How to Kill a Poet?
Leena Manimekalai
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Bitch, we will chop your body parts
rip your vagina
sweep up the strips
hang them like festoons
says a short message
It is not so easy to kill a poet
she is not just a body to inflict wounds with weapons
but the inner soul of a thousand ancestors
We will mass rape you
shoot a video
show it in public
says an open mail
It is tough to rape a poet
from her vagina springs the seven seas
phalluses are mere pebbles
We will burn you alive with your family
not let you live anywhere
in the world
anyone beheading you
earns a good bounty
howl a thousand voices
It is not simple to put a price on a poet’s head
her head is ten planet earths
everyone who walks on the furrows
made with ploughshares
is her family
The food growing in her akshayapathra*
is not merely food
We will throw you in ten prisons
at the same time
not let you leave the country
a chorus of petitions and court cases
It is difficult to imprison a poet
can life sprout in any planet once
time is confined to a prison
*Akshayapathra: Manimekalai, heroine of the Tamil classic by the same name, possesses a food-growing vessel.
This poem was translated from Tamil by Ra Sh.
Leena Manimekalai is an Indian filmmaker, poet and an actor.
This article went live on June twenty-fifth, two thousand twenty three, at thirty minutes past three in the afternoon.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.