I miss Sunrise

As tall as ambition,
towards my left they
have erected a monument to people
living as strangers

The roseate of the dawn
my daily reminder that I'm reborn
as lost as a hiccup, hiccupped.

Now
my first glimpse of the star of day
is a blazing, angry noon-face.
So
I wait an extra hour and 27 minutes
to see the moonrise these days.

The Maker?

Your identity, like this leaf
floats in front of you
in your hand
within your control
does it, like this leaf,
come from a seed, a tree,
a season and a gale which
brought it to you?
Its in your hand but
you look like the keeper,
not the maker.

Self reflective piece

Writings is an escape to another world. It helps us express our thoughts and feelings. We can also create our own imaginary world through our writings. 

    Though literature was not my major, I often read poems and used to admire how Poets use to describe vast things, precisely and can give shape to emotions and thought. With that thoughts in my mind, and willingness to learn and taste the work of art and literature I took up this course as one of my elective paper. From the very first day of my class I was feel with excitement and nervousness as well. I was excited for choosing this course and getting to learn more about Poems . And on the other hand, I was nervous as this was the first time where we share our thoughts and express our feeling about the poem we read. I was also surprise to see how my fellow mates can share their thoughts and express their views and ideas so well.  Taking up this course literally took me up to another new level as I get to learn so many things and getting to learn those various forms of poetry.

      Coming to my poems which I’ve wrote throughout my course, the first one is City Poem, “Hail to the city”. Coming from a countryside with not much experience about the city life helps me open up to see the complete different world. Through this poem I express and give praises, how busy the city was and gives no place for the night or moment of solitude. Also, with its continuous advancement this city offers so much of knowledge, fame, fortune and dreams to pursue for younger generation. And I as one among them who came to this city to pursue my knowledge.

       The Political poem “She continue to pursue” is a kind of relevant to my city poem. In this poem, I express my experience which I’ve come across in this city. How I feel myself insecure though the city offers so much to learn. In this poem I use the line ‘she fails to posses the face of that city” to express my difference and our uniqueness. And how that difference makes her feel alienated from the city. Many a times I got so many comments (Chinky, Chinese) on my looks and differences. In this poem I also want to express my grief and spread awareness for a better change.

       Ghazal poem was very new to me, I came to know it through the course and taking so many examples and research I penned down my simple Ghazal Poems “Hush to Hello”. Recalling back those past experience how a simple “Hello” can mean so much and build such a strong bond between two persons. And how such an immature love can end miserably and brings about regrets for the exchange of “Hello”. 

       "Still loving you" is a love poem expressing the love and recalling those memorable time spend together with her love ones and how she beg for her love to come back. 

     Also, in this course I was also given the opportunity to write my independent poems. In my first independent poem "Nothing holds permanent”, is a simple and short poem where I’ve express my views, how everything can change with the passing of time like the passing of season and that of laughter, sorrows and feelings cease and holds no permanent in this world.

       Another independent poem with the title “Gerbera”. In this poem, it  talks about how I was so much attracted with this beautiful flower. It muses me to penned down a few line about the beauty of this flower. And how this Gerbera can give a pleasing sight in one eyes with its alluring petal.

         The third independent poem “The death bell”. In short, it talks about how often we hate and fear about the death, we will eventually meet death one day or the other and that we have to accept death as we grow older.

        “Sweet Serenade” is one of my fourth independent poem, in this poem I talks about the serenade that I once heard on one early morning that warms my heart and lifted my mood. And it took me the imagery world to write this few lines by making a comparison with endearing love, battlefield and that of seasonal harvest.

        “Mother’s love” was my first ever villanelle poem. It is a poem to express my heartfelt gratitude and appreciation towards my mother. In this poem I make a remark that no loves can compare and measure beyond from our mother’s love. Also how deep, rare and far beyond the price of that rubies. 

         In the Performative poems, “Fading with the time” I express how times runs and fade so fast and how ones life is fading with the passing of time. No matter what we cannot stop the passing of time, as for every seconds counts and those of the smile, tears we own now will vanish someday with the time.

      In response to Nitoo Das everyday life poem, I wrote about “Pen”, expressing about the necessity of a pen. And how a pen played an important role in our daily task. Also, in this poem I also convey the mindfulness and carefulness of using our pen, as once what we penned down cannot be easily erase and disappear. 

        In the second response of Nitto Das poem, I choose to write “How to grind Rice”, as I remember how I as a small girl learned to grind rice from my mother. In this poem, I have relate the history and traditions bonds during our forefather’s days and their ways of grinding rice. And how a girl child must learn to grind rice as rice is one our daily food. I have also mention the process and procedure of grinding rice in this very poem. 

              

Self reflective Essay

It was with a lot of excitement that I took up this course since this was the first time that I was actually going to learn how to write poetry. Up till this point, my poems had developed from trying to get the lines to rhyme, to expressing inner angst and finally to spoken word poetry where the focus is the sound and eye-catchy metaphors above everything else. That was what I tried to do for the first submission, which was a love poem. Even though it had strong and interesting metaphors, it could not stand the scrutiny of the entire class, looking at me to explain why I put in a certain line or a certain word in a certain place. That is when I started to realize that a brilliant image or metaphor cannot sustain an entire poem, there has to be more finesse which has to go into it. It was the first time that I edited a poem and restructured it significantly to get a particular result. I tried to keep the first few poems as short as possible so that I could edit them properly. I also began to put more thought behind my poems since they were not intended for a one time consumption.

As the teacher had put it, “the poem has to be good for the stage but should also work on the page”, and that leads me to the second realization that I could play around with line breaks, punctuations ad spaces to create more meaning. This was something which I had never experimented with much and it was only after I had written a couple of poems that I gained the confidence to try it out myself. The villanelle was the poem where I tried to make extensive use of the punctuation marks and though it might not stand out among the other poems which were brought up during the weekly peer review, it was a personal milestone for me. It was the first time that I found a rhythm and repetition intoxicating since there was not much need for new fancy metaphors than creative and inventive manipulation of the existing lines. Due to health issues and family problems, I had to miss out on a lot of classes, which I deeply regret. One of these was the class where the ghazal was discussed and that was probably the reason why I messed up the rules to be kept in mind while writing one. However, as I realized during writing the villanelle and the second ghazal, poems which have a predetermined repetition need to be edited for much longer to find the perfect combination.

I have also realized over the course of writing these twelve poems that the initial thought in my mind about what the poem has to look like cannot and should not restrict me from changing its course while the writing and the editing is taking place. The ghazal for instance, grew from a thought where I wanted to express an absurd thought about whether the stars we see in the sky aren’t lights in a huge grid, set up by the governments as a ploy to make us believe that there are other worlds out there, the research of which needs to be funded. However, the poem turned out to be quite different, about a person struggling with mental health issues and drug abuse. The initial idea, as fascinating as it seemed to my mind, did not materialize when I began writing and the second idea made more sense but still left something lacking. The next morning I altered the narrative to that of a war veteran with PTSD symptoms. A particular set of words in the second sher still gnawed at me and I changed it after almost writing the second draft. This ever-changing relationship with my poem is something which is quite similar to a relationship with other people. Thus, in a way editing made the poem come alive for me.

If writing and editing forced me choose the words carefully, the class discussions and the background readings forced me to choose the topics on which I wrote very carefully. The poem is not just about expressing what I felt, it was also about leaving the reader with something which they could carry away from the poem. In every discussion, we were asked to pick a line or a set of lines which stayed with us and while writing, it was there at the back of my mind that would the reader actually have something which would stay with them after reading it. The trajectory which I see in my poems, from “The address” to “I am Not” and finally to “Razer way shun”, I can almost see myself trying to get accustomed to my own voice, my own identity.

The response to Nitoo Dass was another interesting exercise, which could have been more interesting had I been able to attend the discussions of her poems. But it was still a delightful experience since I decided to try something which I could never have thought of, had I not come across her. The glossary poem was born out of a curiosity to see whether I can make the glossary into an integral part of the poem, in a way that it does not explain so much so as completes and complements the meaning, as a response to Nitoo’s stance on the use of glossary in poems.

There is a vast number of little things I have gained over this course, and not all of them is about writing good poetry. As once said during the class, the expression itself is not the only thing which needs to be worked upon, in order to become a good poet. The quantum of knowledge has to be constantly increased in order to become a better poet. And I believe that my quantum of knowledge has certainly gone up a few notches along with gaining a few more techniques over this course.

Reflective essay- My journey as a budding poet and as a performer

It’s been four months since I joined this elective and needless to say I experienced the freedom to express my thoughts by carving it through the means of poetry. Even though I had participated in various poetry events, I wasn’t a regular performer and was an amateur. I explored different forms of poetry like ghazals, villanelle, city poetry, political poetry, object poetry, how-to poetry and prose poetry. The journey so far has been a beautiful adventure because of Akhil’s method of interacting and communicating with the students. Through mutual interaction and the use of visuals and sound, I was able to grasp and understand the meaning of the poems. Furthermore, my journey as an aspiring poet and as a learner was difficult too. With forms like Villanelle and ghazal I was unable to construct and craft a sensible poem at first but through mutual interaction and communication with my classmates I was able to understand the form and write a villanelle. As someone who’s trained in Indian classical, Ghazal wasn’t something unfamiliar but the style and form was explored and magnified in this course. I never thought I’d write an English ghazal someday but I believe I crossed those hurdles that prevented my expression. The course helped me express and channel my thoughts and experiences through the medium of poetry. It has been a beautiful journey because of the mutual co-operation by the students and Akhil himself. The space in which I learned the poems turned out to be a space containing a plethora of ideas, emotions and expressions and at the same time I was glad that ideas and expressions weren’t snubbed or mocked. I’ve read war poetry and am familiar with ghazals. However, this course was like the ocean in a drop. Within a span of 4 months I learned new forms of poetry that I had no clue about. These novel forms not only helped me engage with literature and poetry but also understand the background and the space in which it were written. Out of all these poems, by far my favorite is The Art of Losing by Elizabeth Bishop. The manner and style of discussing poems and working on them was very unique as it allowed most of us to engage with the poem with respect to our own experiences. The style of approaching any poem also helped in drawing the meaning and the depth of our experiences that’d further be the core essence of our individual poems. The space became a cathartic and a therapeutic experience for me where I could engage with my thoughts, emotions and connect it to my poems. I was able to draw out the core essence of my poem from my subjective experiences and through this practice I was able to write poems. As an amateur poet I used to ( and even now) write my poems in an unstructured and a fluid manner. I learnt the dynamics of writing poetry such as prosity, syllable count, metre and line breaks that facilitated in structuring my poem.

I enjoyed revisiting some ideas and the poems that I previously read as a student while I was doing my Bachelors in English. The use of visuals- photos, videos- and sounds while teaching a particular form of poem actually enhanced the process of learning the new forms and styles of poetry.

From writing poems to performing them, I have always been skeptical about performing my piece in public but then the opportunity of open mic gave me a platform to express my anxieties, my repressed emotions, my fears, my beautiful memories and my rage all together with the help of my crafted poems. I’m glad I was a part of this course and that I got to learn so much within a short span of time. I’m glad I was able to construct my poems well and work with a collective of creative individuals who respect their fellow poets. But I’m kinda sad also that this journey is ending too soon. However I’m happy that this journey has been a fruitful one in the sense that I met new people, learnt new forms of poetry, explored different ideas in a creative space and expressed my ideas and emotions through poetry. Lastly, I’d like to thank Akhil for encouraging everyone to write poems and being humble to each other. Thank you for this lovely journey. I shall take it forward in my life.

Gerbera

Sweetly bloom for mankind.
Of different colors,
with its alluring petal
Catches every bit of eyes.
Oh that beautiful one.
With its long stem,
Stand firm and tall
Bloom your colors out.
Some likes red, some yellow,
Some pink and some white,
Still you pleases all.
Oh Gerbera, for lovers.
For friendship or comrades.
Gifts of asylum,
Brings blissful moment
To the lonely ones.
Chasing away solitude,
You will every heart.
Nah, never stop blooming.
For lovers and comrades,
They long for thee.

Reflective Essay

During my literature classes in school, poetry use to be the hardest classes. Figuring out what the poet meant used to take seemed much harder than comprehending the key points of a short story or passage. Still continued even in college- the courses on poetry seemed to take up too much effort. Poetry then, for me, was not the cathartic or romantic experience that many of my friends who do write poetry describe it as. Reading poetry was hard enough, I couldn’t even imagine writing some.

After my Bachelor’s in English, I decided to do my Master’s in Literary Arts instead of in English because I wanted to focus on my writing. Since I had always preferred prose over poetry, I only wrote prose. In my last semester of the course, I decided to choose the Crafting Poetry elective to force myself to go out of my comfort zone and engage with this form.

In the early classes, the sheer amount of love my classmates already had for poetry took me by surprise. In a way, it was intimidating and made me question whether I was too cynical or too ‘unromantic’ or something to appreciate poetry. I got scared and started comparing myself to a classmate I had in school who could not understand or appreciate fiction or rather, the entire concept of reading books voluntarily.

The fear of not being considered poetic enough, or that my poems would look like prose on the page made me ensure that I only wrote poems that rhymed. A strict rhyme scheme or stanzas that looked similar were initially very important to me; in a way to overcompensate for this insecurity of mine. That is why, even though it was difficult to come up with words that rhymed, the ghazal and villanelle were exciting challenges for me. In a way, I thought that if my words rhymed, I could somehow call myself a poet.   

Since I had never written poetry before this course, my focus for when I wrote a poem was always my ideas. There are some students who claim that it is the sound of the words, repetition or structure of the poem that enthralls them, for me, it is always the idea and the imagery used to describe them. In a way, I was still stuck in my school literature class, comprehending poetry by unraveling similes and metaphors, using dictionaries to understand the meaning of the words used. I’m not trying to say that in a negative way, this is just the way I like to read poetry. I can appreciate repetitive sounds in a poetry, but consistent revisiting and unraveling of a metaphor in a poem and a strict rhyme scheme (the rhyme scheme can be broken, but only if the break is scheme is reflective of the mood or concept being explored in the poem) are the things that I enjoy the most in a poem.

The day the form of poetry really inspired me was the day when we focused on enjambment. Enjambment was something that couldn’t be used in prose, and I saw the possibilities of how the form itself could lend emphasis on the concept I was trying to explore in the poem. Before that, I think I was focused too much on the concept and simply thought about how I could hammer it into stanzas and lines. This is especially true for the poem Mother Earth to Sita. What the poem intended to say was clear to me from the very beginning; it was the sitting down with dictionaries of synonyms and figuring out the rhyming words that was the majority of the effort.

An interesting exercise I did with enjambment was when I took some dialogues by Lady Gaga and cut them and structured in my poem Dear Stefani Joanne Germanotta. It was interesting to note how cutting her statements into lines of a poem gave a different note or in way, heightened her anguish compared to when she says them herself in the documentary Five foot two. 

After being so taken in by enjambment, I actually started marrying the concepts or intentionally clashing my concepts to the structure I wanted to write them in. For example the poet persona of Blood! Blood! Blood! is supposed to be an obviously masculine voice, a powerful patriarchal one which is chanting it to a mob almost. It is supposed to be stoic, the repetitive structure supposed to reflect the same age old things men say about violence. The words of the poem are however, not supposed to be repetitive age old things one would say to a mob rather, the implicit conditioning everyone receives about blood, especially women. The aggressive voice is supposed to explicitly acknowledge and self reflect on taboos, castesim and how it glorifies violence.   

In The Typewriting Mouse I have tried to invoke the feeling of the nursery rhymes that we used to read in school. Featuring an whimsical anthropomorphic mouse, his story is supposed to be an adventure with a happy ending, but not only does it not go there, the poem tries to hint at plagiarism and question the responsibilities writers ought to take upon themselves.  

This treatment of poetry continues in the poems I submitted as ‘satellite poems’ for my Strategies of Writing memoir. I think I enjoy writing accompanying pieces for my prose much more than ‘stand alone’ poems. Perhaps it is due to the slight confident I feel writing prose (writing anything cripples my confidence anyway).

At the end of this course, I will not venture to call myself a poet, but I will definitely go on writing poetry, mostly to act as a nucleus or a essence for prose pieces.