One of the standout evening sessions on the first day of the Jaipur Literature Festival 2017 was on the subject of poetry. “In Search of a Muse: On Writing Poetry”, was the final session of the day, and it was attended by a packed audience.
Conducted at Mughal Tent, the session was focussed on the subject of inspiration for poetry. Seven international poets shared their insights on how best to create a poem. With the British poet and novelist Ruth Padel as the moderator, the session opened by poetry recitation by such eminent poets as Anne Waldman (US), Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir (Iceland), Tishani Doshi (India), Kate Tempest (United Kingdom), Ishion Hutchinson (Jamaica) and Vladimir Lucien(the Caribbean).
Talking about her muse, Ólafsdóttir said that she likes to be the voice for the voiceless through her poems. “One of my poems is about a love relationship between physically challenged people. For me, poetry is actually whispering from one person to another. My inspiration comes from silence. I am also interested in what’s between words. What people did not/could not say became my area of interest.”
Tishani Doshi’s poem, “Ode to Patrick Swayze”, gathered much applause from the audiences. In the poem, Doshi recounts the personal experience of a 14-year-old teenager talking to Dirty Dancing’s actor Swayze. She beautifully, at the culmination of poem, links the piece with the actor’s death. She said, “Through this poem, I wanted to describe the intensity of a 14-year-old.”
Padel concluded the session by saying: “You can never guess where the poem will lead you to.”