Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene: Vijaya Sundaram: A Poet who reverberates and celebrates

As the publisher for the Ibbetson Street Press, I am glad that we are going to release a book of poetry titled " Reverberations" by former Medford Poet Laureate, and New England Poetry Club advisory board member Vijaya Sundaram. I caught up recently with Sundaram for an interview...

This collection of poetry embraces the senses with food , nature, etc... It is imbued with a sensibility of celebration even in the midst of loss. Explain.

Thank you, Doug. Yes, I cannot help but celebrate life, both the inner life of the imagination and spirit, and the outer life of the senses. Sometimes, I dwell morosely on death, and fondly contemplate Lao Tzu’s concept of Inaction, especially when I see how horribly our world is being treated by rapacious capitalists, climate change denialists, and genocidal maniacs. However, I also know that I cannot live in that mindscape, nor give in to despair – and that’s because my immediate, personal world is beautiful. I love everything – the trees whose green soothes me on jangled days, my dog’s snout, earnest and scientific as she inspects everything, my husband’s voice in the other room when he teaches Indian music, our offspring’s joyful presence in our lives, my own guitar and singing, the silly dog and cat reels online that distract me from human horrors, my students and our interactions when I teach, writing poetry, doing visual art, seeing the comedy in the midst of tragedy, seeing the kindness of friends, neighbors, strangers, the goodness of those who give freely, despite their own lack. Sorry, I’m getting carried away here! In short, yes, I celebrate life, even as I contemplate death.

Your father appears in the book, and he was quite the punster. ( My Dad was too) Do you think his play with words influenced your own work?

My Dad’s punning sensibilities definitely influenced all of us at home. He was always good for a chuckle, silly jokes, belly-heaving laughs. He was able to laugh through decades of pain, and taught us what it means to be fully human and experience moments of happiness in that way.

In my daily life, I pun in response to other punsters; I pun from time to time, but not necessarily for laughs, although there’s the accidental fun-pun. My husband Warren and offspring Sharada also pun. Warren is a brilliant and hilarious punster, himself. We all love punning – I guess a family that puns together stays together! However, I don’t think it influenced my written work, which tends to be more serious, and rarely indulges in puns.

It seems that your poems flow easily between the hard shell of the earth, and their transcendence from it. Explain.

What a beautiful observation! For me, the membrane between the Seen and the Unseen is thin. I know I sound all mystical and super-Indian when I say it, but it’s always been true for me – I used to “see” things when I was young; the walls between my waking and dreaming worlds were osmotic. I am not an adherent of any particular spiritual belief or practice, except my own, self-generated, secret one. I know that life is an accident, and yet, in this amazing accident, we found consciousness, and developed morality, conscience, a spirit of inquiry. To me, that is the most breathtakingly magical thing, no matter how scientifically it can be explained – and yes, I love science, and prefer it to the mumbo-jumbo of religion, though religion can be compelling in its way for those who need it, and it cannot be slighted or denied.

So, going back to poetry, when I write, that “lift” from the mundane to the sublime writes itself into a poem – sometimes, I consciously try to subvert it, because it always wants to go there, but I end up surrendering to the impulse.

Getting back to food. I love Indian food. Whenever I have it I feel this strange sense of contentment...the curry speaks to me. Some people think food is trivial. Not you evidently!

Ah, yes! I LOVE food. I think of it often. It’s terrible, because I have to now be careful, pay attention to my health and all that, as I edge slowly towards the abyss (I’m only half-kidding!)

Food is the ultimate comfort; it’s no surprise that some of us gain weight as we get older (I have!) – when the world seems to be going down the wrong tube, at least food is there to comfort and console, despite its dangers. Oh, and Indian food is the best – it wakes you up; it cozies up to your taste buds; it reminds you that life is worth living (even if it’s only for that half-hour or hour when you’re eating). It reminds you that the pleasures of the palate are things to rejoice in, to share. And it definitely gives one that “strange sense of contentment” as you so eloquently put it!

It seems we are so divorced from nature these days, but you seem to be one with it. Does your Hindu background contribute to this? You seem to have a love relationship with flowers, etc.

Being out among trees, flowers, the woods, a pond – any and all of it has always made me feel as if I’m stepping out of my own narrowly defined self, stepping out of the borders of my body. I’m hopeless about remembering the names of various flowers; I have to look up books or the Internet to remind myself of their names. I do love flowers, but I wish I were a more disciplined gardener! Also, when I walk in the Fells, and trip over root systems on the slopes, I am struck time and again by how all those roots hold the earth together. When I read what Suzanne Simard wrote about trees, or when I read the research done by others about how mycelium works underground, connecting trees to each other, taking nutrients from mother trees to younger ones, I was, and am filled with a kind of holy awe. When I step on roots in the forest, I thank them, and offer thanks to the earth that’s holding them, and being held together by them. Sounds silly, yes? Nevertheless, I whisper my gratitude to them all (when people cannot hear me). I am always reminded that I am part of it. When I was young, I loved looking up at the gold and green of sunlit mango and neem trees around me, and wanting to become them, to become a sun-filled leaf or branch, or the whole tree. I used to read a lot of William Wordsworth, and his poems about nature are a deep part of my poetic DNA. Apart from that, I used to delve deep into Greek and Roman mythology as a pre-teen, and remember being quite struck by the myth of Daphne, who turned into a laurel tree trying to escape Apollo’s clutches. I also loved reading the story of Hyacinthus (another Apollo-struck victim, sort of), and Narcissus – both turning into flowers, the latter into a rather self-obsessed one, haha.

To answer your question, it’s not really a part of my Hindu background, though - or maybe, it’s part of some mystical part of my ancient Hindu background of which I might be unaware. Mostly, it comes from how I feel, and from absorbing poets like Wordsworth, Keats, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Christina Rossetti, Rabindranath Tagore, Oscar Wilde, Tennyson, and other writers who influenced me when I was young.

Why should we read your book?

I loved writing it, and love what’s in it, and want to share it with others. No, I don’t think it’s some sort of unseemly pride, or anything like that – just the need to share what I have seen, or been, or felt. Poets did that for me, and still do that for me. We need to emit what light we have, and absorb more poetry, more beauty, more love, more of the good parts of ourselves out in the world.

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Seaweed

When everything's been said.

And yet, I haven't said it all.

Should I speak?

And why?

What need is there?

Surely it is silence I crave.

All this noise, a railing

Against encroaching night,

Drives a stake into my eyes.

Eyes closed at night,