In early 2020 when I booked my travel to Vietnam, Thailand, and Korea, I had no idea that an unprecedented event would change everything all of a sudden for the whole world in the most harrowing way. I was supposed to be in Hanoi, Hue, and at the Plum Village Monastery in Thailand, with a group of Buddhist practitioners on a retreat and possibly meeting Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. Prior to my traveling abroad, I was supposed to moderate a panel at 2020 AWP in San Antonio, but the Pandemic dismantled every plan.

The way the world events were unfolding, gripping lives with severity after the spread of the virus, literature, art, and meditation were the only things to anchor me on a safe island, preventing me from sinking in despair. I turned my confinement at home into a retreat. I began to meditate on the impermanence of life, more fervently than I ever did before. The result of this meditation brought me a sense of urgency to appreciate life more and take upon things I always wanted to do but not finding time for them.

Dreadful days came to renew my commitments to life with added beauty and creativity. And one day, I decided to turn some of the poems into poetry films. My education of Film Directing at NYFA came in handy, and I selected a few verses from my poetry collection Bare Soul, a meditation on life, to translate my vision into moving images now before you.

Poetry Films, The Jungle (I) – https://youtu.be/y8JHb8lSZDU, The Jungle (II) – https://youtu.be/DLYv79aYi0I and River of Songs – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZcHzLKoYQQ are based on a series of short poems published in Bare Soul, a full-length poetry collection by poet and filmmaker Kalpna Singh-Chitnis.