© Rochelle Potkar | Powered by When I receive good words I treasure them, just like people over the years have told me what they treasure about my utterances – of which I am delightfully amnesic.
These kind words put a cheer into my sunny day and are the building blocks of kindness and grace and I like to celebrate and cherish them.
[BTW Most of the unlettered zombies have vanished with their hideous words now. They have faded into the shadows after becoming ineffectual and inconsequential. (Hahaha, what were they even thinking? That I would give them some brownies: walnuts or points? Bah.)
So here comes that sweet letter. This time from Basudhara Roy. Totally unexpected.
Then she went on with her kindness over a post, and I was so happy and grateful to receive such kindness and grace in a world gone Coo-Coo.
“Last Saturday, Rochelle Potkar had this wonderful article on Nissim Ezekiel in The Hindu. What I love about it is the warm humanity with which she engages with the poet’s persona and work, reading him in a myriad shades and emotional resonances.
In an interview with Eunice de Souza, Ezekiel had once said, “Being creative for me has meant, and continues to mean examining, thinking and worrying about what I feel about things, people, neighbours, friends, activities. I have never been able to take the view that because I write I’m a great man, or that as a ‘successful poet’ I can’t spend more than a few minutes on anyone.”
Ezekiel remains fondly remembered for these dense social associations and his sincere mentoring of many younger poets of his time, a tradition which Rochelle herself carries forward in many ways through her support to poets and poetry, often saying “If poetry is not inclusive and for everybody no matter at what stage of our journeys, then is it even poetry or something else?”
Thank you Rochelle for a rich essay on a poet who needs to be remembered for many things today and also for mentioning The Hearth Within session that we organized to celebrate seventy years of his ‘A Time to Change’.”