TAM poetry workshops, and Happy 4th Birthday, blog!

From October 2011 to April 2012, I was fortunate enough to be part of a series of Text-as-Material poetry workshops organised by the poet, Vivek Narayanan at CSDS, Sarai. These workshops have truly done what they set out to do, that is, taught me to see texts, all kind of texts, as materials for more work. We experimented a lot with "found text". Found text is text taken from anywhere, newspaper reports, interviews, other people's emails, advertisements, finding words from there which, as Vivek says, "do something to you", and seeing how these words written by another can actually be used by you to express something that you might have otherwise found hard to express. Again, as Vivek says, in poetry, discipline can lead to more freedom. For example, writing in form with a specific rhyme scheme and metre can at times help a lot of things emerge which otherwise perhaps may not have. Similarly, found text, as another way of disciplining that helps one find freedom. :-)

Over the course of these workshops, I have begun to see the inter-relationship of all art, of a photograph, a painting, a poem, an advertisement, an email... a poem can emerge out of just about anything. I can translate/adapt a poem into a pictorial visual representation. Experimenting with art work, hindi poetry, translation, in the immensely freeing, creative, and non-judgemental space of the sarai basement was a beautiful experience. and plus, I got to know the loveliest of interesting people, thanks to these workshops, oh so many of them! :-) Looking forward now to the chapbook publication we hope to have in a month or so, although formally TAM is at an end...

And yes, Happy Fourth Birthday, beloved blog! :-) You have survived through many stages of my writing, and I hope you will live to see many more. Amen!

CaPoWriMo 2012

Hello folks!

I am doing the Caferati Poetry Writing Month CaPoWriMo this April for the third time running. to see the Caferati cues for each day, you can visit http://www.caferati.blogspot.com/
To see my April CaPoWriMo 2012 poems, you can add me as a friend on facebook and read my notes there. If you're not on facebook and you still want to read them, of course you can always email me at shrutanne@gmail.com and ask me for them. :-)

Sorry blog, but this is the way it's going to be, it seems!

Two Poems in the Seven Sisters Post :-)

Two poems appeared in the Literary Supplement, 'Postcript', of the Assamese Newspaper, 'The Seven Sisters Post' on sunday, 18th March 2012. These poems focus, as does the entire newspaper, upon North-East India. You can see the scanned paper here http:// http://%20http//sevensisterspost.com/epaper/SUNDAY_8198381803/
You can also see them at http:// http://%20http//www.nelitreview.com/2012/03/ipen-poems-by-shruti-sareen.html, though this site is under maintenance till about 25th March 2012. They're okay-ish poems, but I'm glad they found a happy home... :-)

Here are the poems below... :-)

This poem is about the Indian bullet.
It is about Naga tribes in Manipur
and the Meghalaya which was
... a part of Assam. This poem
is about the island of Majuli.
This poem is about the fertility of guns
and the orality of bullets.
It is about the reality of the unknown.
It is about you, and me, and them.
It is about us. This poem
is also about flowers.



In the Tea garden of Tebhaga

I don't have even two bighas of land
I work in a tea garden
as a labourer.
I don't have money, it's the famine na
There is nothing to eat, so
I eat khichdi everyday.
There are three daughters, a family
They don't have clothes, so
After washing them they wait
for the clothes to dry.
The zamindar's men come to sell water
I tell them "no money.
don't want water."
The bastards, they pour the water on the ground
and ask me for payment.

On blogging, publishing and naivete

Dear Heartstrings and dear blog-readers,

I haven't been posting poems here lately. I just wanted to say that that really doesn't mean that I haven't been writing. It's just that I have woken up to dangers and threats and norms, and, quoting the title of Nitoo Das' once-upon-a-time blog post 'Blogging and Naivete' have realised that it's high time to stop being naive. Now, my reasons for being naive may be similar or may be completely different from the ones mentioned in that post.

My reason for choosing not to put up unpublished poems on this blog anymore is because many magazines and journals consider blog-publishing as real "publishing" and everybody wants only unpublished stuff as submissions and contributions. Once, twice, thrice, I can bend and twist the rule, but not the fourth time. To be ethically correct, and to play by the rules and norms, I decided not to put up unpublished stuff here. I am not very worried about plagiarism because I do not yet think my poems are good enough yet for anyone to want to plagiarise them. However, it's a two-in-one thing, if I don't put up unpublished stuff on the blog, it acts as a deterrent to plagiarism as well. and published stuff is always copyrighted. beyond that, if someone wants to copy, they can copy from just about anywhere, why just the blog, heck!

I delayed putting up this post quite a bit. Two months ago, it almost broke my heart to desert my beloved blog. But I didn't want to "close" this blog just now and to keep it only for a few "invited readers". I'd rather not do that just yet. A lot of people visit this blog, and I really value and appreciate that, and I can't build an identity roll or list! So I ultimately decided to keep this blog public, as it is, but to put up poems only after they have been published.

I can always diversify and put up other things besides poetry! Though I do hope that the poetry will keep running alongside intermittently too! :-)

Four poems in Muse India (Jan-Feb 2012 issue)

Four poems out in the Jan-Feb 2012 issue of Muse India. The annual issue edited by Prof GJV Prasad. The poems are 'Making Love', 'Red: a sonnet', 'Nasturtiums', and 'Lost in your House'. The poems are elsewhere on this blog. 'Nasturtiums isn't, so I am putting it here.
Do check out the Muse India issue at Four poems out in the Jan-Feb 2012 issue of Muse India. The annual issue edited by Prof GJV Prasad. The poems are 'Making Love', 'Red: a sonnet', 'Nasturtiums', and 'Lost in your House'. The poems are elsewhere on this blog. 'Nasturtiums isn't, so I am putting it here. Do check out the Muse India issue at http://www.museindia.com/featurecontent.asp?issid=41&id=3082 It has, among others, Priti Aisola, Uddipana Goswami, Temsula Ao, and Tabish Khair. :-)



Nasturtiums

The curves of your leaves
ache
for ripples of water to reflect them
... They contemplate escape from pots
They dream of the memory of the pool
they must have surrounded
when Narcissus looked into its mirror
and fell in love.
They wait eagerly
for the orange laugh of blossoms

Two poems in Reading Hour and some news!

Two poems published in Reading Hour-Jan-Feb issue. I am copy-pasting the two poems below so that you can read them here. :-) 'Home' and 'The Weft and the Warp'. The Weft and the Warp is a sort of love poem, how poetry can connect and unite two people, and Home was written for Civil Lines, Delhi.

Home

There are floating roots and
aerial roots, but I
prefer under-the-ground ones.
Cold winds may blow and tempests
may rage, I may
be hungry and broken
But in Emily Bronte-ish fashion
“Nothing drear can move me
I will not, cannot go”
faith may seem to totter and
angst may seem to win
But, in the words of a childhood
'Chapni' tale
“The world is big, it's fun to roam
But the nicest, nicest place is home”

The Weft and the Warp

Snip. Snip. Click. Swish.
A whisking metallic sound
breaks silence with a tone of finality
scissors cut cleanly through cloth.
Hearts too are torn and ripped
like cloth, mine has frayed edges
jagged threads stick out.
the knit is lost without the purl, the weft
goes in search of the warp.
A new thread can stitch them
into a patchwork compromise
Poetry can sew hearts and
my warped lines
woven with doubt, hope and insecurity
the head bent in prayer
ardently long to find
the weft of yours.


And the news? Just the possibility of being invited by Toto Funds the Arts to bangalore for a poetry reading sometime this year. if that would happen, it would be my very first! and so exciting! :-))

And yes, Happy New Year and all that!

Viewerscope/ Solipsism

Viewerscope / Solipsism

In a flash, I can turn
Darkness into light.
In a zooming jiffy, people
Become larger than life.
All I do is change the metaphor,
Really. I mix a tinge of black
With the red to make it maroon.
I can make a big tree and
A small boy. Or vice-versa. I can make
Moons fly, I can make men stand
On their heads, I can overturn
Buildings. Perhaps empires too.
I can turn that frown
Into a smile. Just a concave
And a convex difference, really.
I can make things blurry, I can
Make ‘em clear, I can make
The merry go round go faster
And faster. I just need
To change the lens, really.

Metempsychosis: a poem for Virginia Woolf

Metempsychosis: a poem for Virginia Woolf

Me-tem-psy-cho-sis
Said Joyce, is transmigration
Of souls.
If a soul from any earthly body
Flew into me, it was your own.
Perhaps it was made of fire and dew
In a rainbow. I have a spirit
Fashioned of your spirit.
You unearthed dormant rage in me
And let it live. You made me see
Myself in a mirror, fashioned out of
The clear depths of a river.
You helped me accept
This image in the river, you led
Me by the hand, whispering softly
Oh, ever so softly!, you lifted me
To ecstasy, you made me plunge
Into deep pain, you played
Havoc with my soul. I am a half-full
Cup of grief
And you make me whole to the brim
As you lead me
To ever-widening
Moments of being.

Parrot Parody

Parrot Parody

You hear them chattering
in the hidden green, long before
the red of its curved mithu-parrot beak
comes into view.
Leaf green, parrot green
Bright emerald green.
Tai-tai-tai-chai-chai-to-ta-to-ta
Preening, pirouetting
Prancing, dancing, proudly pecking
Strutting they seem to parody
A bunch of noisy women.
I fly with them to my favourite places
To you, and you, ..... and you.

Diwali- a Holy Night

Diwali --a Holy Night



















This amavasya night
This glow of candles
This lit-up darkness
Makes me believe.
Tracing your name
In smoke-trails with the phuljhadi
Makes me believe.
Green-yellow lights wind snakily in the lawn
Up-vine-down-trellis, strangely eerie
The burning flame in me grows stronger
Creating magic with quicksilver heat
the flame of my belief in you.
This is the flame which lights me regardless
All doubts scatter in surrounding darkness
Rangoli patterns my fingers etch draw life
From this flame which makes
This smoke-strewn, flame-strewn
Night holy.
I am the blue of the flame
Beyond touch, beyond reach.

Horizons

Horizons

Vermillion sun
In purple sky
Dips down dusk, as pink
becomes ink. A pale moon
Faintly shivering hovers.
Lowroofshighroofsbuildings
Acrid smoke mixes with winter fog
Scraggly paint peeling off bare walls
Dotted lights in twinkling windows.

---- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --- -- -- -- -- ---- ---

There is life beyond the horizon, my friend.

Self-Preservation

Self-Preservation

I seek you within the pages of this book
I seek you through your words, I seek you
Through mine. I seek you within
An anonymous crowd. I seek
To resurrect you through memory
In flesh and blood. I type your name
In the facebook search bar, in vain.
And then I seek to believe in you
Through memory fantasy words silence
Dead, self preserving habit
Has made me say itsokayitsokayits
Okayitsokayitsokay for too long.
Because I know I must say
Itsokaytohurtallover
I know I can’t fuckyouoff
I can’t discard you like a useless
Scrap of waste-paper.
Dead, self preserving habit
Has taught me to smile.

Snails

Snails

It is a snail
Withdrawing the tip of its head
Into this stony shell.
Poking its nose out, blink-ing
its eyes, removing itchy sand
Moving inside this hard resilient cover
For protection against barbs
It plods through life, secure
In this shell, fashioned by words
And sometimes by empty silence.
But you never knew. You took it
For a piece of gravel
And trod on it.

Babble

Babble

I speak incessantly.
I talk. I repeat myself.
I repeat, I repeat myself
Over and over again
I overdo it. I overspeak.
I speak to myself.
I am so afraid of the depths
Of silence.
But when I come to you
When I come to the depths of me
I gaze blankly at the wall.
I am in the other world now,
Gazing, my eyes moist and glistening
In trying to find you within myself
I have reached the depths
Of a silence
That is almost Joycean.

What Ifs

What ifs

What if I fall on the highway, crushed
under a car superspeedrushed?
What if, some random day
I take a bus to nowhere , and run away?
What if I apparate in Ithaca Lesbos,
Houyhnhnms Hogsmeade Ozma’s Oz?
What if horses were green, and elephants blue
And all of us lived imprisoned in a zoo?
Squibs giants dragons house elves all
Lived amicably in one big hall?
What if I could become YOU
Or look into your mind if I wanted to?
What if Hitler’s mother was a Jew
What if I had never met YOU?
What if I went into delirium
Did crazee stuff with fraught e-qui-librium?
What if poems were written dia
Gon
alley
and life lived synchronically?
And what if a poem stubbornly resisted
To fit and sit, no matter how you persisted?

Making Love

Making Love

I want to make love.

I want to make love
To the glittering, frosty edged moon
That cuts through the cold,nipping air
Like a curved sickle.

I want to make love to the full moon
I want to worship this purnima, I want to gaze
Longingly at this white misty dream forever
As it plays hide and seek with the clouds.

I want to make love to this lone tree at night
when its bare branches make love to the moon
I want to hug this tree, and rub my cheek
Against its grizzly trunk.

I want to make love to the whispered secrets of the forest
Aflame with pink, yellow, and orange
I want to make love to the firy red leaves
Of the fall, the hidden violets,the thickest green verdure

I want to lose myself in this green and make love
To the rhythmic beats of the barbet
To the golden notes of the koel, the red of the bulbul
To the magpie, the hoopoe, the jays and the squirrels.

I want to make love to them. I want to make
Love to this river, it speaks to me in meanders
Reflects my dreams and the leaves of the trees
The waves frolicking, carrying me, playing with me

And I want to make love to you
I want to worship you, I want to hug you
I want to touch your hair. Softly.
Making love to the trees and the moon,
The birds and the river was after all only
A way of making love to you.


I also want to cry.

Crow- Cawnversations

Crow-Cawnversations

A flutter of wings
a whirling blur of black
four pointed beaks
between two stringy wires overhead.
The crass cawing of this crowy crew
Screeching themselves hoarse
fills the air with raucous shrieks.
One inquisitive pair of eyes
With spread-eagled fan-like wings
Swoops down low to my ear and cries to me.
In every black blurry flight
From one stringy wire to another
He swoops down low and crows to me
Is he angry, do I intrude? Is he
crowriously curious? Or,
does he croon and make love to me?

Shapeshifty

Shapeshifty

A dragon
With a huge hump,
perhaps pregnant
And a short tail
Dissolves itself
In the sky.
Its camel head
Reared up, stretches
Into blue-white nothingness
As clouds de-form and re-form.
The whispering leaves
Of the white eucalyptus
Are fragile shadows, spying
Eavesdropping on clouds
as winged dreams
become the sky, dissolving
evolving wild horses
on a shapeshifty terrain.


---> the title of the poem 'Shapeshifty' is not a proper lexical word but has been taken from a poem titled 'Shapeshifty:a poem for Meret Oppenheim' by Nitoo Das.

Sad Ootin

Sad Ootin


Ootin is an elf
With a Piglet face
Pixie ears, needle
Eyes and nose.
A flick of my wand
And Ootin appears
Bowing low to the ground
From his waist. Thy wish,
He says, is my command.
Ootin has a fractured soul
A split face, and creaky arms
That need oiling. He also has
A cracked tongue.
Ootin slaves hard night
And day, catering to my whims
He cleans, cooks, washes, sweeps
And sometimes, he brings stolen
Honey from bees, or nectar
From butterflies. Ootin
Does my shopping
So I stay home. He also
Does my work.
I need to keep Ootin busy,
Very busy. Ootin, you see
Is under a curse
When he finishes work
He does mischief, he sticks things.
Yes, he sticks doors and windows
So I can’t open them. He sticks holes
In clothes, so I can’t wear them.
He sticks pots and pans,makes
A mountain of them. He once stuck
A child’s mouth, so it wouldn’t open.
For this, he is punished, yes
of course he is punished.
He is burnt in the fireplace
And beaten with a stick.
Poor Ootin. Sad Ootin.
His is a sad life. Ootin,you see,
Can stick things, but he cannot
Stick his fractured soul, his cracked
Tongue, or his creaking arms.
Otherwise
He could have been free.