Reflective Essay Thangjam Nelson Singh

I had been interested in poetry, and had written a few myself but i have never considered myself as a poet. I wouldn't say that has necessarily changed after this course, but I have a renewed appreciation for the nuances of writing and reading poetry after taking this course. Reflecting back on this course, it has been quite a learning experience. I particularly liked the insight into poetic forms like the ghazal and the villanelle, which have a certain form and rhyme scheme. I have some experience with keeping count of syllables but I have had a mixed experience with rhyme in poetry. I admire how some poets manage to use it to heighten the expressiveness of their lines without it being obtrusive, but have always personally found it difficult to conform to a sustained rhyme scheme. It used to almost feel tyrannical to me, to indulge in a bit of hyperbole. However, with the exercises in writing a ghazal and a villanelle, I found that rhyming per se is not the main hurdle, especially in today's digitally connected  era, when you can pull up a score of rhyming words for any word on the Internet. I was introduced to the pleasure of choosing certain rhymes, and then crafting lines that would fit both the word and the mood of the poem or line. I cannot attest to how successful my rhymes were for readers, but speaking for myself, I was fairly satisfied with the progress I made in rhyming. I wish I could say the same for my ability to stick to a certain meter, for example iambic pentameter as used in villanelle and blank verse, and not just a syllabic count, but I suspect that that will take more practice than a couple of weeks. Regardless of that, I enjoyed learning about the specific beauty and pleasure afforded by poetry written with a formal structure.

Which is not to say that free verse is completely formless; this course made me aware that in certain ways, writing free verse is as, if not more, strict and demanding. You are ostensibly free to use any type of lineation and enjambment for every new poem you write. However, this very freedom means that you have to work carefully with every poem that you write to ensure that the lineation, punctuation and enjambment are tailored specifically for that poem, keeping in mind certain parameters or factors, such as speed, sound, surprise, sense, syntax and space, which are crucial for giving a poem the feel that it has. Therefore, in a way, you are building a structure from scratch in every new free verse poem that you write, so if you are conscientious about crafting your poetry, then free verse can, and should be, just as rigorous as any rhymed and metered verse form.

This course also helped me to go some way towards analyzing when my poetry was leaning towards the grandiose and abstract, the cliché and the too-general. These definitely have their place in poetry, but if the poem does not have the adequate weight to support such phrases and terms, they can render the poem comparatively bland and generic. The particular and the personal, which need not be always autobiographical, can on the other hand, actually help a poem connect more to readers, I learnt. This was borne out for me most clearly through the works of Nitoo Das that we read and discussed as part of the course.

Das draws a lot on her personal experiences and feelings, and that is communicated through all her poems, even a poem such as Geeta Sings a Thumri, where the speaker is Geeta Dutt, but you can feel Das's fascination and interest in Bollywood and the lives of these larger than life characters coming through. At the same time, even though they have a particularity of detail and description, as for instance when she puts her own spin on Assamese legends such as the jokhini, or when she writes about her experiences in birding, they are not confessional in the mode of autobiography. Not that the confessional is to be abjured in poetry, but I think they were a very good example to those who want to stay away from generalities and abstractions in their poetry but are not completely comfortable letting everyone into their inner lives. I have  struggled myself with the very same issue, of trying to write fresh and new lines that would not be too graphic or personal without being bare statements full of abstractions. Through this course, then, I have found some inkling of how I should proceed. Which is to draw on what I have experienced externally in the world and internally in my mind, to compose lines on even the most abstract and general themes, such as 'love' and 'politics'.

Talking of interiority, one of the most engaging aspects of this course was the classroom sessions where we discussed the work of my classmates. The workshop aspect was actually where I learnt the most I would say. Reading others' poems and then discussing them with the poets themselves was truly eye opening. One can undoubtedly learn many things even from just simply reading poems but having the one who wrote it discuss how they crafted a particular line, created a particular emotional tone or tried to address a specific theme is, in my opinion, one of the best ways in which one can get to know poetry as an art, as a craft. It allowed us to not be mystified by the seemingly arbitrary nature of a poem's line length, word choice and phrasing, which one might have been, as an uninformed reader. We can always hypothesize of course in the absence of the writer, but actually having my classmates explicate these and then respond to our interjections and suggestions helped tremendously in my imbibing this absolutely essential knowledge.

My journey through this course has thus been one where I really started seeing poetry as a practice, as an articulation. I already had an appreciation of poetry through my literature studies background, but this helped me realize what the fundamentals of poetry are. And as I once read somewhere, fundamentals are the building blocks of fun.

brief encounter

you let your hair fall
on my collar bone
your lips print flowers

your skin is salt andsilk crumpled roughlystretched taut into glass    

we map our bodies
the hollows of pain
the crests of pleasure

we steal a little
bit of each other
to squander next time

Headline on Page 4

I dared not buy a rope
for fear someone would ask
why (no one would have),
so I took my biggest bed sheet
tore it into two long strips
twisted it into a rope.
I had to test the fan hook
you can never tell
with these cheap rooms;
I didn't want to just break a leg
or my back
that would be both embarrassing and troublesome,
but both the rope and hook held.
I wondered when to do  it
somehow the quiet of night seemed right
it felt incongruous to do it with
the kids playing in the park outside.
I didn't leave a note in the end
because you wouldn't have understood
anyway and there was nothing
I wanted to say
that wasn't a bit pathetic.
I was afraid, I won't lie
but then the sheet was around
my neck and my feet off the table
I don't remember much
except that in about ten painful seconds
I blacked out.
And now, five days later
you are reading on page 4 the headline
"PhD Student Hangs Himself in North Campus PG".

how to butcher a cockerel - Response to 'how to cut a fish'

find a corner of the backyard
where the mosquitoes  are
less             bloodthirsty
squat comfortably
you don't want to get a cramp
as soon as the water is about to
boil reduce flame    lift the trussed
cock by the legs
tilt his head back and cut quickly
the pale saggy flesh snapping bone
let him bleed out on a newspaper
        it's easier to clean
baptize him
dipping once twice thrice so the feathers come out
smooth and quick
chop the talons dragon yellow
slice his breast where the thin ribs        reach in
and remove the entrails keep the liver and the crop
cut the neck the waist    
chop on a wood block the legs
wings body into small pieces
so you can no longer tell what was what
throw the blood feathers feet and guts away
with the now cold water 

A Speck of Black - Response poem to Nitoo Das' How to Photograph an Oriental White-eye

The blue is bright
and piercing
I blink and it infects me
I lift my body, throwing off
the heaviness of the morning,

slicing the midday thermals
and climb the blue
now dropping, now rising.

The sunlight ripples
over my body
caresses my downy neck
my throat trills with power
As  I climb higher
still higher
while my shadow falls lower
with each wheeling turn—
it will find me
when I let myself fall.

Then I see it, a small
grey body sleek and sly
feral like me
but it's careless today
and it will be its last
I fold the air with my wings
silent like falling dust
a moment of surprise
then it's limp,
warm and solid.
I trill its death song
to the blue
impassive and serene.  

Political performance

There's been another rape
of a child. Hindu this time.
Sad or angry react? Sad. Read comments share
scroll down. Next
There's been another riot
Less than 50 died though. Angry openreport
scroll through comments. Next!
There's another stupid minister stirring hate
angry, angry react and share with sarcasm
No comments only likes. Well.
Scroll down my feed what's next?
There's been another rape
of a young woman: sad react definitely
Read comments: thumbs up, heart and sad react
Angry react and comment at
misogynist dumb fuck
Feel virtuous. Scroll more? Next!
There's some people who lost their
homes to slimy mining companies
Share? No, sad react only no one comments
on these; only rape, rape
Indian Army Rape Us
and maybe the odd lynching pricks
anymore. So scroll
 scroll more
perhaps there will be one about Love Jihad
or an honor killing. Sad share about no freedom
to love that will get them
suckers for romantic love thank God for Bollywood
Sad reacts and a share
Then they scroll down to see what's next.

A Time for Goodbyes

And so it is done. With a tear
We now wish one another well
It's time to say goodbye my dear.

We were strangers who became near,
But now time has broken the spell
And so it is done, with a tear.

Someday, we might miss these years
But tonight, it is hard to tell;
It's time to say goodbye my dear.

It would be futile to linger here
Like a convict fond of her cell;
And so it is done, with a tear.

Let us go ahead without fear  
What matters if one of us fell?      
It's time to say goodbye my dear.

Better to part now in good cheer
Before our silence became hell
And so it is done, with a tear
It's time to say goodbye my dear.

Strategies of Entreatment

If you were a wise pir, 

I would press my fevered forehead

 to the cool marble of your entombed body,

If you were a Catholic saint,

 I would kiss your desert dry hands, 

as fragile and eternal as a butterfly's wing,

If you were a fiery djinn,

 I would spill my longing in a letter,

 and hang it in an envelope at Kotla,

If you were a foul demon,

 I would weave a diagram of desires

 from my blood in a graveyard at midnight.

But no, you are a God

of my own making, and just as 

aloof and unseeing as the one all humans made,

And so, before your image, 

I kneel every night, praying,

 that you too are infected with my madness; 

Or else, let that other God 

have mercy on me and turn me to stone,

 like your smiling eyes. 

Lines of Control

Posted on one side, and the other
Of the border, we are soldiers,
Guarding this Line of Control.
Insurgent love strove
To infiltrate the heart
Of your territory,
But sometimes you shot it down,
And sometimes, I shot it myself,
Afraid that you would catch it,
And be merely indifferent. 

We will never cross
this invisible edge;
The sea can manage 
to kiss the shore, 
though it retreat once more,
But we,
We will never be able
To taste us tremble. 

What I was Taught

I was taught
To stay away from politics,
From tires burning in the street,
To not throw stones at the fleet
of khaki and camo, and spit-shined boots.
To avert my eyes
Like an obedient, ordinary citizen, so as
To avoid being stopped in the street,
Because I was taught
Not everyone
Who got into those jeeps
Came back.
I was taught how
To hug the earth
To avoid the metallic justice
of impartial bullets.
I was taught to stay away
from both sets of guns,
Those claiming to represent us,
And those claiming to defend us.
For I was taught how easy it was
To become a collateral body.

I pity the arrogant people of this city;
Their ignorant, soft bodies
Which haven't been taught
Like ours in the hills and valleys .

2443 Kilometers

Delhi is 2443 kilometers away.
She feels every one of them
in her grinding bones,
as they cup
Her heart
Reaching and stretching
Into the quiet night
like a mobile signal,
While her husband sleeps
A stone sentinel. 

His voice is clear
Not as if he were here,
But like there's less of Delhi
In him, and more
Of her.
(It's only his new phone.)
Her heart is mute; for
He's grown now
Into a prickling keekar
And she's a bamboo grove, bending
with subtle pride.
So she lets the debt remain,
Of the nine months
Of the flint years
Of her womanhood.

He bears the weight of those 
years, like a cloud
Swollen with unshed rain
Lowering
Patiently, even attentively.
Her hunger arches the sky
She is the whole earth
But he won't dissipate
Into the coiling mass
 of her memories.

Delhi's anonymity has
Leached into his face, arranging
their planes into familiar ruins,
Mausoleums to his childhood
And she the only caretaker.
He's a thicket of alleys and malls
Flyovers unwinding in a sprawl
and their home too small. 
Smaller than two peeling rooms
in Delhi,
Even with, or perhaps precisely
Because of her fretful care,
When he comes-goes
Once a year, on a pilgrimage
To the first goddess
To receive his wage
To renew his debts. 

Imphal is four hours by plane
2443 kilometers by land.
Tonight he feels each one 
In his jaw, in his ears,
Like the ache of a phantom lover
Tattooing one's body 
As he waits for those small
beeps of concern. 

How to Be Alone

In my company, time itself has learned to abide alone,
Even in a heaving, breathing bus, I know how to ride alone.

Leave me friends, to the seduction of solitary habits, for
We'll be washed up on that final shore by the tide, alone. 

This millennial Majnu is hardly qays, flickering in the arms
Of a hundred laylas. But who hopes to be his bride alone?

Who needs companionship? Not this rebel against love;
On the long road to perdition, I will be my guide alone.

Corruption, communalism, poverty, casteism, sexism?
Blasphemous devil! We thrive on national pride alone!

Her parents are ghosts, her brother, a terror caged in iron.
Tonight, as green sweeps the valley, she must hide alone.

The people sleep with open eyes, enchanted by their hate.
Now this newly bare utopia, Death must divide alone.

"One should be happy with the alms of fickle fate." How, 
When, of the fruit of ignorance, one has been denied alone?

You are a Fool, truly, to hurl laments into this void.
Our ears are turned to stone; better that you had cried alone.

Remembering to Forget You

"What's the name of the word for the precise moment when you realize that you've     actually forgotten how it felt to make love to somebody you really liked a long time ago?"

"There isn't one." - Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Vol.7: Brief Lives. 

Not forever, no — perhaps

For a few years,

I will think —

Of the smell 

of cheap whiskey and wet earth,

Of darkening air

And dripping hair,

And longing — when it rains

In September.

For a few years

I will try to hold

Onto one soft morning,

My hands toying

With your shirt pocket, listening

To your plans

For the future.

(Even as I knew
I couldn't share it with you.)

For (hopefully)

A few years only,

I will wonder

When I fell, if

It was while basking

In the sun of your laughter

Or while thrilling

To a fleeting 

Hungry look. 

Unlike the eternally

Sharp digital you,

The lines of remembered you

Will, all too soon, blur

And fade like an old film;

So I inscribe these

Wounds again,

Fearing to forget and heal,

Than to regret and feel.

But already it's

The memory of pain

That answers this invocation —

A ghost —

Not the long exorcised familiar.  

T. Nelson