GloPoWriMo Day 1 – Swarajathis and Youth

April is Global Poetry Writing month. The theme for the prompts this year is around cultural institutions. As the website says:

This year, our daily resources will take the form of online museum collections and exhibits. Hopefully, you’ll find these to be at least entertaining, and you may even be able to use some of what you see as inspiration for your poems – particularly given that our prompts this year will all be themed around music and art.

I am writing the poems as is on a platform called thinkdeli. Here, I want to provide a little more context.

The prompt for Day 1 is:

As with pretty much any discipline, music and art have their own vocabulary. Today, we challenge you to take inspiration from this glossary of musical terms, or this glossary of art terminology, and write a poem that uses a new-to-you word. For (imaginary) extra credit, work in a phrase from, or a reference to, the Florentine Codex.

I looked up the glossary of Carnatic music terms on Wikipedia. I learnt about something I missed learning in my Carnatic music education – Swarajathis. This became the basis of the poem.

I learnt swarams, geethams, and varnams.
But not swarajathis.
I seemed to have pranced over them,
Unknowingly.

I lived through boyhood, adulthood, and parenthood.
But not youth.
I seemed to have pranced over those years,
Knowingly.

I don’t know why I skipped learning swarajathis between geetham and varnam. After varnam, I went directly to learning keerthanams.

In my mind, I similarly skipped over youth. I was eager to get into adulthood as a child. Once I got there, though, I was eager to do many things I wanted to go back and do things I could have done in my youth. Like solo travelling, hiking, etc.