A Few Responses to Occasional Couplet…

Some comments on Video, Occasional Ghazal – Couplet:

John Robert Colombo, author, anthologist, Order of Canada

The video comes as a complete surprise.

I find it faultless. I also find it deeply moving and full of juxtapositions that seem unpredictable and yet inevitable. The words take on extra meanings.

And you look beautiful…

George Vanderburgh, publisher of my book, Occasionally:

JRC sent me the link to this couplet. I have already watched it, and it is haunting.

Robyn Knapp:

Ruth sent this video on to me. You really are a remarkable woman of many talents. I enjoyed listening to your recitation of the couplet and then seeing your movements creating the atmosphere that underlay the singing. To me it was very moving.

Marie Adams:

Thank you for sending the lovely video to me.  It is very moving.  Your recitation, the singing and beautiful scenes were so well choreographed. You are a beautiful and talented woman!

Ruth Colombo, poet:

An exquisitely beautiful video – so many layers of sensibility and so many appeals to the emotions.

Barbara Wright, author, editor:

It is very beautiful, in many ways and I have shared it with my friends on Facebook.

Rosemary Aubert, author, painter:

Wow. This is remarkable. Thanks for sharing. By the way, you really look beautiful!

Anne Tait, producer, author:

It’s lovely, Suparna, illustrating so well your memorable couplet – “even the breeze is an intrusion when you and I meet”. Well done!

DC Chambial, editor Poetcrit, poet:

Superb.

Ratna Ray, Singer, Song writer

Oh – wow, uniquely Suparna! One and only Suparna!   Great video.

Anne Forsythe, songwriter, poet

This piece has swept me away on a magical carpet.

… Your opening line is one of the best lines of poetry I have ever read and now, have heard- “Even the breeze….” A classic.

 Yet, the mood of the ghazal has been captured by this video -sultry, evocative, sensual-embellishing your words with image.

 I have to mention the sailboat, of course, a strong image in my own memory bank. This is an entire narrative in one quick clip. Unforgettable art will take the viewer/ listener to their personal story and thus grows a narrative; thus empathy for the creator is enhanced. Something ‘more’ is understood. A threshold has been crossed…

Joseph Berkovits, lawyer extraordinaire:

That was truly magical. Thank you so much for posting this beautiful work

Michelle McCarthy

My most beloved ghazals are laments for what is gone, for what is longed for, and are also an acceptance of reality. They transcend pain and embrace beauty. Suparna’s presence in her narrated couplet draws you in to the experience of loss and transcendence; and anchors the juxtaposition between East and West, traditional and modern.

Evocative visuals of the force of nature and of her own environment; glimpses of sorrow and stoicism in her choreography. Her paintings seem to have been made for this integration. The musical accompaniment is sublime. The vocals sound like a heart on a desert wind.

I once asked Suparna why she didn’t feel the need to return to India. She replied that India resided within her, and she resided in Toronto. She integrates that truth with this beautifully executed multi-media invitation into her soul.

Meena Gupte, singer

Suparna it is really beautiful. Out of this world.  Zindagi ban gayi. 

Pratima Mehta, dancer, social activist

You have quite a few admirers! Count me among them. Really loved the video and the contents

 

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Occasional Ghazal Couplet

https://youtu.be/eMnIbkn_vjo

 

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This video is based on a couplet from the album Occasional Ghazal, written by Suparna Ghosh in English in traditional Indo-Persian style, and translated by her into Hindi/Urdu. The music is composed and sung by Azalea Ray. Paintings are by Suparna Ghosh.

Occasional Ghazals…

Long after reading them, some poems linger. Like the scent of a lover. What has always stayed with me, at the forefront or in my periphery, is a ghazal. Integral to my senses. Occasionally, I sing a ghazal in Urdu, to myself, to a friend, to a mate or a memory, and an ache rises within me. Sing it for a love, to a god or a spirit. It is a perfect poem.

A ghazal is separate from other forms of beautiful poetry just as an abstract painting is distinct from a realistic one.

An amalgam of couplets, each separate and complete, yet linked together and entirely harmonious. In all its mystical, mournful, romantic and maudlin glory, it rises like a structure, yet remains fluid in rhythm, like a slow moving river. Internal rhymes woven in exactly the same pattern, each taking its cue from the first couplet, yet, uncontrived, unimpeded, natural.

Embracing the tenets which bind it, yet never a slave to what defines it.

The video will illustrate my intense affinity with this poetic form.

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A Song Dares

A song dares

There are no words
no strings no bows no tune

but there is a song
that undulates
in my blood
and rides waves
of amber and ember
in and out
of ice and icicles
and wandering relics

in the alluvial reefs
magical
a poem swims

These are the lines I recited from Occasionally, a collection of verses, during a wonderful interview with Nancy Bullis at CIUT FM radio. It is what I still love, scattering words and splashing colours, giving form to thoughts or thoughts to forms, chiselling or smudging. It’s what I do, what I have done and will do.

 

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Reversion Raven Rose Tree

Reversion Sep (8) Raven Rose TreeReversion.rop.Sep (9)

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Occasionally

My visits have been staggered. Yes, occasional. Because life happened. And the need and desire to create footprints took over.

You said I disappeared
without a trace

I have been there
in sudden corners
abrading petroglyphs
on sandstone

Here is how and why:

occasionally-invitation

 

 

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For the Super Naughty

For the first time, Sudhir, I and Shayona were in a show together, aptly titled, The Super Naughty Show. The Red Boots are mine, the three small ones on top on one wall are Shayona’s, a parody on the three monkeys – see no evil…. and the one with the looming figure is Sudhir’s.

If you are looking for the bashful and demure, the Super Naughty Show at the Super Wonder Gallery in Toronto is definitely not for you…

Born without clothes
In a barren landscape of a mind
Born of fire, beauty afire,
Light of life
Unabashed, untainted, celebrated
In brocades of dawn, in cascades of dusk
Ashamed? Do not look
Ashamed? Do not stare
Ashamed? Draw the curtains
Ashamed? Turn off the lights
Ashamed? Go into a slumber
Ashamed? Curl into a world
As enormous as a speck of dust

Never awake
Never wake up

 

 

 

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NEXT!

Vigil.jpg

Narcissism on display with cyberspace an enabler. Oh well, why not. It’s here and so I surrender. VIGIL, a black and white statement, brush, pen and India ink on paper, landed me as a finalist in the 2015 Arts & Letters Club Ontario-wide NEXT! Exhibition. What a wonderful opening it was at the venerable Club, celebrating artists from across Ontario. The ceremonial aspect to the gala event could have been formal and forbidding. Yet, everyone was at ease, electrified but relaxed. I felt I was gliding as I went from painting to drawing to artist.

Open to the Public, Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays 11 – 4 from October 24 through November 9 and Thursday November 5, 5 – 8 pm. Posting too late for many, but here it is, narcissism on display.

 

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All You Wanted To Know About Figures

The most immediate and tactile experience we have is of our form. The joy and pleasure in the sensation is heightened when we capture it on paper, canvas, mind, sky, constellation…

It’s a promise of the event below.

Suparna Ghosh's photo.
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RAW GLIMPSE

Raven Rose Series

Raven Rose Series

Everything that can be said has been said and creativity is moribund. So, for a while (a while has been a long while) I pondered the possibility that a blank post is more meaningful than one crammed with words. Like the artist who decided a white canvas expresses more because one can ascribe a myriad of meanings to it.

But all resolutions are made to be broken. When a door opened unto a cavern of organic echoes resounding against gritty walls of drawings, paintings, etchings and sketches, where ephemeral sounds, metallic songs, irregular dialogues and effluvient forms melded with dripping colours and became one entity, I walked in (invited).

And suddenly, the isolated world of a self-described artist became one of the community: without losing that identifying mole which makes me distinct and secure in the knowledge that each line I have crafted and dot I have applied are unique and never duplicated.

Here is how Michelle Bylow, showcase director of RAW, sees it:

“At the MOD Club on July 17, 2015, GLIMPSE will be an interactive evening of everything art! Celebrate the vast talent that Toronto has to offer in fashion, music, accessory design, hair, makeup, visual art, dance and performing arts. You will have the unique chance to meet the artists and purchase works directly from them! All the while sipping on a glass of wine and watching the action happening on the stage.”

And thus, I became a part of the club scene in Toronto.

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Canadian Art Of Imagination

Invitation to Toronto Art for PeaceFrom your moment of arrival to the minute of departure, imagination will fill your space between reality and unreality
with fantasy.

Says Marina Malvada, the force behind the Toronto chapter:

The internationally renowned, Society for Art of Imagination is proud to present their newest branch, The Canadian Society for Art of Imagination, at our inaugural event, the Toronto Art for Peace Exhibition. The exhibition, which runs from May 22nd to June 4th at Moniker Gallery in the heart of Toronto’s Fashion District, includes overt 60 artists from Canada, the US, and abroad. We are very fortunate to have works by H.R. Giger, Alex Grey, and Brigid Marlin, the founder of the Society who perfected her technique while studying under Ernst Fuchs.

The opening event, on Thursday, May 22nd from 6 to 10 p.m. at 452 Richmond Street West (West of Spadina), will feature a dazzling array of talent and expressive imagination. DJ Nicodemus Natas Exton will set the mood with his fantastic electro funk/fusion, and as usual, Moniker will have an attractively staffed cash bar. Mark your calendars; this will be a night to remember!

For those who enjoy a nice cup of tea with a side of witty remarks, The Canadian Society for Art of Imagination is hosting afternoon tea at the gallery on Saturday, May 31st from 1 to 5 p.m, followed by cocktails and speeches from 5 to 8 p.m. For an opportunity to peruse the artwork at a leisurely pace, and have a chat with some of the society’s founding members, come in on the 31st.

The exhibition was organized by the artists and society pillars, Marina Malvada, Bhat Boy, Russ Paquette and president, Jean Pronovost. A portion of the proceeds from art sales will go back to the society, and to Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders for their great work helping people in areas where war has cost them too much. We hope that you will come out and give your support to our wonderful new society and to this excellent cause.

 

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