By: Maria Williams
Joy Harjo writes, “Recognize whose lands these are on which we stand.” Joy Harjo, in her work, says that the land owns the land and that we as people have a particular duty to pay attention to the land. Devangana Mishra, whose debut book of poetry, Desierto Florido, covers prose and poetry from the world over, and her second book, 26, Kamala Nehru Ridge, Civil Lines, Delhi, speaks of a woman’s fight for land in India, all written in poetry, becomes relevant today, as countries fight for peace, containing conflict, leadership and land.
Devangana, is poetry a dying tongue? What kept you from writing poetry as a chosen form of verse even for your second book?
I think there are a couple of reasons. At first, it’s this precise idea that we don’t see too many published books of poetry in India that kept me doing what I do naturally. I remember when I was working on my second book, my father had sent me Vikram Seth’s book, All those Who Sleep Tonight. While it’s beautiful, it wrote like a man would. I wanted to write Zara, the protagonist of my second book’s story, as a woman would, in poetry, verse and dance. The history of Indian poetry and mysticism is thousands of years old. I guess when one is formulating verses of poetry, there’s such a deep cleanliness of soul, it could be a divinity of sorts.
I think and feel in rhythm and song, so while most publishers rejected my pitch to publish poetry, even though it was written as a story, I stuck to what I’d begun. Forty verses of freedom for Zara Mallik, a story of land.
What’s the process of writing poetry and how is it different from writing fiction?
I reckon poetry is deep listening to land, to nature, to what’s being spoken and said and most importantly felt, terror and trembles and ruffles and feathers and turning all of those to poetry, it’s an act of sensitivity, like touching beads of water on a table and making music from those. Whereas fiction sees the world as is, but with a deeper undertone, it brings to you what’s on the surface and what’s underneath, you’re wrapped in daily life while your head is dug in a book when you read fiction; but poetry takes you to a world of its own, it’s more like art.
This is a piece of prose from my first book, Desierto Florido, it’s about a mother, her husband is away on other lands, earning money from trade and selling, she’s lost her optimism and will to life, but is still mothering her three children on hope, that magically appears each month just as would a paycheque.
There was an old Celtic tradition right before drought-hit homes: the men of the family would leave a note by the bedside of their sleeping families, ‘kids I love you sleep tight, ‘honey pay the bills on time, the key code to the locker is my birthday.’ by the time she could read the note, ask ‘why not mine?’ he’d be gone. collecting rubies and rhinestones from mountains unnamed, holding up crying babies, lifting rivers to find beds of sand and holy rocks and swells, collecting little nuggets and stories for the kids, maybe a bouquet of flowers, in hope, they don’t die… his wife was picking strawberries. Underneath a carton of those hiding shaves of ammo, money, green gold, bought from selling handkerchiefs with embroidered names, one for each of his kids, his wife said three, he believed her on the count. Shirts with price tags which both weighed down to the floor, bags of nappies because in their little town those were still a luxury, we used paper plates.
All these luxuries and little things he did, his wife would tell the kids these stories, all she’d imagine being true, she’d bring them up every dinner so her children, now three, aging faster than her old Feat parked in a boxing ring, watching them get old on hope, each night re-reading her wish list repeating it to the two, one age 7 the other 9, the third one she hadn’t named yet- calling everything that didn’t meet this story a bluff, her children would laugh by now, she’d say believe what you want to believe everything anyway is a lie, unless you hit a bat to a ball or a gun to a forehead, the younger one would say, ‘No it isn’t Ma, Santa left me a watch last time’, she’d then think back to her husband, how much she loved him, his note, honey pay the bills, look after yourself, she’d remember how we stop thinking about what-ifs and what if nots is only because we have bills to pay, she remembers a note that said ‘I love you goodnight kids, honey pay the bills’, it was his handwriting, she remembers that, the rest her 9-year-old says is up to debate, as always in this house.
Where do you inherit these genes of poetry and art from?
My father, while the CEO of a big microfinance company, is, at heart, a beautiful artist; everyone frames the papers and cards he writes and draws on to wrap presents, and my mother is a dancer, so my belonging from two sides of artistic talent blesses most of my siblings with this generous seed of artistic virtue.
My father was a popular hip artist around town in his younger days; he would paint discotheques and cars of friends and room walls and make all kinds of creative concoctions and write my very uptight, uppity mom handwritten, hand-drawn love letters. My mom belonged to a serious, big, badged bureaucratic family, so it took a lot of art and romance from my Dad to pursue my mother into marriage. I love this story, and I love seeing the sketches my Dad drew all over the paper and on walls to impress my mother. It keeps life romantic and draws me to poetry as a form of flow, even when I write fiction or essays of any form.
It takes a lot of imaginative strength to write poetry, more than fiction, how do you keep that spirit alive?
To be honest, I think you need immense imaginative stamina for all forms of art. While poetry feels more dreamy, the imagination and vision needed to write fiction require as much, if not more, strength. All artistic jobs require one to sell oneself in some way: actors, dancers, filmmakers, musicians, artists, entrepreneurs, and businesses, we’re all selling ourselves, our souls every day to earn love, money and recognition. Giving one’s imagination away to paper and stories and films and books and big conglomerates is a job rendered to artists, the more honestly and generously we do it, the more we get in return.
Whose work were you most influenced by in your writing of 26, Kamala Nehru Ridge, Civil Lines, Delhi?
I’ve been writing and drawing in some form or another for as long as I can remember. I read a variety of works, political texts, academic texts, newspapers, and fiction, watch movies, and listen to a lot of music, so writing comes naturally. I’ve always been a fan of Ocean Vuong’s writing. But, just as I was beginning work on this book, I was reading Carl Sagan’s daughter, Sasha Sagan’s book, ‘For Small Creatures Such As We’. It was the voice I was looking for, for holding myself after my first book had scattered me and my voice in the air. I also had right around then read Imani Perry’s, ‘Breathe, A Letter to my Sons’, her work was stunning. I listen to and read a lot of William Darymple, so that gave me deeper historical context and then familiarity always breeds confidence; I read the beautiful writing of Gaurav Monga, a friend’s brother and an astounding author of many books, his organization of words and prose gave me a nudge into how I wanted to frame 26, Kamala Nehru Ridge, Civil Lines, Delhi.
If you could recommend a book to a little girl, what would it be?
Heidi, by Johanna Spyri. It’s a beautiful book about a young girl and her life with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps, I read it when we lived in a small town of India, Udaipur, that bounty of nature and open lands and snow peaked mountains and pastures of green and herding sheep and family and healing and happiness made me so happy. It inspired my first ever work of fiction about a boy in Germany who loses his dog.
I wish every little girl reads and loves that book as much as I did.
Published by: Nelly Chavez
