Tag: poetry

Ānanda

Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

i allow myself
to feel joy,
peeling carrots
with my grandmother,
stroking my nose
against my doe rabbit’s

i allow myself
to feel beauty,
adorning my neck
with rose quartz necklaces,
gazing at the night sky
sliding itself into dawn

i allow myself
to feel stillness,
laying my naked skin
in fresh lavender sheets,
placing hands on my belly,
counting eleven deep breaths

i allow myself
to feel grief,
embellishing my knees
with tears, planting kisses
on the blisters
that bejewel my skin

i allow myself
to twinkle alive,
tulle pressed
to my damp thighs,
dancing with my
hands above my head

i
allow
life
to flow
through
me

🌷 poem from my poetry collection, “songs of youth”, the “at last, light: of joy” chapter. available on amazon: https://amzn.eu/d/0duef5g.

graduation | warwick MA :)

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incredibly thrilled to have graduated from my second Master’s Degree awarded with a Distinction and with A+ on my final portfolios & dissertation. ❤️‍🔥

moving forward with the beautiful words spoken by Baroness Ashton, Warwick University’s first ever woman chancellor, as one of my precepts in life: assume that anyone you ever meet knows something you don’t. further, i was moved by two of our professors’ kind reminders to us, which i will share here.

first: yes, what we have achieved is great and we must celebrate it “wildly and loudly”; and yet, we must not be complacent and rest on our laurels. don’t stop; keep moving. there is always room for refinement, growth, expansion. of course, there is and there isn’t – as in, the whole is not separate from the parts, and the part is still the whole even if it appears part, as the Upaniṣads teach us. and yet; when the grasping to knowledge that comes from insecurity and self-loathing begins to stop… glimpses of the human potentiality that is never-ending yet whole begin to become accessible.

second: do not hoard knowledge. do not claim it as solely your own. share generously.

grateful our professors reminded us of our limitations. onward with enthusiasm and dedication to knowledge and to perfecting my craft.

finally… this is my third degree yet first awarding ceremony i have attended due to pandemic reasons and life circumstances, so i was especially excited to have this experience. 🥰

gratitude to my professors, supervisors, family, colleagues and friends. 🙏

on writing as an act of transcendence

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the beautiful image is a painting of Sarasvatī that belongs to a set of sixty which chronologically depict a tale told in the Mahābhārata (as well as in the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa and in the Śrīmad Devībhāgavata), that of King Hariścandra. this painting is one of two beginning the set, and it depicts the invocation of Sarasvatī, the Goddess of knowledge, speech and poetry, who is invoked as the flow of (and to flow the) words and wisdom of the telling. Gaṇeśa is invoked, as well.

in a seminar i recently went to, we discussed sacred texts, and the invocation of Gods & Goddesses in their openings – the muse in the Iliad, the deities in the Sanskrit texts etc. it made me reflect on writing as an inherently transcendental act. as in, it is not you who writes (or creates etc). it is being written through you, and it is therefore futile to take ownership for it.

as a ‘writer’, i oftentimes read my work and feel as if it was written by someone else. of course, my biases seep in (in editing, especially), but if i fully connect, the experience is that of it being written through me, and not by me.

i understand the invocation of the muses and Goddesses to reflect, in part, this understanding: that the act of creation subsumes and transcends the self or ego, even if only momentarily. that in creating, we tap into and open pathways within that we usually do not access customarily, when we are so entrenched in our sense of self that the energy can only flow in one way (that of sustaining our identity and the patterns which construct it). in creating, the energy can be freed to flow in new or in more ways. this is how i understand the surrendering to the muse or to one’s art that is so lauded by poets. 🦢

Khaliya: birthday poem

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the sun in my mind aging by one
the tinkle of golden anklets calling from the forest of monal
the blood of my womb coalescing into bruised grass
the clouds of silk blushing against my cheeks
the burn of my skin drying before the unforgiving light
the sound of my shame vibrating in my chest
the cold untangling my fingers’ grasp on fears seeded into me as child

i
sometimes wish i was satisfied by easy
by swinging my feet over the white picket fence holding hands with perfect suitability
but the fire in my belly scorches
and i know i’m not

i
sometimes wish to rest
but the fire in my belly scorches
and i know i have to keep moving

🏔 Khaliya, from my birthday poem. 🤎

in Gangotrī i screamed for the Lord (excerpt) | the Monsoon One and the pilgrim | téa nicolae

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(..) my cheeks, full in lilies
my mind, anointed by the half-moon bathing the Śivling

i walked and walked and walked
hungry for a glimpse of your feet

at crossroads
my torturous One of Monsoon
devised a game:

i felt
his lips
hovering
on my hair, hands, and eyelids
yet when i turned
my mouth
to claim
my longing
i could only kiss
a devious scent of lotus

the empty air
and a devious scent of lotus

after ten, twenty
thirty turns
and one hundred and eight hot tears
the mountain road came to a halt

you, nowhere to be found.
only a devious scent of lotus.

a perfume so deceitful
that when the milky ocean
was churned in the first aeon
the asuras did not taste nectar
for they chose not the elixir
but the conch streaming it instead

last crossroads in sight,
i screamed

ENOUGH.
MY LORD, IT IS ENOUGH.

TEAR MY CENTER
WED MY NAVEL

DO NOT HIDE FROM ME.

Gangā sizzled as your lotus scent filled my nostrils
maddened, i looked around for You, when, a whisper:

𝒊𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒉𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒔.

🌙 excerpt from a poem from my upcoming collection “the Monsoon One and the pilgrim”. photo: Gangotrī at night. the Himālayas are calling again. 💛

my second MA in Poetry & Literary Translation

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my second Master’s Degree is officially COMPLETE!! 🥳💖 these past two years at Warwick University were a rich immersion in the art of poetry & in the practice of literary translation. milestones achieved have been:

☁️ completing my dissertation, entitled “Rendering Sacred Texts: Ethics and the Question of Untranslatability”, in which i explored the practice of translating sacred texts and the intricate issues it presents in the field of translation studies, mainly posed by the dilemma that is the hypothesis of an intrinsically sacred quality to languages such as Sanskrit or Latin. i argued that in the case of non-dual traditions, the subsequent question, of whether translation would defile the text, is incongruent with the philosophy & cosmology the text is rooted in. i used the Lalitāsahasranāma, a central hymn of Śrīvidyā, as a case-study.

☁️ conducting my poetic research centred on bhakti or devotional poetry, a genre of Indian poetry which worships the Divine as the Beloved. i worked on two bhakti collections: “odes to the Monsoon One” and “the Monsoon One and the pilgrim”, which explore a woman’s mystical journey. written as a response to the lingering legacy of female exclusion from spirituality that is present literature, the poetry rebels against misogynistic religious texts thematically, through female-centred imagery deifying the demonised body, through the subversion of elements of oppression such as motifs of marriage. the Divine is worshipped in my poems as a lover. i argued that for as long as remnants of a religious culture exclusive of women persist in South Asian literature and practice, for so long will bhakti poetry be needed for devotional rebuttal.

more on this soon! i am hoping for these to be published in 2024 or 2025. 🤍

i extend my gratitude to my extraordinary professors: my supervisors Dr. Jodie Kim & Rosalind Harvey; Professor David Morley, as well as Dr. Chantal Wright, who generously & expertly encouraged and guided me, as well as expressed genuine interest in my work – interest which i especially appreciated when my work took unconventional routes! 🙏

as this chapter ends, a new one at Edinburgh begins! 🥰 onward!

on the banks of Gaṅgā | Kṛṣṇa Janmāṣṭamī poem

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on the banks of Gaṅgā

you held me all night, my Lord
unseen to the eye,
your grace, a lover’s touch, wrapped my skin
unheard to the ears,
your name, my japa, vibrated through my braincells

Monsoon One, do you long for me as fully as i long for you?
do you call on me as ardently as i call on you?
you do, don’t you, my Lord?
i am not alone in this quest

for every step i take towards you,
you take two towards me
for every tear i spill in yearning for you,
you ignite vīrya in my skin tissue
for every test of yours that i fail,
you yank me freer of delusion

i see it now, Hari.
you have been pulling me
by my hair and hands to you.
it was all you. it was always all you.

if i run to you as fast as my legs can take me,
will you meet me halfway?

you will, won’t you, my Lord?

🦚 Happy Kṛṣṇa Janmāṣṭamī! 🙏 poem from my upcoming collection “the Monsoon One and the pilgrim”. 💛

my hands are still warm | songs of youth by téa nicolae

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my hands are still warm

from when you held them between yours.

i was cold,

and ached to be

smart and pretty.

i wondered if you could see right through me,

and veiled my cheeks in my hair.

i see right through me.

written at 18 years old. 🖤 when i read the last line, the chorus of the song ‘the archer’ rings in my head, most specifically the ache in “can you see right through me? they see right through me. i see right through me.” what i would tell my 18-year-old self now is, you can’t see through you yet. what you think you see is an antagonised & subdued version of yourself. few people can see through others, and those who can, have met themselves so deeply that they will meet you in corners you don’t know you have yet. 🖤

you can read the poems i wrote in my teenage years in my collection songs of youth 🖤 

{amazon u.k.: https://amzn.eu/d/0duef5g}

i breathe, i accept my grief by téa nicolae | songs of youth

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i wake up at dawn
and i find happiness
in slicing an apple
and munching on it


𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦
𝘪 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧


i find beauty
in standing barefoot in the middle of the kitchen,
feeling breadcrumbs stick
to my pinky toe
𝘪 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦
𝘪 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧
i learn there is joy in cutting tomatoes,
in making a bowl of soup,
in having my stomach full


𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦
𝘪 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧


i uncover the childish glee of
having the tip of my tongue burnt
and gratitude runs between my fingers like water
being alive is warm
there is kindness
in tuning in
and


𝘪 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦
𝘪 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵
𝘮𝘺 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧. ☼


from “at last, light: of joy”, the third section of my “songs of youth”. 🌻
{amazon u.k.: https://amzn.eu/d/0duef5g}

originally published in scan journal.

twenty-four summers rekindle the fire

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in my sixteenth autumn, Nature called me to her,
burned into my cells the yearning to meet my depths
and i tasted myself wildly in her fold
until wisteria tangled my feet
and life pulled me from myself by my hair
and i lost the thread, the web, the call.

𝒊 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒂 𝒈𝒊𝒓𝒍
i told the river as it broke through my skin
i forgot the lessons, i forgot the actual call.
i could only hear an echo of it and i followed fragments of memory. it seemed like the call. it felt like the call. it wasn’t. i was just a girl.

your terence said, if you are to follow,
only follow Nature.
it is funny, how sixteen autumns of cracking fire could understand
what twenty springs of dimmed flame did not.

twenty four summers rekindle the fire with rage, bare skin and an open chest,
and with my girlhood as the blood offering.

watch me
answering your call again
with my hair burnt and my thighs bled.

like the dragon woman who ate horseflesh in the red sea,
i sink my teeth into my girlhood and consume it rapaciously in the forest.

mad eyes, i pledge:
this time, it will just be me,
and you, and the wildness.