INTERVIEW: FIRE & DUST MEETS DEVJANI BODEPUDI
You move through the kitchen – an exhalation, no longer seeing the
orange and beige you adopted. You miss the smell of red earth but
understand tea here – the kettle, a squat matriarch upon the stove.
And clinks of chipped china as you arrange new-old paraphernalia of a
ritual old-new, ending with sunsets so early, they welcome ghosts
ever eager outlined in snow. You shiver at the reflection in the window.
How different to the endings you were accustomed to
only to learn that customs, like memories of a cherished garden
must grow anew many times a lifetime. How many times must you
endure then, the upheaval of transplantation and loss?
– ‘You are home’ (p.15)
Devjani Bodepudi is a writer, teacher and a ‘Cov Kid’ who is now based in Rugby. She has been published in several independent journals and anthologies, including with Sunday Mornings at the River, Olney magazine and Stanchion Lit Zine. Devjani’s debut poetry pamphlet For the daughters carried here on the hips of their mothers was published by Fawn Press a few months ago. Her novel MIRRORS was published by Holland House in 2019 and her debut children’s book will be published by Parakeet Books this June.
Devjani was our Fire & Dust headliner at Café Morso on 4th May 2023, where her set of hard-hitting poems was well-received by the crowd. We caught up with her after the gig, to ask a few questions…
HCE: Tell us a little about your background and journey as a writer so far. What inspired you to start creating poetry and when did you first start sharing your work live with audiences?
DB: Such a cliché but I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I used to write little stories at school. I even tried writing several novels before going off to university but pretty soon, I realised that maybe it wasn’t something I should pursue seriously. In fact, growing up in a working-class home, where we watched our parents struggle to make ends meet, to voice the desire to become a writer was just plain wrong. This resulted in writing taking a back seat.
It wasn’t until we relocated to India for a time when the itch to write appeared again. My career was in teaching and so when we moved, I felt lost. Being a teacher was my whole identity. I could have taught but I wasn’t enamoured by the education system in Kolkata and I felt quite confused. My husband suggested I start a blog. He set it up and I wrote. I wrote and published regularly until it felt like something was missing if I didn’t. Then I found a job as an assistant editor for a leading magazine in India at the time, Kindle Mag, and I even wrote a short novel. And then we came back to Coventry and I fell back into teaching. I was too exhausted to write anything decent and I felt awful. But when a call for novella submissions appeared on my timeline, I jumped at it. Holland House was looking for un-agented, under-represented writers to submit their novellas. They would then publish the top three. Mine got through and just like that, I was a published author.
Poetry came much later though, after the pandemic. I decided I needed to carry on this writing thing and so I applied and was accepted onto a Creative Writing MA at the University of Birmingham. In my first semester, I saw a call for Fawn Press’s first anthology. The theme was perfect, and I entered. I got rejected. I was gutted. but I was offered a free mentorship with Scarlett Ward, an incredible poet and the managing director of Fawn Press. And when the pamphlet submissions opened up, and mine was selected it was like a springboard. I was suddenly a poet; something I had avoided calling myself all this time.
HCE: Who is your work aimed at – do you have an ideal audience in mind when you’re putting a poem together?
DB: The poems in the pamphlet are really there for me to document some of the experiences immigrants have gone through, and are still going through when they arrive on the shores of a new country. The experience can often be intimidating or alienating. My poems are for anyone who wants to listen or for anyone who can relate to those experiences. When I write, my purpose is to relate a moment or a feeling. I don’t keep an audience in mind, but I do hope that the poems will reach their audience, if that makes sense.
HCE: What have responses to your new pamphlet been like? Are readers connecting with the material in ways you hoped they would?
DB: The response to the pamphlet has been phenomenal. After every reading, I’ve had at least one person from the audience tell me how they can relate; how they know someone who has gone through something similar. It’s been really heart-warming. I wouldn’t say I expected anything, I’ve just been blown away. It’s also been shortlisted for a Saboteur Award this year, which is insane considering how many talented writers there are out there. I just feel incredibly blessed.
HCE: Would you say there are themes or motifs that you tend to gravitate to in your work?
DB: I tend to gravitate towards the political, I think. But I also enjoy writing about finding wonder in the little everyday things, like when the streetlights come on, or the when the dog lies on my achy legs on sofa. Ultimately, I want to reflect what it means to be human today. Possibly more specifically, a brown woman in a very western-centric patriarchy.
HCE: What essential ingredients, in your opinion, do most well-crafted poems have in common?
DB: Concrete images, authenticity and the ability to be able to use language and form inventively.
HCE: What is the most valuable thing you learnt during the process of putting your first collection together?
DB: That’s a tough one. I learnt several things. Technically speaking, I learnt that form can be very powerful. Also, the POV is important. I made a conscious decision to write in the second-person to offer a sense of intimacy. I didn’t want the reader to be able to escape the sometimes uncomfortable moments I decided to present. But emotionally, I found a whole new level of respect for my mother and grandmother; basically all the people who came before me. It must have been incredible hard.
HCE: To give our readers some insight into For the daughters carried here on the hips of their mothers, please can you tell us a little about the decision to divide the pamphlet into three sections?
DB: The three sections are ‘For the Mothers’, ‘For the Daughters’ and ‘For the Granddaughters’. Each section tells the story of that generation.
‘For the Mothers’ talks about what it must have been like for my grandmother when she first arrived here. There really was a river crossing in the dark with young children in tow and the letters home were filled with half-truths.
‘For the Daughters’ talks about what it must have been like for people of my mother’s generation. When they arrived they had to balance the old with the new. They were grappling a new feminism that they could see but not quite hold onto, but it’s what they wanted for their daughters. Which brings me to the final section.
‘For the granddaughters’ are for my generation. We grew up here, we know what we want, and yet sometimes we’re held back by guilt, by wanting ‘unacceptable’ things, or by the colour of our skin, or by our perception of other peoples’ perceptions. I’ve always been told that I have to be ten times better than any white person to be taken seriously in any role. And then, at other times, I’m told that the only reason I have this and that is because special allowances have been made for me, for the colour of my skin. I’m constantly wondering about my self-worth. I hope things will change for my own children.
HCE: In your experience, is Rugby/Warwickshire a good place to be a writer, and does the region have a thriving literary scene?
DB: I think there’s a lot more growth that can happen in Rugby and Warwickshire in terms of the poetry scene. Warwickshire is a huge region and yet there’s no adult Poet Laureate, only a Young Poet Laureate. There’s so much talent here but not enough places to showcase it. If it’s there, I don’t know about it. Wendy Goulstone, a wonderful, generous poet, runs an open mic a few times a year and there’s the Café Writers as well, I think, but that’s all I know about in Rugby. There’s the open mic in Kenilworth run by John Watson at the Treehouse Bookstore (Pure&Good&Right) and there’s Daniel Kay’s ‘AccessAbility Arts’ in Hinckley, I think. I’d love to know if there are more.
HCE: Much of your poetry deals with your own and your family’s life experiences in a raw and honest way. Is this an emotionally draining thing to do? What is the top piece of advice you would give other poets for tackling heavy/personal topics in their writing?
DB: It is emotionally draining and it also makes me feel quite vulnerable. And yet I feel I have to do it, (a) for the authenticity and (b) for the catharsis it creates. My tip to poets or writers who want to write from a place of pain or the personal, is to only go as far as you want to and only share if you want to. Once it’s out there in the world though, you’ll be surprised with how many people may feel the same way, or who have experienced the same things, and in sharing, that personal mental load that you’ve been carrying around, you find a new perspective and a way of moving on from it. Again, that’s a cliché but I feel it’s true.
HCE: What type of poetry do you seek out for personal enjoyment? As a reader/listener, when you engage with a poet’s work, what are you hoping to get out of it?
DB: Honestly, there are so many poets and kinds of poetry out there that inspire. Nine Arches Press have produced some of my favourite collections, Roy McFarlane’s Living by Troubled Waters is must for any lover of poetry and the use of form is so clever, there’s also Anthony Anaxagorou’s Heritage Aesthetics; the way he plays with language is quite beautiful. There’s also the classics of course, like Max Porter and Anne Carson and the way they use a kind of hybridity in their writing is wonderful. I’m finding that really fascinating right now. It’s the language play in general, that does it for me. It’s something that I would like to get better at. And I can’t forget Jasmine Gardosi. Every time I watch her perform, I feel like giving her a standing ovation. And I haven’t even had a chance to watch her live yet, which I imagine will just blow my mind!
HCE: What’s next on the horizon for you? Are you already working on projects/booked for upcoming performances?
DB: At the time of this interview, I will be appearing in Wave 14 of the Iamb Poetry Directory, which is really exciting. I have a children’s book coming out imminently, called Paper Boats, with Parakeet Books and I’m super excited about the Cork poetry exchange that I’ll be taking part in this August; representing Coventry with John Watson.
HCE: What’s the best way for people to keep connected with you and your work, or contact you for bookings?
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HCE: Is there anything we didn’t cover that you’d like to share with our readers?
DB: Yes, if you want to write, just go ahead and do it. It’s never too late and every poet has a reader. And you will never stop learning.
For the daughters carried here on the hips of their mother is available to purchase online, direct from publisher Fawn Press, as well as other bookshops and retailers.