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| Rachna Joshi |
Silences
Tillie Olsen
Talking of women
Having fallow periods
When they don’t write.
And of breaking
The silence
And giving us
Their impressions.
Norton Anthology of Poetry
From the Middle English ballads
To the Romantics
And the fragmented moderns.
This book brings together
The best of English poetry.
Morrow Anthology of Poetry
Young American poets
Some who are
First generation writers
Coming from
Working class backgrounds
And expressing themselves.
***
Living Abroad
There is a strange sense of unreality
While living abroad.
Going to the Syracuse University library
By campus bus
And sitting there till 8 p.m.
Taking coffee from the dispenser
And having a chat
With friends.
Flipping through the Reading List,
‘The Bow and the Lyre’ by Octavio Paz,
‘Understanding Poetry’ by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Pen Warren
And ‘Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End’
By Barbara Hernstein Smith.
***
Canadiana
Watching Yentl in Toronto
Or Umrao Jaan Ada
Listening to Ravi Shankar in Calgary.
Maple syrup and pancakes
Potatoes in their jackets.
Lucy Maud Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’.
Eating chaat in the Indian market
Or Peking Duck in Chinatown
Where the immigrant crowd hangs out.
Going on a 20 km ski trip in Banff
Topped up by hot chocolate and apple cider.
Reading Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood
All this is Canadiana.
***
Alberta Vocational Centre
Canada is a place of mystery,
Doubt and achievement.
I worked at three different jobs-at the YWCA,
Through the Calgary Catholic School Board
And finally through the Alberta Vocational Centre.
Teaching at the Alberta Vocational Centre
Was an escape
From the drudgery of domestic life.
Teaching survival skills
To adult immigrants.
It was a crucible
Where I wrote it out
And ultimately
Became a writer.
***
Imagism
Images flow past me
As in Pound’s
‘Petals on a wet, black bough.’
Mom reading
‘The Golden Bough’
With memories of the Fisher King
A fertility myth.
Sonnets, haikus, villanelles and sestinas
Meter, rhyme and prosody.
Two or three line poems.
***
Bio: Rachna Joshi is a poet and reviewer who has lived in India and North America. She has written five collections of poems: Configurations (Rupa & Co., 1993); Crossing the Vaitarani (Writer’s Workshop, 2008); Travel Tapestry (Yatra Books, 2013); Monsoon and Other Poems (Tethys, 2020); and Unraveling (Authors Press, 2024) She has a master’s in Creative Writing from Syracuse University in upstate New York, and has been widely published in magazines and anthologies in India and abroad. She worked as Senior Assistant Editor at the India International Centre, Delhi, for 28 years and lives in Noida, U. P.
