A. Anupama
It's a little bittersweet to think about how it is at the end of every semester — that mishmash of relief, pride, and sadness at wrapping up with a group of students. I'd be getting in the mood to grade a bunch of creative portfolios over the winter break if I were teaching. But I'm…
Making art is a good way to get to know yourself and others, and it usually feels good. Sometimes not. Sometimes you can get in trouble, as my daughter did in her art class the other day when she was being less-than-cautious with scissors. She's in high school now and definitely knows better, but when…
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…
At least it’s beautiful when the feminine divine is completely enraged. Does someone point out the real beauty to us? Will it help us shift into what is good? My cousin sent me this viral video today— a bharatanatyam and hip-hop fusion dance. Laughing and smiling is a good break from roaring. https://youtu.be/Saj65ySCOSo This morning’s…
I wonder if I’m noticing enough, even as I pause over fresh red leaves in the roadside next to the curb. There’s pleasure in writing poems, even breathless with exertion of reluctance. The last robin in our neighborhood to fly away for winter might have gone already, or might not yet. A poem waits and…
I had forgotten about the way I kept “teaching shoes” in my car after this year-and-a-half in virtual classrooms. It’s so good to be with students, in living presence, and there’s no equivalent for it. Now that the school semester is fully underway, most of my thought and energy is in the lectures, discussions, assignments.…
What do butterflies say? If a child asked me that, I’d say “listen.” This past Sunday, my neighbor and I walked up the newly built section of trail that leads from Nyack Beach State Park to the Long Path, which climbs to the peak of Hook Mountain. We met a woman named Felicia, who teaches…
There are moments I don’t photograph or write about, though they are worthy of a creative expression. Maybe that’s partly why I took up painting and guitar this year, to see if more angles of approach could widen my praise of life. But it hasn’t really changed the level of silence I keep. A blue…
I should know better than to look at social media on my phone while still half asleep in bed in the morning. But I do sometimes, probably because the intensity of the collective pain to be found there helps to efface my own restless, anxious dreams. Sometimes it just amplifies them though, as yesterday when…
poet | artist 