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Thursday, September 07, 2006

Of poetry, physics and passions!

I write poetry because I need to. I rewrite poems now, for that is the only way they can become better. This blog started out as a place where I was to put down all my experimental writing. So I posted several Tea Poems, Love stories of my friends series. Served some travelogues and wrote a melodrama. Occasional movie and book reviews, and a bizarre series of graduate student posts. What next?

I am planning to get stricter with poetry posts, so rather than posting run of mill stuff, (which I have done all summer), I will stop posting ok or bad poems. The better ones I have been saving for future, and I am working with Thomas Lux, Chair of Poetry at Tech, to get better at the craft. I had one of the most amazing weeks of my life at a Poetry Workshop/Conference at Sarah Lawrence College in Summer this year. There were a hundred or so poets, fiction writers, non-fiction writers and dramatists. Most of them were not only way ahead in their age, experience and expertise, but also have had formal education and publishing experience. The Workshop gave me a lot of perspective into my own writing as well as how works of a writer are judged, appreciated and evaluated. A very humbling experience, and my gratitude is to my mentor, my Gurudev, who has been a tremendous influence in taking the craft seriously. I guess that is another reason not to display my sloppy stuff, for I must match up with the instructions I have been privy to.

My PhD enters the final year. So I guess I should be focussed on doing physics than pursuing other passions. I apologise to all the great bloggers that I haven't read whole summer, due to my attempt to finish my research work. After 24 years in school, I need to figure out ways of getting done:)

2 comments:

Pria K said...

The poetry workshop/conference must've been amazing.
Godd luck with your PhD.
Looking forward to reading your poems in print.

editor said...

Some poets rewrite and work on poems again and again.
Akhtarul Iman's (famous for many Nazms including the legendary Ek Ladka beautfully translated in English also) diary I saw once.
Also, Jazbi (whose nazm maut is my favourite) never published until he was completely satisfied. Hundreds of times he would check it, read it, think it. That's why at the time of his death at the age of around 90, he barely had a small collection of as many ghazals and nazms.