What I’ve Been Reading…

So here’s an admission that someone who probably owns 700 or 800 books shouldn’t make: all of last year, I think I finished only one novel. I couldn’t read novels last year. I was dead in vast swathes of spirit, and none of what was left could accommodate the mindspace of a novel. I was [...]

Blogging on Red Room

I just cross-posted the previous entry on Red Room, a very interesting new website which describes itself as follows: “Welcome to Red Room, the official home of the world’s greatest writers. Through original, author-generated content, we offer a trustworthy and creative social network unlike any other. Here, you can connect with your favorite authors, access [...]

Notes Upon Viewing An Oppari

Tonight the oppari singer didn’t just stop singing when she was asked to. She wept as she stopped. She wept like it mattered — and it did matter.
We were in a home with a small baby and no death in sight. Only poetry. And yet she wept as she took her seat. Somebody took her [...]

Koldovstvo Coming

The witching hour draws nearer and nearer. After six months of sitting on a secret, I’m finally able to talk about my publisher (for my book of poems, Witchcraft). Bullfighter Books is tiny, new, Asian-centric. Their vibe is indie, guerrila, curious. Other books they’re putting out this year include poetry by Inzaman Amjad Khan and [...]

Chennai Sangamam

What I liked best about the Chennai Sangamam, performances aside, was how it had the air of a real festival. Performances weren’t preceded by speeches in English about culture and tradition and excavation. There were no tickets. No formal rustle of sarees and elite arts-patronage gossip. The night I attended, at Nateson Park, there was [...]

And Then, Proceed With The Freudian Slip

 
More such here.
If you’re not interested in a discussion on translation software, scroll down for the rest of the pictures.
(Via Sridala).

“The Poet Offers Discord”

“When the imagination is given sight by passion, it sees darkness as well as light. To feel so ferociously is to feel contempt as well as pride, hatred as well as love. These proud contempts, this hating love, often earn the writer a nation’s wrath. The nation requires anthems, flags. The poet offers discord. Rags.”
– [...]

Poetry? In Madras?

My post, Audiences, below has generated some interesting discussion on poetry (performance poetry, to be precise) in Madras in the comments section. Do join in! In the absence of the pre-existing is unlimited possibility. (Turning comments on this post off so there is some continuity to the discussion.)

“Tonight I Can Write…”

This is one of my favourite poems (favourite translation of, also). I am in love with this reader’s voice. And haunted by the effect in total. (Via Lainie)

Audiences

What’s with the all-male (or nearly) audiences?
My reading yesterday evening hosted by the Rotary Club of Madras South had four women (not including me) and somewhere under forty members of the audience in total. My reading at Apparao Galleries as part of the Prakriti Festival, which was a sort of official Chennai debut, was [...]

Protected: The Person and the Perceived

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Three Poets: Amirthanayagam, Nansi & Ng

One of the privileges of being a poet is getting to know the poets whose work you love as people. These are connections formed on many layers: how you know them as poets, as friends, as lovers, as contemporaries, as critics, as travel companions and sometimes as foes.
Two of these three friends of mine who [...]

Copywriting

I fell into one of the blessings in my life, journalism, by accident six years ago. It happened nine months after high school, a period in which I did nothing but dance, write, co-edit a special edition of a poetry zine, attend readings and other randomly boho things of little satisfaction to the many wing-clippers [...]