Motherhood, heartbreak, loss, love — even the tangible: vegetables, beaches, forests and salons, oh, I wanted to write about it all! The brevity of form made it possible to cover a stunning range of landscapes — emotional and physical. Like a jigsaw puzzle, I kept arranging, rearranging lines in poems, addicted to that dose of serotonin that washed over me when a haiku or tanka set well.

Guavas pop-up here as do sunflowers, nieces and lovers. Playful and brooding, heart-breaking and exultant, these poems strobed in watercolor art, revel as much in the lushness of nature as the depth of feelings found within a human heart.

Jesal has always been drawn to making beautiful connections with seemingly disparate ideas. When a haiku juxtaposes two disparate images, out of the synergy jumps a new, nuanced meaning.

If we look at urban existence, it is fraught with dissonance: the push and pull of expectations, the contradictions within roles, and also — unexpected, raw beauty. So, haiku and tanka seem to Jesal as perfect forms for expressing this fractured, beautiful ordinary life.

Written from the perspective of a young woman, the poems in Tanpura’s Strum draw from the themes of love, heartbreak, loss, motherhood, the progression of time and nature. Set on a wide-ranging canvas of the natural world — beaches, forests and urban flora — as well as the domestic — cafés, homes and street life, the poems rest on nectar-like moments that make us feel most alive, impassioned and at other times soul-crushingly human.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• I. Tanpura’s Strum
• II. Of Kadipatta Leaves and Everything in Between
• III. Tell the Hairstylist, Keep It Long
• IV. First Day of Spring
• V. Moon Face
• VI. Corn Cobs at Kisama
• VII. His Body Is My Home
• VIII. Grow Wild Like Kelp
• IX. Small Talk in Office
• X. Moons of Different Planets
• XI. Embers of a Diwali Sparkler
• XII. Of What We Used To Be
• XIII. Words Become Play
• Credit to the Illustrators
• About the Cover Artist