A. Anupama
I know, that’s backwards. It’s usually “effortless effort,” the Zen approach to living. But I think it may be more realistic and compassionate to say that putting in a focused effort upfront pays off in the practice of most things. One of my friends asked me when I’m going to add “watercolorist” to my profile…
Afloat together - I like accident in creative things. For example, this is one of the reasons I choose to know very little about jazz. Names of musicians, dates, recordings... blurrily. The music sneaks up on me. And I don’t consciously remember things when I’m creating. The sudden synchronicity of image, voice, a boat on…
One of my students observed this: it is like we are actually in Purgatorio right now. The pandemic worries them deeply, and the time we take reading and discussing literary work is not exactly a break from that; it is a productive way to process it. Dante is more hopeful about human capacities than you…
It had been too long, and the dhal needed stirring. So yesterday I invited another vigorous stir -- Saturday night salon, with readings and a round of "exquisite corpse" poems after the feast. What happens in the simmer except cinnamon-clove exhalations, flashes of coriander starlight in couplet after couplet. Here are excerpts of the beast…
We dismembered poetry and created some Franken-verse, as a little break today from revising work for the end of winter session at Writopia Lab. Reminding them (and myself) that cutting up the writing is still fun, startling, and rewarding.
No, I'm not dressing up as her for Halloween. But I do have to dress in costume for my Writopia workshops next week. My son, ever the wise and creative kid, suggested I go as Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter. So I bought my first witch's hat... Don't forget to order a copy of Kali Sutra (here or…
Time to tie poems into an offering---for you! Most of the poetry in this collection has been published here and there, in journals and online magazines. Now, these are all together again as I meant to present them, and you can pre-order the collection here on my website, or wait for the release date, October 20, when…
I made a paper-bag puppet yesterday along with the young writers at Writopia Lab's half-day camp. It had large, bug-eyes and orange wings. When you opened its puppet-mouth, its superheroine secret "weapon" burst forth: an oval "song." It's Cicada-Woman! The kids wrote dialogues with their puppets as characters---a fun way to collaborate and a good step…
Hearing new writing, even before the ink has dried, before the coffee has turned cold, we imagine bright lights into a newly formed sky. In the free-write group that I host every Friday afternoon, I invite participants to engage with a simple writing prompt for a 15-minute composition (it usually goes a little longer). Then…
poet | artist 