Indran Amirthanayagam---Poetic Globalist (Terence Winch)

Indran Amirthanayagam is one of the most remarkable figures roaming the contemporary poetic landscape. Like some of the poets he most admires—Cavafy, Neruda, Hikmet (all mentioned in the poem below)—he is a citizen of the world. Born into the Catholic Tamil community (a minority within a minority) of Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in 1960, he left with his family for England when he was eight, seeking refuge from his native land’s ongoing strife as well as care for an autistic brother. He lived in the U.K. for six years, attending grammar and primary school there. When he was fourteen, the family moved again, this time to Honolulu, where his father, also a poet, had been offered a job. In Hawaii, Indran was one year ahead of Barry Obama, whom he knew slightly, at Punahou School.  In 1978, he left Hawaii for Haverford College in Pennsylvania. After getting his B.A. there, he moved to New York to become, like Lorca, “a poet in New York.” He picked up a master's at the Columbia School of Journalism and remained in New York until 1993, when he got a job with the U.S. Foreign Service, having  become a U.S. citizen in the late ‘80s.

Indran reading “Fire Department”

His Foreign Service positions have included stints in Argentina, Belgium, the Ivory Coast, Mexico, India,  Canada, Peru, and Haiti. This is a man who gets around.

He writes and publishes in English, French, Spanish, Haitian Creole, and Portuguese (but sadly and ironically, he has forgotten Tamil, his first language). In the DC area, where he has many friends, he runs a reading series at a Haitian restaurant called Port au Prince and has just become editor of the Beltway Poetry Quarterly, an online journal. He is indefatigable; he works full time; he writes a poem a day, at a minimum; he travels constantly. In the first half of this year alone, he felt he simply had to go to San Francisco to help celebrate Ferlinghetti’s hundredth birthday; he caught a train from DC to New Orleans to take part in a literary festival; he brought his 83-year-old mother back to Sri Lanka for the first time in 30 years; he’s made several trips to New York. He may be the most ubiquitous poet on the planet.

He always wears a hat. 

His poems (the ones in English, anyway) have a directness, almost a plainness, about them. His work is deeply literary, full of reverence for his fellow poets, but devoid of stylistic pretensions. The poems are like enhanced emails, addressed to his friends and readers, but made resonant and luminous through the work of the imagination.

 

Gift at the End

I woke up the other day and thought about the best gift

I could offer friends turning a year older on the various

continents—I know people everywhere like you, thanks

to powerful social media—a poem, certainly, electronic

card, phone call, even a visit? Can you imagine boarding

 

a steel and aluminum plane—wood used only

for some interiors in first class, the metallic bird

driven by a well-rested pilot and a series of computers--

to say hello to you in Rotterdam, or Madras,

or in the port city of Alexandria? But I know only

 

Cavafy there, through poetry, and in Moscow,

Nazim tootling about in a car, metallic also, not yet

with dynamite under the hood, and Neruda straddling

a horse through the Andres on the way to Argentina,

walking on the beach at Wellawatta with his mongoose.

 

So how to justify these loose associations, stream

of consciousness running through the World Wide Web

without any brake, no formal mechanism to stopper

imagination and force, at least, the appearance

of form, migration certainly the only truth.

 

and the need to finish the poem, walk it back home,

stop the beast in the kitchen, give him a treat,

some Wilfred Owen, just days before

the War’s end, shot dead—dulce et decorum est—

or straight to the point, the full stop.

 

—Indran Amirthanayagam,  10 July 2019

 

 

 

Comments

[lally]

wow, was not aware of him and his poetry so thank you for introducing him in this engaging post...

[Keith C]

Congrats to Indran! Fully deserved appreciation here of his poetry.
Keith C

[The Best American Poetry]

I respect a man of poetic parts who always wears a hat. How did you come to hear of him, or did you meet him on one of your jaunts to India? -- DL

[Terence Winch]

You are most welcome, mon ami.

[Terence Winch]

We first met in 2013, when he was briefly posted in DC. Bob Hershon of Hanging Loose Press, which has published books by both of us, suggested to Indran that he look me up. Or maybe I met him on one of my jaunts to India.

[Grace Cavalieri]

Thanks I'm already a fan. Thanks Terence

[Dan "Blood And"]

a fine tribute. there should be more hats. and more jaunts. and more great posts like this one.

[Indran Amirthanayagam]

I owe my poet's hat to Mervyn Taylor. I was flying in 2015 to New York from Port Au Prince to give a reading at the Asian American Poetry Workshop and to see friends in the city where I became a poet...and I had forgotten my hat in Haiti. I wrote to Mervyn on FB and as i showed up at the venue from the airport he was there carrying a black bowler hat. That hat, and some successors, along with the occasional gaucho cap, have never left my head on the stage ever since.

[Indran Amirthanayagam]

I too am a fan of your poetry Grace...and your work on behalf of all poets, the amazing interviews and now your new job as Maryland Poet Laureate. Take Care Indran

[Indran Amirthanayagam]

A most engaging post indeed. I would never have thought that from the brief meeting we had over a coffee in Silver Spring--dare I say it--would spring a boundless source of fresh water and poetry.

[Indran Amirthanayagam]

Thank you Keith. Amities. Indran

[Terence Winch]

Thank you, Mr. Gutstein.

[naz]

You read beautifully, Indran. And , the last two line carries such punch: it's disarming. Beautiful.

[naz]

(lines)

[Matilda]

Wonderful post about a wonderful poet!

[Usha Akella]

Indran - well deserved! Another lovely poem by you.. hope to see you ride higher and higher. So glad that Matwaala hosted you and we heard you read many times beautifully... usha

[barbara goldberg]

Everywhere you go you make friends as easily as coconuts grow in the tropics!

[Indran Amirthanayagam]

Usha, thankyou. Matwaala was a pleasure. Look forward to reading your new book The Waiting. Cheers Indran

[Indran Amirthanayagam]

Yes, Terence sketches this poet well. Thrilled to share the language with you Matilda Young. Am looking forward to reading more of your poems. Indran

[Indran Amirthanayagam]

Thank you Nazreen Sansoni. Hearing from you in Sri Lanka means more than a lot to me, to know that the connection is strong between this poet and the island from where we sprung. Cheers to you and your own poems. Indran

[Indran Amirthanayagam]

Well observed Barbara. Let us have some coconut water along with iced coffee very soon in this glorious Washington summer. And with poems, of course, yours and a couple of mine. Indran

[Zilka Joseph]

Way to go, Indran! You are a kindred spirit. Love your poems, and have been reading some of your work (including Fire Department !) to the students/participants in my workshops. So glad to have read with you and other accomplished South Asian poets at the Matwaala poetry festival in NYC. (Thanks, Matwaala!) Hope to meet again and continue our meaningful conversations. I wish you tremendous success, and may you continue to break all the glass ceilings and walls and borders and doors and gates that keep poets of the diaspora from achieving recognition. You blaze a way for us all!

With deep admiration,
Zilka

[Jennifer Rathbun]

I don't know how to capture the essence of a person in just one blog post but you've done it! Indran and his verses in every description.

[Terence Winch]

Thank you, Jennifer. That's a lovely compliment.

[Earle R. Hitchner III]

How did I go so long without encountering the verse of Indran Amirthanayagam? I suppose we could all say that about a number of poets previously unknown to us who first seized our imagination. I’m delighted to be finally acquainted with Indran’s poetry through Terence’s right place, right time BAP blog post here. I was captivated by both “Fire Department” and “Gift at the End,” the latter including a nimble reference to Wilfred Owen, his poem “Dulce et Decorum Est,” and even perhaps Horace’s original phrase in Latin, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,” from Odes (III.2.13). Cheers to Indran for his words, and to Terence for his words about Indran’s.