Winter on my mind: Part I
The first instalment of The Alipore Post Journal December round-up
Good morning!
This has been such a soothing and enchanting December, and The Alipore Post Journal has been overflowing with too many beautiful poems, illustrations, comics and photo series, particularly on the theme of winter.
Inviting you to visit the website (www.thealiporepost.com) in your own time and explore all the goodness we’ve handpicked for you. In the meantime, here’s some of the work we shared there this month…
Poems to keep you warm
Winter mornings
Pink nose and cheeks
Sleeping in without a care for school
In the embrace of bear rugs
In afternoons
The piping hot taste
Of freshly baked bread burns my mouth
Giggles all around
Dark evenings
Book and cat curled up in lap
Before family and friends from afar
Bring gifts of joy and cheer
At midnight
When all is quiet
I muse, deep in my hot chocolate
How cold winter leaves me warmDecember by Simran Singh (Excerpt)
Every winter break meant a battalion of cousins assembling at grandma’s villa. I sulked through the day by her side because nobody wants to include a skinny kid who cannot run fast in their team. Nighttimes were the best, with my face flushed crimson like the bonfires we sat around– me telling the stories I had learned through the summer so grandma and I could reverse roles.
Read the full prose-poem here.Divorced In Mid-Winter by Mit Shelke
And in the apartment he doesn't live in anymore,
I visit every morning. Sometimes with garden plants,
or alone in the afternoon. I have still
kept the hundred wind-chimes he once
bought from Surat just because he wanted to.
Every time, the breeze passes inside,
some part of the house breaks into
song.
He wanted to look after the house,
so he turned our room
into a sky dotted with snow.
He hasn't seen snow yet.
The last time he slept next to
me, I thought of him
as a black trunk, sinking gently
into soil.
The time, he told me
He had to move away,
I walked the bridge over
a metro without a jacket. I have
never been so reckless.
The last time we ate dinner
at a cheap Chinese restaurant in January,
he couldn't look straight
When he said he will be gone.
For the first time in months,
I looked at him without anger
I saw him as a tree caught in
a field of live electric lines. He comes again
in memory, and he looks exactly this way.
Four years have passed, the tree is
in the same place, only surrounded
by dried grass.
Still moving deep into the soil.
I never understood the cold,
and how things return into
ground for a season.
But I have never knelt so long on the soil
asking for something to re-appear.this coat is a cup by Pragya Bhagat
this coat is a cup
warm, grey
a sleeve for the things that jiggle inside
a crack in its shell
winter on skin
sharp fracture
makes me think of mother
of home
Read two more winter poems by Pragya hereBone Work by Karuna Ezara Parikh
Do the bone work.
Ask yourself –
What am I feeling?
Will this break me or is that creak
just the sound of my skeleton
stretching to make room
for my soul’s swelling?
Read four more poems from Karuna’s gorgeous poetry collection Where Stories Gather here.
Paigham by Swajan Ghosh
Winter climbs on my window sill,
in half clad leaves of a chestnut tree.
On a desolate December evening,
snow riled up on the paint
breathing mahogany, breathtakingly quaint.
The gush of sleet
in the wake of November rain,
bleeding over my glass window pane
has carefully rampaged over my careless whispers,
'winter knows your name'.
Brought down in a shudder
the last flutter of the Fall,
has hanging photographs, coming off the wall.
Them bare spaces smeared
with forgotten love, over time
unfurled on magazines, envelopes
and disfigured reneges of mine.Winter for me by Yashika (Excerpt)
So is this winter for me?
Of parched minds and receding beauty,
Of stale urges and fulfilled appetites
of the blue that turns into black at two or
Of the folds which the blanket braids itself into;
the barrenness of spring and cheer of the autumn
it has never felt like my own.
the blank winds and cold cups of ceramic, however remind me of me,
Me, devoid of warm winters and dreariness
Interview: Karlotta Freier
From gorgeous blossoming flowers to couples in love to the horrors of climate change, New York-based illustrator-animator Karlotta Freier's drawings are tender yet impactful. I have adored Freier's comics, illustrations and zines on Instagram for years, and admired every stroke and color she makes. In conversation with Karlotta, who was kind enough to take me deep into her creative process and world.
Excerpt from the interview:
“I am a very emotional person, so I get enough variations just from showing up in a different mood each day. Over the years, I have figured out that I work best the closer I stick to a routine. The things that help me most are: taking breaks, even under a tight deadline, eating a real lunch and taking time for my own projects. If I stick to these, I don’t run out of energy. And having energy seems to be my best tool to finding creative solutions. Of course, I often end up abandoning these rules that I made for myself, but eventually, I hit a wall. Lately, I have started taking the weekends off and it has been a game changer for me. I actually feel like I am accomplishing more because I am not constantly working from a state of time depravation.”
-Karlotta Freier
Comic / Kashmiri Winters by Ghazal Qadri
Ghazal Qadri's visuals depict a real-life short horror story of her pheran and kanger in Kashmiri Winters.
We’ll be sending you the second part of the December round-up in the coming days!
Stay tuned.
Such a beautiful collection of creative work <3