Interviewer: Gopa Bhattacharjee
Gopa Bhattacharjee: What inspired you to write this poetry book We Are What We Are along with poet Priscilla Rice?
Lopa Banerjee: “I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am. I am. I am.” –Sylvia Plath
Having read my poetry diva Sylvia Plath’s stunning autobiographical novel ‘The Bell Jar’ time and again, this ‘old brag of my heart’ which I had recognized long back during my very young days gradually became my innermost sacred space, the evocative reality lurking in my senses when I tried to make sense of the hubris of life around me. In my earlier poetry collections, some haunting emotional truths and also the startling universal phenomena around me have shaped my journey as a poet. Most of the poems have emerged out of angst, elemental passion and the urgency to share our narratives as women, as humans with wants and deep, raw wounds. When I met Priscilla Rice in Dallas, Texas, the city that has seen us both evolving as performing poets, the thought of writing the narratives of a diaspora woman in poetic form reared its head stronger. Merging her strong, impassioned voice as a feisty Latina woman born in Texas with my Indian-Bengali voice spreading my wings in the United States, the seed of this book, We Are What We Are was sown and became a full-grown tree with time. The idea was to portray snippets of our souls as diaspora women, reiterating truths about our ethnicities and identities that merged into a collective consciousness.
Gopa: Both you and Priscilla Rice have written poems that are extremely close to each other’s ethnic roots, your quintessential ethos and emotions. What do you think is the common thread between your poems?
Lopa: As the subtitle of our book ‘Primal Songs of Ethnicity, Gender & Identity’ signifies,the poems and also a couple of prose pieces/essays in this collection are cumulatively a celebration of our unique ethnic voices, a literary and artistic manifestation of how our womanhood has evolved over the years, keeping in mind our immigrant identities, our personas shaped by assimilation of cultures, and also the grim truths of isolation. I strongly believe that these ideas lie at the core of this book. Yes, you have aptly pointed out that both Priscilla and I are strongly tethered to our respective ethnic roots, our ethos and emotions that originate from the acknowledgement of those roots.
To quote a line from my opening poem ‘Diaspora’ in the collection We Are What We Are: “In that sacrosanct moment of a dark-throated song, the confluence of the east and west wrote its script of diaspora within my being like an irreconcilable truth, like the whisper of an omniscient God.”
Similarly, Priscilla writes in ‘Two Worlds, Dos Mundos’ these haunting lines:
“Identity as a person, as a woman, as an artist, as someone who is constantly interrupted by men (mainly white men) is something I fight for daily. I want to break the mold of all the identities that people have imposed upon me. I want to recognize all of my identities and simply be.”
I believe these summarize the common thread between the expression of our identities in the collection.
Gopa: Which is your favourite poem in this book? Why is it so close to your heart?
Lopa: Quite a few poems, including ‘Grandmother Mine’, addressed to my late maternal grandmother, the long narrative poem ‘Sita’s Open Letter to Her Twin Son’s Wives’ a dramatic monologue which is a vehement protest against the patriarchal construct forming the basic premise of the epic Ramayana, the romantic poem ‘Kalbaishakhi’ are very close to my heart, as are the two prose pieces/essays, ‘Hello Darkness, My Old Friend’, and ‘Patriarchy and the Female Gender: As I Have Seen It’.Together, the poems and prose form the essence of my consciousness as a diaspora woman trying to grapple with her roots, with strong elements of place, family and relationships which have been representative of my persona. Some poems of Priscilla, like ‘Majestic Mesquite de mi infancia (Mesquite Tree from my childhood)’, ‘Kay-so, a manifesto’, her prose-poem and ‘Sra Petrita’, her poem addressed to her grandma are very close to my heart. Through these poems she weaves together facets of her persona as a multi-ethnic Latina woman, having profound connections with her ancestral roots.
Gopa: As a poet do you think poems should be read aloud or experienced silently?
Lopa: As a poet and also as an artist painting images with words, I have perceived the world as poetry in motion, always in flux, always transient. As an artist, a poet, endowed with sensitivity for minute things, I have strived to live on, in the realm of my own art. Writing poetry is not only a subjective experience for me, but also a divine, sacred process, so I would say, first and foremost, it is important to experience the feeling of a particular poem in silence, in solitude. But having said that, performing a poem by reading it aloud with all its nuances has its own charm and magic, as that act itself connects instantaneously with the audience/listeners. This explains why poetry as a performing art is becoming increasingly significant in the social media, digital media et al. There is no way one can deny its impact these days, as a whole community/village of poets is created and nurtured through poetry reading events.
Gopa: As a poet, author, and translator, which role satisfies you the most?
Lopa: The study of English literature during my formative years has shaped my persona in many inexplicable ways. The essence of it all grew on me with time, as I evolved as a writer in the later years. The study of contemporary American English literature with an emphasis on creative nonfiction writing at the University of Nebraska has given me further impetus to first envision myself as a writer and then to gradually work towards attaining it, and then social media came in my life, like many others, as an added stimulus to flourish as a poet and a storyteller. In later years, I have discovered in my literary journey that both original writing (poetry, fiction, nonfiction) and literary translation have their own charm, their own challenges, and both have caused much joy, with their own unique learning curves. In original writing, you are triggered by a mysterious, tantalizing source within your own being and start an onward journey with that trigger, while in translation, the literary creation of someone else becomes your muse, compels you to transcreate its beauty and essence in another language, that becomes a cultural, cognitive bridge between the original writer and the reader of the translated work. Both are immensely rewarding experiences to me.
Gopa: What are some common misconceptions about poets or poetry you’ve encountered throughout your life?
Lopa: Poets and artists in the older times have often been termed ‘lunatics’ by the uninitiated. In the age of social media they are now labelled as ‘self-obsessed nerds’. How many people would care to acknowledge that driven by their emotional intelligence, poets are capable of creating alternate realities that can reshape the world? Very often I encounter comments like “Oh, I’m not into poetry, I hardly understand it!” What they miss is that poetry is the earliest, most primal art form. If one adds tune to lyrics/poetry, it becomes a song and has innumerable listeners, so why is poetry so cornered, read by only a niche group of people? Isn’t it a point to ponder upon?
Gopa: Why do you think this book has touched the hearts of readers?
Lopa: A literary collaboration between a Bengali-Indian diaspora author and a Hispanic-American poet/storyteller isn’t quite common as much as I know, and this alone might be one of the reasons why discerning readers have liked ‘We Are What We Are’. Would it sustain its literary value for the years to come? Only time will be able to say!
Lopamudra Banerjee
Lopamudra Banerjee is an author, poet, translator, editor with eight solo books and six anthologies in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and translation. She lives in Texas, USA with her family, but she is originally from Kolkata, India. ‘Bakul Katha: Tale of the Emancipated Woman’, her English translation of Ashapurna Devi’s award-winning Bengali novel ‘Bakul Katha’ has received Honorable Mention at London Book Festival in 2022. She also received the International Reuel Prize for Poetry (2017) and other honours for her writing. Her latest books are ‘We Are What We Are’ in collaboration with Latina-American poet and storyteller Priscilla Rice and ‘The Bard and His Sister-in-Law’ (English translation of ‘Kobir Bouthan by Mallika Sengupta), a historical novel on Jorasanko Thakurbari, Kolkata.
Gopa Bhattacharjee
Bilingual poet Gopa Bhattacharjee is born and brought up in Kolkata. She is an entrepreneur and a poet. Her two poetry books in English are UNTURNED VERSES and THIRTY BIRDS. Her bilingual poetry book ‘MINDSCAPES ‘ with two other esteemed poets has been published recently. She has been the featured poet at the American Consulate, Tata Kolkata Lit Meet, Russian Consulate, Latin American Consulate ,Nagar Kirrtibas and many other cultural meets in and out of Kolkata.