Indran Amirthanayagam
A Tamil from Ceylon, and a former American diplomat, Indran Amirthanayagam writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole. He has published 25 books and translations. He has received fellowships in poetry and translation from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the U.S./Mexico Fund for Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He won the Paterson Poetry Prize for The Elephants of Reckoning. He also won the Juegos Florales of Guaymas, Sonora. He is the 2022 IFLAC World Poet/Poeta Mundial.
Mother, in Tongues
Mother has gone back to the kitchen
where she needs two pounds of cardamom,
a cup of cloves. She will make love cake
again. This is Christmas in January,
and she is visiting her daughter in California.
Where are you Mummy? In Templeton.
Who am I? Indran. On Tuesday evening,
her body burning, she began to speak
in tongues, to invoke the Holy Spirit,
taklata, taklata, taitata taitata. We called
911. Ambulance and paramedics came,
along with two fire trucks...I have become
expert in friendships between these
groups of first responders in America
where more elements give security,
jack-up costs...in America where
we moved to live then die... America,
taklata taklata taitata taitata.
Indran Amirthanayagam (from Seer, Hanging Loose Press, 2024)
Mother has gone back to the kitchen
where she needs two pounds of cardamom,
a cup of cloves. She will make love cake
again. This is Christmas in January,
and she is visiting her daughter in California.
Where are you Mummy? In Templeton.
Who am I? Indran. On Tuesday evening,
her body burning, she began to speak
in tongues, to invoke the Holy Spirit,
taklata, taklata, taitata taitata. We called
911. Ambulance and paramedics came,
along with two fire trucks...I have become
expert in friendships between these
groups of first responders in America
where more elements give security,
jack-up costs...in America where
we moved to live then die... America,
taklata taklata taitata taitata.
Indran Amirthanayagam (from Seer, Hanging Loose Press, 2024)
Poems
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/indran-amirthanayagam
https://groundviews.org/author/indran-amirthanayagam/
https://thenewversenews.substack.com/p/tuesdays-new-verse-news-always-a
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/indran-amirthanayagam
https://groundviews.org/author/indran-amirthanayagam/
https://thenewversenews.substack.com/p/tuesdays-new-verse-news-always-a
Reviews
https://asianamlitfans.livejournal.com/32744.html
https://kenyonreview.org/reviews/the-migrant-states-by-indran-amirthanayagam-738439/
https://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/running-on-full
https://asianamlitfans.livejournal.com/32744.html
https://kenyonreview.org/reviews/the-migrant-states-by-indran-amirthanayagam-738439/
https://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/running-on-full
Interviews
https://writerschronicle.mydigitalpublication.com/articles/a-poet-of-the-world-for-the-world-an-interview-with-indran-amirthanayagam
https://heavyfeatherreview.org/2022/10/03/the-possibility-of-america/
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/892934/summary
https://www.hangingloosepress.com/catching-up-with-indran-amirthanayagam/
https://writerschronicle.mydigitalpublication.com/articles/a-poet-of-the-world-for-the-world-an-interview-with-indran-amirthanayagam
https://heavyfeatherreview.org/2022/10/03/the-possibility-of-america/
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/892934/summary
https://www.hangingloosepress.com/catching-up-with-indran-amirthanayagam/
Mini Interview (2019)
Your poetics?
I think of poems as word music. So I dance, rest in peace, tune out, tune in, review the events of the day and week while listening to words drift through ears into the windy spaces where debts and regrets jostle with satisfactions about work well done. I love poems that turn on rhymes and off rhymes, that give the appearance of order, structure while subverting their own premises. So I would like to present the contrarie states of the human soul in each verse--as Blake fashioned the phrase.
Your influences?
We are multiple, mixed, modern and old, fresh and stale, becoming always and wrestling with demons in every poem we write. I love and learn from Nazim, Allen, Pablo, William Butler and Lao Tze; from Rosario Castellanos, Sylvia Plath, Nicanor and Violeta Parra, and Mahadevi Akka. They are my friends and confidants and they live in my phrasing my embrace of experience, my translating that experience into poetry.
Why is the Matwaala fest and collective relevant and needed?
Matwaala is home, refuge, and launch pad. It recognizes poets who are migrants celebrating and living their South Asian relations, their waking up in the world surrounded by the gods, fruits, flowers, philosophies and animals that prosper in the South Asian ecosystem. Yet we are living abroad, in a global village where every inspiration seems to be at hand, or on a screen, but where the apple, cherry and peach predominate over the mango, rambutan and date. We are from South Asian and America. Let there be commerce between our multiple selves. Ah, I like Pound and Whitman too.
I think of poems as word music. So I dance, rest in peace, tune out, tune in, review the events of the day and week while listening to words drift through ears into the windy spaces where debts and regrets jostle with satisfactions about work well done. I love poems that turn on rhymes and off rhymes, that give the appearance of order, structure while subverting their own premises. So I would like to present the contrarie states of the human soul in each verse--as Blake fashioned the phrase.
Your influences?
We are multiple, mixed, modern and old, fresh and stale, becoming always and wrestling with demons in every poem we write. I love and learn from Nazim, Allen, Pablo, William Butler and Lao Tze; from Rosario Castellanos, Sylvia Plath, Nicanor and Violeta Parra, and Mahadevi Akka. They are my friends and confidants and they live in my phrasing my embrace of experience, my translating that experience into poetry.
Why is the Matwaala fest and collective relevant and needed?
Matwaala is home, refuge, and launch pad. It recognizes poets who are migrants celebrating and living their South Asian relations, their waking up in the world surrounded by the gods, fruits, flowers, philosophies and animals that prosper in the South Asian ecosystem. Yet we are living abroad, in a global village where every inspiration seems to be at hand, or on a screen, but where the apple, cherry and peach predominate over the mango, rambutan and date. We are from South Asian and America. Let there be commerce between our multiple selves. Ah, I like Pound and Whitman too.