BOOKMARK A POET

A few months ago I was interviewed in style (at home no less) by the short story writer Alex Ruczaj for the Cambridge radio station Bookmark, which she, until recently, co-presented with Leigh Chambers. I've known Alex a while and attended a fiction workshop that she organised. She writes beautiful stories, with fascinating character premises and a blog. It's nice knowing working writers - writers in the middle of their craft - who have little ego and lots of passion. Or at least it seems that way to me. The best part about my Creative Writing Masters has been the development of friendships with writers who make the world of being a writer feel real.

Leigh Chambers (left), Alex Ruczaj (right)

http://cambridge105.fm/book-night-28-03-2015/ should provide you with the link page, and if you scroll down to where it says Podcast: Download, click on 'Download'. That should open up the radio interview link (oh how tremendously technical I sound). I am interviewed 34 minutes and 45 seconds into the programme, to be exact…
http://cambridge105.fm/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/bookmark-2015-03-28-13_01.mp3
I hope the link works but if it doesn't - I shall tell you I sounded quite good according to reliable sources. Alex asked me about my blog - how I began it, why I began it and the wonderful paths it has led me down. Sometimes I miss the first years of blogging - there is something I yearn for about those times - lost now to the mass of social media sites. I am not sure what it is I yearn for, but I know it is a shared longing among my early blogging friends.

Where I sometimes write by the window, and where I was interviewed...

I meant to upload this interview soon after it was available online, but my mind lately has been distracted by writing my first book. An exhausting business. How do they do it? However. Onwards.

The Names of Things

Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes
gazes out at me
behind the window frame
Half content to be
in Billy Collins' world,
half wishing to be me -
Cross legged in the evening sun
drinking rose petal tea.

I can name the Yellow Rose,
the frilly Poppy, the Bee
longing for that same tea;
the half-eaten bruised cherries,
the guzzling, drunken, blackbird feast.

Deep in the shadows
lazy snakes of ivy curl
and the wind is a Tempest again -

I walk among the unnamed things
the secret, hidden lives,
I pronounce the names of Latinate things
and trip on the words
and smile -

Cerastium tomentosum,
snow in summer,
Galium odoratum,
stars in spring,
Lavandula angustifolia...
where the herb garden sings.

- Shaista, 2011

Poem participating in One Shot Poetry Wednesday.
My first line references the poem 'Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes', in the collection of poems by the same name. I do love the work of American Poet Laureate Billy Collins, and am so grateful to my American blogger poet friends for widening the horizons of my poetic readings. I read my poem aloud on radio today - with my brother Irfan present in the control room!

The Exalted One

I am in love, with a beautiful boy. His name is Rafael... and he is two days old :) Rafael means God has healed in Hebrew. In Arabic, Ar-Rafi means the exalted one, one who uplifts.

My darling Rafael,
I hope you don't mind, that I put down in words, how wonderful life is, now you're in the world... I also hope you don't mind that I was speaking on the radio today, and although I tried to restrain myself from raving about you too much, I did mention you once, twice, three times... and the radio presenter played you a song!! It was Diana Ross' 'Baby Love', which I hope you like, but even if you don't, famous on BBC radio at 2 days! Not bad eh?

Where was I? Oh yes...your perfect pink rose petal cheeks, your ability to sleep while your father's deep voice booms beneath your little frame, and his parents and sister croon at you via something magical called skype. I love you, little man. I knitted you a blanket and it is now winging its way to you.

Your besotted
Aunty Shai

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00fk5dt/Liz_Rhodes_28_03_2011/
from 2:20 onwards...)

Tempus Fugit... when you're On the Radio!

So.... I was just...you know... On The Radio today :) I know I should have said something, but I was worried I might do something embarrassing like an Oscar or Grammy shout-out... "I just wanna thank God, and my Mom, and Everybody! I wanna thank Evverrryyyboddyy - y'all know who you are!"... but fortunately I didn't.

I arrived at the same time as my co-st... wait, can I say co-star? Or is that a bit diva-ish for radio? My co-radio-show-person was Inbali Iserles, the author of The Tygrine Cat. She is a Proper Published Person who is on a promotional whirlwind at the moment, as opposed to yours truly. I have to thank Jane Wilson-Howarth for suggesting me to the producer (there's my shout-out!). The subject was World Books Day, and the importance of reading, and the process of writing; but I also talked about Lupus, and the support I have received through this blog (and that's my second shout-out). Liz Rhodes, the presenter of the Chat Room said I was a natural for a first timer and would I please come back? Why not, says I. I'll come back :)


photo of self with Riz, by Angel C. Edward

I wave goodbye as time flies past me. I am the train station of sisters, bidding farewell to the rapidly departing figure of a brother. Rizwan left for Cape Town, South Africa, yesterday. Onwards, to the next challenges, surprises and deepening of the learning curve. Meanwhile, I am putting together my personal statement to the Patient Care Trust, to support the consultant's application for Rituximab. So I bow gratefully to this day of smiling and enjoying a moment to remember.

Surprised by Joy

"Wie viel ist aufzuleiden!"

- Rilke

In Cairo, Joseph Farquharson

It is howling with wind outside. The bare branches are orchestrating an original work, no doubt in communion with the trees of Cairo, on the Day of Departure. Hosni Mubarak does not seem to hear the orchestrated sounds of revolution, but the wind's force grows stronger regardless. Angelina's flight back to Malaysia has been cancelled 'due to the aircraft being required to perform humanitarian evacuation flights from Cairo'. The wind howls on.

A few weeks ago my brother returned home after visiting a friend, with a book for me. The cover shows a brightly coloured bird sitting on a barbed wire fence, in a concentration camp. The book is Victor E Frankl's 'Man's Search For Meaning', and although I have read and studied Holocaust literature, my instant reaction to it was not dissimilar to a horse, unexpectedly approached. In other words, a high level of anxiety. My mind has been a fragile thing these long weeks of waiting for the consultant to respond to my emails, my basic request for her to view me as more than a case on her desk. She has agreed that I should have the treatment I requested, but on her terms, with twice as many months in between each dose, and at half the usual dose. I am a cost she is cutting. We meet again on the telephone on the 18th of February, when things will be 'reviewed' again.

Pawel Sawicki, photograph, flickr

I determinedly dived into Frankl, because I love my brother, and because I would always rather be brave than cowardly. 50 pages into it, I started to seriously consider the possiblility that I was on the brink of a mental breakdown. For five long minutes I entertained this reality. Then I re-opened the book, and read on. And on page 52, the words 'Et lux in tenebris lucet' - and the light shineth in the darkness. The guards are insulting Frankl as he attempts to dig a trench in the bitter cold of dawn; he is silently conversing with his wife, trying to reason himself out of suffering, when he suddenly has the strong feeling that she is present, she is there... 'Then, at that very moment a bird flew down silently and perched just in front of me, on the heap of soil which I had just dug up from the ditch, and looked steadily at me'.

The night before Rizwan brought me the book, I had written and published a poem on Rilkean anxiety. On page 86, Frankl quotes Rilke himself, "Wie viel ist aufzuleiden! - How much suffering there is to get through!" It surprised me with joy to see the connection. And I have continued to be surprised by joy. The next day as I was printing out a letter to the consultant, an email arrived in my inbox from the editor-in-chief of a medical journal asking me to write a few articles on lupus for an issue of IGI global. And last night Dr Jane Wilson wrote to ask, would I like to be on the radio? Would I like her to speak to the producer of the show about me? Er... yes!! Hey, I think I'm going to be on the radio!! And today, flight cancelled, means an extra day with Angel!

Surprised by joy - impatient as the Wind

I turned to share the transport - Oh! with whom

But Thee...

Love, faithful Love

- Wordsworth