Ninad Pradhan- Poems

Poems: related links

Poetry.com

MidnightEdition.com

the Poetry London magazine

A note on Poems- Related Links

The internet has created a nice, friendly place for poets, accomplished and novices alike. It allows you space to display what you have written, and in some cases get feedback from someone who has read it. The sites Poetry and Midnight Edition are only two of many where you can post your poetry and read what others have written. Poetry London is a little more stringent when it comes to publishing your work; it is read and rated by experts, but it does not place a bar on sending your work for evaluation. These and similar sites are living proof that I am one of many specimen who indulge in rhyme.

Optimistically, coming up on this page:

• A town I know, a poem describing Clemson, a quiet little American town where I stay and study these days.
• A line or two summarising each of the poems listed below.

You may wonder why I have covered topics like my first poetry or explained my reasons for being fascinated with poetry, or why anyone else should have to read about them. The answer to that is, since you are surfing through a collection of personal web pages, you are looking to be introduced to me indirectly. I hence claim a small license to writing about things I myself think about, regardless of their importance, and anything less will be an incomplete introduction. Do bear with me...

• A complaint against Indian publishers
• My first poem
• Prevalent themes
• A classification
• Reasons for writing

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A complaint against Indian publishers

There exist positive ways of introducing you to my poems. This is not one of them. However, I hope to underscore an important point with this passage. Sometime by the end of last year (2003), I felt I should write to publishers and send them my poems. This was an exercise undertaken out of curiosity, not as much for whether I would be published, as for the critical appraisal they would generate. My friends have been very sincere in their judgements, and have pointed out weaknesses or drawbacks whenever they felt it necessary. However, I wanted to see how I matched up when I was being reviewed by people who read and make decisions on publishing poetry on a regular basis.

I wrote to around 6 publishers- names I either was very familiar with or located off the covers of books I had at the time. These are reputed names in publishing literature. My email to them was a mere query (devoid of any samples of my poems): what is your format for submission of manuscripts for publishing scrutiny? ALL of them reply, saying that, well, thanks for your interest, but we don't publish poetry. One of them made it clear why: there's no market for it. There's no market for it because you don't want to publish it. You don't publish it because there is no market for it. In digital circuitry, we would call this a lock out state.

I cannot understand a financial constraint applying to the publishing business to such an extent. The extent that they aren't even ready to read poetry before they decide if they have the money to publish and market this product. Poetry is a broad category of publication, it is not a subcategory or highly specialised kind of book. One can understand placing restrictions on the kind of poetry they want their publishing house to be identified with, because that is a literary decision. This is a monetary decision, akin to placing sanctions on the entire state because some thug decided smuggling weapons across the border was a choice profession. There are ways of not risking too much money, yet encouraging new poets: publishing a small number of copies, publicising only in areas of high English speaking concentration are two of them.

I also feel this moratorium applies to previously unpublished poets only, and usually the no-market excuse is used because it is convenient. Publishing houses deal with decisions on creativity. I feel they are obligated by their business to consider publishing poetry by budding poets if (a) they have the editorial resources for this; (b) they are willing to publish poetry from acclaimed writers of the present. Till then, apologising to people like me while announcing new arrivals from published poets will make the new arrivals seem like mere safe play tactics (when they may actually be good compilations).

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My first poem

After the above narration of my grievances, I come to something I really enjoy doing, and have absolutely no complaints about.

I have tried to write poetry from a very early age (5 years), but this should be treated as a mere statistic. Kids at that age are full of curiosity and energy and don't carry prejudices, so they tend to try different things. I wanted to write a rhyme, and this was the product:

The Lark's Nest (1986)

You can see that it neither rhymes, and raises serious questions about the predatory instincts of the magnificent eagle and the mamma lark's abilities to frighten the predator. But it introduced me to something new: the ability to create a story rather than repeat what I had heard before. What actually got me going, though, was that I got a lot of encouragement from my parents, and found this rhyme thing interesting, so thereon I consciously tried to write poetry whenever I had some idea which could be written in that form.

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Prevalent themes and factors

I am at least 39 poems (and exactly one short story) old. (I say at least because I am sure 5-6 small poems have been lost or are missing in action after I scribbled them on envelopes and scrap paper in a journey somewhere). They can be classified under three broad headings, with some exceptions to these classifications: personal experiences and triumph, revolutions and systemic changes, and narratives. The last category, narrative, was my initial idea of what a poem was, a story with a rhyme scheme. This has gradually changed, and my poems of late fall into the first two categories. Personal triumph I find more interesting than larger than life qualities, or description of heroic figures who towered and triumphed over everything because they were heroes in a story. Revolutions germinate with ideology, and the mindset of the revolutionary and establishment is what I have addressed in a few of my poems.

The length of my poem is either quite short or long, depending on what kind of poetry you have read before. If you compare them with the lengths Keats and Longfellow used to reach, I write really short poems. But they can be bracketed into the 8-32 stanza length, each usually of four lines.

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A classification using the above categories

I will soon be including themes of my poems in this section, since a list of titles does not give a clearer picture. However, I will have to trouble you if you decide you want to read my poems, and request you to write to me at the contact address at the top of this page so that I can email you a copy.

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Reasons for writing

I write because: I enjoy the thought process and the resultant turmoil; I feel I have improved over time and can experiment more easily; I find poetry is a beautiful medium of expression, where you can expose the most dramatic ideas with elegance and keep a discussion alive.

I would really like to know what inspires you to do what you love to. I will appreciate it a lot if you could spare some time and write to me about it.