Poetry as Sanctuary – A column where we explore poetry as a means of expression for voices of the South Asian Diaspora.
Poetry was never something I imagined to become this significant to me, it was not even a sliver of a dream of an unimagined future.
I spent the first 3 decades of my life trying to fit into the mold of a perfect, normal life. I moved to the US from India at a young age, always striving to keep a smile, raise 2 sons, and remain optimistic. Something still felt missing. I was drawn to the teachings of yoga & philosophy. That seemed to satisfy my need for continual answers to the meaning of life.
All of that came crashing down when I got afflicted with a brutal skin disease that attacked me in every single way – physical, familial, emotional – I was isolated from society for the next few years. Modern medicine did not have any remedy for me, so I chose holistic methodologies from ancient times to find my way back to life. My new normalcy turned out to be as brilliant, as painful it was to go through dismantling my existing reality.
With very few humans around to know and really understand the drastic choices I made about my healing, I was unaware there would be a subsequent spiritual awakening. The world did not make sense to me anymore. There was this ocean revealed within and I needed to learn to swim.
It took a while to befriend poetry as a gift. It brought alive my relationship with the Universe. I remember the exact moment and setting when the first surge of inspiration began and I started rhyming in my mind. I had to drop everything and type. It was a very strange yet powerful feeling. Even stranger was to look at my writing and think it was poetry.
I thought each one that came was the last. I couldn’t own it or name the place it came from. I started sharing them on my blog and Facebook. I had people message me that these poems were helping them get through the day, giving them hope, peace, courage, guidance. As I stepped into the fourth decade of my life, poetry had become a living, breathing part of me.
People asked me how did you start writing. My reply to them came through this following poem:
Just how did the writer in me get born?
When drippings from a touched soul find their way in writing
A poet is born
When the beauty is undying and the joy so fulfilling
A poem is born
When feelings are heart wrenching and clarity is killing
A poem is born
When a surge comes as discomfort and words pour out
A writer is born
When the harmony felt is such that there is no choice but rhyme
A poem is born
When made-up words bring meaning and no-rhyme verse feels musical
A poetry is born
When living alive to feelings, words come to life
A writer is born
When clarity becomes more intense than the pain that afforded it
A writer is born
When no human around can suffice to contain the expression
A poetry is born
When a release is looking to flow out at an unearthly hour
A writer is born
When words choose the person as if a channel
A writer is born
When none can be planned to rhyme or reason
A poet is born
When human spirit gets broken to million-times-ten pieces, yet finds beauty
A poet is born
When Life decides to peel back layers of truth down to the core
A writer is born
When each level of façade is stripped down to bare soul
A writer is born
When all the suffering was a gift, lived through or let through
A writer is born
When there is no knowing if there is more from where it came from
A writer is reborn
When it comes from a place that is hard to own
A writer is born
When the essence of being is wrung out in best expression
A poetry is born
When it feels like a soft glove over the brutal thing
A poetry is born
When the loneliness in truthfulness is more than can enjoy yet
A writer is born
When inspirations come out of nowhere as if universal cues
A poet is bornSo if you can just rest
In the drippings of the writer’s soul
Momentarily let go of the sufferings you insist on
A poet would feel content for being born.– Pragalbha Doshi
After 4 years of this amazing adventure, I had felt a lot of grief when I thought poetry was leaving me. I did write some more after that, and the flow trickled to a stop. It was time for me to visit life in a different way. I trusted Poetry to know that – in time, it will come back to me.
My poetry found a voice and new life within a year when, at the beginning of the pandemic, I joined a local group called Poetry of Diaspora in Silicon Valley. Poetry is that gift and sanctuary that leaves out all supposed normalcy and brings us closer to who we truly are.
Pragalbha Doshi lives with her husband and 2 teenage boys in San Jose, CA. As a yoga teacher, she facilitates therapy & change for people who struggle with chronic symptoms of stress, physical & emotional, and who want a productive & fulfilling life www.yogasaar.com
