Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
Devanshi Khetarpal is the founder and editor-in-chief of Inklette Magazine and a translations coordinator for The Quarantine Train. Currently, she is a Master’s candidate in Comparative Literature at New York University. Her work has been published in Redivider Journal, Usawa Literary Review, The Bombay Literary Magazine, nether and Vayavya, among others. She is from Bhopal, India. Website: www.devanshikhetarpal.co
Poetry is replete with threat. I imagine it as a figure standing on the edge of a cliff, leaning forward but not falling. I imagine it like something saved from dying. My poems originate during my walks. Writing and moving from one line to the next is like crossing a street, trying to filter the noise in the city, trying to lose one’s way or find another route within the same grid, looking at a glass window to fixate on something besides oneself, behind oneself. When there is no struggle and no hunger, and, simultaneously, no effort to let go or give in to that very hunger and to struggle, my words do not flow. These poems were written before my visits to the hospital became more frequent. Now they look at me from the page with a surgical gaze, and I hide behind my diagnosis. I imagine my poems pointing towards the threat, about to fall and render things irretrievable. I wonder if poetry is truly surgical, corrective. Although entering a poem has always felt like entering a hospital to me. I read them like I read the diagnosis of my condition, our condition, as illuminating as they can be incomplete.
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