Grandiose Things

“Every night before I sleep, unless I collapse, I think of you because I hope I’ll get to dream about you that way,” he says. Her grandmother is dying. Her dreams are vivid, of him, of them, of children they will have, of earthquakes, of poor fashion, of women who have judged her. He tells [...]

What It Feels Like For A Girl

I’m glad Meena Kandasamy wrote this piece, and said as much — although I realise there are some difficulties in the manner in which she expressed it — because I do understand what she’s trying to get at at the bottom of it all.
The same issues — of privacy, persona, being a public target — [...]

The Venus Flytrap: Earthbound

This is how it happens. I’m on transit in Singapore for a day. It’s too early in the morning for the part of Chinatown I’m in, but by luck, Kenny Leck appears just as I arrive at his bookshop, which supports my work. We talk business while the resident kitten pounces on me and gnaws [...]

Podcast Interview By Poonam Sagar

Poonam Sagar, who moderated one of the panels I was on at UWRF, spoke with me for a podcast over lunch at a restaurant overlooking a gorgeous vista of rice fields and a smallish infinity pool. You can listen to the podcast here. Just a couple of little corrections: Witchcraft has already been published, and [...]

Madras Week 2008 Thank Yous

If I don’t do this now, I won’t ever get around to it, so here goes.
Thank you very, very much to everybody who supported Madras Week at Vanilla Place, August 18-24 2008.
In particular, I would like to extend my thanks to the following people, who read poetry and prose of their own or by others, [...]

The Venus Flytrap: Ways of Worship

It’s 8pm on a full moon night in October and the spray of the huge waves shoots above the barricades and drizzles us from time to time. This is a village on the Balinese coast, a day before the writers’ festival begins. When the sun is out, the sea is postcard-stunning. It looks just like [...]

Ubud Writers’ & Readers’ Festival

I’m leaving tonight for for a week in Bali (and yes, on work!), to attend the Ubud Writers’ & Readers’ Festival 2008.
Other than general official engagements and anything that happens impromptu, my readings and panels, in case you’re there, are as follows:
Thursday 16 Oct: Performance Poetry Extravaganza, 19.30-21.30 at Warung Opera
Top performers and comedians from [...]

The Venus Flytrap: Piracy, Privacy, Popularity and Poetry

It’s not every day that one finds oneself as a subject of a social experiment. At the risk of being frozen out of polite poetic society, I have to admit: I felt just a mite gleeful at having my identity misappropriated for inclusion in a 4000-page pdf anthology of pirated poetry.
The idea was simple: collect [...]

The Big Announcement

I HAZ A BOOK!

Pirated Poetry Anthology

A few days ago, I was walking through Pondy Bazaar and as I passed a few pirated book stalls, a thought popped into my head: imagine if my book was in there. Would I be pissed (well, yes)? But would I also feel a little validated, since piracy equals popularity?
And today I find myself in [...]

The Venus Flytrap: Honouring Our Destinies

A few weeks ago, I watched the Italian film Il Postino, inspired by the legendary Pablo Neruda, and found myself weeping in its closing moments. I shut my laptop and held myself as sobs racked my body. I was weeping not for the quaint charms of the film, but for Mario Ruoppolo, the guileless postman [...]

Stream of Unconsciousness

In his dream, he was choking on an ice cube. He didn’t know what would happen first — if it would melt or he would die. He had been watching too much David Lynch lately. He called to tell her about the dream. She said, “You have a tendency of waiting for your problems to [...]

A Song, Schnabel and A Handful of Sex Goddesses

There’s a little something exciting happening mid-next week, as you may or may not already know. Meanwhile, though, here are a few more things that have me excited lately.
1. Candace Bushnell’s original Sex and The City columns in The New York Observer. I’m actually surprised to have not read about this on other blogs, so [...]