For poet Srijani Rupsha Mitra, her debut work Smoked Frames emerged from the desire to create a book that explored her relationship with her Indian heritage. Egged on by encouraging words from content creators like Aekta Kapoor of eShe Magazine and Demetra Davis, the creator of the BLACC poetry contest, she started compiling the poems into a book, in the middle of 2022.
The selected poems deal with a variety of subjects – psychological concepts she came across as a student of psychology; memories of exploring a museum in Murshidabad; and vivid descriptions of the Saraswati Pujo festival. She titled the compilation Smoked Frames as the collection is best read while revisiting the smoky memories of the past.
Mitra credits her grandmother for her unwavering support and her psychology professors for introducing her to the fascinating concepts that became her muse. Michael G. Khmelnitsky, her editor from her publisher JRLB Press, also played a crucial role in the process of creating this work.
An Excerpt from the poem, Gestalt of Memories from Smoked Frames:
Raw, raw, like the sudden sputter of blistering rain,
memories scatter in unknown, angular slants of light.
They are broken into uncountable pieces—beloyari,
glasslike—yet they join to fill in the dry ocean within,
to combine, in their wholesome integrity,
to chart the iridescent susception of heart,
to fill the parched topology with softening
touch of warmth, this endless resfeber,
this converging path
of the body, mind, heart—
journeying, journeying.
