Poetry (pen) Pals #11

Anagha Smrithi on unconventional forms

Mar 24, 2024

Hello friends,

There are times when everything seems to flow intuitively and this week has been one of those times. Last week we mused on how the pantoum form could be the perfect container for certain poems. I was still deep in thought about how we use form when I received an email from our guest poet for this week.

This week we are joined by the brilliant poet Anagha Smrithi who writes the newsletter A Poem A Week here on Substack (if you are yet to discover this newsletter then can I suggest you wander over, you will not be disappointed).

I’m not going to say anything further because I want you to have full capacity for her truly insightful words,

Nelly x

That Summer We Became Birds - Anagha Smrithi

reflections on form and poetry

What role do you think form plays in poetry?

I used to think of the relationship between poetry and form as being like that of water and vessel.

Water takes the shape of whatever it is poured into, while the vessel remains fixed. An eternal relationship between fluidity and structure; between that which cannot be held and that which contains it. I still think this is true to an extent, but my understanding has deepened over time.

I’ve realized that even before they come into being, some poems already have a shape. An outline, a way in which they demand to exist in the world. Something that is preceded by form. And form too, can be rippling, pliable and fluid in the ways of water.

The relationship between poetry and form as I see it now is more of a give and take. I like to think that poetry and form find each other, lending meaning to and from each other in a shared space.

In case this is all starting to sound a little vague, apologies! I do have a poem for all of you below, to make things a bit less abstract. This is a surrealist poem I wrote a couple of years ago, about two people who decide to leave the human condition behind and turn into birds instead. So let’s start with this poem, ideally under an open sky or somewhere you can hear the birds. And then we’ll get back to the question of form. Let’s begin.

that summer we became birds
the tips of our wings / felt softer / than our hands ever could / ahead of us / the lake lay / like glass / lay like morning / pale and slippery with light / i watched you / wading through the water / you were dream-struck / like an infant / stumbling into an open field / for the first time / eyes sticky / with filaments of light / as a child / i was scared of water / in the deep ends / of swimming pools / how desperate i was / to breathe / my feet / slipping / over the tiles / and i would pray / god / keep me alive / but that was another summer / back then / we ran over hot cement / till a small fragment / of sky / twisted inside us / till the blue / was burrowed / deep in our throats / back then / summer was a shroud of grass / held for hours / over smoke / late april / we forced open the windows / to get dizzy / on night air / late april / how we longed / to be like birds / all night / our limbs / held down by heat / like earth / held down by rain / all month / we drank warm milk / and slept / the afternoons away / but that was another life / now / we are older / cold white / and feathered / now / we are tired / of all the years / time is a thin aching membrane / that stretches / and never breaks / now / we will live / like we have lived and lived / and yes / the sky is large / and merciful / yes / i part my wings / and they open / like a memory / now / i will watch you / fly / as you search / for someplace / without sound / search / for blue / pressed into / blue / for someplace / where i will meet / you / summer / is another name / for all / that we forgot / yes / this time / we will learn to love like birds / like clothes / drying out in the open / how they raise their hearts / to the wind / how they billow / with air / growing lighter / and lighter / yes / this time / we will live like this
like we could almost swallow the sky

Even before the poem came into being, I knew what I wanted to capture: a feeling of freedom, openness, something strange and magical.

I had initially used the slashes as an organizing tool. I had too many images on paper and I needed to separate them out in the most crude way possible. Soon I had slashes all over the page. And eventually I just kept them in! It felt fitting, to have a poem like this be narrated as a sort of fever-dream, without traditional punctuation or sentence breaks. The slashes provided structure but also fluidity; it blurs where one image ends and the next begins.

As I kept returning to the slashes, I realized that the poem was also impacting the form. The slash, a tool that usually separates out binary pairs of words, was now turning into something that offers a dreamlike state of fluidity. Without the poem, the slash would just be an ordinary slash. Slashes are also used often in poetry to signify sentence breaks. Since this poem presented a surreal, upside-down world, I felt comfortable inverting the use of the slash and using it to completely scramble the idea of a sentence break.

These days I think of the relationship between poem and form as being more similar to a surface and the light that falls on it. The surface exists on its own, but the light clarifies it, allowing it to be seen. The light too, is transformed by the surface; by the colors, textures, ridges, and angles on which it falls. Somewhere, a shadow is bound to form, the shape of things left unsaid, which exists in every poem. Light meeting matter. The place where meaning happens; this is a poem.

A haiku, pantoum, or ghazal aren’t just the shapes into which the poem is poured into. Instead, they are light we hold our poem up in, allowing our words to exist alongside shadows.

Your Writing Prompt For the Week:

Let’s continue with the theme of unconventional forms. Your writing prompt for the week is a three word exercise! Write a poem / paragraph where each sentence is only three words long. Notice how the structure of the three word sentence impacts the flow, rhythm, meaning and pace of the poem. Does it change what is being said? If so, allow it to change!
I first did the three word exercise two years ago in an ethnography class. It seems strange and stilted at first to write only in three word sentences, but I found that the brevity and clarity it demands allows for something raw and vulnerable. The three word exercise is a great tool for auto-ethnography. If you’re not sure what to write about, then use the three word exercise to write about any defining moment in your life.
The three word exercise also kind of functions as an in-built editor. It’s hard to add a lot of excess to your writing when each sentence is so short! I think it’s this function of the tool that allows you to lay things bare and clarify the images / ideas in your head.
I’ll be joining you for the three word exercise over the coming week! I’m really excited to see what you all come up with.

Anagha Smrithi is a 26 year old poet and writer from Bangalore, India. She writes about the body and everyday spaces. She is the author of the newsletter A Poem A Week by Anagha Smrithi on Substack.

You can also find her poetry published in Anthropocene, Nether Quarterly, Catharsis Magazine, LiveWire, and Delhi Slam Poetry among others. She lives between India and Sri Lanka and enjoys long walks, sunsets, and baking bread.

You see what I mean?! I read this piece and sat back in my chair and sighed.

Thank you so much Anagha, there are so many sentences within your letter above that I will cherish and I cannot wait to try the three word exercise.

As always, if you fancy writing along there will be a sharing post on Friday morning with so much space for poetry in the comments (unedited, unfinished, related to this week’s theme or not, anything goes). And in the meantime if you do write anything inspired by Anagha Smrithi ‘s words elsewhere then I’m certain she would appreciate you tagging her!

Until then

Poetry Pals

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