shampoo

An old rant poem, in which I tried to assuage and address the grief and guilt of writing in English, demons I have long since laid to rest. But, as I increasingly meet and work with poets for whom writing in their mother tongue is an act of great personal and political importance, I return to this poem, and wish to archive it here.

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I initially recorded this poem for a project put together by my friend and fellow-poet Berni M Janssen, the 'Tongue-A-Torium', a 'research laboratory dedicated to all things tongue'!

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A poem which I wrote for an anthology brought out by the International Museum of Women in San Francisco, years ago, and which I went on to include in Sight May Strike You Blind.

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This poem, this heartstoppingly beautiful poem, that has been solace and wonder and inspiration to me for as long as I remember.

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Okay, so here's one that is from neither book, but the beginning of a collaborative project (ongoing, or rather infinitely deferred!)

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About which a very dear old friend said, on meeting me after years, "You wrote a poem about an egg! And it was good!"

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Oddly enough, most of the recordings I already have of my poems are from the first book, or from unpublished work. Poems from Absent Muses, are, thus far, singularly absent, except for 'Cities' (below). Anyway here it is, another one from Sight May...given that the first book is now officially out of print, it may be no bad thing to have this sound archive from it.

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Another of my much-loved Bombay poems, also from the first book. For more on this, visit Poetry International Web or http://sampurnachattarji.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/dogs-mobs-and-rock-concerts/

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A poem from my first book, Sight May Strike You Blind. A Bombay poem.

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So, this is the poem from Absent Muses that I ended my book launch last evening with. This is the poem that travelled into so many languages at the Adishakti workshop - Tamil, French, Manipuri, Swiss-German, Scots, as well as, incredibly, Bambaiyya! And yes, this is also the poem I read over the phone a little while ago to a dear absent fiend (to borrow Bill's phrase). The first time anyone ever asked me to read a poem over the phone! Which made me think, let me put it out here, for listening to, anytime.

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