My Writing Journey
I teach writing... but hey, I'm published too!
Poetry on Rithika Merchant's Art
All art tells a story. So what's the tale here? Explore future worlds in the poetry I've crafted in response to artist Rithika Merchant's works featured in Pillars of Fruit & Bone.
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All artworks appear courtesy of the artist.
© Rithika Merchant
Your words really evoked a different universe for me and offered another way of seeing. I especially loved A* Habitat​.
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~ Rithika Merchant
BY APEKSHA HARSH
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I have a book that speaks
of gargantuan leaves on a gargantuan tree
So high only the nimble can find
their way to sanctuary
huddled in nests springing from
the writerly imagination
somewhere in Germany
You needn’t picture what I’m about
to say next, sturdy leaves
holding hybrid bodies
the colour of the universe
Perch leisurely and let the constellations
stare into the pores of your soul
Or glance down into the watering hole
that feeds the green of your arboreal dream
Walls and ceilings are not the only ones
that listen and see
Forget for a moment you are watching
me weave words or her spin hues
Imagine a world where you
lie low as you lie high
Bedecked in the flora of earth and sky
Each lamina your observatory deck
Would you dare to wreck yet once again
this flourishing home generous
in sustaining life?
On The Observatory, Rithika Merchant, 2025​
BY APEKSHA HARSH
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Come. Suspend yourself
You with your indigoes
and sight brighter than
the orange sun
You and I are no different
Malleable by the fires
that once created everything
Keen on housing the shimmering
stars we are all composed of
Habitats do not reside only on earth
They occupy spaces between celestial breaths
Rising above peak and petal
Far into the ancient aether
where cosmic bodies watch
like a guardian eye
Come. Suspend yourself
And you will find growing
from your body
A knot so tight
It can birth an entire world
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On Orbital Habitat, Rithika Merchant, 2025
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BY APEKSHA HARSH
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In need of a cosy reading corner
where words spring to life
like sage green leaves?*
Looking for that slumber shell
to envelop you whole
for that buoyant aqueous sleep?
Or just keen to lose your head
in abandoned gastropod homes
where conchiolin serves as secret chambers
for whispers and notes
unravelling as symphonies?
In the blurs and greens and in betweens
There exists every type of permutation for you.
— NO SHELL IS EVER LEFT BEHIND —
*Easy to clamp shut when the noise of the world is louder than the words you want to hear reverberating in your ears.
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On Permutations of a Shell, Rithika Merchant, 2024
BY APEKSHA HARSH
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In the beginning, there were waters
Dark and still, black as birds
Till on their shores arrived
elliptical, white, with a deity bursting forth
No.
In the beginning, there were waters
Clear and bright, burning with desire
Rising and frothing with steam
Till out poured, radiant
golden, an oval hatching
over two score weeks
No.
In the beginning, all that was laid
was an egg by the mother of creation
separating like filaments
into earth and sky,
unfolding into today
No.
Devolving into mud and debris
smog into cerulean
stretched to the point
of bursting with a gush
taking creation back to chaos
But far from it, ensconced
in the lodging of the earth
like a living, breathing gift
membrane upon membrane
nourished by alluvial waters
snaking like serpentine scales
Far from it all, from the cacophony
we have called home
rests a spring green dwelling
Shh—
it can hear us
just like we can hear it too
if we choose to
listen – a chirp so radiant
it shines brighter than the spinning
of the moon and the sun
in a celestial embrace
Life within life
Did we know
we bear the seeds
that flower and shimmer
ripe as berries
crimson as the flesh of arils
Gaia, Prithvi, who said we can steal it all
and then ask for more?
Far from it all, in the aggregates of soil
coiled in the custody of multi-eyed serpents
hatches a fertile world
unfurling fruitful cries
So when we go back
to the beginning,
step inside, not aside
Not all who enter abandon hope.
On Zoomorph II, Rithika Merchant, 2024
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Published Writing
My poem "Many a Manasa" - shortlisted for the Heroines Women's Writing Prize 2024 - in this anthology of women's writers published by Neo Perennial Press
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Ambit & Under the Radar
My poem "SAM" in the erstwhile iconic literary periodical Ambit and "Fossil Dust" in Under the Radar - the flagship magazine of Nine Arches Press
My short story "Night Watch" in this anthology of fantasy and science fiction by Fantastic Books Publishing
Here Comes Everyone
Short stories "Witness" & "After Man" that explore the themes of fantasy and dinosaurs in issues of this quarterly UK magazine
Want to know more about my writing & editing projects? Visit LinkedIn.