#kandasamy

[r19za]

Your blood bears the salt of withheld tears.

“Facing the music” from Ms. Militancy (2010) by Meena Kandasamy

[r19za]

Untitled love and perhaps, because we only met in secret, shielded by darkness, he hesitates - whenever i ask him to bring our love to light

“Untitled love” from Ms. Militancy (2010) by Meena Kandasamy

[r19za]

Remember that this world was made before the advent of airbrushed foreheads, before editing that allowed features, before adobe photoshop came to be.

“Pride goes before a full-length mirror” from Ms. Militancy (2010) by Meena Kandasamy

[shaevilux]

Just watched Kandasamy (2009). I watched in when it first released when I was a wee lad and I guess some of the songs got stuck in my head randomly a decade later so I decided to watch it again.

What was the director/editor on? Like what the fuck is this movie? Each scene transitions to another with the ease and flow of a metal crate being dragged across sandpaper. I'm enthralled. I can follow it, I understand why things are happening the way they are, but at the same time.

Like why? Such choice. Very movie.

[shridharblog]

#ushodayam 🙏 With #lord #nallur #kandasamy ( #7thcentury ) #temple #srilanka #gopuradarshanam 🙏🙏🕉️🕉️ #shrisaivastu .. உஷோதயம் இறைவன் நல்லூர் கந்தசாமி (7 ஆம் நூற்றாண்டு) கோவில், இலங்கை, கோபுர தரிசனம் 🙏🕉️ . #lordmurugar #murugantemple #murugar #tamilkadavulmurugan #tamil #tamizh #aadichevvai #omsaravanabhava #arogara #vetrivelveeravel #srilankatravel #srilanka🇱🇰 #templephoto #photography📷 #ınstagod #instagram #instaviralpost #instatamil #subramanyaswamy #kanda #karthikeya (at Chennai, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/ChBmgSHvY0N/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[sachwlang]

'Exquisite Cadavers,' By Meena Kandasamy : NPR

‘Exquisite Cadavers,’ By Meena Kandasamy : NPR

[ad_1]

Meena Kandasamy’s third work of fiction is a novella where, as she writes in the opening pages, “each influence, each linchpin behind every freewheeling plot-turn, [is] referenced and documented.” The title comes from the French surrealist game cadavre exquis, which is, in turn, a variation of the parlor game Consequences. Players assemble a collection of words or…

View On WordPress

[theotherpages]

2020 NPM #25 Cinquains (etc.) by Meena Kandasamy

Meena Kandasamy (1984 - ) is an Indian poet, author, editor, translator, and social activist.  Much of her life, and her writing, has revolved around efforts to combat gender and caste-based discrimination and violence.  She has published two volumes of poetry, and has a substantial Wordpress website for her poetry online.Some of it is very pointed, some of it is playfully imaginative. Some is  very structural in its storytelling. Well talk about three representative pieces:  A Breathless Council, Fuschia Shock, and Cinquains.

A Breathless Council is exactly as the title advertises:  a stream of consciousness from a mother to a daughter, imparting a constantly shifting torrent of advice / opinion / confession that evolves continually around the idea that:

                   i want you to learn more than what you want to learn sometimes i feel i want you to get hurt badly hurt and bleed before the world and then i shall sit back and feel my work is done for once you have known what pain is then you shall know how to preserve the fringes of happiness

But it is dark council, and makes you wonder what the hell this woman has been through, when she says things like:

you will find that life will always lie waiting like an hungry beast and at each turn you take

Finally you get an idea when the stream of ideas reaches its end:

i want you to throb precariously i want you to be living on the edge i want you to learn the thousand one ways in which you can melt the boundaries of saturation called death and the emptiness of life and the fidgetiness of what might be called love i want you to lose i want you to win but some day i want you to be free

I can’t speak for students of the current day, but once upon a time, in my college years, we would highlight the important points or passages of our textbooks with yellow markers. Eventually they came out with orange, and green, and blue, and a bright magenta, which Kandasamy relates to in our next poem, Fuschia Shock, where she imagines she and her highlighters are imprisoned in her studies:

My bed smells of textbooks and it is more than a month or so, since I dreamt of sunlight and the sky’s embrace. Even a woman’s lush vanities — scarlet silk and shining gold — have been lost on me. I am snared in a world of aqua, fuchsia, and lime set dangerously against black and white.

This poem is written with stanzas that gradually increase in length, and you can kind of imagine someone highlighting line after line, until in frustration they realize they’ve hypnotically underlined everything.  In the end she just wants someone to take her to where the colors are less fluorescent:

Dearest, lavish your love in slender earthtone shades, in the colours of skin singing — to shield our renewed dreams, and to believe, once more, in absolutes.

For a taste of her more pointed pieces, which are well worth reading, I suggest Inheritance or Mascara, to get a better appreciation for the voice and tone of many of her poems, but the third set I am going to focus on here is a pair of Cinquains.

We discussed Haiku forms earlier in the month. Cinquains are another short form, typified by having five lines. There are some variations in line length and structure. I’m not going to go over all of those. You can read more about them HERE.  Let me just say that the structure lends itself well to simple and beautiful statements. The best known American practitioner is perhaps Adelaide Crapsey.

Kandasamy has paired two cinquains:

Morning Song

Wet pink And dusty grey The sky begins to blush. Some sleepy careless charm welcomes Daybreak.

Even Song

Azure And pink gold hues The smug sky at twilight A final flush of fulfilment Night falls.

Whose simple statements and clear focus gives a strong contrast to A Breathless Council.

--Steve Spanoudis