I have been absent from the blog for quite some blinks so thought it was time to update as to what has been happening in my writing world.
The poetry hasn’t stopped – no, really, I am wholly incapable of switching that part of my brain off – so once my debut collection Stones Hold Water (Finishing Line Press, 2022) was out in the world, I immediately started work on a second collection, the first draft of which is about 50% complete right now. I am aiming for 60 poems and thought it would be interesting to restart the blog posts as a repository of my thoughts and process as I continue work on it, building it slowly.
My work-in-progress manuscript has a name! River Mouth.
I think it’s a perfect title for all I want to say and explore in this collection. The mouth of a river can stand for so many things – literally, figuratively, metaphorically…In the larger, broader context it stands for the Indus River – that roaring artery of South Asia – that has given its name to an ancient civilization and the rich cultures associated with it. A region of origin, that speaks to the pagan and the devout, the diversity and pluralism of the peoples that have made its banks and silted valleys their home through millenia, and the tensions that arise if we seek to divorce ourselves from that heritage.
The mouth of a river is a point of transformation – where the river either directly joins a sea or it branches into the tributaries of its delta.
Delta, the symbol for change. I love how that comes together.
I am attracted to moments, exact pinpoints of transformation when something becomes another thing like the moment a drop of ink touches the surface of water and swirls in to colour all of it.
It is at the mouth of the river that the narrow becomes vast, and for me this is an exploration of claiming voice. Emotions, sensibilities, perceptions, reactions, being, rising up to the gateway of a mouth, and its channeling, its release – as jubilant whoop, or ear-splitting scream, quiet assertion or burning rage. Owning all of it. This claiming of voice is female with a heart for everyone. The mouth can equally be the portal that funnels a world to inner recesses, hungry for experience and knowledge, opening to swallow a universe.
It is against this backdrop that I go telescopic and microscopic with my lens. There is water but there is also the absence of it.
Until next week! Exciting beginnings on the horizon…
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