Michael Sikkema : An interview with Aakriti Kuntal (part one,

Small Press Intravues: 

Occasional Interviews with writers working and publishing in the small press ecosystem

Interview #21, part one [see part two here] : Aakriti Kuntal is a poet, writer, and multidisciplinary artist whose creative pursuits span literature, visual arts, and experimental film. She finds inspiration in nature, often retreating into its embrace to write and reflect. In addition to poetry and prose, she explores photography, asemic writing, and short experimental films. Her work has appeared in The Night Heron Barks, Rasputin: A Poetry Thread, IceFloe Press, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and Poetry at Sangam, among others. Recognized for her contributions to literature, she was awarded the Reuel International Prize (2017) and shortlisted for the RL Poetry Award (2018). She is the author of the chapbook God, Am I Your Eyelid? (Sigilist Press, USA). Her debut book Night Breaks apart, like pomegranate seeds in my palm (Seagull Books), was listed in Ms. magazine's best poetry books for 2025-2026.

Michael Sikkema: What ecosystem does this book fit into? What other books, films, art, animals, etc does this book interconnect with? What works were you enjoying when you composed it? This is sort of a follow up to some of your answer to question #1. For example what classical music are you drawn to? 

Aakriti Kuntal: This book is permeated by trees and trees. Trees as they swim in me, make me, and stitch me. Green as it flushes the soul, as it caresses the senses. I think the Semal and Jacaranda trees represent the book's colour imprint. The book is flashes of blue and red, blue and red running into each other, around each other, tracing each other like amoeba in a field.

Seas rush through the mouth of the book. I have always lived in cities, away from seas. There has been a constant yearning to return to the sea ever since I saw it in the small town of Pondicherry in India. The sea at night, is a black pearl blooming in the throat. It has invaded my inner being and hence dresses this book in parts.

I was especially listening to Max Richter, Philip Glass, and Vivaldi when composing poems in this book. Max Richter’s November, On the Nature of Daylight, and Sleep were played on repeat while absorbing the silvery husk of evenings. Other artists I listened to around that time are Ezzio Bosso, Nils Frahm, and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Another element that runs through the book is the stone. The stone as a motif also occurs in Vasko Popa’s The Dream of the Quartz Pebble, Wislawa Szymborska’s Conversation with a Stone, and Zbigniew Herbert’s Pebble.

The Golden Fleece or El Vellocino de Oro by artist Wolfgang Paalen seems to me overlaps with the symbolism and threads of the book.

Among the books that were read during the process of this book and left a lasting impression on me were The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems of Mina Loy, Ariel by Sylvia Plath, Collected Poems by Vasko Popa, and Penguin Modern Poets 7 (Toby Martinez de las Rivas, Geoffrey Hill, Rowan Evans).

My friend suggests that The Colour of Pomegranates by Sergei Parajanov speaks in tones of the book. I also think the reminiscence is similar to that in the Mirror by Andrei Tarkovsky.

I’ve always been drawn to salamanders. They wear the shimmering orange gel sun on their backs. I think in some sense I’m always burning like them. There is conflagration in my being.

MS: Lastly, can you link us to work of yours outside the book, other poems on the web, or videos of readings or interviews? And are there other artists or movements or anything you'd like to take a second to shine some light on? If you could direct our eyes to something important right now, what would it be? 

AK: Here are a few links:

Podcast feature on the Poetry Vessel:
https://youtu.be/0GwFor6IjDM?si=jB6cSFliiSKueksP 

Podcast Feature on the Spoken Label:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsKzdioDSAk 

Outlook Feature:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTC8IyfAtcc/ 

A reading of Sylvia Plath’s Ariel:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUIfqK6E3jt/ 

Some Poetry:
https://stonepoetryjournal.com/aakriti-kuntal/ 

I am very inspired by Shringi Kumari, Sumana Roy, and Sophie Strand among others.

Many things come to mind, and among them is the art of tree hugging. It is related to India’s historic Chipko movement and the Japanese practice of Shirin-yoku. I believe just staring at a tree can soothe the many upheavals within. The pockets of air filled in the cervices, the arms extending to embrace the sky. Just imagine hugging a tree then? Or caressing a stem? Feeling the coolness stick to the skin.

Another that comes to mind is playing music to the plants. I love playing music to my plants whenever I can. Classical and jazz are harmonious for both them and us.

 

 

 

 

Michael Sikkema a poet and visual artist living as best he can in West Michigan where he works and hikes and learns how to bird by ear.

Aakriti Kuntal and Scott Ferry : Six poems from a collaboration

 

 

 

 

Aakriti 

Words fall off the ridge of my nose
Inverted ants descending 

the vertical tower. The jaw hangs
in the middle of everything.

There is a towel wrapped around
my tongue. The body

soaks its own saliva. The weather
is the flesh blushing bright pink

in its fever. The sting circles into a mound.
I mumble and raspberries 

blow into oversized proportions.
Mouths of ants come to the harvest.

The day is long and vertical
as I hang my body 

on its bone. The sweet chirping of nuclei
envelops the Pepsi spirit 

And the soaked hour of the body
finds its lonely poem.

 

Scott

i take a small poem out of my pocket
and peel off the wasp-paper
it tries to sting me with a drunken window
i play as if i know my part sing a dirge
the poem is now a white-jewelled ghost
i dance around it looking for any moisture
the poem does not talk but it can swim
the gasoline is beginning to fill up the hallway
i have to soothe it so it doesn’t cheat again
i have never caught her in her cat costume
i bark and swing out with fresh kills
the hole in gravity is her skipping electrons
her negative gradient has been delicious
but she is not here anymore
i tear open the bedding and the pillows
not there either but my legs vibrate waspwings
my hands open and close with tiny yellow jaws
my body wraps in paper and i am wax
and honey and i don’t know if i am still
alive

Aakriti

Blood opens the key. The blind woman is humming in the corridor. Small wasps occur in my palms. I skip the grenade and arrive in the middle of everything. Gravity curls around the thigh. There is a slope to everything. God, the periwinkle flutter burns my eye. I have my tongue clasped as the car shifts in and out of the Delhi hour. The night has its vast span growing over the roof. I hum and I hum. Tunes colour the dimness of the day’s tangent. I hang my bodies like chords and wait for death to arrive. Death, sweet moth, slice the navel.

Scott

the vampire bat can syphon the blood of a cow without the animal knowing / the cow sleeps as the tiny teeth search for the warmth of a vein / the hooks at the end of the wings dancing across the hide / a hyena on the savanna / then the daggers sink in / the cow dreams of a faraway pain / a distant lightning strike on the highlands / the clouds flashing red / the bat engorges / an unsterile vessel / an unholy taker / and sways in the tide of systolic rush / the cow dreams of a drought and the dust billowing in the creek beds / the bat disengages / kicks off the heaving earth / in this way heaven and hell are emptied and filled / and no one has died for anyone’s sins 

Aakriti

Sheets of cartilage. A murmur binds them all. Sweet, porous sounds decorate the feet of the idol. I sit by the balcony and let the wind chatter in my clavicle. The day slaps onto my face and swivels around my wrist. On this occasion of Janmashtami, incense sticks stir the entire air. I am a small hour hoping to condense further into a dot. Hoping to grow into a wide, aching ceremony. Hoping to sit on a swing and gurgle in the soft tooth of the day. Blood thickens and turns into a soft mound of fervent jelly.

Scott

in the dream i construct another dream / a medicine from weeping leaves / in the morning i cut roses to place in a vase / i slice off all of the rotting flowers / they scatter like a wet sneeze / at night i dream within a dream that i shovel out all of my roses / my feet baptized with weeping roots and fungus / thorns rip roads down my wrists / when i wake in the dream i walk outside screaming and blaspheming at all of the murder / all the heads and green necks spilled like arithmetic  / then i wake from that dream unspooled and damned / i walk to the table and see the roses in the vase / i open the curtains and see the roses intact / i have enacted my own death / dim light and petalmusic / the inside of my inside lacerated and thorn-ribboned / i look at my arms and my wrists are quiet and clean

 

 

 

 

Aakriti Kuntal is a poet, writer, and visual artist from India whose work has been published in various literary journals including Panoply, Icefloe Press, The Night Heron Barks, and the Hindu. She is the author of God, am I your eyelid? from Sigilist Press, USA. She was awarded the Reuel International Prize 2017, shortlisted for the RL Poetry Award 2018, and nominated for the Best of the Net.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scott Ferry sings to invisible harpies in dollar stores. He has been known to write poems. His book of prose poems is arriving soon from Glass Lyre Press. More can be found @ ferrypoetry.com.