GUWAHATI:
Singer Lou Majaw released Riniki Chakravarty Marwein’s debut poetry book ‘Brittle’ at the Meghalayan Age – The Store in New Delhi on February 24.
Majaw, who is a performing artist from Shillong and is renowned for his Bob Dylan tribute shows, also recited some of the poems from Brittle and performed some songs for the cosy crowd that gathered in support of the launch.
A spokesperson from The Store said, “We launched the “Her Art” series dedicated to the women of Meghalaya, and their contribution to a diversity of practices including art, craft, literature, performance and entrepreneurship. It gives us immense pleasure to organise an evening of poetry and music with Riniki and Lou Majaw as part of the store’s first anniversary celebrations.”
Brittle is a product of the anxiety and emotions that were brought about by the lockdown and travel freeze due to the pandemic. A way of mentally visiting loved ones and places back home in India like it was her last time. It therefore works as a coping mechanism, a fragment of personal history – the pleasant and the scarred.
Marwein said, “I got pretty nostalgia-struck during the lockdown. My childhood and the time spent in India kept roaming in my head in flashback forms over and over again. I was home-belted like everyone else and I was very worried about my loved ones. It got kind of scary, so I had to find a way to let my anxiety out. This is when I started writing the book and I can’t believe it is finally published.”
Brittle is Marwein’s debut collection of poems. It is a gathering of family, childhood, love, loss and memory. Brittle is the fuel the poet wrote with during the pandemic, which guided the pieces to come together as a theme. They are simplistic in form and style while bolstering vivid unrests to reveal the poet’s path to finding herself.
Marwein was born in Shillong where she also completed most of her education. She spent most of her career in the PR industry in Mumbai before moving to Singapore in 2008. She holds a Master’s Degree in Mass Communication and Journalism. She has been seriously writing poems since the pandemic, and this year, she finally got to organise the pieces in Brittle. She is now gathering gumption for a stint in spoken word poetry.