Dear Readers,
It’s the month of NaPoWriMo and at Poetic Adventures we are into the tenth and final week. I am grateful to Namratha for this wonderful ten-week-long run. I felt alive, writing, after a long time. Oh, the relief of writing without the worry of sticking to what works.
I do not want to write a long prelude because I’ve just finished this poem that I plan to share with you, and it sits heavy upon my heart. This week’s prompt is to respond to news (read details on Namratha’s Substack page here).
My response wasn’t the initial plan. I started reading about the recent earthquake in Myanmar-Thailand and then the news changed to Gaza. I will admit that Rajani’s latest poem about the role of writing/poetry played on my mind, and an early morning discussion on LibGen (Library Genesis) in a Writers’ WhatsApp group also had a role to play in this poem. I cannot get over our normalcy. The poem is raw and straight out of my pen. I can’t hold it any longer.
Thank you for being with me on this ten-week-long journey.
WHEN HOPE BEGINS TO FADE
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A Hundred Quills 
“There are no more surprises in war zones“
“a nine-year-old buys ration for his left-over family.”
Lovely word play with left-over family. This is a really good poem.
I got here late but glad I read this 10th poem as well. Thank you for writing all 10-weeks. Hope you got some value out of it. I have loved how you have experimented and let yourself write whatever comes through these adventures.
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Thank you to you for the adventure. It couldn’t have been better for me.
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Great write!
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Thank you!
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Wow! A very insightful and hard-hitting poem. The juxtapostion of people suffering and writerly sales concerns works very, very well. Brava!!!
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Thank you for your kind words, Liz.
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You’re welcome, Sonia.
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This poem easily makes it to the list of your best work yet – definitely my favourite so far! Glad my poem was in your thoughts.
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I cannot tell you how inspired I feel when I’m reading your page/blog, even though my response is scarce and scattered. Thank you for saying this. It was an emotionally tough poem to execute.
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Thanks very much. Keep going. The tougher the poem, the more necessary it is to write it.
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Oh wow, Sonia! It’s truly raw and I loved how you’ve combined two different things into one.
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Thank you, Arva. I think the prompt was hugely demanding and inspiring. Thanks for always stopping by.
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Oh, you weren’t kidding with how raw this poem hits! Absolutely loved how it chafed my heart. You captured our daily lives so succinctly. We worry about so many menial things on a day-to-day basis and there are people suffering so much worse! Great job, Sonia! This will count as braiding too, right? If yes, I’m grinning like a fool that we both chose this same form this time 😁
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Thanks, Manisha. It definitely came from an emotionally charged space. I, too think, it’s braiding.
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Honestly, when I realised that my short story collection was on LibGen, the first thing I thought was, let no AI be biased by my biases. I am now even more worried about what I write.
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