A. Anupama
My favorite word is “or,” a hinge on which possibilities can open and close securely, which is an obvious necessity when using prose. But it’s more than that to me. Ask a question using “or,” and you will understand. It requires you to imagine what might be. If you really wish to complete the thought…
Landscapes fade to gold around here. Gold is their resting state, revealed only just before the dark. Whole hillsides melt into caramel. Sunrise seems to last all day long, but the light dissolves a little more week by week. Light a candle before you read a poem at night. To make anything with this landscape,…
Perfect for a Diwali mood, I’m listening to the live broadcast of the Ragas Live Festival, a 24-hour cycle of ragas and raga-inspired world music at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, 8pm 10/22 until 8pm 10/23. Listening in on WKCR is an annual tradition for me. A transcendent night, just begun. Already at 9pm, a pair…
At least it’s an affordable luxury, this craft of poetry. Catch a phrase loitering around the alley of your mind, and find a place to keep it. Pretty phrases are as plentiful as the red-gold leaves turning the road into a bed of glowing embers. I'm pretty sure I spend more on my poetry practice…
Poets are monster slayers. I have always thought so, but I don't picture a pen as the weapon. A pen is a pretty wimpy object, if you really look at one. And I don't think our weapon is some mystical effect arising from poets' voices, which aren't any more shatteringly shrill than anyone else's. Poets…
Yesterday at my annual eye exam, the optometrist told me to get myself a pair of reading glasses. Here they are--inevitable lenses through which I'll have to gaze at poems and paintings from now on. I'm not complaining. My blurry vision is a reminder to me -- don't take this for granted. This is also…
How thirsty will we have to get? Drought looks terrible on the Hudson’s palisade, where trees have browned all along the crest. The brook in my neighborhood had dried up completely last week, but got back a trickle at least, which I noticed while walking Old Mountain Road this morning. The beech saplings alongside might…
The grace of starting something new isn’t mentioned all that much, at least, not as much as we talk about the discipline to get started or the inspiration to begin. Maybe it’s because grace is not in our control at all, unlike these other two. I'd like to acknowledge and give credit to grace itself…
My daughter and I were talking about the difference between “overwhelmed” and “whelmed” in the car while I merged onto a parkway. I think those words are close to each other but not freely interchangeable. Creative work thrives on “whelmed,” as a kind of outflow of real compassion. “Overwhelmed” seems like the crowded on-ramp, where…
Like painting with colors no one can see. Like writing a poem with one word. Like remembering a celebratory dinner only by the brilliant smiles around the table. That’s what a true heart truly likes. I started a new job as copywriter in a medical communications company this week, which prompted one of my poetry…
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