Interviews

A Virtual Tête-à-Tête with Tishani Doshi

Tishani Doshi’s new book of poems tackles hyper-nationalism and misogyny head on, transforming a collective grief, anger and loneliness into a beam of hope and resilience. Here’s a little from the author about herself and her new collection:

1. Writer, dancer, poet – you have donned a lot of hats! Which are you most comfortable in?

I don’t think of it as wearing hats, or swapping out a fedora for a bowler. These are simply the things that I do in my life, so there’s no sense of discomfort with any of it. I feel further from dance than I would like to be, and that’s partly because I’m no longer performing as I used to, but there are things that you do in your life that come to reside in you, and I think writing and dance are just two of those things. Ask me about filling out insurance papers, or something like that. Now, that’s uncomfortable.

2. Your collection of poetry A God at the Door is inspiring. Very different from your other works. How did this come about?

Is it so different? I tend to see my books in a kind of succession – one births another births another – it feels like a natural progression. So many of the themes that I deal with in A God at the Door, I’ve been thinking about and writing about for a long time. Whether it’s the body, or violence against the body, or the sea, or violence against the sea, or clouds, or…. you see? I think there’s perhaps an urgency to this collection, because it came together quicker than other books, and perhaps there’s more irreverence, more wonder.

3. Tell us a little about the title. What does it mean and why did you choose it?


The title comes from my poem ‘Hope is the Thing’ — “A god at the door sitting/ on a giant buffalo offers you a sip/ of wine to make the bitterness go away.” That is of course, Yama – lord of death and justice, who seemed to be working overtime last year particularly – but there are other gods, goddesses, sprites, dryads who populate these poems, who are gate-keepers and can usher us between states, slide us openings. These poems are about documenting the breaking around us, but looking and questing for what is holy, for the idea of making a pilgrimage back to ourselves, how these discoveries often occur at thresholds – doorways, windows, dreams.

4. In A God at the Door, a number of the poems are about the oppressed in various corners of India. How did those poems come about?

I’ve written poems in response to news headlines, partly because I think lyric poetry has the elasticity to respond to what’s going on, but also, because poetry can restore something to these issues – by shifting the language, by shifting the way we talk about things. So there are poems about India – about the ongoing violence against women, about citizenship laws, about taking evolutionary theory off syllabi. But, there are also poems about Kabul and Duterte and climate change. I think of poetry as being a vehicle for reclamation – if not transformation. And while a poem can’t change laws, it can lodge itself inside someone, it can create bridges, it can be a radical act of joy, of imagination and solidarity.

5. What are you currently working on?

More poems. Of course.

Shortlisted for the 2021 Forward Prize for Best Collection, A God at the Door is nothing short of a tour de force.

 

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