Image Courtesy of TranPhotog and Asian Arts Initiative
“Women in India are still accused of being witches. Are shunned by their families and fellow villagers. Are tortured and murdered. I sit in an orange chair at a small table in my house in Philadelphia. The distance between author and subject is a preoccupation that I have been rendering visible in this manuscript…I’m trying to implicate myself, interrogate gendered archaic constructs, allow the imagination to conjure image, and question that very conjuring.”
Underbelly Mag
“I tried to write a book that demonstrated this exact back-and-forth, the space of wrestling with an art form while resisting it, while being drawn to it, while being suspicious of it, while tending to it. For me, the only way to be honest on the page was to include the poems in persona. To show how much is at stake, how there are no answers, there is no embodying, there is actually no self on the page, in the poem, in the book. To show that there is no actual self in art, which is not reality, which is a psychic space defined by what the “self” encounters in the world, the hurts she is altered by, and the systems that define her or her kin or people she cares about. To this, there can be no limitations; in the service of this exploration, there must always be an attempt.”
The Adroit Journal
“The idea for summonings actually came from two poems from my first book, GILT: “daayan summoning magic” and “black magic.” Both are persona poems written in response to research about witch hunting in India; after GILT was published, I found myself returning to them time & again. I wondered what cultural climates engender witch hunting, outside of obvious misogyny; I discovered a historical shift from matrilineal origins, from women's role in society as valued, towards an economy of accusation that ultimately serves the tea plantation industry and maintains women’s subordinate status.”
Write Or Die Tribe
More Interviews about summonings
“Failure is an opportunity. Failure is art. Failure is human.” at Scroll.in
#DesiReads: Raena Shirali reads from her poetry collection, summonings
We Call Upon the Author to Explain at Sundress Publications
On The Last Word Podcast
On the Bold, Brown, & British Podcast
On Poetry Spoken Here Podcast
On the 1 Week Critique Series
Post & Courier: Charleston Scene
