A. Anupama
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.…
If suns grew in a field together, would they get along? If stars fell into fields, would we memorialize them? If the crescent moon mowed the field, what kind of hay would that make? Poems are made of heat, light, consciousness. On a hot day in August like this, maybe poems get lost. Maybe in…
I like to think of literature and the creative writing process itself as a type of habitat for emotions. We can reserve a space of quiet, practice the discipline of gardeners, and protect our observational vantage points from those who might disturb the sanctuary. But does anyone know where an emotion comes from or where…
My son’s supervisor at his summer internship in New Jersey is Indian, and suddenly my son says to me that he’d like to read more about India. His aim, I suppose, is to have more to talk about at work. But, being the ever-annoying poet-mom, I replied, “you can always know more about India, but…
Sometimes a song does it. I'll suddenly remember being together with a group of people, playing a game or writing some poems, sharing food and drink. We've been watching some classic musical films at my house for that very reason: nostalgia for the simple joy of just being together. Today, not one but TWO in-person…
It's as necessary to listen to rain, and then to go for a walk in it, as it is to sit down with pen and notebook. I'm writing a poem in hope of unraveling my thoughts about the shootings in Atlanta this week. Imagine how snarled up those thoughts are for many, between experience and…
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 