Manahil Bandukwala
Biography
Manahil Bandukwala is a writer and visual artist originally from Pakistan and now settled in Canada. In 2021, she was shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook Award. She works as Coordinating Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine, and is Digital Content Editor for Canthius. She is a member of Ottawa-based collaborative writing group VII. Her project Reth aur Reghistan is a multidisciplinary exploration of folklore from Pakistan interpreted through poetry and sculpture. She holds an MA in English from the University of Waterloo. MONUMENT is her first book. Explore her poetry and art at manahilbandukwala.com.
Poetics Statement
“Poetry is my way of moving through the world with awe and wonder. Going on long walks and noticing how the water ripples, or the shadows on snow banks. Thinking about possibilities and speculations of what is and what could have been.
And to me, the best poetry emerges when those walks are taken with others. Going on a walk with a friend, or creating in community with other writers, forces a slowness that allows those insights into wonderment that emerge. Whether I write with others or alone, my poetry exists because of other poets.
The answer to what I write poems about is constantly changing. A lot of my writing gravitates towards conversations with women. My first book of poetry is an extended conversation with a historical empress that ruminates on legacies of grand love. I write about Pakistani folklore, thinking about the richness of my own history and the ways it has been erased through colonization. I write about love. I love writing about love, and I love leaning into softness and vulnerability.
Amidst love there is grief and ache. Though it did not start this way, my outlook on poetry has converged with my outlook on the world. And that is to ruminate over ways to demonstrate care even when care feels out of reach. ”
Sample of Poet's Work
Before, it was love
from MONUMENT (Brick Books 2022)
after Danez Smith’s “bare”
If love is a mausoleum, tear it down
brick by brick, uncut the hands
of twenty-thousand labourers. If love
screamed in tangled sheets at night
is love, wear a condom, take a pill, undo
each child and live each decade
as your own. If love is the summation
of religions, pray at the masjid,
the mandir, light a diya, and plunge
your face in rosewater. Love
was a wandering thing, so replant
trampled flowers and recompose sodden
rain clouds. If love is an empire
reel conquest back in. The land
was someone’s before, and before
it was owned land was love. Relinquish
where your tomb sits. Unbelong,
housing all the hands linked to bodies
tethered to souls. So why
wait; give the land back, now.
Walking through rainstorms (to a tryst)
Published in The Puritan, 2021
I hold you the way astronomers draw constellations for each other in the markets of wisdom
– Michael Ondaatje, “The Nine Sentiments,” Handwriting
I hold you the way sandalwood embers ash onto a white desk after the air has cradled
burning incense for nine sunrises I hold you the way garden trees suck up
fertilizer from flowerbeds bursting their red berries onto empty beer cans I hold
you the way astrologers read the minutiae of our joys (the intricacies of our grief) in
the mirrored curves of our jawlines I hold you in carved mountain caves where
we lie down and let the jungle vines squeeze around our joined wrists I hold you
the way a ladybird once tickled its way down my index finger (skim a hand along
your spine (look at you looking at me like the touch of my toe to your shin is like
being held so tight you cannot breathe)) I hold you the way light refracts saffron
off your sweaty forehead as I ride you to orgasm I hold you the way old palace
turrets invite birds to gather at midnight on the sleeping island I hold the grief
that roots in you and you hold mine (grief does not uproot when held but we hold it
anyways) I hold your hand against my butterflies on summer walks pressing my
palm against yours when my fingers ache (they ache from the act but never from the
intent (the intent of holding is nine postcards of places where I will hold you one
day)) I hold your face to my chest when morning dew sniffs out lingering sweat
I hold your ear closed with my collarbone as if to say the world no longer is (the
world always is but in the brief moment of my skin against your skin it is not) I
hold your body with my heels crossed over tucked snug in the small of your back my
whole heart untranslated I hold you
seven free spirits
published in Canadian Notes and Queries, 2021
jaan / a pulse is everything except flesh & skin & bone / beyond four chambers / makes blood pump / makes a money plant grow / love / outwards & upwards
jazba / fireworks go off half an hour after midnight / we toast our drinks / plant clumsy kisses / catch sparks / step out of our bodies into others
maahol / light burns brightly in this house / spider plant spreads its children to sun spots / full dinner table laughs on wobbly legs / seen only when absent
qalandar / it does not matter if the rhythms in your head / are not beautiful / if your hands bloom / out of time / you come into this universe / knowing
rughbat / a tendency to want to know / the sprinkle of saltwater / laughter of mountain pine / geometries of galaxy clusters / a tendency to drift / like feathers or rocks / in motion
rooh / floats through nitrogen / does not breathe / mint cools the soul / feel its presence watching over / phosphoric soil / come now / shed these vessels / entangle with one another
niyat / did you pray for me today / carry vertical thoughts to heaven / back arched over horizontal axis / the earth you kneel on / forehead to grass / where flesh will rot when rooh roams free