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Poetry that’s personal
FEARLESS Sharanya Manivannan
Leave me loose
Luscious. Lusty. Decadent.
Sinful as chocolate and
Twice as much fun.
(From ‘Witchcraft’ by Sharanya Manivannan)
She revels in being outrageous. In being the woman-poet in deliberately loose hair. In being the “bard in black lace, the naiad with the nine inch nails.” The way she tells it — “She’s the dark one / the bad one, the nau
ghty one who / won’t let you sleep… She has tequila on her tongue / and tobacco between her teeth.”
At the launch of her book, “Witchcraft,” a collection of poems that she’s been working on for most of her life, Sharanya reads huskily, artfully positioned between flickering candles and dark shadows in the Leather Bar. “Lock your doors. She’s a riot in lipstick and leopard / print, a coup d’etat in cashmere.”
Sharanya’s coup d’etat is really her fearlessness that allows her to write poetry that is intensely personal. This honesty results in poems that are often astonishingly vivid, conjuring up entire soap operas in blazing Technicolor in your imagination. The sassy ‘You bring out the Sri Lankan in me’ for instance which talks of the “craze of poya nights… (and) the dipping of ginger biscuits in hot plain tea.” And then goes on to say “You bring out the insurgency in me. / The sneaking out during night time curfew to buy / A birthday cake in me / The weakness for chubby men in moustaches in me.”
Judging by the reading, which showcased a variety of her work, Sharanya’s at her best when she isn’t taking herself too seriously. Emboldened by the fact that her work is often lauded as being astonishingly ‘daring’, it does sometimes tend to overreach, pounding you on the head with metaphors and exulting in reckless bawdiness.
Her strength
On the other hand, there are times when this is her strength, enabling her to accurately chronicle passions such as love, lust and all their physical manifestations without being too Jane Austen about the whole thing. Sharanya, in fact, seems to be fashioning herself as the city’s Sylvia Plath.
She certainly has a life as colourful, the way she tells it. She’s lived in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Canada, and now Chennai. She sees herself as a Sri Lankan refugee, and a lot of her poetry talks of exile and homesickness. “Don’t call me citizen. Don’t call this home. Exile is the only song I’ve ever known.”
Sharanya’s poetry entwines powerful political and passionate personal ideas. Baring all, she says, is possible only because she’s been writing all her life. “In the beginning, I didn’t think it required bravery. If I had begun to write four years ago when I became more politically aware I think self censorship would have shaped my poetry…” She talks of how she couldn’t have written the way she does if she was constantly aware of the fact that there “could be — there will be — consequences.”
Her bold verses, she states, are really far less path breaking that one would imagine. “I think the biggest advantage that I have is that I write in English. There are Tamil women writers who have created such beautiful intimate poetry…” Yet, she admits “I’ve done some readings where I’ve been scared and didn’t read certain pieces.”
This collection’s title, ‘Witchcraft’ encapsulates the idea of the “demonisation of a certain idiosyncratic woman”. It is, after all, something that has happened through the ages to women who dared to differ. Fortunately we’re centuries away from the threat of being burnt at stake. “I’m grateful to be in a world when I’m not going to be persecuted for things about myself that are different.”
Sharanya’s philosophy seems clear enough. It’s even in her poetry. “Burn every bridge you ever built, and build as many as you possibly can. The one that takes you home will be the last one standing.”
SHONALI MUTHALALY
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