Art by Gustav Klimt
Thank You by Ross Gay
If you find yourself half naked
and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,
again, the earth's great, sonorous moan that says
you are the air of the now and gone, that says
all you love will turn to dust,
and will meet you there, do not
raise your fist. Do not raise
your small voice against it. And do not
take cover. Instead, curl your toes
into the grass, watch the cloud
ascending from your lips. Walk
through the garden's dormant splendor.
Say only, thank you.
Thank you.
Other poems I've enjoyed reading this week:
"let's make art out of pennies
let's make cats out of yarn
hard cats, narrow cats
the hard word of art
the impossible art of touch
this, this is your cheek
here, here is your neck"
-Romance by Elaine Kahn
"You know fifteen of the forty eight moles that map my body.
You know the folds at my waist. The arch of my feet. And my toe rings.
You are aware of every breath I take when we are together.
You sense a change, even the slightest.
And can perhaps smell the desire I feel in my skin."
-from AuthaGraph by Dr Srividya Sivakumar
"a slow, soft independence, this blooming
grace that smiles in the face of a withering so certain, so prescribed
immense. unscheming. quiet. extraordinary
immortal in the memory of you
always flowering."
-from To a flower-bloom in the garden by Sourabha Rao
"It was a bit like entering the wrong room
in my dream, where I saw you knitting
as you sat on the same bed as the woman
with a neat bob who was talking on the phone.
It could have been an Edward Hopper
painting but I recognised the sheets
& the angles at which the light reflected
in that room."
-from Room in Palampur by Supriya Dhaliwal
Recommended Listening:
Diego Stocco magic
Music From A Dry Cleaner - Diego Stocco (I also loved his gorgeous sound installation Bell Flowers!)
Maed Mixtape: Maed4Toto (a special episode of Maed in India in collaboration with Toto Funds The Arts)
When the world is ending and your mind is going places it's not supposed to (a cool playlist by Bableen Chopra)
Yogetsu Akasaka, a beatboxing Buddhist monk
Links of the Week:
25 Movies and the Magazine Stories That Inspired Them
Fathima Zahra reads Danusha Laméris's Small Kindnesses
Historic Tale Construction Kit (much too cool)
Trauma Skills Summit (Thank you for sharing this, Meghna!)
On picking up the pieces after COVID-19
31 things I've learned in 31 years: Madeleine Dore (This one really spoke to me - Get rid of should!)
Read: Still Life by Leanne Shapton (I love how much reverence is given to the objects we live with in this piece + Leanne's stunning watercolours)
Read: This is my newsletter #2 by guest curator Frank Schlichtmann/The 4tables Project
Cards for a Cause
I’m so proud to have my quarantine artwork featured in this amazing deck of Cards For A Cause, a design-led social initiative by The Artlet Poetry and Cliq, aimed at funding the fight against COVID-19. Every deck you buy goes towards Give India to fund the frontline workers.
Get your set of cards at www.cardsforacause.in
New on the Website:
"HUMAN-NESS: The essence of being human.
The Human-ness project is a series of photo essays that documents honest raw accounts of Pune-based writer-photographer Tanvi Salunkhe's conversations with these ‘humans’.
"This project (inspired from Jamie Hawkesworth’s documentation on COVID-19 frontline workers for the British Vogue) was born out of my curiosity to understand the people who continued to work during the COVID-19 lockdown so that the rest of us could stay safe at home. To shift focus from the circle of expectation and responsibility and rather to know more about their emotions, thoughts, motivations, hopes, apprehensions and vulnerabilities that make them most human."
-from The Human-ness Project by Tanvi Salunkhe
"You now have authority to summon a glass of water to your bed whenever you want, you have a human-size punching bag for all your mistakes, and your Pokemon collection now a hand-me-down heritage that needs to be earned. Your private world is no longer yours alone."
-from Sisters as Encroachers of Space: An essay by Rini Bankhwal
The Alipore Post x Katha India
This month, we're collaborating with Katha India, one of the oldest and thoughtful publishing houses from India that focus on literature for children and young adults. To celebrate #HaikuSunday, we featured a selection of brilliant haiku, senryu, tanka and haibun from FIRST Katha Book of Haiku, Senryu, Tanka & Haibun, a stunning collection that brings to you a running stream of a 400-year-old art form from Japan, with an Indian flavour.
Read the full feature here and fall in love with these poetic forms :) I end this newsletter with three of my favorite haiku from the collection:
summer evening —
a crab races
with the beach waves
-SB Vadivelrajan
a light breeze
the moon in the birdbath
shivers
-Angelee Deodhar
church graveyard —
from somewhere close
the fragrance of lilies
-Gautam Nadkarni
And on that note, good night and stay safe!
Rohini