Self- Reflective Piece

I’ve always thought of myself as a bathroom singer version of a poet, who writes but never shows her poetry to anyone. You see, I fear being judged. A lot. All the time. But still, having harbored such inhibitions, I joined the ‘Crafting Poems’ class. After talking to my fellow classmates, I found out that the majority of them joined this course with an aim of writing good poetry so that they can grow for the better. I, on the other hand, joined this course for one very simple reason- I love reading poems. I’ve always been more of a reader than a writer. That’s not to say that I don’t like writing or I didn’t write before joining this course. I maintain a journal. Well, every day is not a dear diary moment for me, obviously. I write when I feel things which I don’t feel on other mundane days.

All the poems, I had written in my journal, was for ‘me’ as against the ‘reader’. These poems were rooted in my personal experience and I wrote them for myself. But it was only after joining this course that I realized that you write for others too. After having the in-class discussion with Nitoo Das, it dawned on me that I had been wrong with my prejudices about poetry. Poetry in all its capability creates a beautiful living and breathing larger space which drives home a point. How poetry says much more than just the words strung together is absolutely beyond me.

In the very first class, we talked about our favorite poems, Faiz’s ghazals and Amir Khusro’s Chaap Tilak, and what a nazm and a ghazal essentially are. Giving us the taste of Urdu poetry, Akhil said: “You know, Urdu poetry is always about departure and not about arrival.” I didn’t quite understand what he meant by this until the third week came along where we read English Ghazals. I had no idea that ghazals were written in English language too. It is grand how Agha Shahid Ali introduced a new form of poetry and bridged a gap between two civilizations that he traversed. For him, introducing the form of ghazal in English became a way through which he retained his true identity in a foreign land. I could relate this to Czeslaw Milosz (whom I read in my ‘Modernity and Metropolis’ elective) for whom the aim was to write as if poetry is no longer a ‘foreigner’ in society.

In the ghazal week, Akhil gave us a little introduction about radif, kafiya, matla and makhta. At first, they sounded like the name of desserts, but then later they became the 101 of poetry. The prosody week hit me hard with the technicalities of poetry which I still very much struggle with. Looking back at my naïve self, I wonder how much I had to learn and unlearn. This process is perennial in nature. The first poem that I wrote was like a toddler learning how to walk properly, and it is with a tad bit of confidence and feedback of my lovely classmates, that I can now safely say that the recent poems that I’ve written can at least walk properly, if not run.

Let’s briefly talk about my ever so innocent poems that I have managed to write. The first poem that I wrote for this course is called ‘Remember’. It had lines flowing longer than the river Nile. I had no sense of enjambments and commas. It is really interesting what good punctuation and enjambment can do to your poetry. The workshop by Nitoo Das also stressed on the right uses of those. In that workshop, we also talked about how to play with clichés. Akhil in one of the classes told us that one needs to earn the right to use clichés. I, on the other hand, have a soft spot towards them. To be very honest, the repetitiveness of the clichés give me a sense of comfort while I am writing. This will not come as a surprise to the people who’ve read my poems. That being said, I have exponentially toned down the usage of clichés with every next poem.

After writing two horrible poems, I finally got some understanding of how to write a good poem and I finally wrote a city poem ‘Where do I live?’ which was well appreciated not only by the teacher but by my peers too. Ever since, I have not written a shitty poetry, except maybe one villanelle, which is titled ‘Shitty Poetry’. It’s intended to be a satirical poem. I have played a little with the structure of the villanelle that I have written, taking inspiration from the poem of Elizabeth Bishop titled ‘One Art’.

The most challenging poem that I’ve written in this course is the performative poem called ‘Dear Bully, Screw You, Really’. Having been on the receiving end of bullying in school, it wasn’t easy for me to be vocal about it. From the girl who didn’t use to share her poems with even her friends and family, to performing a poem about my childhood struggle in front of the entire class, I have definitely come a long way.

The major share of the credit goes to Akhil for being not just a professor who nurtured us amateur poets under his wings, but also giving us the right values. I still remember the feedback session I had with him where while analyzing the love poem that I had written, he told me to never chase a person who isn’t emotionally invested in me. Rather asked me to invest those feelings and emotional labor on myself. I hope to transform that energy to better myself so that it can bear the sweetest fruits. (There. Another cliché as a parting gift)