End Term Assignment and Self Reflective Essay: Malayka Shirazi

Mid-Term Assignment - Ways of Reading- Swati Yadav

Line break poems

Write two poems where each poem has at least two deliberate line-breaks using any of the "Wagner’s six S’s: speed, sound, syntax, surprise, sense, and space." In a small note after each poem, explain your usages of these line-breaks.

Death

Death is so calm,

Death has all I want.

The idea bewitches me inside out.

Prospect to thrive in the afterlife,

Through the characters I have read alive.

If wish be; then the wish be granted:

Mirror my soul to me;

If faded/

It may be:

Colour it, with the life still within me.

Yes traveller/

As I am.

I wish to travel life,

I wish to admire world with different sight,

I wish if death- invites.

NOTE: I have put the slash in the two places where I have given the deliberate line breaks. First line break is given to give more sense to the thought the poem wants to convey. Also it works as a kind of assertion and opens a new possibility. The Second line break is given to give both surprise and space in the poem. As after reading that line the poem takes a different tone. Also before this particular line break the poem was more like a sad self-talk. But after this it changes its tone.

My colour red

Stimulating were my thoughts and dreams,

But red was the colour,

Missing.

I had a dream,

That dream had me along/

With you within.

When my heart was meteoric and my mind numb.

When my lower limbs wanted to say/

To stay,

But my finger’s wanted to pave a way.

It was then, when my dream proclaimed:

It is you – my red colour on your way.

NOTE: The first line break is given to add a different sound and space in the poem. At the same time it is hinting towards the different sense. The second line break is given again for sound and space.

Mythological poems

Write two poems, each in the voice of any historical or mythological character of your choice. You may want to choose a particular moment in that character's life and attempt to explore how they would respond to that moment.

To her

If I could ever be her best,

If I could ever be her select,

To be more precise – if I could ever be her first select.

These are the thoughts which dread my mind day and night.

What, what if one day she does not reconcile?

What, what if she pushes me aside?

To be more precise – what, what if she pushes me forever aside?

Wait... Wait……. Let me give it a thought…

Have I ever been her first morning thought?

I wish, I wish if I could ever peel inside her mind.

And ask her heart to give away the weeds in my name from her mind.

As I am dead.

NOTE: My poem “To her” is about the thoughts Karan from Mahabharata felt for Draupadi, but he was never able to confess his feeling for her. The poem is kind of a self-talk he is having, as he nears his death in the field. The thought of this poem is influenced from the book “the palace of illusion”.

Draupadi

Knock knock.

It has been talked about since my days.

But this time I hope you actually hear.

Knock knock, it is about rape.

Since the days of nursery I am draped in fragile pink.

The choice was never mien, but this is how it was meant to be.

Oooh pretty little girl keep your hands off the mud and those current carrying wires. Ooooh pretty little girl did you get hurt?

Yes I was hurts.

Why did you not think, if the pretty girl who was no more little, was hurt, when you ripped off her dress and thrust inside her without any rest.

You return, thinking it was your right.

The pink colour choice was never mien, then how can I expect you to ask me if I wanted to join.

The rapes have been happening, and the people have convinced themselves that it was she who asked for it.

Did her walk, her talk, her short skirt, her visible breast, her red lipstick, her open hair, her clothes layers, her curvy waist ask for being raped?

Oooooh pretty girl. You in full sleeves clothes, hair in braid and flat chest have also been raped.

oo.. h pretty girl you will be raped even in the saree you drape.

Even by the five on your side and even by those hundred on the other side.

NOTE: This poem is the voice of Draupadi herself. She is analysing that how just like her so many girls have to suffer at the hands of men. In the poem she is addressing people from all age group and is trying to convey her message.

Repetition poems

Write two poems, each using repetition of a word or a phrase. Think of our classroom discussion where we realized how repetition achieves different effects, whether it be lending weight, creating irony, exploring multiple meanings of the same word or phrase, among others.

 

I Want

I want

I want more than what they call a girl is.

What they have called a girl to be,

Is not what a girl seems to me.

I want to be a girl but not the kind they have

Decided for me to be.

The one who is quite,

Calm in turmoil,

Mum all the while,

Never asks why,

Despite she has suffered to much harm all the while.

I do not want the life they have decided for me.

Neither do I want what life has decided for me,

But I want the life my heart throbs to live and my mind dreams all night.

And even in the daylight.

What if songs.

Last night, while I lay thinking here,

Some, what if’s crawled into my ear.

Thinking it all night long

I sang the, what if songs.

What if I am dumb at school?

What if I get beaten up?

What if there is poison in my cup?

Is my neighbour going to call for ambulance?

Or just leave saying what if he is already dead.

So, it is none of my business.

What if I start crying in the mid of the night?

Will my parents be worried, or will they leave me,

To sort it all by myself.

What if I flunk that test?

A test should not affect my life, but

What if it does?

What if everybody likes me?

How will I decide whom do I like?

Should I just go and talk to all of them,

Only to find out that I like non- of them.

What if I don’t grow taller?

Would he like to walk with me, or

I will have to go, do all the stuff myself.

What if my head starts getting smaller?

I hope that’s not a disease and there is a pill to regrow it.

What if the bus is late?

Should I wait for another one, or

Ask a stranger to drop me at work?

What if I lose everything?

Will I be able to sit down and think?

Where did it all go wrong?

What if I had wanted to go to heaven and god said No?

What if tomorrow is no more?

It should not matter, because every time I say it,

My mom wakes me up the next morning.

And my what if’s move for the

Remaining hours of the night,

Making more situations in the daylight.