Catch a poem by its tail
Just re-watched one of my favourite TED videos : Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity. The bit about poet Ruth Stone’s writing process is what I love most about this talk :
“As [Stone] was growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out, working in the fields and she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. It was like a thunderous train of air and it would come barrelling down at her over the landscape. And when she felt it coming…cause it would shake the earth under her feet, she knew she had only one thing to do at that point. That was to, in her words, run like hell to the house as she would be chased by this poem. The whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page. Other times she wouldn’t be fast enough, so she would be running and running, and she wouldn’t get to the house, and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it, and it would continue on across the landscape looking for ‘another poet’. And then there were these times, there were moments where she would almost miss it. She is running to the house and is looking for the paper and the poem passes through her. She grabs a pencil just as it’s going through her and she would reach out with her other hand and she would catch it. She would catch the poem by its tail and she would pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page. In those instances, the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact, but backwards, from the last word to the first.”
(Stole the above text from this blog)
Adele, Writing and Test Cricket
I know that I really need to be writing more often, but I suppose this is what happens if writing is a major part of your day job! Also, this is what happens when you get used to restricting yourself to 140 characters *glares at a certain micro-blogging site*
Anyway what have I been doing? Listening to Adele, pretty much all day long. Her voice is so incredibly beautiful and her words seem to pull thoughts right out of my soul (corny alert). So far, I’ve been hooked to “Lovesong”, “Hometown Glory”, “Set Fire To The Rain” and (of course) “Rolling In The Deep”. It makes for good writing music while I’m at work, and I’ve learnt that a lot of writers tend to listen to the same song (or set of songs) for a considerable period of time while they work. You get used to the rhythm and the words, so it doesn’t interrupt your flow of thought, and you also get to drown out anything else that distracts you – ringing phones, annoying humming etc.
I’ve also been watching a lot of Test cricket – specifically the Indian tour of England. I’m so glad Dravid is doing well, although it wouldn’t hurt if the other guys pitched in occasionally 
It does annoy me that the entire country is again focussed on a certain record that could be made, but I guess this will always happen. It also angered me a great deal to learn that the Indian media was portraying Dhoni’s decision as being “heavily influenced” (translation : he meekly listened) by a certain senior pro. I think we’ve seen enough of this guy to know that he’s strong-willed and confident enough to play his role as captain thoroughly and intelligently – heck, the guy led us to a World Cup victory! I’m also pretty kicked about the fact that he made that decision when he could have very easily have chosen not to and still look good. This shows immense maturity on his part and sort of represents the India I choose to belong to – we’re loyal to what we believe is right, and we’re confident enough to uphold these values without hiding behind this jingoist attitude that is normally associated with “representing India”. Where’s the value of independence and intelligent thinking if we are forever going to say “you did the same thing, so we can too” ? That faintly sounds like the admonishing I used to get when I was younger : “If he/she jumps in a well, will you also?”
Ok, enough about cricket. I could go on and on!
I’ve meaning to catch up on my reading, and I have made some progress on that front : I started Siddartha Deb’s “The Beautiful and the Damned”, a book that caught my interest after I read excerpts from it’s first chapter (based on the infamous Arindham Chaudhuri of the infamous IIPM)
- can I just take a break here and say that I really love the role of the word “infamous” ? I mean, we all know it really means famous, but it still gets to be a word by itself, so much more effective than plain old “famous” ; I guess the baggage of negativity is what makes it exciting -
that was published in Caravan magazine (I do hope all of you have read about how IIPM “handled” this). I was excited to read about a lot of my city in the book – sights, people and localities that I am more than familiar with – but unfortunately this a book that DEMANDS every ounce of your attention (it certainly merits it) in order for you to make any sense of it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to say that it’s heavy or unreadable; it just isn’t quite cut out for short work commutes or that time you spend reading just before you fall into zzz land. On the other hand, I wouldn’t call this a holiday-reading type book, either. Whatever the case, I do intend on finishing it at the earliest.
On August 1st, I completed two months as an employee. I’ve been having a great time so far, getting to do a lot of learning – and I’m glad to report that unlike many graduates I know, it is not disconnected from what I studied in college at all 
I find it thoroughly satisfying that I get to research and write about topics that are not usually things I would have pushed myself to read up about.
Here’s to more successful days ahead!
