தமிழ் கவிதை — எதிர் வீட்டு ஜன்னல், தனிமை, and a few others I've been writing

I’ve been writing Tamil poetry on the side for a while now. Most of it never leaves my notebook. A few have made it onto this blog over the last couple of years. This month I sat down with the ones I want to keep, illustrated each with a single image, and I’m putting them up properly.

This post is the index. The poems themselves are short — the way Tamil poetry tends to be when it’s working — and I’m not going to over-explain them. The image and the title carry most of what I want to say. The Tamil reader will get it. The non-Tamil reader can read the rough English glosses below.

எதிர் வீட்டு ஜன்னல் (Edhir Veettu Jannal — The Window Across the Road)

A poem about looking, about distance, about the small unanswerable rituals of paying attention to someone you cannot quite reach. Three versions of the illustration because I couldn’t decide which framing held the line best — they’re up below the main image as alternates.

You probably know the feeling. Tamil has a word for the texture of it that English doesn’t.

தனிமை (Thanimai — Solitude)

Not loneliness. The Tamil word thanimai sits closer to solitude — the chosen kind, the one you sometimes look for. The poem is about the shape of a quiet evening when the rest of the day refuses to follow you home.

This one came out almost in a single sitting. I think the best ones usually do.

கடவுள் (God) and பெண் (Girl)

Two more from this month. Each a few lines. Each about a thing too big for the few lines.

I keep a folder of these — most don’t survive a second reading. The ones that do, I post.

why Tamil and not English

People ask, sometimes. The honest answer is short: Tamil has the word, in the cases where the word matters.

There are entire categories of feeling that English flattens. Aanmai. Bhakti. Veedu meaning home but also liberation. Thanimai not flattening into loneliness. Edhir veedu meaning the house facing yours with the implication of the life facing your life. Trying to write those in English is like trying to play a raga on a piano — possible, but you keep losing the notes between the keys.

Tamil isn’t a different language for me. It’s the language for a different register of thought. The trading systems, the project documentation, the work email — those go out in English without thinking. The line that has to be exactly right, that’s almost always Tamil first.

the shelf so far

The poems on the blog up to this month, roughly in order I wrote them:

• I love this lyrics — early, mostly a fan post about a song I couldn’t stop listening to
• எதிர் வீட்டு ஜன்னல் — March 2012, this month’s main piece
• தனிமை — March 2012
• கடவுள் — March 2012
• பெண் — March 2012
• a couple of fragments under poems1 that I haven’t given proper titles yet

I’ll keep adding as more get past the second-reading test. If you’ve read any of these and have feedback, the comments are open. If you write Tamil poetry yourself and want to trade drafts — that’s the kind of email I always answer.

— Karthikeyan