Rejected In Paris

I got told off by The Paris Review today. Maybe it wasn’t necessarily directed at me, but as they say in the, now old, new lingo, I felt attacked.  You see, recently, drawing on the well of inspiration that is history I succeeded in writing a poem, but not just any poem. I wrote a ghazal. 

Those who know me for any amount of time are made aware of my taste for writing poetry. It’s usually pretty bad but I persist, cause why not. The OG is long gone anyway. The ghazal is an especially ambitious type of poetry to be taken up my someone with my modest talents. To make matters worse, as I learned today, the ghazal is really well suited for the Urdu. For all practical matters, I know only English. 

For anyone with any little interest in love and romance, being born in South Asia is a special kind of blessing. We are lucky to have had Urdu poetry reach its peak here. Urdu is perhaps the perfect medium to transmit mischief, passion, pain, longing, and the myriad other emotions which are handmaidens to big Love. Not any kind of expert, but all my life I’ve consumed shayari, sher, ghazals, whether in mainstream Bollywood or in sparkling corners of the internet. 

Armed with the internet, full of inspiration, my trusty editor, Mir ChatGPT, in the other tab. I decided it was time to go all in. The Ghazal was to be written. It was, it follows all the rules, I even make a self reference in the last couplet as is the tradition, but it lacks oomph. A good sher, a good ghazal, should pierce you and make you blush for it’s andaaz, mischief and audacity. 

Mine… well, you can read it here yourself, don’t forget to play the tiny desk concert, it is lovely. 

Definitely read The Paris Review article for it’s a great take of view from a writer who transfers the styles of poetry in one language to another.

#bollywoodPoetry #creativeWriting #crossCulturalWriting #expatWriting #ghazal #languageAndTranslation #literaryCulture #literaryHumor #literaryMagazines #lovePoetry #parisReview #personalEssay #poemWriting #Poetry #poetryCommunity #poetrySubmission #shayari #urduPoetry #writerSLife #writingProcess #writingRejection

*The Calendula Review: A Journal of Narrative Medicine* just published its first issue, titled "Inception". It is put out by the California Northstate University College of Health Sciences. The artwork in this issue is phenomenal.

My first published poetry appears in this issue.

https://www.thecalendulareview.com/issue1

#poetry #LiteraryMagazines #LitMag #Literature #NarrativeMedicine #Health #Art #Artwork #Medicine

Wow, The Paris Review still takes hard copy? Requires SASEs?! How nostalgic!!!

Don't make me swoon by recommending international rags that still use IRCs!

#submissions #nostalgia #literarymagazines

Did you know that all issues of Camera Work, the seminal early 20th-century journal published by Alfred Stieglitz, are available online? Check them and many other wonderful modern art and literature journals out at the Modernist Journal Project.

https://modjourn.org/journal/

#arthistory
#historyofphotography
#modernistliterature
#literarymagazines
#magazineart

We are so excited to formally announce the addition of a new associate editor to the Arboreal team: welcome, Meredith MacLeod Davidson! It’s so great to have you—looking forward to this #literary journey together!

#literaryjournals #literarymagazine #literarymagazines #litmag #litmaglove #litmags #litmagazine #indiepublishing #indiepublisher #literaryjournal #litmagswelove #litmagswelove #litmaglife