Why? (Madhumita Chakraborty)

why?

when we got to know
each other so,
that there were no more
spaces to explore;
was it exciting at all;
to be 'us' anymore?

continue...

I liked the rhythm, and it's well edited.
Perfect balance between questions and answers.
Aparna

Nothing malafide (what the ?) (C Ravishankar)

Intimacy unmatched,
sowed in me, seeds
of unwarranted affection

But clinging protectiveness
stifled.
Never-changing constancy
bored, cloyed.

continue...

The title did shed (like the snake) nothing meaningful On what poesies grew shining, coiling, under Startling, the eye that followed A dead husk, to find A living swaying wonder (commenting in verse, hope its not annoying) Aparna

O Father, who are you? - A Theory (Amit Mehra Productions)

Background 1: I have been married for a while now & we have decided not have kids.
Background 2: India, where I belong, has the 2nd largest population in the world

Years after we took that decision of not having any kids, I still ponder if we took the right decision. Largely because I look around myself and everyone keeps producing kids, irrespective of their financial, social or physical state. There's just nothing that can make people stop producing kids. Most people, at least in India, are going to great lengths & pains to have kids. Marriages are broken; relationships are made based on the abilities to produce kids.

continue...

Interesting article, and I like your theory, although I think it may be a complex of needs - power, a sense of hope/renewal, love, to exist in some form beyond death, feeling a purpose to life, etc.

Aparna


------------
(Actually, I thought it was very interesting, and close to the truth in a good many cases. But given our capacity for self-deception, our assumption of noble motives for everything we do, I can see why this theory exercise would jar a lot of people. So the brief comment there.

Already there is a good deal of cynicism about what used to be old ideals - work is about money, life is about getting ahead, patriotism is about right to be treated better than foreigners more than duties, romance is no longer about feeling but a score-card of things given and gotten. The last bastion of selflessness is parenthood, so attack it at the risk of rousing wrath among those who worship it.

I'm not a parent. Neither is the author, according to this article. Presumably, people who are parents are shaking their heads and going "What do these people know?".

Becoming a parent is a biological process. As Elaine says in the Seinfeld show, "It's not like it takes some kind of talent!". Being a human parent, though, is a lifetime job. Unlike dogs and cats, we don't walk away and leave our offspring to survive on their own, after a while. And in that way, we have more vested interests in our offspring than just their survival or our need to reproduce. By the time the kid is an adult, we have spent more than two decades taking care of them and teaching them what we know. Is there anything else in life you would give this much, without expectations in return? I don't know why we expect parents to be selfless.

For delicious irony, I quote my aunt to her own son, "I did so much for you when you were young, without ever thinking of my own comforts, for what? So that now you will ignore us and call once in six months? Why should I be so selfless had I known you are going to be so self-centered?"

It's a rare parent that says "I've done my job, now go live your life, and it doesn't matter to me if your life no longer needs my presence". That would be a selfless parent.)

Writing Exercise - Write what you know, edit, edit, edit, where's the hook?

Today's children are tomorrow's citizens. Our youth inherits a world poised on the brink of greater human glory or nuclear annihilation. We must focus our energies towards developing our youth to face the challenges of tomorrow, to make the right choices, and to decide today what they will be: Lotus or Cherry. Our country has produced some of the best minds, scientists, artists, and HCL engineers who set an example of talent and honesty when they admit "We're the ones connecting you to the stock market..and the market just crashed". To continue on the path of progress, our youth must uphold our hallowed traditions, become proficient in the use of the latest science and technology, and learn that MutualFundsAreSubjectToMarketChangesSoReadTheOfferDocumentCarefully. They must resist divisive forces seeking to break our unity, and ask not for whom the bell tolls, but ask "How many you have, man?"

(145 words - Aparna)

Link to Exercise ...

OK, I was ranting on about ads I love to hate. That's not really what this exercise is about, I know, but couldn't resist..

Verbose Monotony (Thomas Jacob)

A man who never failed to please
Put you at ease, did John Verghese.
A man so true, a man so nice
But alas, logic was his vice.

"Hey John Verghese, 'geese' is plural
but you are just one, not many!"
A singular person in logic's noose
He changed his name, to John Vergoose.

continue...

Yay! Wordplay, my favorite. Both poems are similar, but the first for whatever reason has a special zing.

If John Vergander had married writer Virginia Woolf, would he turn into a Ver-Woolf? (Aoooooooo)

Mukarrar, as the man said before..
Aparna

POEM: Tell me i see alright and it's only the rain (facts and calcuated conveniences)

is that dust from under her feet
on your shoulder?
is that the little girl
living
by the lies he told her?

continue...

'Is this music I hear
Or the silence in my head'

Amazing. It has the lyrical effect of a ghazal. A ghazal not just translated to English like many, but living in English.

"did you go easy on yourself;
was it really
so hard?"
Deep stuff.

You could use the "It's the rain that wont stop" refrain a couple more times, to break up the series of 'Is it/that' beginnings.

Last para has a spell fluff, 'too' spelled as 'to'.

Aparna

Dreamer's Noon (Ozymandias)

He swung himself up into one of the branches of the temple’s banyan-tree, surprised that he was still quite agile. He made his way to where a bough branched off the tree making a cup-shaped hollow; the refuge where he would escape to after he had successfully raided the mango grove. From the folds of his dhoti he extracted a mango, purloined from the high-priests, and bit into it greedily, thrilled as the juice flowed down his chin.

continue...

Are you continuing this?
Refreshingly different topic and I like its regional historical flavor. The names seem straight out of some epic story book (although I admit its probably Amar Chitra Katha versions of them that I've read).

Aparna

Soldier On The Streets Of No Return (Ashwini Ailawadi)

Once you were a soldier and you walked with your head held high,
You knew the secrets that would expose the universal lie,
In one hand was your guitar, and in the other a flower,
You looked so beautiful as you challenged the prophets of power,
They called you a fool and burnt your songs,

continue...

I didn't comment on Caferati. The title led me to think it was about war. But no, it's about no-return streets of drugs.
I read it, enjoyed it. I didn't want to say anything. Some of it is beyond cavil, and there are also some well-worn phrases. But it's hard sometimes to come up with a balanced comment - something that gives due praise and also criticize whatever could be better. One or the other side usually overwhelms and makes it seem like either you didn't like it, or that you liked it entirely.

Between this breath (Ratna Rajaiah)

Between this breath
And the next
Crouches
A possibility
Death

continue...

Really really good.
I like how the first 5 lines form a poem, a brilliant one, by itself.

In fact, maybe it should end there, because it is so good, it is hard to top it.
However, moving past that...
Using your metaphor, the crouch is the suspense, the leap is action, more dramatic. So I'd expect the last few lines to likewise rise to greater dramatic heights, describing death and its devastating effects, rather than continue with the suspense about when it'll happen. That was a bit anticlimactic.

I hope this makes sense. I've been thinking about it ever since the poem was posted.

Aparna

Symphony for monsoon and plastic roof (Peter Griffin)

As I write this, it is sweltering.

My shirt is drenched, my skin prickles and the tiles outside my window are radiating even more heat. There is an expectant stillness in the air, a quiet, breathless anticipation. Clouds scud across a bright blue sky; they're coming from the right direction, but there are too few of them, and they're fluffy and white, practically all silver lining.

Damn. It's still summer.

continue..

The Griffin has painted monsoon in its vivid joyous colors, while mine remain a defiant shade of bleak. Several of the images are so familiar from repeated usage, they have now ceased to move. I tried to summon up the enthusiasm for paper boats from General Science notebooks, and while my head says "Yes, yes, I remember", the feeling for it did not return. What will still appeal has to be more obscure ..has to be able to sneak around the back of my watchful cynical brain and bean it with a POW! forgotten sensation.

So my bleak monsoon- The sudden darkening and cooling before the rain; the gray mist that blurs horizon and earth and sky and seems permanent, eternal. Coconut trees like one possessed by the wind, flogged into painful shapes, unable to die. People walking bent forward against the wind, holding up umbrellas flying inside out like flags of surrender. The abandoned beach, with its mutinous waves and impassive sand and redundant soft drink stand. Curtains of a hotel room turning into soggy sails, dank doormats and the gray vapor seeming to emerge from indoor lamps as afternoon gray turns into ashy evening and matte black night of power failures and groping to the bathroom in complete darkness.

Only the unexpected iced coolness of the bed and blanket seem to foretell a drugged unbroken night after the sweat-drenched breathless fitful lie-ins of summer.

Jaguar Lights (Rochelle Potkar)

You and me sitting a space apart
Resting our chins watching
Golden moments bashing against stone
Some flotsam and a boat coming home

...

Eyes like those of a hundred Jaguars
Open up
Guiding wheels going home
In the dark

continue

She always writes well, and I like to read. I rarely have anything better to say than "Well done, again." I have a feeling she doesn't need inane comments like that.

Wine Ramble (Anita Vasudeva)

I read to you
- my words may slur
and run around the room –
my tongue may slip.
I began toasting tonight pre-lunch
and into the hot eye-burning evening
hoping that words and grapes will hold me up.

continue...

A lyrical heady ramble this, made for wines and remembrances.
"for is it not laden with wine and words today as you had always imagined,
a tryst in sepia colored movies on canvas screens in which you lived many times, not
knowing whether it was the movie or the wine or the vineyard
or the biblical breaking bread and sharing wine"
Must have shared the same bottle - same questions :-) but yours read much better.

Only the last stanza seemed to bring it down to earth, from a high. Different somehow, from the rest of the poem. Can't put my finger on it.

Aparna

Older - 4 (Peter Griffin)

You look at me and think
Old man.
You don’t see the toddler
Gawping at a world
Where all was new.

continue..

Thanks for the formatting tips.

If that was irony I felt in the capitalized Work Bag and Work Clothes, I thought it might be extended to First Paycheck.

The following is only point I thought is a little overstated.
"The bald scalp
The crumbling face
The stumble
The stiffness"

Will wait to see the new version.
Aparna

The First Rain Saudade (John Matthew)

First Rain Saudade

The first showers fall,
Syncopated percussions,
Like memory of first love.

continue...

The monsoon comes through really well in all the descriptive imagery. I found myself thinking more about the monsoon than love.

Esp. the phrase "buildings reflected in recent clouds", the urban connection to nature is simply felt, expressed, and beautiful.

Aparna

Humor

A lot of people have no sense of humor. They are well-read, but they have no sense of the absurd. They analyze it, they ponder it, they reflect on it. They don't laugh. A laugh is the only appropriate reaction to something funny.

If I tell you this joke..

After losing a breaststroke swimming competition, the blonde complained to the judges, "The others were all using their arms".

Sign that you get the joke - you laugh.
Sign that you don't get the joke - Your comments are about a) cheating in sports b) women in sports c) swimming competitions d) Judges biased for/against blondes e) philosophy of winning/losing.

If I don't label my writing as Humor, I tend to get comments from people who think I'm writing my views, not making up stories to get a laugh. I can't decide if that means I am not funny enough, or some people don't get that it is supposed to be funny.

I find this a big difference in Indian society v/s the West. Having lived in both places, I can see that some forms of conversational humor are not recognized as such over here (by some).

Check out the comments on Commenting (Or Not). See if you can spot the difference in the commenters - the ones who took it literally are the ones giving out advice on commenting/writing.

Story Teller (Short Story) / Vineesh Krishnan

The bus lurched forward. It had been trapped in a traffic jam for the last fifteen minutes.

“The girl mismatched the heads with the torsos. Tell me why she did it? Give me the correct answer or I am going to tell you another story.”

She thought hard. She wasn’t concentrating. She had been practicing the aahs and ahas for long and had learned to do it without actually listening. There was a girl, there were two guys… Then what?

(Continue..)

I did miss the connection with the two pieces, until your comment. I was thinking she chopped some body part into two pieces, but didn't know why.

It's dark, I like it. You have so many echoes from the stories that were complex mythologicals, open to many interpretations. Hayavadana's transposed heads, Ganga. Like a subterranean river flowing underneath this woman's life, the memories of ancestral women and their dilemmas.

At one point, I wondered if you were going for the King Vikram and Betal reference, where the Betal (vampire) tells stories and asks questions, failing to answer which will explode Vikram's head.

Lots of possibilities here. I think the ending was in a way a little modern, Bobbitt-like banal. Would be fun if you thought of a way to align the ending with all those story references.

Aparna

I am want to suiciding (Poem) - Ozymandias

O well! O well!
Why you are not having water?
I am failed in exam.
I want to suiciding.
Why you to be cleaned now?

(Continue..)

Oh no, _____(how do you like to be addressed by lazy writers, Oz, Ozzy, Ozman, Sir Oz ? ) Pardon me if this is a bad question, I don't wanna be Oztracised in da community.

Do you really want to lead all those suiciders to this here forum :-)

The thought makes me want to be suiciding, and quickly.
Aparna

Run...

What all I escaped
Colors, textures, and words
All that was mystique
Crystal clarity blurred

continue

That was good. I feel the second stanza about aging is particularly good - "Beckon to unbecome". As the above comment says, couple of places where the beat changes could be tinkered with. The first line "what all I missed" is a literal translation of a phrase from the native tongue, the English usage would be "All that I missed", or "Everything I missed".

Aparna

I'm sorry, but that first line's just bad English.
It does not add anything, it's jarring to the ear.
Were it the intent, there would be consistent use of it in the rest of the poem.

Aparna

Comment (Or Not)

I read something just now, and it created absolutely no desire in me to comment on it. No opinion, no feelings, no pithy comebacks, no derision, no admiration, just a blank. I can't identify with it at all. And I know this is not just happening to me alone. I also recently wrote something that got no comments at all. I could be writing something so fabulous that it went completely over your heads. Or not.

Someone asked why I don't comment on his posts. I think I said I could be so low in my reading skills that it went completely over my head. Or not.

What makes people decide to comment ? I thought about this for a while. I think, to the person reading, it has to feel like it addresses him. The tone, vocabulary level, style, choice of topic, degree of clarity all have to make him feel it is intended for him. I may have a clue here. Or not.

Like this - You're on a bus, sitting next to strangers, busy in their own thoughts, and you decided to say something aloud, a comment about the scenery out the window. A nice well-dressed family of trees, standing guard over a lake with little waves playing about, flashes by.

You look out the window and intone, loud enough for your neighbor to hear - "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in getting new contact lenses".

You think he heard you? It's hard to be sure. He may give no sign that he has. But perhaps he has heard you, and now what he's asking himself is the question: Is this guy talking to me, or to himself? (So, in all probability, did the 27 people who read your post, but refrained from comment).

If he stops pretending to be asleep, and looks at you, you can be sure he heard something. But perhaps not all. He may have caught just the last few words 'getting contact lenses', and is now under the impression that you're a Bausch and Lomb salesman.

You have to assure him you're not selling anything, or this conversation is over before it started. So you nod helpfully, and provide the context for your sudden outburst, by way of saying to him "Albert Camus. I believe that's what he said about journeys".

You think he would know who this Albert Camus is? You think he cares? If he rolls his eyes, or pretends to fall asleep again, he may not. But if he talks back to you - "No, I believe that was Proust. And he was talking of new eyes, not lenses" - it may mean he's interested in journeys, or new eyes. Or not. He may be thoroughly bored of journeys and new eyes. And strangers who want to talk about journeys and new eyes. Either way, he's still a mysterious stranger about whom there's much more left for us to learn.

There is one thing no one wants or expects a mysterious stranger on a bus to do and that is - Snuggle up closer and say, "Your lenses make your eyes so much bigger". If he does this, it's a signal to get off the bus pronto. That sort of guy is likely to send you 15 private messages in an hour after reading your one post.

Let's hope he doesn't do that. More likely he considers the conversation over, even as your misquote has been put in its place, and start fiddling with his cellphone instead. At least you know he's heard you, and understood you.

But what if he said nothing in return, and just glanced sharply at you, and returned to peruse his magazine? How do you find out if he agrees with you, or dislikes Camus, journeys or lenses? Or that his native language is Tulu and he speaks no English? Or that your accent was so bad, he thought you were speaking Tulu?

At this point, there is likely a temptation one must resist very firmly - to poke him in the ribs and say, "What did you think of what I said?" That sort of thing will at best get you thrown off the bus, and at worst... well, the worst depends on your neighbor's creativity, size, and tools at his disposal.

You may want to call his bluff about being too busy with his cellphone, too interested in his magazine, or too sleepy to respond. But that will just get him all riled up, and he'll be forced to take it out on you. It can get nasty. You can wait for a while, to see if he's going to respond. You can wait forever.

Or you can adopt a simpler, clearer style that everybody is familiar with: - "I thought I recognized you from somewhere. Are you somebody famous?". There is little chance anybody famous is sitting in a bus, instead of a limousine, but you can try. A slim possibility exists he may never have heard that line before, and will find it refreshingly original, and be moved to say so.

You could change to a more popular topic - "Ever hear that one about Rachel Welch and the Pope in a boat?". You may get lucky this way. Or not. That joke has been around for a while, and it may have gone stale. You can simply move to the next seat and start your work afresh on another busmate. You may fare better there. Or worse.

If you have been ejected by an entire bus of passengers without mercy, you don't have to give up and fade away. It is helpful to remember what David Hockney said - "Art has to move you, but design does not. Unless it is a design for a bus".

Or not helpful. It all depends on what that Hockney was talking about. I have no idea. I just like to write.

As the crow flies (Ashish Gorde)

This story could read like a fable, but it is not. It is simply dressed like one, and might even give the impression of one of those quaint moral tales with deep underlying meaning, but it is nothing like that. It is simply an account of a bizarre experience in our garden, which may or may not have moral implications but we could take a chance.
continue..

(This is more about the story...)

One possibility is that while the crows didn't know how to help the baby get back to the nest, they didn't want any other people venturing near for fear that their intent was to harm the baby. After all, they have no way of knowing you're trying to help.

We ran into a bunch of elephants blocking the road near a coffee estate. A young elephant had stuck its leg among some rocks and was unable to get free, and the herd didn't know how to help, but they were guarding it, so no one else would take advantage of its helpless state. Unfortunately they were also preventing the forest department trying to get close to the trapped one so they could free it.

Aparna

Freak

"So what are you going to do?", Lovely said.

"Nothing. I am going straight to work, then taking the train out at 2:30, I won't think about this until I'm back from Philly Tuesday". I added three pairs of socks, and a book ("The Six Cents - by Knight Shyamalan") on the top of 3 neatly folded shirts of varying pinkness in plastic covers.

"And then?"

"And then I tell him we're off, we're through, finito. I can't go through life with a freak."

"He's not a freak. He's just a litte uh...dogged by bad karma lately". Lovely likes to stick up for Manish, because he brings Pinkberry icecream home every Friday evening, and he always brings her some, even though she doesn't live with us. And he guards it like a cat from me, checking the fridge everyday to see if the box has been moved around. I mean, she doesn't even come by for 3-4 days sometimes, and it sits there perfectly aligned with the black line on the fridge light he drew, so he'd know if it was moved. Yeah, I know about that. It's low. It sucks. It's Manish's bloody sense of fair play

"He is a freak. I've never even heard of things like that happening to anybody once, and it happens to him all the time.He's a whole Ripley's book all by himself". I added the black eyehole top that I think is sexy, actually a little slutty. The eyehole is just a little too big.

She was trying that face on me again, the Mother Theresa Accosted by Man Selling Viagra Still Life in Poster colors face. "Why do you wear that thing? It's hideous, it makes you look like a tramp. I'm not surprised if men feel like stopping you and saying Ëxcuse me, how much for half-hour?"

"I like slutty. You have no kink in your soul, that's the problem. Besides, men like that don't waste time saying Excuse Me". She's irritated, and I'm off to a good day. I'll be all sweetness at the office now.

"But I haven't told you what happened yesterday", I continue.

"What yesterday?"

"Yesterday we were getting ready for Ennis's party, and Manish was sitting on the bed, checking the laptop for map directions, and he was drinking Coke straight from the liter bottle, like he does, and he drank a little too much too quickly. Started to come out of his nose. Have you ever snorted Coke from your nose? It stings your nasal membranes like two hells. So he spit out the Coke from his mouth, and it landed on the keyboard of the laptop, and shorted it. Blew up sparks all around like mini fireworks. It gave him a bad shock."

"Oh my god, it must have scared him." Lovely was concerned and excited at the same time. She's not bad, actually. She really likes Manish, but she also likes to hear how Manish gets it under the chin sometimes.

I swung around the bed and sat down next to her. I have to be leaving soon. But this story has got to be finished.
"No, I mean he really got an actual electric shock. Couldn't feel his fingers and toes for a while. We gave Ennis and his party a miss, went to Emergency instead. Had to tell this story to the doc three times. He was very doubtful. He thought maybe we'd been doing some Friday evening after-work happy-shiny highs. I had to tell him some of the other stories. How Manish was shaving with a knife in memory of the old Italian barbershop his father used to take him to, and how he sneezed and cut his jugular and had to go to St Martins through Memorial Weekend traffic wrapped in a bed sheet, because there was no time to dress.

"The nephew story?" she volunteered. She knows all the stories now, better than me. She's even been using it as a fallback conversation picker-upper when nothing else works on whichever colleague she's trying to get interested in her.

"That too. Although the doctor thought I was exaggerating when I said Manish actually killed his own nephew by falling on him. He said it was extremely unlikely - any 4 year old would be hurt, perhaps bruised quite a bit, but die of internal bleeding from an elbow in his stomach? But it happens to Manish. Anyhow, the thing I wanted to tell you is that Manish told me something weird last night.after we got back from the hospital"

Lovely's eyeballs grew large.

"He said that just before anything nasty like this happens to him, he has like a split second thought of 'What if an accident like this happened?', and then it really happens. Each and every time."

"He's got precognition?!" - she said, now actually aroused, "He can see it before stuff happens!". Her excitable hand was messing up the clothes in my suitcase,. I shut it, pushed the zipper around in one swift circular motion, then pulled it off the bed and stood up, ready to leave.

"No, that's not quite it." I was definitely late now.
"Manish thinks he's actually making this stuff happen by thinking it".

She stared at me. "Why would he make such stuff happen?"

I had this last bit well prepared, "He said he may be doing it to get me to dump him. Because I won't want to be near someone who has accidents all the time".

She was all up on Manish's side now. "And you are? Going to dump him for thinking that? That's not fair. I mean, even if he's nuts thinking what he's thinking, it's not true, you know that."

"Yes, I know it's not the truth. He's a freak, I told you". I stepped out the door, closed it behind me. I stood for a minute.
I should, I shouldn't.
I shouldn't.
I should ?

I opened the door and peeked back at her. She was still standing where she had stood. I grinned.
"He's doing it for you. Will you call him and tell him I ate your icecream?"

Caferati link..

The shocking truth about the slush pile [Article excerpt and link] (Peter Griffin)

...
The envelopes and emails rolled in, and I rolled them out with the standard knockback letter. It stopped being funny; it felt arduous. I hated that it was my job to shatter people's dreams of being published, but I also hated that so many of them had such illiterate dreams. The physical act of writing a book may not be difficult, but there's a big difference between smacking away at a keyboard and writing something that anyone who doesn't really love you wants to read. The majority of people who submitted their work went wrong after the first few pages at best, if the cover letter wasn't dreadful.

From "The shocking truth about the slush pile" by Jean Hannah Edelstein at the Guardian Blogs. Read the whole thing at http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/05/the_shocking_truth_about_the_s.html (and don't forget to read through the huge number of comments from both sides of the fence).

Caferati link...

I read the entire post and the comments with a good amount of chuckling. The divide between the publishing world view and those on the wrong side of the slush pile - who serves whom ? - never really gets smaller with all the discussions.

I started to read the blog of one Miss Snark, agent extraordinaire in 2005. I was reading it purely for her snarkisms, but she is both funny and informative, and discovered a whole new vocabulary starting from SASE and slush pile that I had no idea even existed :-)

She stopped writing recently, but the blog archives still exist at http://misssnark.blogspot.com

Aparna

The Pun is mightier than the sword

I got a message from a person with a cool nickname - it was a pun, an original one. He read one of my Caferati comments, and said he could not agree with it more, and hoped the futility of becoming posterity's poster child it would take the pressure off writing (am just paraphrasing him here).

I love puns. I love people who think up great puns. I love 'punny' people who write in to say they could not agree with me more. What's not to love?

The mood has lightened considerably after this.

When Our Writing Becomes Us (John Matthew)

Jump to it..


Dan,
Thanks for the tip. Next book on my list. :-)

John,
Critics can judge, applaud, point to flaws, and compare with other writers, but they cannot tell a writer what to write. They don't decide what books must be written.

I recently read that the number of new English books published in 2004 was 375,000. Total number of English books available for purchase the same year: 450,000. The average reader probably goes through 10 or 20 in a year.
This of course excludes all magazine articles, blog posts, newspapers and every other form of printed information a person comes across, online or offline.

What an avalanche of advice, impressions and thoughts! It seems impossible for anyone to leave any lasting impression behind. I hope we all write at least in part to please ourselves, and those who may chance on it today, rather than posterity.

(If this realization isn't the stuff of Kafka, what is :-) )

Aparna

Making Poetry Submissions [Article excerpt and link / Peter Griffin (Moderator)

Making Poetry Submissions
Chris Hamilton-Emery

Why do I write?

Before considering making a poetry submission to any publisher it is important to consider what you want to contribute to a publishing relationship and precisely what you want to achieve within your writing life. This is certainly not a financial contribution, we're not talking about vanity presses in these notes, it is a far more important contribution than just money. Understanding your intentions and efforts as a writer will, to a large extent, determine what choices are to be made and provide you with a few opportunities and very many challenges. It might surprise you to discover that being published may not be the best choice for you and your work.

(continue...)

--------------
"However, this is not a test for the financial viability of your poems in a published work."

Like everyone else, I'm curious - so I'll hijack this thread, with the dumb question of what is the test of poetry that can sell. I know, it's the million-euro question.

Is there something we can learn by asking - What do we know about the poetry we like to pay for, as readers? Obviously, these are the successful poets.

Hope there'll be more discussions, tips, and questions/answers from people here.

Aparna

Run... [Verse] / Vyom Prashant

Run...

What all I escaped
Colors, textures, and words
All that was mystique
Crystal clarity blurred

(continue reading)

That was good. I feel the second stanza about aging is particularly good - "Beckon to unbecome". As the above comment says, couple of places where the beat changes could be tinkered with. The first line "what all I missed" is a literal translation of a phrase from the native tongue, the English usage would be "All that I missed", or "Everything I missed".

Aparna

The Reluctant Fundamentalist - A Review / Rahul

The Reluctant Fundamentalist - A review

That day, feeling slightly high on a rationed quantity of Old Monk and carbonated fizz, I walked in home to find my brother and my dad talking about a plane crashing into the WTC and even as I was trying to register surprise...I heard that another plane had crashed into its twin tower and suddenly there was this enormous possibility of it being deliberate. I remember feeling sad about the people trapped in the twin towers...but somewhere deep inside me, I was smiling at seeing the confusion within the American Intelligentsia. To use a cliché, 'in one swell swoop', the US of A was exposed to war in their own land.
(continue reading)

Hi Rahul
Your review provokes interest in the book, which I was unsure about reading before. I was waiting to hear some of the book's conclusions about why people like Changez reject America (but you didn't give them away :-)) - and where the root of that phenomenon lies. It cannot be explained broadly as cultural clash, as there are plenty of Muslims who still live in America, integrated or not. Is it a personal orientation, or the play of individual circumstances, or a tide of the times? Is it more about where a person is in his own life, the search for meaning in one's own life seeking larger voices to identify with.

From your description, it appears the book prefers to examine closely the experiences of one individual, hoping to find a clear thread of cause and effect. But perhaps this is a more complex issue, with multiple causations, and the author presents one aspect, without attempting to compile all causes, or an analysis of how they affect individuals.

I'll have to read this book, to find out.
Thanks for the review.

Aparna