There was a rain of poems for session 128 when I hopped on The Quarantine Train. I was invited by friend and mentor Sivakami Velliangari in Chennai who I met for a reading organized by the Prakriti Foundation in 2007. Sivakami who is co-curator of TQT introduced me saying it was apt that I should be the featured on TQT since I had lived most of my life on trains.
Arjun Rajendran, curator of TQT, suggested that I open with my train poems. It was a new way of looking at my poems. I began with '(T)rain' and followed it up with 'Dharakhoh' and 'Budni.' The abandon of travelling came through in 'Slippers in Plastic.' Writer, Anil Menon asked if I do not at times feel travelling gets you down. Travelling builds endurance. My travel writing is contemplative like 'Chariots of Fire.'
Arjun asked how I write a poem while travelling. I just observe things around me. I like to document the obvious. I like to write about ordinary people. For me there is something heroic in each person. I try to capture that. Anil asked if I edit my poems. I edit while I am writing. The previous line has to be perfect for me to move to the next. I cannot write the same poem twice. I vary my content and form with each poem. That makes each successive poem more difficult than the first. That is the level of challenge.
Aswin Vijayan asked how it was possible to write about so many themes. If you look at my work across my poetic career the themes reify themselves. There is a freshness. I think it comes with maturity. One is inspired by different things at different stages in life. Which is why it is so important to write what you feel at that moment.
The silence of ten years after my first poem 'Requiem to a Sal' was broken by 'Last Bus to Vasco' (which I read). The ten years of gestation or distillation were critical in finding my voice. I was shrinking from the responsibility of a poet. But then I took it up. My recent poems on Gauri Lankesh and Stan Swamy engage with social issues. 'Good Morning from Goa' is of the same ilk.
'Who is a Goan poet?' Aswin asked. He had read my editorial in the special issue on Goan Literature curated by me in Muse India (Volume 50). It was difficult to say. I write about humanity. I try not to be part of categories where you have to write for other people's expectations consciously or unconsciously. 'Freedom-Song' is about this tension.
In my reading at Chennai a critic referred to me as 'a chronicler of our times.' I continue to do that in 'Mapusa Market.' Images of the food in Goa were invoked when I read 'May Queen.' Following a query I explained the Portuguese expression, Venha mais vezes i.e. 'Come again often.' I also explained that 'Ful-na-pakli' in Konkani meant that if you cannot be a flower, be a petal. I always try to have takeaways in my poem for the reader. Poems should inspire. Kinjal observed that Goa was changing. Does poetry have a transformative role? I said it will have a role if people read. One does not see much of that happening. People do not believe in the redemptive power of poetry.
Aswin commented on the wisps of words and the abbreviated lines in my poems. Arjun asked about my poetic influences. T.S. Eliot comes through in the line 'Hurry up please, it is time' in 'Last Bus to Vasco.' Neruda, Borges, and Pessoa enrich my poetic landscape. Moved by the poetry of Mahapatra and Ramanujan. Paintings, music and film all segue to create the tapestry of some of my poems. Kinjal screen-shared the paintings by Shireen Mody in the article I had written on Mody on my blog. She also shared links to my poems on my blog in the chat during the session.
On demand I took out my guitar and played the Konkani dulpods with the medley 'Undra Mhojea Mama.' But not before I signed off with my poem 'Pen-dant.'
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Special thanks to coordinator Shobhana Kumar and Soni Somarajan for the creatives (above). Covers of Last Bus to Vasco: Poems from Goa (2006); A Peace of India: Poems in Transit (2011) and Jasmine City: Poems from Delhi (forthcoming). Pic of Brian taken at Sanchi (2007). Updated 15 September 2021.
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