Self-reflective essay

My roller-coaster affair with words, started when I was about eight or nine years old, and I always favoured prose, because to my young brain, poetry was all about having rhyming words at the end, and that was something I was terrible at. I did develop an interest in reading poetry, thanks to Emily Dickinson, and John Keats, but I did not attempt to write my first poem when I passed out from school (considering those juvenile attempts at ten, with all rhyming words do not count). I mostly wrote to help with my ever-growing anxiety issues, it helped me calm down, penning down a few lines, also helped me breathe when faced with anxiety attacks, so I clung on to it.

When I opted for this class this semester, I had been having a writer's or more aptly, a poet's block, for a significant period of time. I had been able to pen down rants with flourish, but in terms of poetry, it was a dry, dry, spell. I was a little hesitant at the thought of joining a poetry workshop course, because I had always known that my poetry was still something that needed a lot of work, and something I was extremely conscious of. A friend pushed me to opt for the course, convincing me that it could only do me good, so I gave in and took a plunge.

Our first assignment was to write a love poem, and to be honest, I just picked out one I had written some time back, edited it little, and submitted it, but then I went through the other poems some of the other students had posted, and I realised, I might never be as good as any of them, but I definitely needed to put in more of an effort, if I actually wanted anything out of this course. So, with the ghazal, I tried long and hard. It was a form I was not familiar with, to be honest, ghazals in English, seemed like a terrible idea, but then we read Shahid's 'Tonight', and I knew it was something I had to at least attempt. As mentioned before, rhyming and I, aren't on the best of terms, but with the ghazal, it somehow did not pose to be an issue. Whatever Shahid was talking of, the emotions, the struggle, I could largely relate to that, so it was not as gargantuan a task I had expected it to be. The ghazal's form gave me a restraint that I desperately needed. When it came to the villanelle however, I struggled and struggled, and then mostly, gave in, and try to do the best I could. The form frustrated me, and all my peace with rhyme schemes was forgotten, and we were back to waging wars. I was almost in tears, because the restrictive form kept me from saying all that I wanted to, I felt like, it was either my emotions or the form of the poem, it could not be both, not for me. Upon reading my villanelle, my struggles will be clearer.

Coming to what I am most thankful for, which is the political poem, because it made me realise, that poems did not have to be only about abstract emotions, they could be about concrete experiences, not only as the thought behind the poem, but actually in the poem too. That is something that our professor kept reminding us too, that our poems only needed to make sense to us, that they did not need to be explained, constantly reminding us to ground the emotions we were expressing. With the political poem, I expanded not only my subject matter, but also the vocabulary I used in my poems, being assured that words from our native tongues, had a place in our poetry, for they were a part of us, just like the experiences or memories behind the poems. It is something that I have tried to make us of, but of course, as most things, it will take time, and I have to remind myself that it is okay to not use just English words, but I still ending up using words from Urdu and Hindi in a few of my poems, using words like 'azaan', or 'matam' or 'moortis' had never seemed to be an option before. Also, Nitoo Das taught us an important lesson, that we did not need to necessarily use capitalisation or punctuations, which was something I had seen other poets do, but I had not really dabbled with, but I have attempted to do it in my later poems, and I find it quite liberating. There is a certain thrill in beginning a poem with a lowercase letter, using capitalisation only to empasise, similar is the thrill of ending a poem without a period, but I am still too new to this to take it that far.

The one on one review with our professor, reinstated my own fear, that I needed to learn to edit, to learn to let go of lines, to not explain myself, to not be repetitive. Honestly, it's all a little much, but I am taking baby steps towards it, trying to carefully weigh out each word, and refrain from using cliches, but it is something that will take time, but at least, this course, has helped me start the process.

I am really glad my friend pushed me, for otherwise, I would still be writing never ending love lorn poems, with no personal substance, with all lines capitalised, and each line ending with a comma or a period, and not even realising that anything was wrong with it. I am also so thankful for my introduction to Agha Shahid Ali, because that really made me see how different English poetry could be.