Writing poetry is for me both enchantment and intuition and a phenomenon akin to prayer; it makes me feel intensely alive. The poet is submerged into the self’s mysterious waters as she seeks words to illumine life’s experiences; then she’s pulled outward to share her discoveries with unknown readers. In a sense, writing poetry is analogous to the effect the pandemic has had on us, for we’ve never been more self-involved yet, simultaneously, we’ve developed a heightened awareness of the sufferings of others and our need to reach out has increased. 

Poetry, I believe, emerges from deep silence. Escaping from invisible fissures a phrase rises, turning and glowing from the body’s earth. This must be captured. Through chiselled language we try to birth that thought-feeling whether savage or sublime; to distil the quivering moment in a poem. The process isn’t entirely rational, or subject to will; it’s intuited and then burnished, repeatedly. The final form condenses after intense nights of dreaming, thinking and feeling. 

Being a self -taught poet, translator and writer with a grounding in film, painting and dance, I initially lacked a literary ‘toolkit’. Instead, I analysed the characteristic structural devices in these arts to find parallel strategies for my writing. For instance, if a rising camera crane shot suggests compassion through an expanded view, how could I formally recreate this emotion in my poetry? I often seemed to be reinventing the wheel, and berated myself for my ignorance. I read almost randomly to learn literature’s alphabet, and appreciate its aesthetic. The upside is that my poetry isn’t boxed in by genre, directed by a single school, or national boundaries. I ‘choose’ words and rhythms appropriate to the world of each nascent poem, keeping in mind both the ear and the eye. 

So, rather than naming individual poets, I cite as my inspirations medieval Japanese poetry that blends passion and the transience of life; Tamil Sangam poetics that  correlates outer  landscapes with emotional geographies (which probably spurred my ecopoetry); the rapturous details of miniature paintings and the bewitching play of time and rasa in Sanskrit poetics. Experimental cinema and contemporary installation art’s courage, and the sense of social responsibility embedded in speculative fiction and films also contour my imagination. More recently, bhakti poetry’s inclusiveness and compassion, its hummed insistence on being in consonance with the cosmos has dyed my words. 

Sant Tukaram sang, ‘Words are the only / wealth I distribute/ among people’.  Poetry’s clarity and spiritual dimension demand we share it with others. Therefore, to bring different voices to the fore and acknowledge my own debt to this art, I edit the online journal Poetry at Sangam, and translate from other languages.

Poetry revolves like a double-faced mirror, reflecting and being reflective of the reality of these difficult times. Like an old friend who slips us harsh truths alongside beauty and solace, writing and reading poetry enables us to better face ourselves and the world.

Ultimately, it’s enough that it exists.