A Poetry Residency (One participant's perspective)

Nearly a month ago, I was invited to participate in a Writers’ Residency organized by the Lantern Meet of Poets – which happened to be the first of its kind for the fraternity.

It was the first time I’d stowed myself away, or allowed to be stowed away for that matter, for the express purpose of writing.

This particular residency had been organized to fast-track the process of producing felicitous poetry for a recital the Lantern Meet was set to stage in a few weeks’ time.

I recall boarding the mini-van that whisked us to the bucolic out-of-town establishment intriguingly named ‘Father’s House’ with a very inflated sense of worth – I was a precious gem being taken out of the cacophony of the city’s bustle to a place of quietude and fresh-air, to optimize and enhance my ability to create.

Our team of ten settled comfortably into our very spiritually ‘enriching’ hostelry – which turned out to be a small hamlet of cottages perched on a solitary hill of becalming quiescence.

The first evening was spent around the glow of a camp-fire that strove admirably to keep the marauding, enveloping darkness at bay as bits and bobs of conversation were exchanged; and a filling dinner was wolfed down.

The morning chill saw us rise before cockcrow to engage in a brief session of exercise and jogging which left many that’d not broken a sweat in a while, panting and gasping for breath.

A few moments later, fresh and with fasts broken, the demanding business of writing poetry commenced.

We were briefed succinctly on personae and the poetry’s expected resolution before each was sent-off to think, pen, erase and re-pen meaningful poetry. 

We reconvened a few hours later to deliberate over our literary labors.

The process was redone about four times over, with each successive round feeling like a refining furnace to the mind, where our art was hammered out flat at a smith’s table.

Strenuous though they were, the hours flew by almost unnoticed as we engrossed ourselves in the (thitherto) unprecedented challenge of summoning creativity within timelines, til the day drew to an unheralded, nay – unacknowledged, close.

The next day was marked by brief discussions on the way-forward, and a recount of the lessons gleaned from the experience, before we lunched and thereafter departed for the city.

Altogether – it was a novel, stimulating and roundly rewarding experience that taught one the priceless lesson of writing in and out of season, depth and any of the myriad excuses we artists often hide behind to mask our deliberate inconsistency, if not outright indolence.