Some poetry news in an otherwise impossible world

What’s happening in the Vanni is becoming more atrocious by the day: we earlier mourned for the hundreds dead each day, now it is into the thousands. Reading any news simply sends me spiralling into depression. Wanted to sort of take stock of what is going on with my life. Blog posts here shall become fewer each progressing day, and here’s why

1. Come Oct ’09 I will be finishing the third year in my Ph.D. I can’t do it any longer than that, and I already feel that three oh-so-precious years of my life have gone into something that I will not remember with much fondness later in life (If you cannot be happy about somethign when you are old, you better don’t do it: my motto so far). So, since the beginning of this year, I have been working damn hard at finishing off my degree and dissertation. Attended two workshops on ELT, presented papers at two national conferences, sent a paper for publication. Spent most of April preparing a 6-page, 250+-questions questionnaire for the Engineering students in the city. Have been getting it filled up FRANTICALLY. And students are a bit angry too, having to answer so many questions… That, I can understand. I plan to take off in May-June and sit and write my dissertation… And once this Ph.D. is done, I am thinking of giving up this job (my contract stipulates that I work till 2012, and that is dreary)…

2. Talking of job, things here are as messed up as they can be. Some inefficient people run the goddamn show and so I get the salary for March only on April 20. And this is a Government educational institution. A university in fact. (And did I forget to mention to that inefficient could also mean male-chauvinist). More on this later, and when I quit this job. 

3. Since most of this sounds like bad news, let me continue on that vein. My publisher’s decided not to go ahead with the anthology of urban poetry by Indian women (Sheher), and has asked me to look out for other publications. The recession’s hit him, he says. Now, if you have good suggestions about whom I can approach, please tell me. It should be a lovely book going by the quality of poems that have gone into it. Hope it gets a publisher!

4. My poem REVERENCE: NUISANCE has appeared in 3quarksdaily, a blog that is read by the likes of Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins. I nearly fainted from the surprise, and thanks to Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta for pointing it out to me in the first place. Go, read the poem on 3QD. It is one of my earliest poems, so please read with the eyes of a seventeen year old.

5. If I have a crush on any one of my poems, it’s this one. And it’s got me some good news too. MULLIGATAWNY DREAMS has been anthologized in the National Book Trust anthology Both Sides of the Sky. Edited by Eunice de Souza, this anthology has been released fairly recently. I haven’t yet seen the book/cover anywhere on the web, and if I receive it sometime soon, I will upload the covers. I am thrilled, because I am really the last person who believes that what I write will finds its way into state-sponsored anthologies… Just guess life is full of surprises. I am also smiling to myself all the time, thinking of the fact that I am in an anthology of Post-independence English poetry. That sounds like a great category, except that I am not entirely comfortable with a word like independence. It has eluded a great many of us, I think. 

6. Back to some non-poetry news. My article has been quoted extensively in Green Left Weekly’s take on the genocide of Tamils in the Vanni.  

Which takes us back to square one right. I am not a believer, but right now  I pray every minute. To some one, somewhere. I reall want this massacre to stop. The civilian death toll since Jan 2009 could have easily crossed the 5000-mark. How many more Tamils should die before the world decides to do something?

Sheher: Front Cover

We are still experimenting… But here’s the tentative front cover… Let me know what you think. Artwork was specially commissioned from Chalukya for this cover.  Amazing talent, in my opinion…

I finally found a title…

So, after racking my tiny little brain and troubling every one I knew for ideas, I just came up with the title for this book… And Priya Sarukkai even found it cool, so I guess it isn’t so bad…

SHEHER
Urban Poetry by Indian Women.

(I won’t praise its merits. For the lot of those who don’t know Hindi/Urdu, sheher translates to city.. Which was the early working title. Never imagined for a second that it could give birth to something so lovely.)

In a few more days, I will upload the cover.

Sixty and Done

The final line-up (names in alphabetical order (last name-wise)–for those who are wondering at this arbitrariness)

Usha Akella, Meena Alexander, Anoopa Anand, Jane Bhandari, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Sujata Bhatt, Sampurna Chattarji, Rimi Chatterjee, Pervin Chhapkhanawala, Roselyn D’Mello, Mamang Dai, Kamala Das, Nabina Das, Atreyee Day, Eunice De Souza, Mira Desai, Nandini Dhar, Imitiaz Dharker, Tishani Doshi, Reshma Ghosh, Uddipana Goswami, Anjum Hasan, Abha Iyengar, Mamta Kalia, Meena Kandasamy, Lajwanti Khemlani, Preethi Krishnan, Chicu Lokgariwar, Gayatri Majumdar, Sharanya Manivannan, Meena Menon, Monica Mody, Monidipa Mondal, Anita Nair, Sandhya Nambiar, Suniti Namjoshi, Gopika Nath, Marilyn Noronha, Sukrita Paul Kumar, Meher Pestonji, Joan Pinto, Anuradha Pujar, Ratna Rajaiah, Lekshmy Rajeev, Anupama Raju, Mani Rao, Mukta Sambrani, Bina Sarkar Ellias, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Anindita Sengupta, Shefali Shah Choksi, Yogita Sharma, Menka Shivdasani, Sushmita Srivastava, Arundhati Subramaniam, Pooja Susan Thomas, Sridala Swami, Payal Talreja, Pali Tripathi, Ruth Vanita, Annie Zaidi

I have included the names of the poets from whom I solicited submissions, and the names of the poets who probably decided to give this a try. I think this is just the collection that I have always wanted to read, and that I never imagined I would ever put together. There are a lot of new, new names and I am happy I did that. Someone decided to give me a chance because they liked my way with words and that’s why I am where I am today. So, I haven’t been swung around by established names alone. I loved doing the selections and I love the ones I have handpicked. I did love a few other poets (I mean, their poems), but sometimes the theme didn’t match. And to those who can’t see their names here, I am not sending any rejection mails. If it isn’t here, it isn’t in the book. That’s all. Besides, Sunil Poolani might be using a few great poems that didn’t go into this book for Urban Voice (with the poet’s permission of course). So, it is not a complete rejection, really. Thank you dears for making this so wonderful.

The pre-press will swallow the rest of July and some part of August. The book will be out in early September 2008.

Announcement

The list of the poets who will be featured in our anthology of urban poetry by Indian women will be put up on my blog and on the publisher’s blog on JUNE 30. When the submissions throws up large numbers (200 poets, 700+ poems) it is guaranteed to make anybody get overwhelmed, or as in my crazy case, go slightly off-balance.

And, I will be sending individual letters of selection (though I personally hate the idea of sending rejection letters. Isn’t it easier to write a line somewhere here: If you haven’t heard from me by dd-mm-yyyy, please understand that your work hasn’t been selected). Am not sure. I am debating the ethics of saying yes, and saying no.

Next, about the book’s publication. Sunil Poolani, MD and Editor of Frog Books, has moved to a bigger, better concern, so that’s good news on one hand. On the other, it also means that our book will be slightly delayed. Say, instead of an August release, we get delayed by a month, or two.

That’s all. Thanks for your patience.

Crazy, crazy week

By Monday, I have received more than half a thousand poems… Great, and amazing response, but I am just thinking of how difficult it is going to be to sit and read through and judge. It would be fun, but it would also be a little taxing. So I try not to think of it too much. Though, there’s a benevolent part of me that wants to extend the deadline by a week, or a fortnight. The reason? Never in my life (except on three, or four rare occasions) have I submitted a work by the deadline. If I want to apply for something, it goes into my to-do list the day I see it, but then it stays there long after the deadline has passed. I just get excited by other things, or get into real deep soup, or something on similar lines, and I land up never submitting. Sloppiness in general. I have this nagging feeling that I should sit and write, and do something, and send some stuff across, but I never quite manage it. And this time around, because I am the one who fixes the deadlines, I want to be a little lenient.

And I am surprised by the kinds of doubts people out there have when you put out a call for submissions: is the deadline over (when everywhere I say that the deadline is only 30 May), and then, do we send the poems in the text or body of the email (does it really matter?), can I send more than one poem (a lot of people have asked this, and this i can understand), is it a problem if my poem uses foreign language words (it is not a problem even if your poem uses C++ and Java, i love codes as much as i love poems), I am an indian woman but i don’t live in india can I send you my poems (yes, yes, yes, please do), my poetry isn’t essentially about the city, but the city has influenced all my poems, so I want to send a poem (hey, really!), and finally, please give me your feedback (this is tricky. i can either select, or not select. why go into the business of saying why I liked or didn’t like yours), and then the final, please give me your feedback at the earliest (goodness. even the deadline isn’t over yet…)

What else? I have my comprehension examination fixed for July. The first week, or so I guess. Which means, after two years of being provisionally registered for a PhD, my registeration would get “confirmed”. So much of technicalities, and a three-hour exam, followed by a one-hour grilling session. Which means I have to bury my nose in lots of books for the time being. What a wasteful way to spend the summer.

Today I misplaced my mobile and I thankfully got it back. Much drama.

Was in the worst of moods this weekend. Had a bad showdown with my parents, big fighting, and then, I quarreled with my guide, and ended up feeling miserable with myself.

…

Jet City Woman

My call-for-poems was originally a letter I sent to women poets I knew, and admired. And then I thought, why not cast a wider net, why not fish for more? So here is a abridged version (and no, you can’t submit if you are a man. please. it is not yet a week yet and eight men have also sent in their poems)…

Peacock Books, the poetry imprint of Frog Books (www.frogbooks.net), Mumbai, India, will be bringing out an anthology of poetry, ‘Indian Women Writing in English’, in July 2008. I will be guest-editing the volume.

Urban poetry is the overall theme that we have chosen for this collection of verse. Seventy per cent of the country’s population lives in its five lakh villages, but as a nation we are characterised by our big-city dreams.

We are seduced by its slickness. We are shocked by its shadiness. And, as always, this powerful love-hate relationship with the exterior cityscape transforms into poetry. Hysteria, insomnia, chaos, confusion… it is difficult not to become possessed. So, open up the belly of the beast. Share your best city poem. It doesn’t matter if it has been published before. It doesn’t matter if you had not meant it for publication all along.

I am working with a deadline, a publisher with flaming feet and an illustrator; so I would love it if you could send your submission by 30 May 2008 to me. meena84@gmail.com. Please send a cc copy of your poem to Sunil K Poolani, Publisher and Managing Editor, Frog Books (poolani@gmail.com)