Poetry in the city.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

She is crossing the road. A car heads straight towards her putting her existence in doubt. An entire self-contained world is at risk: her own being + the poems she has written so far + the people who read her poetry.

One summer evening The Delhi Walla arranges to meet poet Anannya Dasgupta on Amrita Shergil Marg. The Central Delhi boulevard is lined on both sides with Amaltas trees in bloom. The branches are laden with the yellow flowers. The pavements, too, are covered with these flowers. Amaltas also figure in Ms Dasgupta’s poetry.

An assistant professor at Shiv Nadar University, Ms Dasgupta teaches literature of the British Renaissance and Writing, which includes the poetry of Shakespeare, Milton and Spencer. Many of her poems first appear on her blog Daily Riyaaz where “I gather students, colleagues and friends to join me in writing a poem everyday in the month of April.”

April is the poetry month in the US. Ms Dasgupta had started her blog in that country in 2010 when she was studying early modern English drama at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “Every year I delete the previous poems from my blog and start anew,” she says.

Some of those April poems by Ms Dasgupta reappeared in the book Between Sure Places. She shares three Amaltas poems with us: Flaunting Summer, Spite and Laburnumb.

Flaunting Summer

The amaltas is back
along tarred streets.
Drooping chandeliers
from slim branches
in the fullness of
summer’s flair, saying
shine on (you crazy
diamond) see if we care.

Spite

The water bottle in the fridge
doesn’t cool enough.
The moisturizer on the table
is warm. Damn the blooming
amaltas hogwashing the heat,
don’t fall for what it looks like
Delhi is dead beat.

Laburnumb

Spring is for the Jacaranda
in purple, woken up cold
For the Flame-of-the-forest
in red, in its loosening hold.

When you let go of me, I saw
your coral fingers uncurl in
the petal of a Tiger’s Claw.

Summer is for the Gulmohar
in orange, too hurt to calm
For the unkempt Bougainvillea
in colours of unloved charm.

But the season of defeat for
the Amaltas heart is in yellow.
I succumb, become laburnumb.

Songs of the Amaltas

1.

2.

3.

4.

6.

5.

7.

8.

9.