To support a fellow poet I once attended an evening call Artless. The concept behind Artless is to provide a safe platform for artistes to showcase their new work. It’s quite an intimate gathering with artistes and their friends, family, supporters. In the evening that I attended, my teacher, Pele, has a wild idea – that I get out there and perform in the next one. Few weeks later in a moment on madness/inspiration – I said yes.
I had 3-4 weeks to prepare and we first selected the poems I would recite. Quite by coincidence, most of the poems we selected turned out to be about relationships! Next I practiced reciting them. The first thing I noticed was that I recited too fast. To correct my pace, I asked my teacher to do a ‘benchmark’ recital and I recorded that on my phone. Then I would listen it to it, practice my own recital, and make sure it timed to at least the benchmark duration. The second thing I noticed was pauses. The way I paused, it disrupted the continuity of the poem and did not let the key elements sink in. So I learnt that as well, both from my benchmark recital and from listening to some of the greats perform. Michael Donaghy (one of my favourite poets) was a master of recitals –I read somewhere that he even wrote poems while standing behind a lectern! In the pauses exercise I learnt about silence and the meaning silence conveys in poems. A very profound experience, almost like the concept of white spaces, black spaces that Glynn Maxwell talks about in his masterpiece on poetry. The next part was writing the context behind each poem, followed up rehearsing the whole recital 3-4 times. I was ready.
I started. Towards the end of my first poem (which was about my sister), I was so moved that I almost started choking up (by the way that’s my litmus test of a good poem – if it moves me, it’s great, if not, there’s work to do). But then I composed myself and carried on with the remaining four.
I got that being in the moment, being in the poem, being with the audience- being one actually (you, poem, them)– that’s what makes for a great recital.
Here are the poems I recited and a few lines about/from them:
1. The Lost Thread
A poem about an Indian festival called Rakshabandhan in which the sister ties a thread around their brother’s wrist and the brother promises to protect her
In front of the altar – a steel tray.
a clay oil lamp, vermillion powder,
dried rice grains, water,
sweets and the ornamental thread – Rakhi,
trying to outshine the mirrors, mosaics, beads of her
red and yellow dress
2. Daughter
A poem about facing my own insecurities and complexes while putting my two year old baby girl to sleep
The blank ceiling is far more interesting
You look on, I envelope you
3. Telex
A trip to Milan took me back to the earliest memory of my father
Is this a particle from your suit or shoe
The Duomo, Milano. Forty years ago
You fed pigeons here.
4. Off School
Treating myself to some “me” time on a lovely summer weekday
He kicks the pebbles
fingers the railings
of colonial houses
5. Tie
At a dinner I learnt about how silk is made, and then I looked at my tie. Being a vegan, this poem is about my thoughts and actions after that
Milan,
I see a bunch.
Hanging like dead men
on a scaffold
New lives in a boxed grave?
Overall, a very enriching experience. Many thanks to Lily Fraser at Artless.
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