ears
A long face, a dusky face
with the layered depths of a forest floor
with creased lines that hide
secrets which I yearn to know.

Day 19-- Dear Old Eighteen

a poem as an apology letter to your 18-year old self

Dear Old Eighteen

Dear old eighteen
your naivety could not read
other people's minds
your trusting innocence believed
too much too quickly
your meekness could nor refuse
imposing demands and pompous exteriors
your receding backstage modesty
held you back from centrestage
you were ignorant
to the blunt point of dumbness
Uninitiated into this world
You were a stranger from foreign lands
perhaps you stepped off a rainbow.
But your heart was true, dear old eighteen
I will say so much for you
Courage enough to play the fool
and laugh at it afterwards
Idealistic and stubborn, you wanted
to keep the cake and eat it too
Youw ere the seed half a dozen years ago
that gave birth to me, to the last quarter
of my twenty four
Learning, skipping, sliding, falling
Cursing, aching, yearning, mourning
I look at you with amused nostalgia
Thank you for you, dear old eighteen
It ain't that I'm wiser
I've picked up a couple more years
on you baby, that's all.
I am still as true
a little less naive
and a lot more wicked. :-)

Day 21-- Rain, Day 20-- The Ladies' Car

a poem about a mode of commute or transport

The Ladies Car

Running for the pink lines
that mark our sex
A bee line for an empty seat
Putting down stray men who dare encroach
upon this female sanctum.
Shooting invisible glances
at earrings, slippers, foppish hairstyles
Eve, Belinda and Becky
travel in style through vanity fair
We do not like to pull push snatch
We believe ourselves more civilised
than those uncouth men.
The train hurtles down a tunnel of darkness.



poem about an element-- rain, heat, earthquake etc

Rain

Music of the aeolian harp
melody of flute and lyre
It is the sound of heavens laughing
the thunder is the tabla beating
destroying habit
enforced freedom from routine
I tune in with the rhythms of this dance
to be set free

Day 22-- Smell Spells

a poem about a smell-- a person, animal, food or waste

Smell Spells

The polite fragrance of elaichi
is the dining room visitor perfume
the tangy amchur remembers
the green mango before its demise
the heeng invades all your senses
but the laung reveals its sharpness
only to the tongue
the ajwain is strong and yet prim
like a school mistress.
the dries methi seeds tell you the story
of how the sund ried the green fields
the abrupt saunf bids goodbye to the guests
the boring old jeera screams everydayness
and the tej patta is what everyone uses
but secretly hates
In a North Indian kitchen, I drown myself in Malabar

Day 25-- Migrainitis , Day 24-Shefali

6-line poem

Shefali

Spirals strewn in white fragrance
dew laden in the dawn
with orange filaments nestling in grass.
the bounty of a benevolent caopy
if I touch you, I might squah or sqeeze
for your are of the fairies, Parijat!


write about a person with a disability or your own disability.

Migrainitis
Shiva's Tandava Nritya
in the Bhayanak rasa
his left foot right foot alternating
pounding, resounding in my head
the balance shifts for the thirty seventh time
Condemned to burning in hellish fire
For sins of past births and this
In the Benares Shivnagari

Day 26-- For Nandita (Das)

a poem for a celebrity-- actor/dancer/singer-- you have a massive crush on.
For Nandita (Das)
Her dusky beauty puts to shame
cliches of the fair and lovely
Her eyes speak to me, her smile
knows me, and her mouth
blunt yet kind joins in.
Secrets hide in the rustle
of her gorgeous skirts saris
I am closest to her
when she is unreachable
on a film reel
when my eyes ardently follow
her ephemeral figure.
She just refused a role
in your new advert
which was worth a fortune
The world screams actress! social activist!
but she hovers at edges
which defy definition
Passion, elegance
honest intelligence
I yearn to follow her
beyond the silver screen.

a poem about a mythical figure

Aphrodisiac Desires
She comes to women in fleeting visions
loves them, makes much of them, teaches
the secrets of love to them
with her eyes and soft kisses
the enchantress writes a 'how to love' poem
and I stumble to write.
For aphrodite goddess of love
who taught most beautiful Helen
and whom Sappho invoked
Aphrodite high on mount Olympus
cannot hear me.

Day 28-- birthday poem

a birthday poem as a gift to someone you love

You have given me
more than you would care to give
you have given me what
you don't know that you gave
or did I steal?
Even when you hurt me something escapes
you and comes to me
what offering can I give you
more constant than this faith
deeper than these tears, more precious
than this very self
when you gave my self to me...

Day 29-- Panchgani

a poem about a place you have visited as a tourist
Panchgani
The vigour of mountain air
wraps you
Cold breezes frolic and play
with you, strawberry fields
hug you in an embrace
Prim cottages in a row grow
red heart strawberries, pulpy
and jelly-like to my touch
I pluck them, eat them
cannot get my fill of them
basklets and baskets full of them.
Their sweet, sharp juice
seeps in like tangy mountain air.
Later, in out-of-the-world
picturesque, fairyland you
I bask in open terraces
gotging on the delicacy
of fresh strawberry and cream.

Day 30-- Flee Fly Floo

a free poem. about freedom. 20 lines. I decided to try my hand at amphigory nonsense :D
Flee Fly Floo
Fumungus grothucus wurrwurr
buzz growl wuthering smurthering
Frazzy hishy frooky pooky
wolving snappiting frappish snarging
the humbug grotchety way of the world.
Wuzzbuzz poof! Stomp it, Shuntit!
Damn it, whumpit! Fly floo
wheeze around it, frick it, jonk it
and waddledydoo, escape from it!
Furly in the friggin morn
Let fluty warbles ting-a-ling
chant fleely flawly flee fly floo
birdies chreeping, freezes flowing
Stomp the fumungus, whomp
the wurrwurr, frick and jonk
the wolvish snorging
Wheeze around it, gleely, plyly
easy there now! Hunt and runt
for zing, zwang, and zappyness
Flout the Droner, Free Chielo!

With you, my cup should overflow
its brim with ambrosia
What should I do with all that nectar
it should be sacrilege to spill
Elixir is dangerous for mortals
We should be content with remembrance and hope.

Yet, some day I shall come looking for you
like a lost puppy.

A migratory bird, you flew
down south, a river
you changed your course
a butterfly, you hunted out
blossoming flowers
I search for you in vain
in the barren emptiness of my present.

The Weft and the Warp

Snip. Snip. Click. Swish.
A whisking metallic sound
breaks silence with a tone of finality
a scissors cut cleanly through cloth.
Hearts too are torn and ripped
like cloth, mine has frayed edges
jagged threads stick out.
the knit is lost without the purl, the weft
goes in search of the warp.
A new thread can stitch them
into a reworked compromise
Poetry can sew hearts and
my warped lines
woven with doubt, hope and insecurity
the head bent in prayer
ardently long to find
the weft of yours.

February

Purple perfect profusions
and velvety-violets amidst
the dappled green
Dewdrops glitter like jewelled crystals
The marigolds have stolen
the yellow-gold of the sun, the orange
of the narangis. The red poppies
are crimson to the point of wicked sinfulness.
The pristine purity of the white
with their centres of blue-purple
and green-black offsets the rest.
the purple shehtoot is ready to be plucked
The February rain plays hdie and seek
with february wind and february sun
Now that spring is in the air.

On the street, the beggar counts her meagre coins
the hungry eyes of children follow me
A car speeds up, a dog limps across the road.

Split-Selves

I was born whole, yes,
but the Fates that decreed me a gemini
split me into twin selves, split selves
The quiet, serious me and
the wicked rebel.
Freud further split me into three
the yearning in me, the stoical
reason in me, and the balancing act
of yearning and reason in me.
I inherited my mother's hair
my father's eyes, my mother's mouth
and nobody's nose. I mean, Nobody knows.
And anybody's height. and whobody's brain?
But my grandma's memory, that's for sure.
This body of mine that now lives in delhi
is part gujju-part tamil, half punjabi and
used to live in Benares. But even that
is history. Places proliferate
and multiply.
Yes, I believe in post-modernism
yes, I believe in pluralities, and liminalities
of Identities.
But sometimes, I yearn
to carve an imaginary
unified Identity.

Spirits glide above me, slide
beneath my feet, listen closely
hide in my hair, in my ears
follow at my heels, watching softly.
They try to steal my thoughts.
Are they part of me
or do they belong to you
these ghosts of memory, desire and dreams?
Or do they hang midway
carrying my secrets to you?
Do they mock me, do they
stalk me, or do they guide me
these invisible presences?
They whisper, murmur,haunt
without end, I cannot escape
these voices, you see, are inside of me
Do they know me more
than me, do you know me
like a river's meanders know its boulders?

Doppelganger

I am an illusion
a ghostly apparition
I embody your mind,
your body and your soul
no, I am not you
no, I am not a clone
I am a doppelganger.
What's that, you ask
a pretender, an imitator
a duplicitous masquerader
a fake identity, a passport stealer?
No, I am a doppelganger.
I have holes in my body
and rings in the holes
fishes hang from my ears, a tree owl
nestles in my hair, midnight black
surrounds my eyes.
I have the slantedness of your
awkward smile, the rigidity
of your aloof body, I can
purple you to perfection.
Oh well, not quite to perfection
I told you I am not you
a spirit bound by you
yet not free from me
I walk the liminal edges of you and me
I observe with delicacy, stalk
with sensitivity, try to enter
your spirit imaginatively
and I doppelganger.
They think I can't be real
They think I am a doppelganger
But I am uncannily real
you cannot get rid of me
I am bound unto you.
I delight in doppelgangerism
it's a fascinating entrancing game.
One day, I shall stamp my body
with your indelible blue black mark
Neither here nor there, belonging nowhere
I wander like a restless spirit of longing
and incomplete desire in the air
I walk the liminal edges of you and me.

Requiem for a Dream

"Fasola is a sweet girl", the teacher said,
"and she writes lovely poems".
She flashed her a precious smile
Stars rose in her eyes that night and
gave birth to a dream.

Another day, she avoided Fasola's gaze, returned
a poorly marked paper, praised
the stout girl over there.
A sacred dream died its death and
buried itself in the classroom dust.

One day the dream will learn from Sylvia and Lady Lazarus
and rise again.