Rishi Dastidar & Megha Harish
Creation Diary
Truthfully, it doesn’t appear that we’ve done much together. And yet, we appear to have written a poem together.
I’m not sure how to explain that.
For the process junkies amongst you: we’ve had two Google Meet calls of about an hour or so’s duration each time. We’ve swapped a number – fewer than you’d think – of WhatsApp messages. Left each other two voice notes.
Seems a skinny arrangement upon which to hang a collaboration. And yet we have.
Perhaps because we were both away from our desks and travelling for most of the time that we were working together, we were focused when we did actually connect. In our very first call, we agreed that it would be cool if whatever we managed to write, it would be in the form of a specula(r). Our only disagreement seemed to be whether or not that “r” belonged in the word. I didn’t necessarily think we would stick to writing one. I’m very glad we did.
A lot of our asynchronous back and forth was, in retrospect, both trying to find ways to narrow down the vastness suggested by the words ‘human’ and ‘kind’. Set ourselves a further constraint, of sorts. When you have the whole of humanity as your potential subject matter, boxing things in a little can help to provide some focus.
A moment that did provide further focus. One of Megha’s voice notes, where she was telling me about a scuba diving trip that had almost gone wrong, and in particular this sentence:
I’ve been thinking over the past sort of 36 hours about humankind from the context of the way we f***ing pop.
And my poetic Spidey sense immediately went: oh hello, there’s something poetic in that. (My poetic Spidey sense is not a traditional poetic Spidey sense, I grant you.) But while the photos that we were putting in the Google Doc (blue seasides and rocky outcrops mostly) were beautiful, we weren’t getting any closer to finding the poem. So, another call, and talking about everything but poems, poetry; mostly actually politics, the upcoming general elections in India and the UK, and our various hopes (intangible) and fears (very tangible) for them. And at some point, one of us said, “What does day 2 look like, after the vote? Will that be kind or what?”
Click. That was our way in. We went away and wrote some stuff separately, and within a week, we had two pieces. Joyously there was enough in both to weave together into one poem. You might see the joins, but even if you do that just adds to the charm. A few more edits and then done, or as done as poems ever are.
And maybe one day, we might get to be in the same place – the same room – at the same time.
The poems are being displayed as part of the 26 Connections exhibition during the Bloomsbury Festival and until mid-November. The exhibition features interpretations of the poetry by artists from the Lettering Arts Trust. The exhibition is free at the Building Centre, 26 Store Street, London WC1E 7BT