Children and women among 64 dead as migrant boat hits rocks near Italy
—CNN
Oceans remember ancient journeys
The journeys that sacrificed dreams
The journeys that buried truths
Underneath sighs and songs
Oceans remember injured wings
The wings that flew miles
The wings that sheltered
Broken hopes and burnt desires
Oceans remember unshed tears
The tears that engulfed bruises
The tears that sculpted
Shrines of silence and solitude
Oceans remember surrendered souls
The souls that consumed sorrows
The souls that hauled
Loads of ignominy and insult
Padmaja Battani writes poems, book reviews, and fiction. She lives in Connecticut and is currently working on a poetry collection.
Questions and Answers
How/where do you find inspiration today?
My desire to pour out my feelings, thoughts and emotions is the driving force for my writing. Poems come to me from ordinary objects, experiences, memories — a newspaper article of war was inspiration for one of my poems. I could be waiting at the doctor’s and suddenly I would get an image or a line and I write it down. I write on the backs of envelopes, bookmarks — whatever I have at hand, because I cannot lose the muse. I used to believe you could not force a lot of this. Now, I passionately believe in revision, and that I have to try to write in a disciplined way as much as I can. However, I do think there are moments that I suddenly get something, given to me as a gift from the imagination, and I have to honor those moments as well.
As a published writer, what are your tips or words of motivation for the aspiring poet?
Learn to enjoy the process of writing. Keep a notebook and write it in every day. This could be anything — ideas, overheard conversations, your thoughts and feelings. In about three or four months, you will have a book full of material that you can use for writing poetry.
Spend time in beautiful places with wonderful and fascinating people. Let your mind wander often and create your own worlds. Pour everything out into writing when your imagination is overflowing with color, texture, and light.
Finally, send your work out into the world, even if it is not perfect. Give your work an audience. Read it aloud to others; send it to contests and magazines, even if you think it is not yet perfect. Knowing that a real person will be on the receiving end of your words will force your brain to shift slightly, so that you will begin to see them more objectively, as an outsider would, and thereby tap into what makes your voice unique.
What inspired or motivated you to write this poem?
About a year ago, I read an article on UN News site about deaths at seas on migrant routes (to Europe). According to this article, more than 3000 people died or went missing while attempting to cross the Mediterranean and the Atlantic in the year 2021. The fact that these deaths almost double year on year and the distraught people taking up these dangerous journeys kept coming back to me for several weeks. This poem stemmed from thinking about these people and their perilous voyages. The sad part is that their life stories would be in news fleetingly and forgotten.
How did your writing process unfold around this poem? How did you write, edit, and refine it?
It took several attempts and a long time period for this poem to evolve. There were multiple drafts and a lot of cutting down. I put the poem away for several weeks before trimming and refining to almost a final version. I got it critiqued at the monthly poetry workshop I attend which helped me tremendously in fine-tuning.