#117 - Wear your heart on your sleeve
"Nostalgia is the taste of a warm cup of tea"
Art by Hiro Isono
Preserve by Claire Wahmanholm
The forest is long and songless.
All the animal calls have been cut
down. They lie in stacks along the path:
songbird bindle, parcel of fox throats,
packet of bobcat hollers. I try to recall them
but they won't come. My own calls
are hollow and numb in my neck,
and what would come to that kind of call?
The forest is tall and all the trees hum
with some new hum I can't name.
It pins me through the lungs. The air ambers
around my arms as I swing them.
I am trying to imagine the bird will re-spool,
the fox re-fur and return, panting, to my hands.
But I am already a specimen. Cotton puffs
from my ears like pinfeathers. In my chest,
a tingling like my lungs are falling asleep.
Whatever was deep in me is rising to the surface,
pressing its face against my unblinking eyes.
Some hard hitting poems I read this week:
1.Fine by Kim Addonizio
You’re lucky. It’s always them and not you. The family trapped in the fire, the secretary slain in the parking lot holding her coffee and Egg McMuffin, the ones rushed to emergency after the potluck. You’re lucky you didn’t touch the tuna casserole, and went for the baked chicken instead. Your friend with breast cancer that was detected too late—metastasized to the lymph nodes, the lungs, a few months to live—lucky there’s no history in your family. Another friend’s fiancé, heart attack at forty-seven. You lie in bed at night, your head on your lover’s chest, and you’re grateful. Your teenaged daughter, unlike all her friends, hasn’t become sullen or combative, addicted to cigarettes or booze. She’s not in the bathroom with her finger down her throat to throw up dinner. You and your family are fine. You’re happy. It’s like you’re in your own little boat, just you, sailing along, and the wind is up and nothing’s leaking. All around you you can see other boats filling up, flipping over, sliding under. If you look into the water you can watch them for a while, going down slowly, getting smaller and farther away. Soon, if nothing happens to you, if your luck holds, really, holds, you’ll end up completely alone.
2. Are you tired by Anaïs Duplan
Are you tired. Yes, everyday. You can write and
write and still you are indefatigable. Deep well of a
woman, step on my throat and tell me right, straight
and true. My father the woman dances in a crowd. Is
this fruitless. Yes, everyday. Continue on no matter
what—because you are that body. That is a mistake.
You are that and that, that is a body. So that you
and the body are in a room together. And so, a kind
of ecstatic union may emerge. We talked about that
today, Dr. Addleson and me. Doctor doctor father
daddy come to meet your maker! She put her head in
the oven! She put her head in the oven! How long can
you go on screaming like that.
3. I Fall Asleep Reading a Poem by Akhil Katyal by Hamraaz Raaz
-for Natasha Narwal
I don’t smoke, but somehow I’m smoking
on a cramped South Delhi terrace;
I’m looking down at a wide, brown field
of dry grass and scattered trash.
Beyond, are trees and more trees,
and gathered in upper branches,
a murder of angry crows
is scolding a circling kite.
Beyond that are just skyscrapers—
or maybe that’s just an illusion,
and there is Natasha Narwal,
sipping tea at a roadside dhaba.
I want to go down and ask her
about the food in Tihar Jail,
I want to go down and tell her
how much we all have missed her.
(So proud to read Hamraaz's poem + Prisha Rao's Undying Memories on Rattle)
Recommended Listening:
-Why Won’t They Talk To Me? - Tame Impala (much Kevin!)
-A recording of the last Kauaʻi ʻōʻō singing for a mate that will never come
-Outline - Zero 7 ft Lou Stone
-Rolled Up -Benny Sings feat. Mac DeMarco
-Hear My Voice - Celeste
Links of the Week:
-Five minutes to sea (absolutely stunning animation by Natalia Mirzoyan on childhood, ageing and longing for the sea)
-The Sunday Soother's favorite healing resources to help you move past talk therapy
-Homesick: A Plea For Our Planet - Andrea Gibson
-The Power of Poetry, with Helena Bonham Carter and Jason Isaacs
-Recipes from the Kitchen of Georgia O’Keeffe
-7 Photographers on Finding Your Voice
-Essential Life-Learnings from 14 Years of Brain Pickings (lessons from my hero!)
This is my newsletter #13: Revathi Suresh
Writer Revathi Suresh takes us through her love for crosswords, Sue Grafton and the inspiration behind her latest novel, In Now & Then. Read her newsletter here.
Also, This is my newsletter has now moved to Substack. Subscribe here for a special newsletter every Sunday by a different curator.
New on the Website:
1. Interview: Samantha Muljat
"Nostalgia is the taste of a warm cup of tea, the sour scent of mildly rotting apples in a field in fall. Eating lentil soup after coming home from a cold day in the mountains. How the air smells shortly before snowfall."
-Samantha Muljat
Read the full interview here.
2. Happiness poems for the refrigerator by Kashiana Singh
"My life just like all of ours is now a stillness. Still in the same place. Still stilled. Still deep and shallow, still. Droning alongside, time is leaving behind messages of being fine. It rings in the day and brings in the night."
-Kashiana Singh
Read all the Happiness poems for the refrigerator here.
3. Disability Awareness Month: 3 poems by Abhishek Anicca
"a diaper is a thing of wonder
when everyone is losing control
it helps people to keep their shit together
never asking to be acknowledged
for carrying human dignity on its shoulder
discarded secretly
sanitary napkin's brother
shame's arch enemy
ableism's worst fear
a diaper is a thing of wonder"
-an ode to a diaper
Read 2 more poems by Abhishek here.
#TAPTOBER2020 Day 20-25:
Artwork I made for the prompt Resilience
I can't believe we're down to the last few but here are the curated artworks from the latest prompts for the #TAPTOBER2020 challenge:
Day 20: Woof
Day 21: Burning
Day 22: Ripple
Day 23: Museum
Day 24: Drizzle
Day 25: Resilience
Notes from Calcutta:
1. I’ve been experimenting with different pasta recipes, and stumbled upon this pasta homage by Brock Davis to the Joy Division cover by Peter Saville. If you have a great pasta recipe, do share it with me at thealiporepost@gmail.com. Thanks!
2. My mother has been designing clothes for women for the past 24 years and been forced her to rethink her business model this year since COVID-19 hit. We did a home shoot last week and created an Instagram account for her labour of love. Find her work @kejriwal.madhushree and show some love! :)
3. I've been reading Pema Chödrön's when things fall apart and though I can't quite articulate what it's doing to me, here's some good advice to get you through a bad day/week/month/year:
“Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not squeamish about taking a good look.”
Stay safe and read more poetry,
Rohini
If you enjoy the newsletter or wish to support my endeavours, do consider becoming a supporter on Patreon/to thealiporepost@okhdfcbank via UPI. (GIF via Lobster Studio)