Writer/EditorNaliniPriyadarshni'sInterviewwith

NabinaDas
Nabina Das debut poetry collection Blue Vessel (Zaporogue,
Denmark) was named one of the best poetry books of 2012, and the
debut novel Footprints in the Bajra (Cedar Books, New Delhi) was long
listed in the prestigious Indian prize "Vodafone Crossword Book
Award 2011". A 2012 Charles Wallace Fellow in Creative Writing,
University of Stirling, UK, and a 2012 Sangam House Lavanya Sankaran
Fiction Fellow, India, her second poetry collection Into the Migrant City,
the product of an Associate Fellowship and residency with SaraiCSDS (New Delhi) in 2010, is forthcoming soon from Writers Workshop,
India. Nabinas poetry and prose have been published in several
international journals and anthologies, the latest being Prairie
Schooner (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) and The Yellow Nib: Modern
English Poetry by Indians (Queens University, Belfast). Nabina is also a
literary columnist for the Prairie Schooner blog and is in the peer
review committee of The Four Quarters Magazine published from
northeast India. Nabina has won prizes in various major Indian poetry
contests. A 2007 Joan Jakobson fiction scholar (Wesleyan University,
US) and 2007 Julio Lobo fiction scholar (Lesley University, US), she has
worked in journalism and media for about 10 years. Trained in Indian
classical music, she has performed in radio/TV programs and
performed in street theater. Nabina teaches Creative Writing in
classrooms and workshops, and blogs at nabinadas13.
1. What does it mean to you to be a poet?
I love the fact that I have answered the question in multiple ways in
other interviews. To be a poet means to be alert to life and its
meanings; to be aware about issues that impact us in our daily
existence; to be questioning yet compassionate, and, to be completely
in love with language and its power to assign values, ward off ills,
encourage uprisings, revel in beauty, and make us better human
beings. Being a poet is very much being a scientist or a
mathematician. Healthy query can alone allow the best poems to
bloom. Personally, I feel as poet Im a ginger root that multiplies in all
directions, not stuck in one space or time.

2. Whats your writing process like an organic discovery or a

methodical construction? Do you have a writing routine or
rituals?
My writing is a mix of both. Ideas do come in a flash and then if and
when I can hold on to an idea, I slowly build up a framework, slightly
wispy in the beginning, the firmer as it evolves. A lot of pondering,
rewriting, discussing take place around my writing. I firmly believe that
to write better one ought to be in a likeminded community readers or
writers where close cohorts can guide one to excel, and then release
ones writing into the vast inworld. One thing Id stress upon, writing is
not divine intervention, poetry is not sighs and giggles, fiction is not
only romance and robberies. On the contrary, it is all a search for
interpretations, those that make our life many-rooted. Writing is kind of
like being a jellyfish keep growing the cells!
No rituals! Give me a quiet grove or the railway station. Ill write
anywhere. Anytime.

3. Which poets or writers influenced you/your writing? What

books/projects have you been working on presently?
There are so many names. Beginning from Rabindranath Tagore,
Lakshminath Bexbaruah, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Nirmalprabha Bordoloi, to
almost all canonical English poets and writers, modern Bengali and
Assamese writers, the stalwart writers that the last century discovered
from Africa and Latin America, our own Dalit poets, folklorists,
traditional theater artists. Needless to say, the Indian epics were a
major influence too, for where else do you see so much extrapolation
and the scope retelling a story? My own writer and poet friends, the
contemporaries, keep my writing morale high when I read them.
Sometimes I read totally unknown writers, under-mentioned and even
unpublished. A lot to learn from there.
My current project includes a fiction book a lady intelligence officer
and her exploits and a poetry collection where the narrative is strung
together in sequences using several voices. The manuscripts are not
fully ready yet but Im hoping by the year end, theyd be in the
publishers hands.

4. You also write fiction. How do you see your poetry and
fiction writing happening as two different methodologies or

something contiguous?
My first book is a novel Footprints in the Bajra, 2010, (read a latest
review here http://www.sunday-guardian.com/bookbeat/casteequations-a-indian-fictions-adivasi-problem) and my latest book is a
short story volume The House of Twining Roses: Stories of the
Mapped and the Unmapped, 2014 (http://www.amazon.in/The-HouseTwining-Roses-Unmapped/dp/9382536213).
In between, I have published two poetry books Blue Vessel, 2012
(http://www.lulu.com/shop/nabina-das/blue-vessel/paperback/product20604822.html?ppn=1), and Into the Migrant City, 2013-14
(http://www.writersworkshopindia.com/books/poetry/redbird/into-themigrant-city/).
Most of the writing in all these four books has happened
simultaneously. A lot of poetry has given me ideas for interesting prose
sections while writing prose for days created a space for new poetry.
The methodology is simple. I start with a nascent idea, not a detailed
framework. I let the power of freewriting speak for me a lot of time.
When it comes to the structuring of my text, I go over to see what the
diction is, the topic, the voice, the choice of words. Accordingly, I
finalize the form. This is not to say I write something and then see if I
want to turn it into poetry or prose, although that too has happened.
But it is more a careful attention to how I work with language.

5. How do you perceive the role of internet and social media

towards the well-being of the poetry/writing?
The Internet has thrown open a lot of possibilities for the poet/writer. To
be connected globally to a diverse writing scene is indeed a good
learning experience. Publication calls, contests, community writing
projects, book launches, and learning how to write in a group all
these have now spread wider around us. Sitting in Hyderabad I can
speak to my colleagues in Scotland and see a poem of mine come up
in their house of words. Or take an online seminar with the top
names in New York or Singapore. This is empowering no doubt. Social
media has bolstered this aspect as the poet/writer can now even
showcase her writing on a blog or a website or her own Facebook
timeline without waiting for an editor or publisher to call for her work.
Although I myself have not gone that route, self publishing too, I am
told, has received a boost via the Internet. I think most importantly, the
social media and the Internet have brought us closer as readers and
writers. Writing is not an elitist activity in the virtual world. It is a great

leveler. We are all in a democratic Parliament of poets and writers.

6. Social media tends to bring people from all over the world
together on a common platform. Ideally it should open minds
and hearts and bring wider acceptance of diverse opinions and
views. What does your experience say about the level of
tolerance with regard to the creative freedom? How free is an
artist in todays world to express himself?
Your question reminds me of Rupi Kaur, a Canadian art rhetoric student
whose photo showing a woman lying on the bed and menstruating
Instagram took down more than once. The issue about level of
tolerance is a thin line. While Ms. Kaur presented the photo as part of
an art project she was submitting in school, Instagram, which usually
showcases hundreds of photos where women are depicted in rather
denigrating ways in lingerie or other sexist manner. Her work received
a great deal of attention and acclaim and Instagram received flak for
its intolerance. Whether Kaurs work has supreme merit as art work or
not, it is for the aesthete to judge. As regards writing, it has become
easier on social media to comment and like an individuals work. Also,
easier to trash it publicly and often, rather ruthlessly. While its become
easier for poets/writers to find patrons for their books, along with a
sales front and readership base, a host of mediocre writing has also
smoke-screened those who write with rigor and away from the
Facebookian clamor. Critique is almost absent, as is critical writing, in
the virtual world. A hundred likes makes one a hero overnight but
certainly not a nuanced writer.
Freedom of expression, of late, has been challenged in India and all
over the world a great deal thanks to the Hindutva forces in India and
globally to the ISIS, American hegemony, and other regressive powers
as seen in news reports and social media. That doesnt mean
freedom of expression wasnt fraught with pitfalls earlier. One must
note that social media and the Internet have seen the rise of trolling,
one of the most nefarious ways of thwarting and even threatening free
speech advocates.
However, the advantage of the social media is that it breaks down the
myth of a mysterious aura around the act of writing by making the
latter accessible to all. Its an art one practices as a community and
thats what the medium strongly advocates.

7. Speaking of community writing, do residencies and

workshops or courses help poets and writers? Isnt writing an
organic process?
Writing is very much an organic process. All the more reason why it
needs tending and guidance. Residencies are the most laid back of the
community writing activities. They make you realize how writing in
an even paced space can make you aware of the distractions that
deter your daily writing efforts. Workshops are short term and are very
useful as sounding board. Several writers dislike the term, associating
it with MFA and other writing disciplines. But any tight-knit group of
writing cohorts is a workshop. This is where you can critique, criticize,
suggest, help and receive the same without being pitted against the
whole world. The cohorts can be ruthless but not heartless. All of them
are poets and writers who want to do better writing. Coming to courses
I just mentioned MFA, etc. one neednt panic thinking its always a
cookie-cutter culture that will kill all originality. That notion is terribly
misplaced. A really motivated writer cannot be molded because we are
individualistic people. We dont easily listen to easy solutions and dont
bend or genuflect to any instruction so readily. Hence, a course is there
only to show us the possibilities. A certain limited model that can be
questioned and re-modeled. A course also creates an environment
where writers, publishers and teachers interact freely. The fear about
an MFA killing our writing instincts is a little farfetched. A fierce writer
sees life beyond that pedagogical framework.

8. What advice do you have for upcoming writers/poets and

poetry lovers?
My advice would be one should believe anything, question everything,
write poetry as if ones life was dependent on it, and read and share
poetry with the sharpness of a sword. Get out of the comfort zone.
Poetry is energy, a tool, a weapon. It can generate upheavals and has
upset people in power. It is exhilarating for those who seek and learn.
So know how to wield it. Its like fishing in deep waters. After the whole
night when the traditional fisher folks find a huge and diverse haul, its
a delight bringing the boat in-shore. That sweat and salt is the essence
of poetry.
Nalini Priyadarshni is a poet, writer, editor and amateur photographer.
Her work has appeared at various international magazines and lit
journals including Up the Staircase Weekly, eFiction India, Mad Swirl,
Crescent Magazine, The Riveter Review, Writes & Lovers Caf, The

Gambler, Camel Saloon, Earl of Plaid, CUIB-NEST-NIDO, and The Open

Road Review, Phoenix Photo and Fiction, Undertow Tanka besides
numerous anthologies including Resonance, I Am Woman, Awakening
of She, Art of Being Human etc. She lives in Ludhiana, India with her
husband and two feisty kids. Her first solo poetry collection
Doppelgnger In My House is expected in 2016.