[To read an introduction to this column, please see the first paragraph of the initial post here]
This week I am featuring the poet Swidala Swami from India. She is a varied writer, also working in fiction and children’s literature. Her work ranges in themes, but seems to have particular focus on love and loss. The two poems I selected to show today use these themes well, and perhaps in unexpected ways.
“The Color of Water”
I coast through bands of muddy water,
a reddish swarm
animalcula
exploding
the instant motion ceased,
crossing both ends
of matter
movement isolated
in a drop of water,
animals naked
covering a space
infinite
water stained red
but
ocean abounded
with living
and
from the land
narrow lines of water
a bright red colour
feed
on the discoloration
of water spawn;
the dark
and sinuous
colour of being
a colour
the putrefying carcase
floating
no great distance
This is a found poem from Darwin’s The Voyage of The Beagle, which I don’t necessarily recommend reading, but if you want to you can here. That’s why color has a “u” in it. Also, if you want to try erasure poetry this is the site this poem originated from.
“Bronze Sunrise”
Light permeates the room through the blinds on my bedroom window.
Warmth kisses my skin for the first time in what feels like months.
Though I am still exhausted something feels different today.
The weights placed on my body now lifted, though my bones
still ache from the ghost of their presence.
I sit up in bed, a seemingly simple task transformed
from impossible to merely extremely difficult.
Minute steps forward after weeks of falling back
seem odd to celebrate, but I need a victory.
They clap from the stands when the injured limps off the field.
[To read an introduction to this column, please see the first paragraph of the initial post here]
This week I would like to feature the contemporary poet Aria Aber, whose work I admire. This is her most recent poem published in the New Yorker. The poem also references another poem by a different poet I enjoy, and that poem is given below as well.
We have lemony crystals jumping out of packets
Dancing to the sound of stirring on round walls
Music floating from flooded basements
From the boxes filled with ornaments and Christmas garland
We have laminate smacking to the beat of stomping feet
Guided onward by speakered music
Permeated by the stench of collard greens
And cinnamon rolls in the morning
Apple cider and steeped tea at night
As we laugh at Big Bang theory
[To read an introduction to this column, please see the first paragraph of the initial post here]
This week’s post is a little different from the last few. Featured is one of my favorite poems that for some reason embedded itself in my mind and has never left. I wrote a short essay analyzing the poem, and by sharing it I hope to give a small taste of how poems can work, even really short ones like this one. I hope you enjoy it!
