This is my newsletter #52: Rohini Kejriwal
Hello dear reader,
This is unfortunately the final instalment of This is my newsletter Season 1. For now, perhaps for a long time to come.
I started this newsletter a year ago with the intention of creating a safe digital space for strangers to inspire each other and share a part of themselves with the other 1247 of you out there. It’s been such a beautiful pandemic experiment gone right, and I’m so grateful to each and every one of you for being a part. We had 50 different curators take over the newsletter over the past 52 weeks, and share their little corner of the world with the readers.
After exploring my own newsletter The Alipore Post as a format of expression, I was curious to know what democratising the newsletter curation/writing process would be like if I opened it up to others. I’m so glad I started this on 2nd August, 2020, because there has been so much wisdom and so many amazing stories and recommendations in the archives, waiting to be read for eternity. A big, big thanks to every single person who was involved in this project, from the newsletter takeovers to the readers :)
I invite you to visit thisismynewsletter.substack.com to access the archives at any time.
I thought it would be apt for me to wrap up this newsletter by doing a final takeover. There is a magic in new beginnings and uncertainty, and I’m definitely one to preach this any chance I get. While I would have loved to keep this going, a part of me is just tired and needs a break while another part knows that something similar will pop up in my mind soon enough and I will make it a reality when the time is right.
In the spirit of curiosity, I share with you some poetry, random internet discoveries, words of wisdom and creative experiments to try out.
Poetry Corner
Instructions for Writing by Phan Nhiên Hạo
Translated by Hai-Dang Phan
Write sharply like a nail driven into a plank.
Write swiftly like wind blowing through a village plague.
Write quietly like coals burning inside the earth.
Write fiercely like a wounded lion on the brink of death.
Write cautiously like a train plowing through a foggy morning.
Write sensitively like a dragonfly before a storm.
Write pleasure all over the sand, then connect the dots.
Write sorrow on the water, let the waves do the carrying.
Write solitude onto a lantern, keeping vigil until the light burns out.
It’s possible to write briefly, but don’t skip verbs,
stagnancy will sink punctuation marks.
Write after dusk but not at dawn—
that’s when the ghosts return
after collecting more spirit money.
Write prolifically when drunk, though once sober, throw it all
into the river,
and try not to brag about your intoxications.
Write for the dead, but don’t invite the funeral band
because synthetic music suffocates the corpse.
It’s fine to write aimlessly, but don’t be careless.
Keep language in its solid state with a high melting point.
Write far below zero, like a winter day in Oymyakon.
Write sweating bullets, like summertime in Dallol.
Write in the style of the New York School or Prairie, both are cool,
but don’t dance around with a stick
thinking no one can see you.
Write hopelessly like waiting for the moon to fall on the roof and
break into pieces.
Write hopefully like when I waited for my wife to give birth
at Tu Du Hospital.
Write unforgettably like in Bangkok six years ago when I saw
a beautiful woman with twelve fingers.
Write mysteriously like all the long nights of my youth
listening to the symphony of the street merchants crying out.
Write handsomely, but pay no attention to symmetry.
Write gorgeously, but avoid cheap face powder.
Write in the middle of a crowd while standing alone,
a “Do Not Disturb” sign around your neck.
When the nameless are executed in the city’s square,
write their faces in blood, and never wash your hands—
not until freedom spreads like soap bubbles
from scrubbing history’s shameful spots.The Gardener by Ken Weisner
For Kit
You get down on your knees in the dark earth—alone
for hours in hot sun, yanking weed roots, staking trellises,
burning your shoulders, swatting gnats; you strain your muscled
midwestern neck and back, callous your pianist's hands.
You cut roses back so they won't fruit, rip out and replace
spent annuals. You fill your garden dense with roots and vines.
And when a humble sprout climbs like a worm up out of death,
you are there to bless it, in your green patch, all spring and summer long,
hose like a scepter, a reliquary vessel; you hum
through the dreamy wilderness—no one to judge, absolve,
or be absolved—purified by labor, confessed by its whisperings, connected
to its innocence. So when you heft a woody, brushy tangle, or stumble
inside grimy, spent by earth, I see all the sacraments in place—
and the redeemed world never smelled so sweet.Excerpt from Poem Written in a Cab by Alex Dimitrov
"The thing is, the world
will continue without us
just as this poem will continue
even if there’s no one
to read what it says.
Please keep reading.
I care so much that you do.
I want to be in rooms
and cabs together,
listening to everything
that’s ever happened to us
until some point in the story
when all the details
are out of the way
and there’s nothing left to say
except the simplest things."Someday by Mary Oliver.
Even the oldest of trees continues its wonderful labor.
Hummingbird lives in one of them.
He’s there for the white blossoms, and the secrecy.
The blossoms could be snow, with a dash of pink.
At first the fruit is small and green and hard.
Everything has dreams, hope, ambition.
If I could I would always live in such shining obedience
where nothing but the wind trims the boughs.
I am sorry for every mistake I have made in my life.
I’m sorry I wasn’t wiser sooner.
I’m sorry I ever spoke of myself as lonely.
Oh, love, lay your hands upon me again.
Some of the fruit ripens and is picked and is delicious.
Some of it falls and the ants are delighted.
Some of it hides under the snow and the famished deer are saved.Marks by Linda Pastan
My husband gives me an A
for last night's supper,
an incomplete for my ironing,
a B plus in bed.
My son says I am average,
an average mother, but if
I put my mind to it
I could improve.
My daughter believes
in Pass/Fail and tells me
I pass. Wait 'til they learn
I'm dropping out.
Some music I’ve been listening to
In love with the gentleness of Koshi Chimes
“Playlists are kind of like a diary entry—they can be long or short, intimate or obtuse. They're ways for me to look back at the music I listened to at a certain moment in time. I use playlists to connect with others about music—if I ever send one to someone, I almost always ask them to send me a playlist in return. My sister and I have had a playlist we've added to for years; when we were living far apart while she was in college, it felt like we were musical pen pals.”- music writer Arielle Gordon (from Aliza Abarbanel's newsletter) on the practice of making playlists?
A super fun doodle exercise
Take a piece of paper. Divide it into 6 squares with a pen/pencil.
1) In the first square, make a circle and then doodle whatever comes to your mind in or around it but within the square. Caption it.
2) In the second square, make a square. Draw something in or around it. Caption.
3) In the third square, make a rectangle. Draw something. Caption it.
4) In the fourth square, draw a peanut. Caption it.
5) In the fifth, draw a cross. Caption it.
6) The person who made me do this didn’t know what the last square was. So just write your name in the final square.
Email back with your doodle and I'll tell you what each one means. The results are always fascinating, regardless of whether it's a stranger or somebody I know.
Links worth checking out + words of wisdom:
"Writing isn’t so bad really when you get through the worry. Forget about the worry, just press on. Don’t be embarrassed about the bad bits. Don’t strain at them. Give yourself time, you can come back and do it again in the light of what you discover about the story later on. It’s better to have pages and pages of material to work with and off and maybe find an unexpected shape in that you can then craft and put to good use, rather than one manically reworked paragraph or sentence. But writing can be good. You attack it, don’t let it attack you. You can get pleasure out of it. You can certainly do very well for yourself with it . . . !"
-Douglas Adams“Every poem holds the unspeakable inside it. The unsayable... The thing that you can't really say because it's too complicated. It's too complex for us. Every poem has that silence deep in the center of it.
—Marie Howe
I’ll end this newsletter with this Liz Climo comic and a big hug and thank you to each and every one of you for hanging around.
Thank you for being a part of this random and wonderful experimental newsletter.
Love you all,
Rohini
This was something that I looked forward to reading every week . And I am definitely going to miss reading and waiting for what each week had in stock for us. Thankyou so much for doing this. Really really looking forward to seeing more of The Alipore Post . Loads of love🌻
So amazing that you completed a whole year!! Thanks for having me — what a gorgeous archive you've created in a really difficult time in history, and will be so lovely to revisit these in the future.