Amateur poets

The world of poetry, which is quite alien to me, is apparently split down the middle. A few days ago, a poet Rebecca Watts, wrote an article in a poetry journal excoriating young female instagram poets and the attention lavished on them by publishers. The article opened with the combative words 'Why do we not consider poetry an art form?'. It goes on to rue the dumbing down of poetry and the rise of the cult of personality in it--personalities whose sole meritorious quality is their "honesty". But, where is the art in vomiting out your feelings, free of reflection, imagination and nuance expressed in verse that stirs something in the reader? She quotes some lines from the instagram poets she scorches and they are pretty awful. The review is worth reading in full and quotes some lines about how amateur poetry can be therapeutic. I quite agree. I wrote reams and reams of angst-ridden verse as part of my therapy, which I would never dream of showing anyone else. Watts also stresses the need to focus on a poet's output rather than on the poet's personality. I agree with this as well because reading poetry is such a hit-and-miss experience. Some poems blow you away and others by the same author do nothing for you. For a long time, I thought I would never be able to appreciate other people's poetry because it is so personal and nuanced. Too personal and nuanced for another person to comprehend. I don't think so anymore but the point remains that reading poetry is a highly subjective experience. So, is reading prose but the difference is there will always be authors most of whose work one likes. One might have favourite stories or articles but one is unlikely to be indifferent to their other work. The same can't be said for poetry, in my humble and raw opinion.

P.S.: I googled Rebecca Watts to see how good a poet she is and came across this poem,which I found stunning.

Haikus

Some Haikus

When she broke my heart,  I was relieved to know I had a heart,
An almost love is also love.

A clogged gut and a clogged heart go hand in hand.

A bad cold is the distance between 'healthy' and 'not sick'.

Angst is a poet's fuel, boredom is the spark.


And a limerick

If only large people, didn't have to make small talk,
Life would be so easy, I say
I'd just stand there and nod, while you talked your head off
And then we'd both be on our way

And a short poem

When you love someone,
when  you fear someone,
when you miss someone,
you feel it in your stomach.
So,when your tummy trips,
ask not what you ate
but what eats you.

New friends

How long does it take for someone to become a friend? I was at a Meetup event for foreigners in Bristol this evening and was asked by  a newbie whether I ever hung out with someone I had met at a Meetup event. I replied I didn't although that is strictly not true. I met my Italian friend M at my first Meetup event and we hit it off, seeking each other out at the end to exchange numbers. We have met numerous times since. But coming back to the point, I have struck a rapport with a few others at Meetup events but we never made it to the exchanging numbers stage. I don't know why. I wouldn't have minded hanging out with most of them, but making the first move seemed too much of an effort and not worth the risk  of rejection. I suppose making new friends is a less anxiety-causing version of dating. There are people you clearly like and you don't mind making  the first move either because you know they feel the same way or because  they  are worth  the risk. With others, it is a slow-burning fire. You leave it to fate to throw you together again and make you friends if it chooses. You don't take fate in your own hands. And, you hope you will meet someone with whom you don't have to do the dance of decorum to get close. People who kindle a light in you. Such people are few and far between. But they are worth wait.

P.S. The newbie and I got along quite well, but didn't exchange numbers.

Yoga

I took up yoga wholeheartedly about six months back after a few abortive attempts. A friend had recommended a youtube channel, and since I am not a fan of classes, or people in general ,I was up for trying it.  I have been stiff for as long as I can remember, so my main motivation was to become more flexible. Becoming beefy was,  for some reason, of little  interest to me at the time.
I took to yoga like a fish to water. After doing a 30-day series without missing more than a day, I started on another 30-day series. Since then I have been doing various  singles.
Yoga isn't a great bodybuilding workout and as my health has improved, I have started supplementing it with body-weight routines. Yoga is more for my mind than my body. There hasn't been a  single day that I have felt worse after a session than before and yoga has lifted my mood on a number of  occasions. Yoga makes you acutely conscious of your breath and your body, what  yoga instructors  call "coming into your body".  This necessitates suspending judgement of the past and expectations and trepidation about the future. For those 30 minutes in the morning,  I am fully in  the present. Since forcing yourself to relax or be present is next to impossible,  the only way of coming into your body is to surrender yourself to the  practice and your instructor. A number of lines of my instructor, which perhaps would have sounded banal in another context, are seared into my memory and sources of comfort during testing times. Lines such as "Surrender yourself to that which you cannot control", "The mind is strong, but so is the breath," "If  the mind is strong today, you are not alone'. And, just the physical experience of being conscious of all the body parts you never give a second thought is refreshing. 

A blog about blogging

Since I try to cycle back from uni while it is still light and lack a social life, my evenings are free. So, I have decided to use the time to blog. I could continue working on my PhD but have decided, as a rule, to not work from home unless unavoidable. The problem is when I am on a writing project/assignment, I work on it relentlessly so as not to break the flow. As a result, I feel mentally drained and am wracked with boredom for days after I finish. In case you get the impression I am a prolific writer, I should point out that the passionate writing sprees are woefully few and far between. This blog is part of an attempt to cultivate a healthier and less erratic writing habit which includes creative writing.

It is early days but I have a routine which I find quite relaxing. After I get home in the evenings, I make myself a piping hot cup of tea to drive the cold out of my bones. I then put on the radio and sit down to blog. I suppose there are worse ways to spend wintry evenings.

Of course, words don't come easily. Today, for instance, I spent 45 minutes thinking what to blog about. Since, this is a new (or, rather, newly revived)  blog, I could get away with blogging about blogging, but I realize that won't be an option for long. I have a pipeline of blog ideas which  I will work  through over the next few weeks. I have only one thumbrule--I should enjoy writing every post.  If it is boring to write, chances are it will be boring to read. On days when I feel particularly lazy, I will post poems and haikus I have written in the past. 

Second coming

I arrived in England yesterday after a long exhausting journey which included having to repack my overweight carry-on bags twice at the check-in counter and being held up at immigration for my papers to be rechecked. But, in between, I had a seat with almost unlimited leg room and no neighbors by virtue of being wheelchair accessible.
Being back feels woefully familiar. English winters are as dreary as ever and I was welcomed with a storm. Not having a routine to jump back into or many friends make boredom and loneliness a real possibility. Settling-in chores are as tiresome as ever and things not going according to plan a source of unnatural anxiety. All these things had bothered me a good deal when I was last here. To add to that, I have to explain my absence from England and dodge quizzical looks.
But, something feels different too. Interactions, especially with strangers, feel less forced and awkward and I feel less self-conscious. Boredom and loneliness don't feel inevitable, permanent or debilitating. To be sure, there are moments of stress, anxiety, boredom, loneliness, frustration but also moments of happiness, satisfaction, contentment and laughter. And, while having to explain my absence is annoying, I don't feel ashamed.

Resurrection

My last blog post was on 22nd July, 2009. I wasn't sure I would be able to revive this blog as I had long forgotten the password but such is the magic of Google that all I did was type blogger.com into the address bar and was brought to this page. The thought that Google knows everything usually scares me, but this time I was pleased.
So, I have decided to resume blogging after a gap of eight-and-a-half-years. I did a lot of writing in the intervening period, first as a journalist and then as a post-graduate student. There was also some diary-writing, but it was very personal stuff so I didn't even think of posting it on this blog. Somewhere along the way, I lost the habit of purposeless writing--writing not aimed at venting or at making sense of a problem. Writing that flows from staring into space, which I do a lot of. I had forgotten how much fun that can be.
The past two years have been tumultous, to put it mildly. I was fortunate enough to find someone who guided my writing towards therapeutic purposes and it worked wonders for me. It taught me a lot about myself but more importantly, it taught me to learn to listen to myself. To try to figure out what I really want, which isn't easy in a world which has pretty firm ideas about what I should want.
But, I am over the therapy phase of my writing and am ready to start a creative phase. So, readers who stumble upon this blog need not fear an ambush of angst. My life is certainly not angst-free but at least it is not angst-dominated at the  moment (knock on wood). I feel like I have become a more open person over the past two years and I am ready to engage more with the world. By blogging, rather than (or in addition to) keeping a personal journal, I am hoping to cultivate this newfound openness.
I am writing this post a few hours before I leave for England to resume my post-graduate studies. It is an exciting time for me and I hope that excites shines through my writing. Last year, for the first time in my life, I wrote poetry. Clunky, angst-ridden poetry, but poetry nevertheless. I also tried my hand at limericks and haikus and was surprised by how much better I was than I had anticipated.
So, this blog will have a mix of prose and poetry and will hopefully be less "intellectual" and judgmental than it was nine years ago. More on that later but, for now, I will end with a quote that resonates with me deeply.

There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul - Arnold Bennett.