As a Film Studies major student, I have always been occupied with watching movies and reading a lot of critical theory essays to figure out what films are doing as a communication device in the daily life of any individual. On the same journey, I had to amalgamate those essays into most of my papers regarding how we understood a particular film, a genre of films or a whole decade of filmmaking as an art form. And trust me doing that has been hard and tedious. I would say that this is the sole reason for me to take Crafting Poetry as my elective course. And as a break from all the other very theoretically charged laboring I had to work my way through to complete my Masters, this course was a day at the spa for me (sorry if this sounds corny). And to clear it out, I am not saying that working for this course was easy, but it was cathartic enough for me to work anyway. At the beginning, I was sold by the fact that it was a practice/workshop-based course and that I just had to write poems for it, even though I struggle with poetry in every form. And all the other electives that I had signed up for did not meet my expectations. This course delivered as it had promised. At the beginning we were obviously introduced to the forms and kinds of poetry we would be dealing with in order to produce something substantial. I wasn't familiar with most of them but was keen to know what they are. We began by learning about Love Poetry and read few heartwarming poems in class trying to decipher and understand each and every line, phrase or word that was projected on the white screen. And as a practice, each of us had to write and submit a poem of our own, every week on Tuesday. Love poetry, according to our coordinating professor, Akhil Katyal was the genre that was an easy gateway to enter the realm of poetry. Well, it was. But because I had dealt with the Romantic era in my Bachelors, I had a preconceived notion of how I had to write my first love poem. I thought to infuse the poem with all my feelings was a good strategy, but after I had uploaded the poem and read the pieces written by my classmates, I understood the huge gap in quality between my poem and theirs. It did embarrass me a little, thinking how the others would judge it. Noting all of this, I had a clear idea of the standard that was set and how hard I would have to work to craft a worthy enough poem. The discussions in class were interesting but there were some instances (that I am unable to pinpoint) when the idea revolving in the room never really caught my attention. I felt lost in the speed of the conversation and therefore never spoke in class on that day. But mostly the class was a space where most ideas that were brought up front were discussed as much it was possible so that the concerned poem was seen from every angle. Thereafter every time that a poem was written by me and the ones that were discussed in class, I tried to do my best to work for it. Throughout the course, we wrote a Love poetry (as aforementioned), a Villanelle, a Ghazal, a Nonet, two Political poems, a City poem and responded to Nitoo Das's poems after having read them. This very variety of poems in the course was a good way to know one's strength and weaknesses. And personally speaking, tackling the Villanelle was the hardest assignment for me. Even though thinking and writing creatively has been my strength, this did not work for me while I had to write poems, as just having ideas and finding words to fashion it into a poem to express it did not come to me naturally. I had to do a lot more to write a poem than what I had imagined to. It was fun, but I will not do it as regularly as one might after finishing this course. I have learnt a lot for sure, about poems in general and in specific which I have converted into class notes for me to refer to in the future. I feel like I have largely expanded my literary analysis but I won't say the same for my poetry writing skills. I do not exactly know how far I have come from where I started, but I think I have upgraded from a bad poet to an ok poet. I really wish that such a course was a part of the curriculum for every semester where one could enhance or develop their creative streak.
Finally, I would really like to thank Akhil sir for conducting the course and each and every class with all his commitment and utmost interest, which is one reason why I have turned up for almost each and every Crafting poetry class. I found his way of teaching really comforting (if that makes any sense) that is hard to experience these days. I also really want to thank Himanshu and Simpy to write such lovely poems. I have enjoyed reading them. And I also would like to thank every classmate for contributing in class and on the blog. I hope the blog stays alive.
