To me, poetry is intimacy. It is how the world moves through me and how I make sense of it. It is also how I process my own disquiet; once it finds its way to a poem, sometimes I can set it down. It comes from many places; impressions of people I observe, the natural world of trees and plants, mountains, rivers and rocks, creatures, big and little.

Though I studied English literature at University, I have perhaps not been the best student of form and architecture in poetry, for I frequently write in free verse, though I do relish the cadence and symmetry of a well-structured, well-mannered, rhymed poem or sonnet on occasion, if the subject of my poem calls for it. 

I first stirred to poetry through Shakespeare and his sonnets, the work of the Romantic poets, Browning in particular, Rabindranath Tagore, and my eternal favourite, Ogden Nash. When younger, I read a fair bit of Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde and e.e. cummings, from whom perhaps I inherited my indifference towards capitalisation. I have enjoyed Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes and Ezra Pound. Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music, particularly, was a revelation, and his mastery over the poetic form has drawn me back to the book several times over the years. I do feel my lack of exposure to regional poetry, which has so much to offer in richness and depth, and in recent years, I have begun to explore and appreciate poetry and translations of poets in India who write in languages other than in English. 

I suppose poets of every age have attempted, in some way, to hold a mirror up to the times they have found themselves in, and in our times, with the obscene inequalities, the violence of greed and power, the many violations upon human beings and our environment, there is no dearth of inspiration to draw from. I too write about things I see that move me deeply, although my natural predisposition is to bring through my poetry more of what I would like to see in the world. So, in dark times, I find myself often writing about love, or intimacy, or the beauty and truth I find in nature. Perhaps each of us has our own path, and I’m glad poetry has crossed mine.