#118: Hello November!
poems about mothers + a reminder to cultivate a gentle sort of ruthlessness
The Secret of Youth, by Micah Daniels
Last night I asked my mother to cornrow my hair
A skill I had been practicing since last summer
But always ended with a tumbleweed excuse of a braid
My black has always resided in braids
In tango fingers that work through tangles
Translating geometry from hands to head
For years my hair was cultivated into valleys and hills
That refused to be ironed out with a brush held in my hand
I have depended on my mother to make them plains
I am 18 and still sit between my mother’s knees
I still welcome the cracks of her knuckles in my ears
They whisper to me and tell me the secret of youth
I want to be 30 sitting between my mother’s knees
Her fingers keeping us both young while organizing my hair
I never want to flatten the hills by myself
I want the brush in her hand forever
Other poems I read this week:
1. Thanking My Mother for Piano Lessons by Diane Wakoski (excerpt)
I played my way through an ugly face
and lonely afternoons, days, evenings, nights,
mornings even, empty
as a rusty coffee can,
played my way through the rustles of spring
and wanted everything around me to shimmer like the narrow tide
on a flat beach at sunset in Southern California,
I played my way through
an empty father’s hat in my mother’s closet
and a bed she slept on only one side of,
never wrinkling an inch of
the other side,
waiting,
waiting...
2. A Thank You Note by Lang Leav
You have told me
All the things
I need to hear
Before I knew I needed to hear them
To be unafraid
Of all the things
I used to fear,
Before I knew
I shouldn’t fear them.
3. Salt by Nayyirah Waheed
My
mother
was
my first country,
The first place I ever lived.
4. When I Am Asked by Lisel Mueller
When I am asked
how I began writing poems,
I talk about the indifference of nature.
It was soon after my mother died,
a brilliant June day,
everything blooming.
I sat on a gray stone bench
in a lovingly planted garden,
but the day lilies were as deaf
as the ears of drunken sleepers
and the roses curved inward.
Nothing was black or broken
and not a leaf fell
and the sun blared endless commercials
for summer holidays.
I sat on a gray stone bench
ringed with the ingenue faces
of pink and white impatiens
and placed my grief
in the mouth of language,
the only thing that would grieve with me.
Recommended Listening:
-A playlist for silly days (90s throwback)
-On A Good Day - Elijah Wolf ft. Pearla (Joanna Newsom Cover) + Robin Pecknold's cover
-Dora - Tierra Whack (love the video directed by Alex Da Corte)
-Black Rain - Rhye (so groovy!)
-Loom - Ólafur Arnalds, Bonobo
-Lucky Sue - Men I Trust
-Ulavum Thendral - Manthiri Kumari (Tamil gold) + listen to Vedanth and Bindhumalini's rendition here.
Links of the Week:
-Must watch: Katy Wang and Charlotte Ager: The Peace of Wild Things
-Comic: Dull Ache by Luke Pearson + Soft Spot, an ongoing animation project by Philippa Rice and Luke Pearson
-Winter is coming. It's hygge (cozy) time.
-Funny Kitchen Fails (This cheered me up.)
-Chitthi Exchange coverage on EdX and Brut India (this video has over 90k views :o )
This is my newsletter #14: Mitali Bhasin
One of my most empathetic friends Mitali took over this week’s edition of This is my newsletter, and presented some brilliantly curated articles, poems, music and comics for our readers. From friendship and love to the body and dissent, she’s handpicked some real gems in this edition.
Read it here and subscribe for all future takeovers here.
New on the website:
1. Terrace Garden by Sajan PK
"Tended at random, the garden untangles.
Deferred gravity on deracinated Sundays,
Obstinate tendrils on oblong objections
Terrace is the square of one’s putative earth.
If the parts around my estranged interiors
Sparkle with green; a newfangled vigour
Where will I discard my glowering summer?"
-excerpt from Terrace Garden by Sajan PK
2. Moon poems by Roanna Fernandes
3. Exploring culinary memories with Via Dil
Prachi Bhutada's Via Dil is a project in which she makes food that people are craving or have a certain memory associated with. Then she writes about their memory and her experience cooking, eating and feeding it. She even included me in the project, and spoke to me about my love for pesto here.
#TAPTOBER2020: COMPLETE ✓
I'm very glad that #TAPTOBER2020 is finally over, and almost 50 of us created artworks to these prompts EVERY SINGLE DAY throughout October. Thank you to everyone who joined me and kept the inspiration flowing! :) Click the individual prompt to see the curated artworks for the final week Day 26-31:
Day 26: Squirrel
Day 27: Peek-a-boo
Day 28: Self portrait
Day 29: Silly
Day 30: Minimal
Day 31: Award
Notes from Calcutta:
1. I went for the Ghare Baire exhibition with my mother last week. It was held at Currency Building, a 187-year-old beautiful historical site-turned-museum, and showcased Bengal Art from the 18th – 20th century.. Calcutta folks, do make your way there. It’s on till end December! Pictured above is my favorite work from the exhibition by the wonderful KG Subramanyan.
2. I was recently gifted a copy of The Aye-Aye and I by Gerald Durrell. Needless to say, I’ve been laughing out loud at frequent intervals, much to my mother’s delight. Here’s my favorite quote from the book so far: “In conservation, the motto should always be 'never say die'.”
3. I chanced upon an old mini-poem of mine that I don’t remember writing:
Polluted river
Floating idols
In the name of religion
“You must allow yourself to outgrow and depart from certain eras of your life with a gentle sort of ruthlessness.”
- Katy Maxwell
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