What does a world without birds sound like? In this episode of Enter Poem, I sit down with poet Kunjana Prashar to wander through her surreal and devastating poem: Poem With No Birds in It

In this imagined landscape, cuckoo clocks hang upside down, insects inherit the soundscape, and grief becomes so heavy that binoculars are broken in mourning. We talk about what inspired this poem, its strange and tender imagery, texture, sounds and emotional landscapes.

Kunjana Parashar is a poet from Mumbai. Her debut poetry book They Gather Around Me, the Animals, selected by Diane Seuss, won the 2024 Barbara Stevens Poetry Book Award. She is the recipient of the Toto Funds the Arts award and the Deepankar Khiwani Memorial Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, Sixth Finch, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere. She is the Managing Editor (Poetry) at The Bombay Literary Magazine.

Kunjana's Substack - https://substack.com/@kunjana?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=71hkm

Kunjana's instagram: holy.squid

Enter Poem is a slow, soft space to feel poetry. To fall in love with poems. Hosted by poet and writer Amy Singh, this podcast opens the door to poems that arrive just when we need them. In each episode, we enter the heart of a poem, and let it enter ours.Whether it’s a poem Amy has chosen or one loved by a guest, Enter Poem invites you to feel deeply, wonder freely, and linger in language.Come, enter the poem.Music Credits: What The Heart Sees & Anticipation by Jonny Easton YouTube: @JonnyEaston

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