Posted on by Sonia Dogra

The Ghosts of My Town

Dear Readers

Another NaPoWriMo, another poetry craze! I’m enjoying the poems and prompts, but saving them for later. When it comes to poetry, Instagram is my favourite place. Some poets have been graciously sharing their creative process and that is inspiring.

Recently, I also attended a poetry workshop by Rochelle Potkar. It was supposed to be only a one-hour workshop, but when poets meet, an hour is pea-sized. Rochelle preferred to call it a poetry jam. We didn’t write together, but we read together—Traffic Lights by Arun Kolatkar and At Midnight in the Bakery at the Corner by Dilip Chitre.

 I won’t go into our post-reading chat, but the poems were something else; they filled me up and emptied me out all at once. Vulnerable, maybe?  You can find the links to both poems right there. Check them out, share your feelings, and we can chat about them in the comments section!

Before I share my attempt at poetry in the first week of April, I’d like to let you know that life is a little busy and chaotic at my end with a likely shift to a new city early next month. So, my apologies, I may not be able to visit back. But I promise to catch up soon.

The poem I’ve written is in response to a prompt by Purrple Lens. They provide beta-reading and editing services, should you want to check. The prompt says, Write a poem using a quaint memory of your peculiar hometown. The prompt also tells us to write it as a prose poem, but I skipped that part.

My poem is inspired by Tishani Doshi’s Homecoming and makes use of repetition as in Chitre’s At Midnight in the Bakery… Yes, I’m reading a bunch of Indian poets nowadays.  Maybe in my next, I’ll read out this beautiful composition, and here is my creation that talks about the unique migrant workers of my town, displaced like me, like all who move out for work/life.

The Ghosts of My Town

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15 Replies to “The Ghosts of My Town”

  2. On first reading, the image that came to my mind was of tea plantation workers. Then on my second reading I realised it could be any one of us. We have become migrants in our own country. I love the imagery and the repetition worked very well.

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  5. For people who are constantly on the move…I can only imagine their sense of (or the lack of) belonging to a place, to familiar surroundings, or to people.

    Thought-provoking!

    Visiting your blog after almost five years (the last time we interacted was during the A2Z Challenge 2020). Happy to see that you continue to write regularly 🙂

    Cheers,
    CRD
    www scriptedinsanity blogspot com

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  6. The poem instantly reminded me of Mumbai. The city squeezes and wrings the souls and hearts of migrants as soon as they arrive until they sacrifice them both into the city’s melting pot—the spirit of Mumbai, they call it.

    I love how your poems make me connect so many dots!

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  7. I read it twice just to register the multiple layers it offers. I liked the one about the ropes around the chest. Gorgeous and heavy, beautiful and aching, delicate and twisted/gruff. I used to feel many of these for many years. Somewhere it continues to linger within me.

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    1. Thanks, Sudha. Yes, ropes can be so layered, can mean so many things. The coolies tie the heavyweights with ropes and they coil around their chests. You’re right. It’s also the weight of so many unseen things tied to their chests.

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  8. I am constantly amazed by the topic which you choose to compose your poem about, and this was no exception. I felt the lines deeply, because all my life, I’ve only moved from one place to another such that now I don’t feel comfortable being at a single city or town for too long. But the move is always so alien, so scary still.

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