THUMBPRINT POETRY COLUMN
POETRY EDITOR ANANYA S GUHA'S NOTE:
Maitrayee Deka’s poems are written in the 20th century British imagistic mould. They avoid cleverness and are detached from their subject matter. They are ironic and border even on wry humour. Read them for their soft personalised cadence
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Grip
The condition, the doctor says
Is a malaise of the modern
Not felt by any other species
As they would go out, you see, even for
Nothing without dogs or other leads
Just to take air into the lungs
From the South Atlantic which is beside the point
More importantly the times were such that you
Could do such things stare blankly at the
Sky in the middle of the road, not a book
To hide your face, which is making
Calculation seeing your neighbour’s tree
Heaving this summer—it won’t fall another
Season—the face grimacing at
Scenarios is a routine unlike the malaise of the
Modern that appears in knots, unable to move the
Neck, the doctor prescribed three
Ounces daily of speaking to someone
Directly into their eyes.
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Forgetting
The way to the
pond is deep
in the woods
where stray
leaves make
entrails close
to the ground,
a net that I
think will
hold me
when in other waters
I remember
I cannot swim.
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Dangerous liaisons
I want to go for cakes
outside town halls
that kind of romanticism
where one thinks only
grandparents are capable of love.
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Friendship
It is getting easier to go out
Without much thought like
You can be and I can be you
Without the sorcery of elapsed time.
I need you not for love
Not for much
A phase of life
When only a shared joke can
Get us by.
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ABOUT THE POET:
Maitrayee Deka is an Associate Professor of Sociology, Poet and Novelist at the University of Essex. Her poetry has appeared in BlazeVox, PotluckMagazine, Indian Review, Popshot Magazine and other places. She is the author of Traders and tinkers: Bazaars in the global economy, Stanford University Press. Maitrayee’s debut poetry collection, Boiled or cracked and the novel The Octogenarian is out now with Eastern Book House. Instagram @Maitrayeedeka0
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