From the couch with Nilanjana Bose, reflecting on crafting a poem and other fascinating aspects of a writer's life.

Hi friends!

Words are the building blocks of our craft, yet, ironically, the way words are put together is often one of the facets of storytelling we’re most likely to overlook in our mad dash to perfect plot and character, dialogue and POV, and yes, to finish that novel/poetry collection/short story collection etc? But then comes a book, a luscious book such as Frances Mayes’s Bella Tuscany. You are reminded of the importance of beautiful words singing together within the harmony of perfect sentences.

Mayes sketches her life in Italy with elegiac prose that makes us feel as if we've stepped inside a poem. You can close your eyes and savour the bliss of such phrases as “The ripe peach colors of the house rhyme with yellow, rose, and apricot flowers.”

It also kind of makes you want to throw up your hands in defeat, thinking that there's absolutely no way my prose is ever going to trickle off my pen in such beautiful patterns. 

But walking amongst us are real-life poets, poets of the 21st Century. I've met some in the blogging world and I treasure them as personally I believe poetry writing is the most difficult type of writing. 

Today, reclining on the couch, is one such elegant poet, Nilanjana Bose, whose poetry seems to flow effortlessly. Perhaps she will share some secrets with us today.

Take it away, Nilanjana!

A vivid childhood memory is…

The drive back from school.  At a place called Bauchi in Nigeria.  A lot of negative news from there lately, but back then it was paradise on a platter.  The road at one point used to run straight to the horizon, and there was a little hillock at the end of it.  Very scenic. It gave me a thrill on the drive back every single day, I used to wait for it to come into view.

My most treasured possession is …

Impossible to answer! Obviously I treasure too many, must cut the clutter.

The word that best describes me is …

Amazed, most of the time.  And gobsmacked when not.  Clueless is also a good fit.

My favourite smell is…

Baby hair, preferably attached to head, and preferably of own baby. Coffee. Petrichor. In that order.

Ha! Coffee! Wish we could share a cup together! Now what song gives you goosebumps?

Hallelujah. Imagine. Blowing in the Wind. Annie’s Song. If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out. Bridge over Troubled Waters.  Where the Streets Have no Name. Mull of Kintyre.  Among many others, Western and Indian. And it’s perfectly possible for me to get goosebumps from instrumentals too – the Chariots of Fire theme, or some of Armik’s stuff, for instance.  I know!  I’ve got weird skin.

I can't believe how many are my favourites too. That Chariots of Fire theme is incredible. Now let's see if we share a favourite movie…

Gone with the Wind. Phew! Finally, an easy one.

I certainly share that love with you Nila. My heart's in Atlanta! Now how about your first job…

A market assessment for typewriters.  Gave away my age with that one, oops.

I began writing when…

I was 8 years old, my Mum still has those poems and she threatens to publish them anytime she wants me to shut up.

Mums can be evil. Tell us about books you loved as a child…

Thinking here more in terms of authors than specific books, really - Enid Blytons, Richmal Crompton’s Williams series, Biggles, a series called the Bobbsey twins, Nancy Drews, Perry Masons, Agatha Christies, du Mauriers, Alistair Macleans and Desmond Bagleys are top of mind still.  I did not start reading English books till I was around 9-10 years.  All my leisure reading was in Bengali initially, English was strictly for textbooks!

Books I couldn’t put down recently…

The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan; Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel; The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin; Levels of Life by Julian Barnes; The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee. All very different, but each one very, very good. 

Books that I enjoy are…

A bit hard to define.  I will read anything that holds my interest, and I will read up to 50-60 pages before I decide.  I won’t go out of my way to read sci-fi or spy-thrillers, but if that is what is lying around (big fans of those in my immediate family) and I have nothing else, then I will get my nose in those too. 

Not finishing books scares me. I was reading Peony in Love by Lisa See and the first half didn't grab me, but when I got to the second half of the book, it was, like WOW!! I could have missed this! 

Now I know you're a writer, Nila, so tell us about your latest project…

I have two on-going  – one is a book of short stories, am working on the tenth one there.  Don’t know if that will be final, or there will be others.

The other is a novella – which is kind of first-draft-standing-at-a-crossroads-cooling-its-heels type thingy right now.  It can get shredded and rewritten into a full length novel.  Or it might get shredded into a short.  In the latter case I am going to coolly insert that into the first project ha!

…and I have just put together my first ms of poetry

What is your writing plan?

Get up, grab a coffee, swat a few flies/mosquitoes buzzing around the vacant brain, wait for words to come, wrestle them to the ground/screen if they turn up.  If they don’t, grab another coffee, swat a few more flying bugs...repeat till the poem/flash/story looks like one.

Seriously flawed in the planning department - I just look at prompts and look blank and swing between panic and writing. Push the words out, and then tweak.  Sometimes I have the ending clear in mind, sometimes the beginning, and I join the dots A to B somehow.  Sometimes I have more than an A and B, maybe a C, D, E as well, but that is rare. It holds together for me presumably because I write shorts.  Poetry is of course slightly more unplannable and messy.

Where do you do most of your writing?

On the couch… :)
I don’t have any special room/space where I write, do it anywhere.  There is nothing special about my writing, I just get up in the morning, and if life doesn’t get in the way, sit down and write.

I relax by…

Reading mostly, walking if I have nothing to read.  Getting into some open space or other, listening to water, watching the open skies will also do the trick.

The point of life is…

Never to arrive, and never to return -

“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” ~ Matsuo Basho

BONUS QUESTION...
What is your process for crafting a poem? 

The process is a a kind of haphazard ride, hard to pin down exactly.

It can begin with anything, a snatch of song or conversation, an image, a news story (a recent poem Asylum took off at a news item about the Rohingyas), a writing prompt or even reading a book.  Sometimes the 'prompt' gets in the head and sits quietly for ages without you knowing and then one day (or night, or at some most inconvenient time) it just takes flight, buzzing round and round literally like a bat  :-) and you have to open a window and let it out...at other times it is immediate. Whenever it happens, you just have to give in and write, it will give you no peace till you've done that, you can't focus on any other task.  

The first draft of a poem is just sitting and letting the fingers 'bleed' -  the words come in a rush and you put them down as best as you can on the laptop if it's handy, otherwise on any scrap of paper.  It is rough and maybe rhymed, maybe not, you can't force rhymes or any form onto a poem at this stage, you're just trying to put down the flashing pictures in your head before they disappear...then when that is done, you fine tune and shape it - in a way more pleasing to you, retaining the pictures but hitching a different word here and there to make it clearer and sharper.  Some poems feel complete right after this second stage, and you leave them alone if that is so.  Some don't, so you revisit them later and try to find out why they feel a little 'off the mark' and edit further till they do feel right.  There is only so much control you can exercise. It is almost entirely an intuitive process. Something is already there in you almost fully formed, and you are just trying to chip off the extra material.  

More about Nilanjana...

Nilanjana is a parent, writer, poet, blogger and a market research professional.  Born in Kolkata, India, brought up in New Delhi and West Africa, she is widely travelled – her mailing address has changed some 15 times and she is always ready for the next change.  She believes in travelling light, and a sense of humour, along with the passport, is top on her packing list. Dipping into other cultures and countries, whether as an expat resident or as a tourist, refreshes her soul/writing muscles. Her bucket list includes a round-the-world trip and writing an historical novel set in Mughal, India. She speaks English, Bengali and Hindi, and understands more Arabic than she can account for.

Her poems, short stories and travel memoirs have been published in both print and on-line.  Her first book was a collection of short fiction in Bengali called Seemaheen Bidesh (Borderlessly Foreign).  Her work has appeared in print in Ananda Lipi, in multi-author Social Potpourri – An Anthology, and also online in ezines like eFiction India and other forums.  She was a contributing editor to Inner Child magazine with the byline - Passport to Our World – a monthly travel feature which ran to a 24-part series. A multi-author short fiction anthology, published by Harper Collins India, is slated for release later this year.

She is presently working on a book of poetry - The Art and Smarts of Bystanding - which explores themes of love, loss, and the singular sense of homelessness an expatriate life entails. Another WIP is her second collection of short fiction, called The Intricacies of Return, and a novella loosely titled Moonlit Waters set in post-revolution Cairo.

She lives in Bahrain and can be found on-line at Madly-in-Verse.  

Whoa! So you see Nilanjana is a prolific author. If you haven't already, please visit her blog on which she posts poetry and at times prose.

Thank you for visiting my 'From the couch' series and are enjoying learning more about the wonderful bloggers who inhabit the blogosphere. In the future I'll be welcoming Hilary Melton-Butcher and Clem Mackenzie who will pop up after their blogging breaks.

• Do you know Nilanjana? Have you read her poetry?
• Do you write poetry? Do you want to write poetry?