LOL — Issue 27

Arihant Verma
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

When I read Shantanu Anand’s

I took a stand to start building up my personal brand, since that was the only way I could ever get a book deal, which has always been a far fetched dream. I thought, it was time to get started.

This blogpost has made so many poets jump out of their beds. I know this because since Shantanu mentioned Harsh Snehanshu’s startup YourQuote, many poets that I’m acquainted with, who were not active on YourQuote for a while suddenly started writing. Make sure you read this, if you are a poet and want to change the way you write, learn, and publish. On with the links for this issue!

Eunice de Souza’s Demise

I thought I’d keep this issue a little conversational for a change. I started writing poetry when I was in 3rd year of my college (4 years ago). One day, I was sick on my hostel rickety cot-bed, bored to death, and I picked up pen and started musing. The first poet, that I started following was Sridala Swami. I bought her book Escape Artist. Having no training or practice to read poems before, I struggled to come up with interpretations of the poem, so I left it. I still haven’t read many of the poems in it, primarily because I might have lost the book. But today I stumbled upon her blog, where she had given tribute to lately demised Eunice de Souza. I didn’t know who she is(was), I somewhat know now.

There are links of tribute and reminiscing articles in this blogpost, open then and read them, especially 10 poets writing poems as a tribute to her, including Arundhathi Subramaniam and Sridala Swami.

Meters In Poetry — A Lesson

Sometimes, I find spoken word poetry very ostentatious and pretentious. By that, I do not mean that poets exaggerate what they actually feel, who doesn’t when they are performing? It’s like an unspoken rule that you are allowed to. By pretentious, I mean that sometimes, it’s so elaborate that it almost feels that it has been staged by another person. In a previous version of LOL, I had said this same thing, because I found a poem from Nepal Word Warriors which felt so natural, I almost gave all my ears to it. Today with Amrita Brahmo sharing it, I feel this way again, with this wonderful, wonderful poem.


We all have seen too many squirrel photographs, this one is unique, I think

About a year ago, one night, I couldn’t sleep. Not because I was in unrequited love, not because of the family problems at home, not because I was broke, not because of anything but the thought that hit me that night.

I wrote a poem about it, which was (now I think) a little exerted (which is in no way bad). It wasn’t bad because in order to set a course for new habits, one has to come out of comfort zone to do things which are more morally correct per say. Also it was affected by the fact that I was affect by porn addiction. But there was so much more to it than I couldn’t figure out myself. The poem that I wrote was this:

The real reason, that quenched my curiosity was this TED talk:

LOL: Weekly List Of Lit

LOL is a weekly curation of poems, spoken word performances, essays, blog posts, visual and generative art, songs, visual jokes, patterns, humour and other articles, that I come across in a week. You can help curate with our chrome extension: http://bit.ly/2nFn1wa

)

Arihant Verma

Written by

I write poetry. I read. I code. I meditate. I recently gave a TEDx talk. I play 🏀. I write letters. Working on desktop poetry editor for Instagram writers.

LOL: Weekly List Of Lit

LOL is a weekly curation of poems, spoken word performances, essays, blog posts, visual and generative art, songs, visual jokes, patterns, humour and other articles, that I come across in a week. You can help curate with our chrome extension: http://bit.ly/2nFn1wa

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade