BHARATI PAWASKAR
#TGLIFE: Your poem Skirt is a part of your first poetry book Four Degrees of Separation published by Paperwall in 2016 “ how was this poem born?
Rochelle Potkar: This poem Skirt came about in 2015 during my stay in Iowa at the International Writing Program (IWP) when I spoke to women of other nationalities about the clothes they preferred wearing. The love for fabric and fashion juxtaposing with societal impositions is what triggered this poem, along with a video I chanced upon of women making their skirts into pants to cycle without flashing.
Questions on attire, anatomy, dress code, nudity, freedom within the array of politics, religion, and morality... are thoughts that have entranced me for long, still brewing under my surface. You might see a lot more of my writings around these subjects.
You got a place in Visible Poetry Project. How exactly did you go about this?
I submitted a few poems to Visible Poetry Project and they came back promptly telling me that filmmaker Philippa Collie Cousins chose to adapt Skirt. I was fortunate to have Philippa Collie Cousins - a brilliant, intuitive, and sensitive Irish filmmaker living in London, interpret this poem beautifully. This is entirely her visualization.
Shondaland, the media company led by Shonda Rhimes, who created a vast array of female-led TV shows changing the US television landscape for women, especially women of color, selected this video as one of the three to feature on her website. We are glad that Shonda picked the film. It was a worthy selection. We have been getting strong and positive reactions over the film.
Tell us a little bit more about the Visible Poetry Project.
Visible Poetry Project partners thirty filmmakers with thirty poets to create visual interpretations of original and classic poems. It matches filmmakers and poets, provide experienced production assistance to the creative teams, and guarantee an audience for the selected works. It released one short film interpretation of a poem per day for the thirty days of National Poetry Month (April). Each film is an exploration of a poem’s themes and imagery, with the hope of creating a powerful new way for people to experience poetry.
What does poetry mean to you? How did you foray into the zone of prose?
Poetry is water, if fiction is food. Without poetry, the world gets constipated. Poetry means too many things to me: exaltation, exhalation, armory of expression, an amorous relation, fulcrum of being, all my daydreams tucked into one another. I started writing short stories in 2007 after giving up on my corporate job. I knew then that I wanted to write. I got into poetry by accident, while chasing short fiction.
You were a part of the corporate world earlier. What made you quit this and embrace writing?
Writing is passion, profession, addiction, catharsis and therapy. I write for myself hoping someone else will like it after I have had all the fun. At 27, I understood with definitive unease that I couldn’t carry on with my corporate life. It was a dead end. I had to find another path through the labyrinth of life.
Originally from Goa, you are all over the globe now. How would you describe yourself?
I am a full-time writer, poet, and poetry book critic. I do freelance, but I am generally footloose. I live in Mumbai, shuttle to Goa at the flicker of an eyelash. Goa is my native place, and my love for it is irrationally ardent. An MBA in Marketing, a PG in Advertising - I would never dream I would one day be writer or poet.
How often do you come down to Goa?
I have spent many May school holidays in Goa, catching dragonflies, picking mangoes, witnessing the crackle of roasting cashews, the tides of the sea. I visit Goa as often as she invites me. I will be here for the Publishing Next conference in September, the Goa Arts and Literature Festival in December. Also, soon for a book launch of Joseph Furtado’s prose and poetry, edited by me which will be published by Cinnamon Teal.
(You can read ‘Skirt’ at: https://www.shondaland.com/watch/a20055993/national-poetry-month-visible-poetry-project-skirt/)
