triveni spotlight A FEATURE EVERY ALTERNATE DAY! hosts: Vidya Shankar and Teji Sethi GUEST EDITOR: Iqra Raza 31 March 2024
busy footpath —
a drunk bends to study
his shoelaces
Daipayan Nair
As the world gets increasingly loud, not just aurally but visually as well (especially with the proliferation of technology and capitalisation of attention), I focus my selections around ‘intimacies’. Moments of quietude that involve a reckoning with intimacy in its various forms and along varied axes: with the self, with others, with material objects, with places, with thoughts and values, with the environment around us. To be intimate is to acknowledge the depth of silence, to allow it to settle into the self, and sometimes even to be overwhelmed by it. The ku I have chosen for this month explore what it means to be intimate in different ways.
— Iqra Raza
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Thank you for being our next guest editor, Iqra. The theme is powerful and we look forward to re-discovering moments close to our hearts.
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My apologies for commenting again but I was out most of the day yesterday so I never got time to say much about why I see "intimacy" in this poem and it's not as subtle as some of the other selections Iqra has made.
First, in a crowded setting (on a footpath especially in India where the poet is from) a drunk ignores all, and second, he looks at the shoelaces (studies not redoes). Why he does that is not relevant but the intensity of that attention at that point in time is deep even if the person is inebriated.
Always a fan of Daipayan's observation and presentation - the ones I've read so far. This one is no less.
Nice one, Daipayan
Lovely, I really like the unexpected study of shoelaces in this one.
A good month of lovely poems Iqra!!