Exploring possibilities beyond the ordinary

Vandana Kumar is a French teacher, translator, recruitment consultant, Indie Film Producer, cinephile and poet residing in New Delhi, India. Her poems have been published in international anthologies, journals, and national and international websites of repute like ‘Mad Swirl’, Grey Sparrow Journal, ‘Madras Courier’, and ‘Outlook’ to name only a few. Her cinema articles appear regularly in ‘Just-Cinema’ and Daily Eye. She was among 40 participating poets in the ‘INĐIJA PRO POET 2023’ festival held in Serbia on June 23. Her debut collection of poems’ Mannequin Of Our Times’ was published in February 2023. The book has been awarded ‘The Panorama International Book Award 2023’ and ‘The Mighty Pens Awards 2023.

Interview excerpts:

Q1. When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer /Poet?

It is difficult for me to say those clichéd things that I always knew I would become a poet or a writer. I don’t have poems written in the fifth and sixth grades to show anyone. I always enjoyed writing and did a lot of exciting pieces for school and college magazines –the usual. But poetry was always lurking somewhere, perhaps. My journey as a so-called published poet (you don’t need to be published to be a poet) began a little after my father’s death. It was perhaps looking for the right time to reveal itself. Maybe the intensity of the loss gave way to the poetic expressions.

Q2. Where do you get your ideas for your poetry?

As I mention in the author’s note of my debut collection ‘Mannequin of Our Times’ that I suddenly find myself writing on a host of things – bad internet connections between lovers, a visit to the dentist, shifting weather and unspoken thoughts. I write about everything and anything that comes to my mind. I write about love and lust stories, changing urban landscapes, alienation and increasing consumerism. My perpetual obsession with seasons and deaths remains. One doesn’t know what inspires. At a subconscious level – books one reads, cinema one sees, and other poetry. Travel contributes to my ideas a lot. A lot of my poems are written during plane and train journeys.

Q3. What do you like to do when you are not writing?

Well, teaching is my profession and also my first love. So, a substantial amount of time goes into my teaching. These are challenging times with unimaginable devices of distraction, and one has to link things happening around us to our teaching, no matter what we teach. A few hours of the week do go into class preparation. It would make any teacher happy to have students forget their mobile phones and social media for those few hours they are with us. Since my vision impairments make it imperative to restrict my screen gazing time (computer and mobile), I try to relax with a lot of music. The other passion is cinema. I have a list of must-watch films from around the world, and I am getting to each film gradually. Some films compel me to start jotting a few points in my mind, which is usually a sign that I will end up writing a piece on the film. I am grateful to Just- -Cinema and The Daily Eye for giving space to many of my cinema articles.

Q4. Do you have any suggestions to help me become a better writer? If so, what are they?

I can only share from my personal experience that one must listen to one’s voice to write. I can’t say something within –whether you call it soul or instinct-but something that comes naturally for a poet—so, being true to oneself. Saying things others haven’t said before or speaking of universal things (life, love, death, etc.) in a way that hasn’t been said before is the most difficult of all. Engaging with all art forms is so important – one does not know what will inspire or connect where.

Q5. Have you ever experienced writer’s block, and how do you handle it?

Writer’s block typically is when you sit down to write, feel blank, and run out of ideas and inspiration. I never sit down saying that today I will write something - a poem, a cinema article or a short story – and then find myself staring at a blank screen. I have only written when I got an idea. Something that said sit and write this. What starts as an idea then gets developed into a poem. Often, an idea passes, and I let it. If It has to be in my writing, it will come back to me another day. It has to roll by like a drifting cloud, so be it.