More-than-human Poetry: The Art of Sensitive Witnessing

Over the last few days I’ve been thinking about how poetry can be an easy “answer” for difficult questions. This is somewhat counter-intuitive - poets rarely offer “answers” in their poems. One of my favourite Wislawa Szymborska poems is actually called Questions, and is composed entirely of questions. In that poem, the person navigates a range of personal questions with an “I don’t know” before finally responding to the last question in an affirmative. In many ways, it teaches, through example, the cathartic journey of art-making, where we navigate a range of inarticulable truths, before rescuing one final ‘mood’ or proposition with the tools of language.

Taking this thought forward, I wanted to share with you, dear readers, that poetly is offering an online poetry-intensive next weekend for people interested in writing, and in poetry. Do have a look, and share with people who you think might find this interesting. The workshop is titled “More-than-human Poetry: The Art of Sensitive Witnessing”, and individual sessions will be facilitated by 3 Indian English poets - Kunjana Parashar, Saranya Subramanian and Aranya Padil (me).
Sharing details below.

Register Here: https://forms.gle/AYs72KGpwQDprLA19

Do share this with anybody you think might be interested. A couple of reiterations:

- Only the funds raised from this intensive will be utilised for a Manohar Shetty publication. Not the content or anything produced from the workshop itself.
- This decision is part of a larger effort to foreground the work of Indian English Poets, and to apply tools generated in close reading, that help us write into experiences, and those imagined spaces that are difficult to bring into language and narrative.
- This workshop is NOT only for those people who “identify” as poets, or even “writers”. In fact, artists and creative folk, who count themselves as “not familiar” with “poetry” would really enrich the space :)

I hope the day is kind to you

Write to me @
aranyapadil@gmail.com - if you have any questions, queries, or comments. I will write back as soon as I find the space, and the time.

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