Anjum Hasan's poetry has appeared, over the last decade, in various journals in India and abroad. She also writes criticism and fiction.

Her first book of poems, Street on the Hill, was published by the Sahitya Akademi. Her first novel— Lunatic in my Head— will be published by Zubaan-Penguin this year.  

Anjum has a Masters degree in Philosophy from the North-Eastern Hill University and has lived for the last nine years in Bangalore where she works at the India Foundation for the Arts.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in a small town called Shillong and this has entered everything I write— the experience of having lived in a place that is culturally heterogeneous, urban, westernised, modern as well as tribal, inward-looking, small and isolated. 

In my poetry I've tried to recreate this universe. My poems are poems of everyday moments and ordinary affairs. Now that I live in Bangalore the poetry is naturally changing, but whichever direction it takes it will always be about specific places during specific times. 

Where does poetry take place? 

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this question. 

Is poetry entirely original or is it the product of a socially constructed reality?  

I think both. You respond to the world around you, but you also want to make sense of it in an original way. It's often said that there is nothing original, that we tell the same stories over and over again.

That is true in a broad sense, but it's also the case that audiences are attracted to new retellings of the old truths and that one can do these retellings poorly or well and that an important quality of a good retelling is its striving for originality. If this were not the case there would be no contemporary literature; we would be happy with the classics or even with oral literature. 

But what is poetry? Is it a state of mind anyone may have? Or is it a rare gift? 

All good art has something exclusive about it, however politically incorrect it may sound to say that. Obviously not everyone who writes poetry can be a marvellous poet. It is equally obvious though that there is something universal about literature— the writing of it and the reading of it. 

Why does one write poetry?

That's like asking why does one eat or why is music pleasing. It seems a basic, human impulse and I am just one of those people who have given in to it. One can over-analyse the reasons for writing poetry— to me they're not that important. 

Where do you think is poetry more at home? In a well-stocked library or a village square?

In India you have the advantage of experiencing poetry both in the library and the village square. Live oral performance is still part of our culture, much as we may forget that, living in the cities! 

Should the reading of a poem adhere to the same rules as our interpretations of deeply felt experiences or
do we need experts to 'read' the poem for us?

It depends on the kind of poetry under consideration. Some does need annotation. But I think it also depends on one's level of enthusiasm and interest. Meaning in poetry is often revealed gradually, so unless you start a love affair with it, it will always elude you. 

Was it easy getting published? Did you get any rejection slips from publishing houses before your manuscript was accepted?

Very few publishers in India care any more about poetry in English. It is depressing but at the same time the scene itself— the proliferation of poets, the increase in public readings, the circulation of poetry through formal and semi-formal channels— suggests a robustness that publishers could, if they wanted to, take advantage of. 
Publishing poetry will not make them a lot of money but it will certainly earn them a privileged status. So yes, I was rejected, or rather, ignored, by a few publishers before Sahitya Akademi stepped in. I think the Navodaya scheme under which they're publishing debutants in English and other languages is a very timely thing. 

How do you combine creative writing with your day job?

I have a very enlightened boss who lets me work part-time, so I have the latter half of the week free to write. It's a dream arrangement though it can get a bit schizophrenic. But then all writers and artists I know undertake various negotiations to manage both livelihood and art. It's part of the deal. 

Are you a voracious reader? How do you decide which books you will read?

Reading is an organic process. One book leads to another. Books influence you in ways that determine what other books you will read, how you will respond to what other people say about books and so on. Inside all readers are invisible maps connecting all the books they have read. 

What are your aims as a poet? 

To be clear without being obvious and to be direct without being literal.

Could you name some Indian poets you think should be read more widely? 

All Indian poets should be read more widely. If they were there would be a better poetry-publishing scene in this country. I like, in different ways, the work of AK Ramanujam, Sujata Bhatt, Arun Kolatkar and Tabish Khair. I think Sujata Bhatt is underrated; I love the celebration of everyday occurrences in her poems. Tabish Khair is very lyrical which is a quality hard to achieve. I also like the work of Robin S Ngangom from Shillong— another deeply lyrical poet. 

Have any of these poets influenced you?  

It's possible that they have. Maybe like the maps that connect books there are maps that connect poets, but I also feel that those of us writing English poetry in India have wide-ranging influences so as a group our work tends to be quite heterogeneous. 

Does the writer's relationship to the text change as the book is published and promoted?

I think you become more detached from a book once it is published.
You're able to look at the work more objectively; you notice flaws you might have earlier missed. Of course, you still care enough about your book to want everyone else to say only nice things about it! 

Do you think Indian writers need to travel abroad to achieve something? 

Many Indian writers do time abroad but there's no connection between going abroad and achieving anything. We, as a nation, focus too much attention on issues that in the final analysis are extraneous to writing. The language we write in, our location, the audiences we are presumed to be addressing, the money we make— these questions are discussed endlessly. They are important to some extent but also take attention away from real issues of literary worth and analysis.