#88: Poetry Month - Week 1
This month, I'm taking a break from the regular newsletter format, and featuring poems written as part of The Alipore Post Poetry Month, a writing challenge to complete 30 poems in 30 days through April:
Georges Seurat, Peasant Woman Seated in the Grass
Day 1: GENTLE
1. The Writing Process (Is Not Gentle) by Eshna Sharma
Inspiration, elusive stranger
arrives unexpectedly
in the seconds before sleep,
in the haze after love making
making poached eggs for breakfast or walking the dog
The birthing is difficult,
it is not gentle, or elegant, or any of those beautiful things
that writing is compared to,
to push inspiration out into a tangible form
there is blood of course, torn muscles,
and men do not often like what they see,
when their wives spread apart their legs
Then, the glistening head of a newborn,
a breathing, purple tinged alien is received
the joy is boundless, but temporary, for then another struggle begins
You must nourish it
breasts may turn sore, but the beast, is not satiated easily
it demands more, it mewls and screams and there is no peace to be found
then chisel it, carve, Michelangelo's apprentice
muscles ache, sweet, salty sweat and maybe, even tears
What emerges of all that toil
of the struggle of whittling thoughts
into shape, of pruning a word here, a paragraph there,
sandpaper, sandcastles, coffee, killing time
and characters and plotlines
is
beauty, coal turned jewel
yet the cautious writer is never too attached to this creature of his own creation
If ever he begins to resent it,
find fault, or misstep or weakness
he discards his work, without sentimentality,
without filial affectations
and soon embarks on the long, stretched out journey of birthing another.
2. Gentle by Antonio Margheriti
"These hands shall rise,
From bottomless waters,
Bear the canoe and the oar
That will get you ashore.
These hands shall meet,
The need of caresses ungiven,
Wash your tears away with the creek
And wind the shelter and shade you seek.
These hands shall weave,
A hammock from where you gaze
At the lay of this land so far stretched
And the shimmering waves so sun-kissed.
Son, have no fear of falling
For these eyes watch over you.
Should you tumble even so,
Do not weep, a healing breeze so gentle will blow."
Day 2: PATTERNS
1. some patterns you’ve been dotting together by Dhruvi Modi
i.
when someone loves you too much
or
when someone doesn’t love you enough
you always run
(away or towards)
ii.
when you look at the time
it is always
09:09 or
12:12 or
2:22 or
something like that
iii.
meal timings class timings etc
that have almost entered your bloodstream
are details that you sometimes still use
to navigate around your days
(details that are no longer necessary)
iv.
sunlight sneaking in
from between the leaves
of your mother’s plants and
through the window and
onto your brother’s
sleeping snail frame
and in bars underneath
your reading chair
v.
the scribbles that curl against
the margins of your notebooks
inform:
spirals for days of
fist-clenching stomach-tightening
strangers’ faces for days of
lofty solitude crawling curiosity
flowers and leaves for days of
light joy open arms
vi.
from:
a ginger cat's scratch on your arm
one of the times you fell off your bicycle
an obstinate shoe bite
vii.
the lines
in this poem
.
2. Break the Pattern Shubhangani
Sometimes I think of things
Becoming patterns; how
A grope, a slap, a pinch,
Become our loop.
How women are asked to be like water,
Adapt to shapes we're forced into,
Even if the mould is small, makes us small,
Even if we burn in the process.
How we're expected to drape ourselves
In changing dresses of patriarchy
(Sew and sew and sew)
That the State, the Patriarch, the Master
Forget,
The grope, the slap, the pinch
Too bring patterns with themselves:
Resistance
And patriarchy
And resistance.
Art by Watanabe Seitei
Day 3: DISTANCE
1. long distance relationships - a haiku by Sukanya
i just want to say
i love yo- wait what now
your voice is breaking"
I've folded
into
a quiet
stillness
where time
ceases play
when isolation
doesn't exist
a moment
just a moment
a room
just a room
no wishing
for lost time
no wanting
loved roads
not that
not this
just a
full IS
Day 4: UNSOLVED
1. Saniya Zehra
Family is a crowded word which seems at home in old photo albums and awkward phone calls, until you fall back and discover it’s disorderly love.
No one tries to point out flaws anymore just to murder the silence in the room. We have learnt to have our teas and the beautiful sunset without a side of the gory news updates.
I could not remember this happening often. But we didn’t stay back to know better often and chaos didn’t make so much sense often.
The stars all didn’t twinkle together often. It took a pandemic.
my father and I only talked about matters found in books, of science and philosophy
maths and economics weren't really my things.
we spoke of astronomy and constellations which came into existence between us, connecting the stars that made me and the stars that made him
exist
then there was this great distance, when mother and I left
I didn't quite understand then
the reason
so I called it dark matter
because Einstein said, even empty space was not nothing.
so we didn't speak even in education
so our conversations remained equations unsolved
but only temporarily, for ours was an ongoing colloquy
and in that, all else was absolved.
Day 5: SUDDENLY
1. Soumya Hegde
And
suddenly,
art and art
alone has become our
survival
tool
2. Sky
Suddenly, the world has become a burial ground,
bidding solemn goodbyes to the ones dear and fond.
All the material possessions mattered no more.
The brunt of the reality, our hearts bore.
Turning to love, affection and care,
we realise, all the while we weren't fair.
While taking things for granted,
we didn't realise, our humanity being slaughtered.
The world's filled with fear, anxiety and dread.
Hearts once strong and impregnable having tears shed.
With everything at stake,
it's high time we awake
-Sky
Marc Chagall, Remembrance
Day 6: HOME
1. Sandhya Kannan
i make the bed
and make it again because
i can't find the body shaped dent i left
in the upper-left corner over four years of high school.
instead i climb into the sheets like a gun in a glove box, all too heavily,
if i fit at all.
but i
give
it
time.
and in a week, i settle in,
i excavate the dent and the room smells like
lemongrass and coconut once more
and all the books i need to finish reading
stare me down
everyday from my desk
next to my windmill i whisper wishes to.
but now it's time
to
leave
again.
guess that's home for you.
2. Juilee
My escapist tendencies
Found home
In you
Day 7: ADVICE
1. How to make other origami flowers by Nikita Biswal
Instruction manuals are of little help,
They don’t tell you how to look after
dead flowers. There are delicate ways
to pick water-lotuses when they are sleeping –
ponds don’t move, it’s only a blackbird flying.
Turn foil from your lunchbox and fold
into folds, until petal after petal
becomes a rose. There are many ways
to make a bed, for a lover, for someone old,
like opening a sea of white poppies,
little by little. Spread the paper on the
dining-room table and eat it in squares.
The whole city is delirious, dreaming
of the missing picking flowers
from other people’s gardens.
2. In light of recent events by Rohini Kejriwal (yes, I'm sharing my own poem)
These aren’t ordinary times.
Stop pretending like they are.
Don’t let your inbox get to 99% full.
Optimise storage.
Find things that spark joy.
Let go of everything that doesn’t.
Stay home.
There are warriors wearing masks
Saving lives in hospital wards
While you worry over the choice of pasta sauce.
Call home.
Life is fragile,
Time is fleeting.
And there aren’t enough
I love you’s you can say
Before the curtain falls.
Think less,
Love more.
Be kind,
Be kind,
Be kind.
Follow the challenge and new poems on #thealiporepostpoetrymonth.
hug by chibird
I really hope you're all doing okay.
Sending virtual hugs (with your consent),
-Rohini
P.S. Please don't unsubscribe to this newsletter because of the new format. It'll be back from May :)