Poetry

Tanpura's Strum

A Collection of Haiku, Tanka, and Micropoems

by Jesal Kanani

Description

Jesal has always been drawn to making beautiful connections with seemingly disparate ideas. She's been able to draw out the juxtaposition of two unrelated images in a haiku, giving birth to a new meaning, which combines two distinct thoughts into one. If we look at urban existence – its natural state of being is fraught with dissonance: the push and pull of expectations, the contradictions within roles, but Jesal sees connections and synergy with this seeming contradiction thru the haiku and tanka which reach out as perfect forms to Jesal, to express this state of modern living.
Both — arising out of and also nestled within, this constant churn and thrum of life are nectar-like moments that make us feel most alive, impassioned, at other times crushingly human. This poetry is an attempt to catch those pearls of consciousness, those moments that float up to the surface above the rough raw tumble of the day. Maybe it is the ordinary, that when looked at with repose, reflection transmutes into something extraordinary? The tanka’s brevity: a click, ka—snick! is a snapshot in words. A wide ranging collage, from motherhood, heartbreak, loss, love, to the tangible: vegetables, beaches, forests and salons, is put together in this collection through these textual snapshots. Read together, they aim to paint a dense picture of urban life of women, as they grapple with successfully navigating the world.
By saying little, sharing just the silhouettes of an image, Jesal's haiku and tanka, invite the readers to color in the rest with their own experiences and imagination, thereby making these poetic forms unusually relatable. I hope the grace and beauty of these ancient forms of poetry find resonance with you and readers through this modern, relatable and excellent rendition, by Jesal.

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Rights Information

World rights available

Author Biography

Jesal Kanani holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her haiku has been published as an honorable mention in the  World Haiku Review and her fiction has been published in  The Missouri Review and also nominated for the Best New American Voices 2005 anthology by Harcourt Brace. Her Instagram account @jesalwrites has a lively following of over 56,000, and counting with readers reaching out to write to her every single day. In her past life, she worked in marketing after an MBA from NMIMS and ran Mumbai half marathons. She is the mother of two beautiful daughters and lives with her family in Thane, near Mumbai. She also studies and sings Hindustani classical music.   Jesal can be found at:  https://www.instagram.com/jesalwrites/

Copyright Information

Copyright © 2021 Jesal Kanani

Global Collective Publishers

Global Collective Publishers

Global Collective Publishers, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is an independent publisher whose mission is to provide a platform for voices from around the world, crossing the borders of language, culture, religion, and gender, and to create a space where diverse communities can share and exchange stories that express their individual and shared sense of humanity through a variety of literary genres in fiction and non-fiction. In a world that feels increasingly more alienating, it is our aim to work towards dispelling the fear of the other and stand against literature of hatred, embracing the shared human experience in its myriad textures and voices through a curiosity-driven life. Global Collective is committed to publishing across a diverse landscape of fiction and non-fiction, in the areas of religion and spirituality, personal growth and self-transformation, gender and LGBT+ studies, social awareness, art and cinema. Global Collective takes to heart Booker Prize winner Ben Okri’s assertion that “stories can conquer fear… they can make the heart bigger.”Global Collective Publishers seeks unique and extraordinary literature that satiates our desire to gain a deeper understanding of the world around us and to discover points of commonality amongst our differences where words have no borders.

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Bibliographic Information

  • Publisher Global Collective Publishers
  • Publication Date June 2021
  • Orginal LanguageEnglish
  • Publication Country or regionUnited States
  • FormatPaperback
  • Primary Price 18.99 USD
  • Pages72
  • ReadershipGeneral
  • Publish StatusUnpublished
  • Copyright Year2021
  • Page size228 x 152 (228 x 152) mm
  • IllustrationOriginal artwork throughout

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