LOL — Issue 27
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.
If not now then when?
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.
Why in the world, do I find fairer, taller, more symmetrical faces more attractive and beautiful than those which are not.
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:

