Tishani Doshi

Yes, I do.

I think it's hard to think.

I don't like to think about what a poem can do because when you write a poem, it's not an act of activism.

I don't write a poem thinking that it's going to affect change in legislature or anything like that.

I write a poem because I'm compelled to for different reasons.

But the fact that a poem can land...

surprisingly in different places and affect people differently is part of the wonder of poetry.

But I think the political act is the act of transformation that a poem is capable of to convert a lot of anger, injustice and fear into something more beautiful, into something lasting.

And that transformational power

Is political.

I think I'm interested in language, I suppose, that's quite physical and visceral and tautness in language.

And that's why I like to read a lot of sort of novels written by poets, because I think when people say poetic, you know, they...

I think they sometimes confuse it for something flowery.

And in fact, poets really pay attention to language in a way that not many other people do.

So I do remember interviewing Michael Ondaatje once and he said this thing.

And Ondaatje, for instance, is someone who works with images.

And

And there is a sense that the image can dance.

It has movement.

You go not in linear fashion through the novel.