IRA MATH­UR

This Sun­day, WE fea­tures British-born and raised po­et Ani­ta Pati, short­list­ed for the 2023 Jha­lak Prize (which cel­e­brates books by British black, Asian and mi­nor­i­ty eth­nic(BAME) writ­ers) for her slim and com­mand­ing po­et­ry col­lec­tion Hid­ing to Noth­ing.

Pati tells me that Hid­ing to Noth­ing, a col­lec­tion about “vi­o­lence, in all its forms, over gen­er­a­tions, to oth­ers, to our­selves”, was “ges­tat­ing” with­in her­self for years be­fore she wrote it.

“I’m of In­di­an her­itage and see how the di­as­po­ra can car­ry vi­o­lence de­scend­ed from the bru­tal and ex­trac­tive British Em­pire. When those di­as­po­ras came and came to the UK, how did we/they man­i­fest in­ter­gen­er­a­tional trau­ma and vi­o­lence?

“The book’s form is jagged, lay­ered, and cycli­cal. More sta­ble po­em forms book­end HtN, then the cen­tral body dis­in­te­grates in­to frag­ments - like a per­son hold­ing it to­geth­er.”

Like all writ­ers, in a thor­ough­ly sat­u­rat­ed lit­er­ary mar­ket, Pati strug­gles with mar­ket­ing her book, so vi­tal for the mod­ern writer to get their books in­to the hands of read­ers.

“I’m not a nat­ur­al self-mar­keter; it’s not a main­stream mat­ter, and peo­ple couldn’t get hold of it... Then the Jha­lak Prize was longlist­ed, then short­list­ed - in­cred­i­ble! And sud­den­ly, it had some vis­i­bil­i­ty, and the prize’s part­ner­ships meant book­shops start­ed to stock it. I saw the pea­cock flash off its cov­er, hid­ing no more.”

Pati writes rarely and spo­rad­i­cal­ly in bursts of en­er­gy, say­ing the pro­fun­di­ty of dai­ly life fil­ters through or­di­nary days of “read­ing, think­ing, scrap­ing grime from tile grout, slic­ing an ap­ple, the es­sen­tial fal­low mo­ments.”

Pati’s award-win­ning work is fea­tured in an ex­cerpt (be­neath) with the kind per­mis­sion of copy­right hold­er Liv­er­pool Uni­ver­si­ty Press.

EX­CERPT

Do­do Provo­ca­teur

Eu­ro­peans hunt­ed you mer­ci­less­ly,

be­cause you beakies wouldn’t be doves or al­ba­tross.

Those whitish iris­es prob­a­bly grot­ted and balled and seized,

black un­der­tail coverts jut­ting at strum­pet-starved sailors,

ma­rooned on Mau­ri­tius, ex­ot­ic, just not Bide­ford, Perth or Poole.

Why gob­ble peb­bles big as nut­megs to tem­per your guts,

and prove fresh meat for rusky sailors, de­clar­ing you foul?

‘Bel­ly and breast pleas­ant enough in flavour,’ they said.

If on­ly they’d wait­ed a few decades lat­er be­fore they snuffed you

for­ev­er, for be­ing cloven-foot­ed, turkey! You know,

you and your bulging brethren could have been com­mon as pea­cocks,

not stuffed through your hooks in old Copen­hagen or fold­ed in sketch­books.

Mau­rit­ian Martha, who froze your fruity body in gin?

Now of the Marthas ex­ists on­ly bit­ty skin, you pi­geons.

Cy­cu­lar

When the floods spate again through the flat’s front door

and the tod­dler coughs, out­side’s snuck in, sod­den walls seed­ed,

plas­ter blis­ters like cig­a­rette burns

on for­got­ten

These are the rivers of the north:

swollen Ir­well

Calder, Ouse, breach­ing an es­char

where the gold fat glis­tens

and the white blood foams

in our plas­tic buck­ets.

And the reek of a child­hood seeps

through these walls:

rot­gul­ley whip over­flow

fan­tail of mil­foil, val­leymist rain­fall,

trig­ger­ing sirens.

When the ooza­ges foam in their

min­is­tra­tions

but no­body lis­tens – when they do,

you’re a ci­pher or a pain

or a du­ty but not love;

where do you go

now for suc­cour or for some­one

to stop it? How to be count­ed when

your voice is the bub­ble

that your small child blows,

when the sky’s drown­ing lungs

burst in­to down­pour?

When it’s soaked in­to earth,

on­ly earth can lis­ten, main­lin­ing wa­ter in some stink­ing glo­ry,

send­ing it puls­ing in­to sewage-piped lowrise

be­cause who cares for us?

You go on, you go on.

Train Tri­o­let

(16.46 to Brighton)

I won’t blow you up be­cause

I’m brown,

O twitchy woman who grassed

up my shop­ping.

I went to the loo not to twid­dle my belt.

I won’t blow you up be­cause I’m brown.

Ter­ror­ists don’t tend to

buy Cath Kid­ston

un­less I am a clean­skin mo­ron.

Be­cause I’m brown, I won’t blow you up,

O na­tive woman who grassed up my shop­ping.

–From Hid­ing to Noth­ing

(Pavil­ion Po­et­ry, 2022)

https://www.liv­er­pool­u­ni­ver­si­ty­press.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781800854826

Copy­right held and per­mis­sion grant­ed by Liv­er­pool Uni­ver­si­ty Press.

Pati was com­mend­ed in the For­ward Prize, ho­n­our­ing fresh voic­es along­side in­ter­na­tion­al­ly es­tab­lished names.

Ani­ta Pati’s first po­et­ry pam­phlet, Do­do Provo­ca­teur, won The Ri­al­to Open Pam­phlet Com­pe­ti­tion (2019) and was short­list­ed for the Michael Marks Awards.

She has been a win­ner of the Wasafiri New Writ­ing Po­et­ry Prize and a joint win­ner of the in­au­gur­al Women Po­ets’ Prize (2018/20). Pati has worked in jour­nal­ism and li­braries.

- Ira Math­ur is a Guardian colum­nist and the win­ner of the non-fic­tion OCM Bo­cas Prize for Lit­er­a­ture 2023.