Kushal Poddar

The Interview

Q:1. How did you decide on the order of the poems in your book?

They are more or less date wise. I often wondered if we write a single poem in parts throughout our lifetimes. Hence I often gather poems in the very order they were first drafted.

Q:1.1. Like a diary?

A journal, annotated observations of surroundings and news. Of course, the commentary climbs and crosses the wall between the world we see and the world we imagine.

Q:2. How important is form in these poetic “observations”?

I have been using both blank verse and free verse, rely on slant rhymes and ears for beats and meters , but barring a few sonnets I don’t bind my poems in strict forms.

Q:2.1. What appeals to you about the sonnet?

Sonnets provide a song to the neatness. I mean, the form is, unless you consider the deconstruction and modern variations like those written by Rita Dove, tight and gives you a sense of the undulation of iamb, and this neatness you carry with you when you are not writing a Sonnet. Even when you are free-versing you have a rooted sense of beats.

Q2.1.1. What do you mean by “rooted sense of beats”?

Beats and rhythms are everywhere. A musician hears them in the flow of water, wind passing through the leaves, dogs barking. Sonnet helped me, and I guess, listening to instrumental music in the background while writing too, to hear the echo of the rhythm and apply that in my word processing.

Q:3. How does the natural world feature in your poetry?

They are in seriatim- follow the events of my life and life at large as I witness, as I live.

Q:3.1. Autobiographical. If the natural world happens in the moments you live, it is included?

Nature, Paul, as Harold Proshansky would have pointed out, changes human mind, mind’s tolerance and impatience. I write outdoor mostly. The stories that are not mere personal are observed in the park, road or by the riverside. 

Now here is a two fold impact. I try to stay a neutral observer in the field watching human nature and the nature outside, and yet I myself become one dot in the cycle. Nature impacts my mood as well. I see the same event with either cheery or gloomy eyes depending on my mood.

Q:3.1.1:  “park, road and riverside” describe a vital sense of place in your poetry. How important is this to you?

When I began writing in English it was traversing beyond my boundary, but I carried the dirt of my land within me. The sense of place becomes stronger as I age. Now I journey  back to my city with the cairns, words and cultures from everywhere.

Q:4. When writing a poem what do you do to dislocate the reader’s perceptions to make them see the events you describe differently?

Perception, Paul, is a closed door compartment, a vault. It is a frame we put around a new artwork. I believe in avoiding sweeping statements even like theine just uttered. In writing, even in a medium as emotional as poetry I try to adhere to show more, tell less. It doesn’t dislocate a reader, rather a reader accepts it in his vault. A poem is a thousand poems according to thousand readers

Q:5. How does living in a city reflect in your poetry?

I see village people coming in search of something, and I observe their tiredness, dreams,  frustration etc. I go into a village with naive eyes and see the skin of reality, its green and beauty. I know what lies beneath but as a city dweller I have the advantage of being overwhelmed by what lies on top.

Q:5.1. Being “overwhelmed” is an “advantage.” How so?

It lets you feel effervescent, lets you detail the shine and the goodness instead of the pull of darkness that you may feel and that may drain all the words.