MANDIRA PATTNAIK

MONTHLY BLOGPOST

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

Inspired by the celebration of National Poetry Month to promote awareness and appreciation of poetry, this month I decided to interview contemporary poets under the Interview Series “Let’s Know Our Poets Better”. I’m delighted to share that a total of five poets participated, from as diverse places as Durham, Sydney, Santa Ana, Portsmouth England and Indianapolis! Each one of these amazingly talented humans shared their unique perspectives and poetry with the blog. Each had a recent collection published, so as a bonus, readers might get to know what it takes to write and publish a collection. I hope you’ll enjoy these interviews as much as I did conducting them.

First up was Sam Szanto on April 6, who mentioned in an earlier interview with Fevers of the Mind that “I was born with a pen in my hand”! Sam’s most recent collection is a poetry pamphlet called ‘This Was Your Mother’, published by Dreich Press in March 2024. Sam says: “(As a poet) I do like to tell a story when I write – I also have a published collection of short stories – and I generally write about people first and place second.” Read the entire interview HERE. Our second poet in the Interview Series LET’S KNOW OUR POETS BETTER in celebration of National Poetry Month, was Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad. My earliest association with Oormila was in September 2020 when I published Bustle in Amsterdam Quarterly Vol. 29. In the same issue was Oormila’s The View From My Windows. About her recent collection (Patchwork Fugue is available to preorders from Atomic Bohemian), Oormila said: “I chose the 47 poems in this collection from over 100 pieces, some of which I had published in literary magazines and anthologies. When deciding the order of the poems, I found that many of the poems spoke to each other, and common threads centered around survival emerged: identity and belonging, love, loss, mental health, and reinvention.”, which could be enlightening to poets deciding upon and collating their own collection. For more, read the April 10 interview HERE. On April 17, Thai-Vietnamese American poet and essayist Tanya Sangpun Thamkruphat graced our pages. Tanya’s latest book is Care Instructions (Finishing Line Press, 2024), a poetry collection composed of short and simplistic poems, addressing the type of healing most of us yearn for during unexpected times. They were written during a prolonged period of personal and global crisis characterized by turmoil, change, and loss. Read more about Tanya’s journey in the interview HERE. Lawrence Moore, the author of THE BREADCRUMB TRAIL, spared a few minutes for the interview series on April 24. When asked: what themes/motifs/symbols appear most commonly in your work? Do you think there’s a reason (or reasons) behind? Lawrence had the most insightful answer: “You will find fantasy, hope, flight, aspiration and allusion in my writing. Were I eager to analyse the interplay of the first four, perhaps I wouldn’t need the fifth.” Read the full interview HERE. Finally, we had a delightfully candid and enlightening talk with poet Susan L. Leary, whose latest collection is Dressing the Bear. Susan says: “There is always a pressure but with poetry, language is patient with me, and that patience culminates in an honesty I didn’t know I was capable of.” Read more HERE.

The craft essay blogposts resume in May, focusing back to flash fiction and prose writing. For more poetry related blogposts, you may read this post and this one.

“Growth is a multistep process, but it is an actual process. Spiritual formation isn’t quite as slippery as some make it out to be. The first step is to crack ourselves open to see what we’re hiding, either deliberately or inadvertently, and to drag what is in the dark into the light. This is the process of self-discovery and self-awareness.”
― Anne Bogel

SUBMISSIONS OPEN: free submissions, paying publications — Split Lip Magazine, Spellbinder (closes May 1), Archive of the Odd, The Stinging Fly (May 15-29), Kweli Journal.

START A DISCUSSION: Do you swiftly jump from poetry to prose and vice-versa? Do you think it is advisable and/or is actually enriching to do so in furtherance of the craft of writing? Or would you rather advocate staying devoted to one category and nurturing it?

MANUSCRIPT CONSULTATIONS: In May, I have just two slots open across categories. Do let me know if you want one. Click here for more.

PRO-TIP: Refrain from submitting too frequently to the same lit mags. Not a good practice and might result in instant rejection.

The theme of May’s month-end flash fiction craft essay blogpost is yet to be decided. If you’d like something to be discussed specifically, do get in touch in here or through my X account

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