But it is poetry is the question that I have in my head now in my head. I saw this article in the Guardian covering the ascension of Daljit Nagra's poems to the Faber's publishing lists, and it made me search for the stuff Mr. Nagra says he performs in public with an Indian accent (since he himself admits that he lapses into minstrel-sy, I won't use that terminology) to applause. Here is an excerpt from "Singh Song", a poem in a language strongly reminiscent of the late 90s MTV India rapper Apache Indian:

"i run just one ov my daddy’s shops from 9 o’clock to 9 o’clock and he vunt me not to hav a break but ven nobody in, i do di lock —

cos up di stairs is my newly bride vee share in chapatti vee share in di chutney after vee hav made luv like vee rowing through Putney —"

So is this poetry?

When Richard Powers speaks (yes, he speaks his work instead of writing it or typing it out), it is fascinating to hear polymath-ic range of his voice talking. Here is him talking in a NYT article about various writers who have talked their work into existence including masters such as Dostoevsky and Dickens. I am off to search for freebie speech recognition software.

While playing hooky in a break at work, I ran into this article at the Guardian, which led me to this absolute gold mine called The Poetry Archive where poets ranging from the greats and masters such as Dylan Thomas, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Philip Larkin to the younger ones such as Andrew Motion, Brain Patten, Don Paterson etc recite their poems[1]. Now after a hard day of work, I am lying in the middle of my hotel bed and listening to the cadences of these most beautiful of human voices greedily, some repeatedly, and watching my tiredness fall away.

"You ask for a poem. I offer you a blade of grass. You say it is not good enough. You ask for a poem.

I say this blade of grass will do. It has dressed itself in frost, It is more immediate Than any image of my making."

Sometimes, however, it is a poem that is indeed required.

This is another such archive of poets (and other writers in general) reading their poetry that I turn to often.