Tanpura's Strum

A Collection of Haiku and Tanka Poems

Jesal Kanani

• Editorial: Global Collective Publishers
• Año: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781954021334
• Categoría: Littérature
• Categoría: Les femmes dans la poésie

Motherhood, heartbreak, loss, love — even the tangible: vegetables, beaches, forests and salons, oh, I wanted to write about it all! The brevity of form made it possible to cover a stunning range of landscapes — emotional and physical. Like a jigsaw puzzle, I kept arranging, rearranging lines in poems, addicted to that dose of serotonin that washed over me when a haiku or tanka set well. Guavas pop-up here as do sunflowers, nieces and lovers. Playful and brooding, heart-breaking and exultant, these poems strobed in watercolor art, revel as much in the lushness of nature as the depth of feelings found within a human heart. Jesal has always been drawn to making beautiful connections with seemingly disparate ideas. When a haiku juxtaposes two disparate images, out of the synergy jumps a new, nuanced meaning. If we look at urban existence, it is fraught with dissonance: the push and pull of expectations, the contradictions within roles, and also — unexpected, raw beauty. So, haiku and tanka seem to Jesal as perfect forms for expressing this fractured, beautiful ordinary life. Written from the perspective of a young woman, the poems in Tanpura’s Strum draw from the themes of love, heartbreak, loss, motherhood, the progression of time and nature. Set on a wide-ranging canvas of the natural world — beaches, forests and urban flora — as well as the domestic — cafés, homes and street life, the poems rest on nectar-like moments that make us feel most alive, impassioned and at other times soul-crushingly human.

21

II.

Of Kadipatta Leaves and

Everything in Between

raindrops…

I wake up to

bejeweled windows

flip over

my Gucci bag

as I check aunt

into a

subsidized hospital

the pressure cooker

hesitantly

clearing its throat

before working up the nerve

to sing freely

Tanpura’s Strum

22

obedient flour bags

sit waiting

at the chakkiwallah

how to forget you—

this puzzle

I’ve been trying to solve

since the Palash

put out its hardy flowers

Winter afternoon—

it alights on my heart

opening its wings

a sudden nameless happiness

II.

Of Kadipatta Leaves and Everything in Between

23

kids in raincoats—

specks of colour

in my monochrome life

Tanpura’s Strum

24

sex, without the nutrient-rich

emotional soil

I wither

like the houseplants

of someone on a holiday

semester end…

us together

side by side

even if only...