A few months ago I watched a fascinating online event via Churchill College, Cambridge featuring Bhanu Kapil, a leading practitioner of experimental creative writing working across poetry, prose and performance. She read from some recent work and spoke about her experience over the last eighteen months, first as Judith E Wilson poetry fellow and now resident artist by-fellow at the College. During her talk about some of the ideas fuelling her current writing Bhanu mentioned the concept of ‘the fragment’ … it hit a nerve! I thought about my notebooks filled with scraps of writing and my ongoing quest to stitch them into some sort of unified form … Beguiled by Bhanu’s innovative practice, I invited her to lead a zalon, and to my delight she agreed!
Bhanu Kapil
Bhanu was born in England to Indian parents. She told us about how as an adolescent, growing up in the 1980s, she longed to become a poet writing in English in England. Back then the literary landscape was defined by its lack of diversity (for want of a better word). Life took a turn when she won a fellowship to study in America with Long Island poet Tony Piccione and discovered other ways of writing. She’s since published six books of poetry and prose, including her latest prize-winning collection How To Wash a Heart. The book, "written in the voice of an immigrant guest in the home of their citizen host,” is shortlisted for the 2020 TS Eliot Prize. After over twenty years of living in America, Bhanu’s come full circle having recently moved back to the UK to take up her positions at Cambridge.
For our zalon, The Fragment Is… Bhanu invited the audience beforehand “to think about a scene or place in on-going work (be it prose or any genre) that needs revision but somehow when you try to write it…it deflects the gaze or enquiry.” We began with a discussion about the far-ranging influences that frame Bhanu’s thinking - from attending lectures at the Kavli Institute for Cosmology, Cambridge, to thoughts on outsider art, and the funeral practices of Tibetan culture, and so much more (see links below) … She read from recent work, including a new project, “The fragment is a unit of attention…” which involved a collaboration with her sister, visual artist Rohini Kapil.
We were swept up in Bhanu’s flow of ideas, each recasting “the philosophy of the fragment” in a new light and culminating in a writing experiment devised specially for the evening. Bhanu’s explorations raised questions, triggered further thought and primed us for her writing experiment “… about ways to make contact with what is beneath narrative …” and “… how to work with the deep imagery of our work…” The experiment involved elements of reflection, imagination, drawing and writing which all came together as one in the chat…while simple in its execution, it was layered with possibilities for revision practice. Thank you Bhanu for such an extraordinarily rich experience!
The next day an audience member @alyssaharad tweeted from the USA…“Marvelling that I was able to drop in for an hour long seminar with Bhanu Kapil in London this afternoon from my office in Austin. Can we please (oh please) keep that little sliver of sweet silver lining even after we're able to meet in rooms again?….What if the literary community were defined as much by affiliation, perspective and conversation as it is by place…”
What a lovely thought! I’ve found it such a boost to stay in touch with you all throughout this challenging year. Thank you for your participation and support. Here’s wishing you all the very best of the season, with a better and brighter New Year to follow.
Kellie x
PS: See you in 2021 for new monthly zalons!
Save the dates (booking open soon):
Mon 8th Feb: Social Media for Reticent Writers with PR Consultant Ronke Lawal of Ariatu PR
Mon 15th March: in conversation with novelist, screenwriter and playwright, Courttia Newland who’ll be talking about writing speculative fiction amongst other things!
References:
Bhanu Kapil, Pinky Agarwalia: Biography of a Child Saint in Ten Parts by Bhanu Kapil via Granta, Unknown Language by Hildegarde Von Bingen and Huw Lemmey, introduced by Bhanu Kapil, How To Wash A Heart at the ICA live collaboration & poetry collection, 2020 TS Eliot Prize, Churchill College Cambridge, Kavli Institute for Cosmology, Cambridge, Professor Priyamvada Gopal lecture: The after-life of Anti-Colonialism, Hanif Kureishi, Tony Piccione, Pablo Neruda, César Vallejo, Antonio Machado, Lucille Clifton, James Wright, News of the Universe Poems of Twofold Consciousness chosen and introduced by Robert Bly, Meryl Pugh, Mudlarking, Rem Koolhads - on emergent architecture & his Study of Lagos project - the Guardian, Outsider Art, Edgar Garcia, Anna Mendelssohn, 76 Storey’s Way - Ludwig Wittgenstein, Charnel Ground
