{"id":4793,"date":"2017-10-03T09:30:40","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T09:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/?p=4793"},"modified":"2025-05-13T07:50:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T07:50:20","slug":"nia-davies-and-sampurna-chattarji-ritual-full-correspondence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/4793\/nia-davies-and-sampurna-chattarji-ritual-full-correspondence\/","title":{"rendered":"NIA DAVIES and SAMPURNA CHATTARJI: Ritual Correspondence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ritual: I<\/strong><\/p>\n

thinking about ritual : : the ritual of thinking<\/em>
\n<\/em>confusing ritual with ritualistic<\/em>
\n<\/em>inside noise is a space where I am the bodiment<\/em>
\n<\/em>of resistance to ritual (understood as mindless<\/em>
\n<\/em>devotion to a set of gestures embedded in stone)<\/em>
\n<\/em>embodiment : : impediment<\/em>
\n<\/em>the embediment of noise<\/em>
\n<\/em>when extracted from the habitat also known as<\/em>
\n<\/em>natural<\/em>
\n<\/em>the d\u00e9nouement is also natural : a denouncement<\/em>
\n<\/em>of gesture congealed by mindlessness into<\/em>
\n<\/em>an unthinking thing<\/em>
\n<\/em>devoid of beauty<\/em>
\n<\/em>embedded in noise<\/em><\/p>\n

but when the gesture vanishes from lack of use
\n(or overuse)
\nwhat remains?
\na lack :
\nthe something missing thing that hovers
\nat the edges of expectation
\njust a few inches above the waiting toes
\nexpecting to be touched by brushing fingers
\nthe curve of back the swift dip of practised
\nyouth bending to take the dust off their elders\u2019 feet
\nthe sage-old certainty of the thing to be done the moment
\nyou enter the grandparental room
\nwhere obeisance wasn\u2019t even a word that crossed your mind
\nmuch less the cusp of your connection with the old
\nwhich comprised simply of the certainty of being
\nloved.
\nthere were but four sets of feet worthy of being touched
\nin that manner prayerful and otherwise so entirely reprehensible
\nif to be executed in the line of duty
\nperfunctory function in which mechanical alignment was all
\nand so entirely empty :
\ndisdainful
\nconformity to form.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TO READ THE WHOLE OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK HERE:\u00a0Ritual Correspondence <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sampurna Chattarji\u00a0is a poet, novelist, translator and children\u2019s author. Her fourteen books include five poetry books\u2014Space Gulliver: Chronicles of an Alien<\/em>\u00a0(HarperCollins, 2015),\u00a0The Scorpion<\/em>\u00a0(e-book, Harper21, 2013),\u00a0Absent Muses<\/em>\u00a0(Poetrywala, 2010),\u00a0The Fried Frog<\/em>\u00a0and other Funny Freaky Foodie Feisty Poems<\/em>\u00a0(Scholastic, 2009) and\u00a0Sight May Strike You Blind<\/em>\u00a0(Sahitya Akademi, 2007, reprint 2008). Her two novels,\u00a0Rupture<\/em>\u00a0(2009) and\u00a0Land of the Well<\/em>\u00a0(2012), are both from HarperCollins. Numerous anthology appearances include\u00a060 Indian Poets<\/em>\u00a0(Penguin);\u00a0The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets<\/em>;\u00a0The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry<\/em>;\u00a0Both Sides of the Sky<\/em>\u00a0(National Book Trust),\u00a0We Speak in Changing Languages<\/em>\u00a0(Sahitya Akademi);\u00a0Interior Decoration: poems by 54 women from 10 languages<\/em>\u00a0(Women Unlimited); and\u00a0The Literary Review Indian Poetry Issue\u00a0<\/em>(New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University).\u00a0She edited the anthology\u00a0Sweeping the Front Yard<\/em>\u00a0(SPARROW 2010), a collection of poetry and prose by women writing in\u00a0<\/em>English, Malayalam, Telugu and Urdu. Her poetry has been translated into German, Swiss-German, Welsh, Scots, French, Gaelic, Estonian, Arabic, Portuguese, Frisian, Maltese, Slovenian, Galician, Tamil, Manipuri, Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati, Bangla and Bambaiyya; and her children\u2019s fiction into Welsh and Icelandic.\u00a0Sampurna was the 2012 Charles Wallace Writer-in-Residence from India at the University of Kent, Canterbury.\u00a0<\/em>Dirty Love<\/em><\/span><\/a>\u00a0(Penguin, 2013), is her collection of short stories about Bombay\/Mumbai; and\u00a0Selected Poems<\/em>\u00a0(Harper Perennial, 2014) is her translation of the Bengali poet Joy Goswami, which was shortlisted for the inaugural\u00a0Khushwant Singh Memorial Prize for Poetry. She is a Creative Fellow at Aberystwyth University and the Poetry Editor for the print magazine\u00a0The Indian Quarterly<\/em>.http:\/\/sampurnachattarji.wordpress.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Nia Davies was born in Sheffield and lives in Wales. She has been editor of\u00a0Poetry Wales<\/em>\u00a0since 2014 and has worked on several international and collaborative projects. Her first book-length collection\u00a0All Fours<\/em>\u00a0(Bloodaxe Books, 2017)\u00a0follows the pamphlets\u00a0England\u00a0<\/em>(Crater, 2017),\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>\u00c7ekoslovakyali<\/em><\/span>laştiramadiklarimizdanmisiniz or<\/span>\u00a0<\/em>Long Words<\/em><\/span>\u00a0(Boiled String, 2016) and\u00a0Then Spree<\/em>\u00a0(Salt, 2012).\u00a0Her poems and essays have been published and translated widely and she has appeared in several international festivals. A frequent collaborator with other poets and artists, she co-curated Gelynion, a Welsh Enemies project on collaboration in contemporary poetry in Wales in 2015.\u00a0She is currently undertaking practice-based research at the University of Salford.\u00a0https:\/\/niadavieslit.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ritual: I thinking about ritual : : the ritual of thinking confusing ritual with ritualistic inside noise is a space where I am the bodiment of resistance to ritual (understood as mindless devotion to a set of gestures embedded in stone) embodiment : : impediment the embediment of noise when extracted from the habitat also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4833,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[45,12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/pen-for-10h.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42xiC-1fj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4793"}],"version-history":[{"count":46,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5024,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4793\/revisions\/5024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}