{"id":16731,"date":"2021-04-07T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2021-04-07T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=16731"},"modified":"2021-04-06T23:09:57","modified_gmt":"2021-04-07T03:09:57","slug":"the-poetry-corner-7-april-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2021\/04\/07\/the-poetry-corner-7-april-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"The Poetry Corner &#8211; 7 April 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>[To read an introduction to this column, please see the first paragraph of the initial post <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2021\/03\/02\/the-poetry-corner-2-march-2021\/\">here<\/a><em>]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This week I am featuring the poet Swidala Swami from India. She is a varied writer, also working in fiction and children\u2019s 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.<strong><em>\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>NOT LOSS BUT RESIDUE<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He writes me letters at the back of the bus. A sacred text on a grain of rice. Things he<br \/>\ndoes not say to me over the phone.\u00a0<em>Old-fashioned<\/em>, I call him and laugh at the things he says.<br \/>\nWhen he speaks he stammers. Ink stains the page. What I have is a sword he has given me willingly.<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p>Just for once I want all the power. To keep you waiting on my words<br \/>\nmeasure my satisfaction in your loss. Just for once.<\/p>\n<p>I am sitting at the window reading<br \/>\nmy eyes slide down the page and everything changes. You reach your hand<br \/>\npast my breast and grab my heart.<br \/>\nSqueeze. It smells of rust &amp; weeds at low tide<br \/>\nyour hand a slo-mo pulse.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I discover there are no such things<br \/>\nas heart strings.<\/p>\n<p>When you tell me you dream of falling<br \/>\nI find ways to remove everything that could break your fall.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s not your\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 fall<br \/>\nI want to break. Just for once<br \/>\nI want to talk to you and give nothing away.<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p>He dreams my hands<br \/>\nare cut off at the wrist<br \/>\nand wakes up crying.<\/p>\n<p>I flex my fingers<br \/>\nmake a fist<br \/>\ntake his hands and hold them<br \/>\nas a lover might.<\/p>\n<p>His wrists have lines that might be scars.<br \/>\nI place my hand against his, palm to palm<br \/>\nas children and dancers do.<\/p>\n<p>The measure of love is not loss but residue.\u00a0<em>Vasana<\/em>.<br \/>\nLeave if you must but leave me a groove<br \/>\nin the mind<br \/>\ndown which memory can run<br \/>\nlike a cultivated habit.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>TESTAMENT<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>From you I learnt<br \/>\nto winnow words<br \/>\ngive them room to breathe<br \/>\nsilence in which to grow<br \/>\ngrass-wild.<\/p>\n<p>A single flower<br \/>\nat a difficult summer\u2019s end<br \/>\nwill bloom fiercely<br \/>\nand for a long time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[To read an introduction to this column, please see the first paragraph of the initial post here] \u00a0 This week I am featuring the poet Swidala Swami from India. She is a varied writer, also working in fiction and children\u2019s literature. Her work ranges in themes, but seems to have particular focus on love and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2238,"featured_media":16732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1334],"tags":[1221,265,1670,224,1574,15,1727,1680],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16731"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16733,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16731\/revisions\/16733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}