The Mango Tree

Upstarts

Enjoy Roma’s Poem- The Mango Tree

Midnight Poetry

You know you are a poet when you go to sleep, the last thing that comes to your mind as you sleep is poetry.

You know you are a poet when you cannot stop writing your poems drip out of every word you say, they have been dying to be written and think it it their right to be overwritten on bills, on business reports, on class notes and lab manual notebooks. You know you are poet when poetry swirls like magic dust out of the very matter around you. That magic dust enchants you, your pen, your paper and poems start to write themselves on pages and posts and laptop text editors.

You know you are poet when you have a feel for music, but you write poetry. When you have a feel for literature and stories, but you write poetry. When you have a strong feeling for the girl you are talking to in that coffee shop, but you are only really rating the date on the basis of how good the poem you write about her will be. You know you are a poet when everything in the world is a poem for you, but love still overwhelms you- to the point that even poems cannot be written by you. You know you are poet when you do not try to describe the feeling that is inside you. You simply talk about the things and places that got you to that emotion. You know you are poet when you just write what you want to write and you trust that your words are poetry. They do not need to be hammered in, they just fall in place. You know you are a poet when you cease to be one for moments when someone or something takes your breath away- suspended animation happens and the world slows down for you to experience. People take away a warm fuzzy feeling. Poets take away the smell of the air, and the color of the wall paint and the scent of her hair oil and perfume, as well as the warm fuzzy feeling. People see the sorrow of a situation and feel sad, poets can see the sorrow of the situation and save the sorrow into a poem so that that sorrow would always be remembered. Poets are creators of the best memories, and memories are time capsules, so poets make the best time capsules.

Poetry is me, punching out prose while it is itching to be worse, verse. 

I curse and give in, it is not me writing- it is an emotion from within

Distilling emotion into what comes in, and layering feeling into what comes out

My poetry is not my poetry.

My oxymorons are tautologies

My tautologies are redundant

And this is all some high handed wordplay that is not even very good, I should stop here.

Free verse beckons, and it slowly draws near…

So that is the end of my word workout. An excersizing of my brain to turn out some words, keeping the insides well oiled and clunking away so when the the real poems do come, I will have the words to express them.

• Chandrakant Redican

 

I am a spider-The Process behind the poetry

“I am a spider”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPIqw33B77M

I am still not happy with the name of the poem. But I cannot find anything better, it sounds a bit cheesy when you compare it with “I am Malala” but it still rings true I think. It is about a species with its back pushed up against the wall, living in less then 69 square kilometers of land, just doing its thing.

I think humans are the only living species that do not do their own thing- they actively do other things- like pollute environments and launch space ships. Sometimes they do great things though- like come up with music, art and amazing inventions. For millenia species have risen, survived and perished trying to maximise their chances of survival and for humans somewhere we mixed up survival with almost continual limitless growth so we keep on taking over land, expanding markets and even continuously gobbling up resources.

As with everything I write, “I am a Spider” is also a learning curve, every poem makes me a better poet and here more important than the poetry is what I say with it. There are many things which I feel do not work with the poem and need reworking.. but there are things which work correctly also, like managing to incorporate science into a poetry piece that is accessible and can be performed in a slam. The fact that it stands up well as a live piece as well is a plus point. Sometimes one just needs to write the first poem in a certain style to pave way for other poems which are better and more evolved to come through.

And important part of poems such as this one is research, many times my poetry is about people, human nature and things  around me. These poems though are poems based on observations which I make all the time. For a poem like “I am a spider” there has to be directed research reading papers and most importantly- the experience.

I was lucky enough to travel with Siddharth Kulkarni (The young firebrand taxonomist who discovered this spider) to the actual place where the spider was- I saw it weaving webs up close. I looked at it in wonder and Siddharth was there to relay his feelings. It was a powerful experience which is the core of the poem. A poem that may be lacking in certain ways, but a poem which I am proud that I have written.

I am trying to write more poems about these species which are not glorified and still suffering from the effect that mankind has on the environment. There are fairy shrimps, bees, sponges, roaches, unobtrusive birds and many other animals which slip past our awareness radar. These species need to be given their rightful place in our minds. I know it is impossible to be aware of every bug and insect, but at least we should know that there are insects and bugs, they are just as important as any tiger or panda and they should be saved from extinction. Not every insect will get a poem written on them soon. But art exists for a reason and art is at its strongest when it uses its ability to communicate for a cause.

So if you look at it this way- we need more artists communicating the knowledge and humanizing every field. The scientists need to learn storytelling and storytellers need to understand and figure out a way to learn science.

Poetry is but one part of this. I am happy it has started though.

Lets get the poems rolling!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPIqw33B77M