Poetry
June 2021
Tanpura's Strum
A Collection of Haiku, Tanka, and Micropoems
by Jesal Kanani
Jesal has always been drawn to making beautiful connections with seemingly disparate ideas. She's been able to draw out the juxtaposition of two unrelated images in a haiku, giving birth to a new meaning, which combines two distinct thoughts into one. If we look at urban existence – its natural state of being is fraught with dissonance: the push and pull of expectations, the contradictions within roles, but Jesal sees connections and synergy with this seeming contradiction thru the haiku and tanka which reach out as perfect forms to Jesal, to express this state of modern living. Both — arising out of and also nestled within, this constant churn and thrum of life are nectar-like moments that make us feel most alive, impassioned, at other times crushingly human. This poetry is an attempt to catch those pearls of consciousness, those moments that float up to the surface above the rough raw tumble of the day. Maybe it is the ordinary, that when looked at with repose, reflection transmutes into something extraordinary? The tanka’s brevity: a click, ka—snick! is a snapshot in words. A wide ranging collage, from motherhood, heartbreak, loss, love, to the tangible: vegetables, beaches, forests and salons, is put together in this collection through these textual snapshots. Read together, they aim to paint a dense picture of urban life of women, as they grapple with successfully navigating the world. By saying little, sharing just the silhouettes of an image, Jesal's haiku and tanka, invite the readers to color in the rest with their own experiences and imagination, thereby making these poetic forms unusually relatable. I hope the grace and beauty of these ancient forms of poetry find resonance with you and readers through this modern, relatable and excellent rendition, by Jesal.
