• Home
  • News
  • Longform
  • Life
    • Jeans
    • Madam Zeenat’s Feminist Tarot
  • Health
  • Work
  • Culture
    • Books
    • Art
    • Music
    • Fashion
    • Cinema
    • TV
  • Sports
  • Kranti
  • Vaanthi
  • The FAK
  • About
    • Submissions
  • Home
  • News
  • Longform
  • Life
    • Jeans
    • Madam Zeenat’s Feminist Tarot
  • Health
  • Work
  • Culture
    • Books
    • Art
    • Music
    • Fashion
    • Cinema
    • TV
  • Sports
  • Kranti
  • Vaanthi
  • The FAK
  • About
    • Submissions
HomeVaanthiWhy You Must Never Trust Male Poets

Why You Must Never Trust Male Poets

April 19, 2018

By Nisha Susan

Prasoon Joshi. Photo courtesy BollywoodTVMasti via Facebook

1. Sometimes, we hear, they like to give signed photos of themselves as gifts.

2. Male poets are moved to lyrical poetry in the presence of kings, prime ministers and cabbages.

3. They emerge from the womb with what the great poet Paromita Vohra called the Pyaasa Syndrome, believing ‘All He Needs Is Rum because it rhymes with gham’.

4. They sincerely believe that they are more ruthless than others in killing their darlings. Hence quotes such as ‘When I finish writing, you will not want to delete anything, but practicality will take over and I will be compelled to sacrifice thoughts and words I am writing so tenderly.’

5. They have perfected the mid-distance blank gaze while holding a Lime Soda Mixed Sweet And Salt/Blue Label Whiskey. This gaze simultaneously reminds you that you are what angry Malayali mothers call a mere krimi, reminds you that the Great Man is gracious and takes in the most powerful man/hottest woman in the room. This gaze is a gift. It cannot be replicated by practicing in the mirror.

6. Male poets look ahead to Great Manhood the way the rest of us look ahead to our first jobs – inevitable. Sometimes they stand up in public and say, “I became an adult when I was five.”

7. Sometimes they swear that older male poets who have just died passed on the mantle and excellent blurbs for their books.

8. They only like two kinds of female poets: the tentative, shy ones and the ones who write about their own sex lives. To male poets, both seem like the messages in Mission Impossible, built to self-destruct after a reading.

9. They really don’t think female poets can stride the universe in a single poem they way they can. They are poets but they are not fond of bananas #YesIScan

10. When female poets do well, the Great Men like to walk around the room hinting of their intimate biblical knowledge of the poet as a young woman.

11. They don’t mind saying in public that oppression (of other people) leads to better poetry. But they are moved to tears by their own vulnerability and want all of us to come along for the ride, whether we put meter or one-and-a-half or even if we are done for the night.

Photo credit: S is for…335/365 by YaDontStop via Flickr/CC by 2.0

Tags: Modi, poet, poetry, Prasoon joshi

Share!
Tweet

ladiesfinger

About the author

Related Posts

An Artistic Appreciation of the Narendra Modi-Akshay Kumar Wife Joke Pas De Deux

Who Cares about MJ Akbar’s Legacy? Look at What His Accusers Have Given India

If You Want to Help People stuck in Kerala Floods, Here’s How You Can

Your Saturday Jeans: AMMA, Women Scientists & Beyonce

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Trending

Sorry. No data so far.

Subscribe to our email newsletter!

You May Also Like

  • After Payal Tadvi’s Death Can We Allow Medical Education to Continue to Pretend to be Casteless? May 28, 2019
  • Jokha Alharthi’s Man Booker Win Reminds Us of Oman’s Recent Slave-owning Past May 24, 2019
  • In Avengers: Endgame, Black Widow is Sexy, Sterile and So Burnt By Marvel May 12, 2019
  • Let Us Admit the Sins of Atishi Marlena May 10, 2019
  • 20 Questions for SC Panel that Cleared the CJI of Sexual Harassment Charges May 9, 2019


Online Bachchi, Dil Ki Sachchi

Come on over for feminist journalism.

Politics. Pop Culture. Health. Sex. Law. Books. Work.

We write what we want to read.

  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Refund Policy
  • About
  • Contact Us

Subscribe to our email newsletter!

Keep up with us!

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on YouTubeFollow Us on E-mail

Trending

Sorry. No data so far.

Copyright © 2018 The Ladies Finger
Subscribe to our RSS/Atom feed here