In Conversation with Swarnim Agrawal

I first became aware of Swarnim at a Creative Writing Society sharing session. Our cosy group read out a little poetry, a little prose and gave some feedback, but I remember distinctly the feeling of fondness that arose in me when it was Swarnim’s turn to share and she read out Magnetic Moment, a piece I was eager to talk to her about today. We met in Queen’s Cafe, Swarnim composed and affable, myself sweating from a zealous climb up Queen’s Drive, and as I assembled my notes and phone we caught up since the last time we’d had a chance to speak. I felt a calmness wash over me, emboldened by Swarnim’s easy-going nature and the warmth of her smile. It boded well for our talk…

M: So, first of all, hello! We’re going to talk a little bit about your work and stuff. The first thing I wanted to talk about was your flash non-fiction piece Mechanics of Existence. Now as someone who often forgets how therapeutic walking can be it really connected with me, because I just found your description of the world and the thoughts it evoked really touching. Like, it reminded me of being out on a really nice Spring morning and just being like, ‘oh, gosh, everything is so nice!’ Could you tell me a bit more about that piece and why you wrote it?

S: Yeah sure! It's like, I wrote this piece after thinking about my morning walk as is evident  from that, because until a few months ago, I was never a morning person.

M: Hmm.

S: During my undergrad and stuff, I liked sleeping late, getting up late- unless you have classes- and stuff like that. So, it was, like, during the summer before my postgrad started I did this amazing summer course with the organisation Logophilia in my city, wherein I realised how much of a bad impact this sleep schedule was having on me. So I decided I wanted to do something for my health. So I started this habit formation thing, and now it’s become something that helps me relax, and even if I’m listening to music I’m very aware of my surroundings. So, like, wherever I’m walking I’m noticing people or noticing things, and if I’m on campus then it’s going for walks in the beautiful nature. I’m always looking for things- taking pictures and stuff. It makes me feel very light and relaxed first thing in the morning. That’s why I wanted to write this piece and lately I’ve been very- I’ve been writing very much about mental health- so, I wanted to write about how much these morning walks have been helping me make sense of others and also myself because, it’s like, we tend to go into these thought spirals that are very harmful, but sometimes I go into good thought spirals when I’m on my walks. I mean, we know that inspiration strikes at odd times, so it’s been very helpful - in that morning walk kind of thing I’ve had ideas about my writing…and stuff…

M: Yeah, I was going to ask- do you think it’s had a positive and clear impact on your writing?

S: Yeah it has, because for instance I signed up for my writing nature module, and so I had to do nature writing, and I am not a person who is very close to nature, I would say. So, it was like walking around noting things down- it has helped a lot and also helped my mental wellbeing as such. And this piece I wrote near Christmas when the Christmas lights were coming on. So, it’s like, back in India we have a festival of lights, Diwali, where the lights go on most houses and buildings. I was seeing all these photos from my friends and relatives, and here I saw the Christmas lights- I was kind of drawing parallels. So that’s why I was kind of like: I’ll bring that all into this piece and write about it.

M: I really like that. It was really nice to get that perspective. For me, having lived in this country all my life I was enamoured with that sense of connection you created- I liked seeing that sort of parallel with another country for the first time. One thing I noticed and wanted to pick up on though, and you have mentioned it a little already with your reference to taking photos, was the presence of technology even in this very natural setting. Do you think that technology has encroached upon your writing? Because I really like the ways you talked about it as if it were a part of you, almost…

S: Yeah, so if you’re talking about social media as in like chatting that hasn’t seeped into my writing much, even though I am starting to write about that idea of posting and stuff that we go through. But I feel like some of my pieces including this one have gotten impacted by…in school I did science, so I take things from there and like combining these things. For instance, in this piece I tried thinking about it like it was a computer system. So, it impacts my life in that way, and I find it very interesting because it sort of expands the images and the metaphors I can use. And obviously now, most people know about computers, about mobiles, and they are aware of the basics of it so if you use it in your writing people can still relate. Social media, not that much, but technology and digital devices…

M: Yeah, it’s interesting with social media and modern tech. I know I write about technology a lot, but I’m not sure I like that I write about technology so much. I remember one of my lecturers this year said that mobile phones had ruined literature because now everyone can do everything so easily!

S: Oh, I completely understand, because I do have that feeling sometimes. I mean you spend your time scrolling on Instagram whereas you can write in that time… So, yeah I get it.

M: Nice. So just to dig into this piece a little more- have you written much creative non-fiction before or was this your first creative non-fiction piece.

S: Actually if you’re just asking about creative non-fiction I would say no, but actually…on reflection…I’ve written loads of creative non-fiction, because I was just thinking about it, and this I just wrote because we were experimenting with voices and stuff on a module. But in my undergrad college also, I wrote many pieces for my department’s online magazine, which, looking back, were creative non-fiction pieces. So yeah, I realised that I enjoy writing in that way. You don’t have the restrictions of like, maybe poetry or fiction or something- it’s somewhere in between. And it’s not a journalistic piece as such…

M: And do you find that- because I know for me whenever I start thinking about writing a creative non-fiction piece it always ends up being more autobiographical- is that the case for you?

S: Uh, yeah, mostly because I mentioned this one is definitely autobiographical and recently most of my writing has been autobiographical to be honest. But it’s like, sometimes, even if I’m writing from another perspective I still try to see through my experiences because I feel it helps connect to the reader even if the reader might not have had similar experiences.

M: I like that, because I feel like it’s easy to forget that the experiences we have are so universal a lot of the time. Why did you think that creative non-fiction was the best form for this particular story?

S: So, I saw this as an autobiographical piece. My poems are also autobiographical but then somehow while I was trying to frame this piece I found the creative non-fiction format very easy to work with. And as I said I did not have to worry about the poetic aspects or think about how to make it into a story. I wrote this piece to highlight how these walks have been helping me. Less for the readers more so for myself. It was like the first time I was reflecting back and just writing something, so I felt that I needed a bit of creative liberty to put forward my ideas and such. I think creative non-fiction gives you a way to tell a story and anecdotes without any pressure.

M: Aw I love that!

S: Because it’s non-fiction you can bring in things that you may be heard from someone, but it’s also personal, it’s an anecdote, so it’s a good mixture of everything.

M: I agree, that’s such a nice interpretation of creative non-fiction- the freedom to express yourself a little more but still draw on these experiences that are real and grounded. So, I’m going to talk a bit about your poetry now, and to start I wanted to ask about (in)action, which has been published by ENIGMA- go read it! In particular I was interested in your inspiration for this piece, and why you chose the images that you did.

S: First of all, that’s a piece that I dread talking about most of all, because I wrote it when I was actually half asleep. So, I went into class with that piece and I was like, I don’t know what I wrote! It was also for my writing nature module and we were thinking about all the terms regarding ecopoetry and how you use ecopoetry for activism. So, as I said, I have not been very close to nature in the past. We used to go on these tours to zoos and parks and stuff, but I was in the city, so it was not that connected to nature. I have been an admirer of nature and involved in all the debates around climate change, but I realised this was a weird affinity- a weird relationship- that I had with nature. The fact that I am someone who uses mobile phones, who uses computers and who is in touch with technology as such, whereas many times we look at it as nature vs technology. So, I was thinking of a figure or a character who might just be engaging with these debates through reports, newspaper headlines, social media posts, but still they have, like, this digital screen in between. So many of the images I use are of the digital screen, because I was like, how would a person who looks at it from a distance feel? We know with all the digital things there are burnouts, there are exhaustions. So this person is almost sleeping, exhausted but there are these massive debates happening. So it’s like a scattered reality, because we find ourselves sucked into this digital world even though it’s helpful it has…

M: It’s such a big burden.

S: Yeah! You find yourself stuck! And also I thought about- there are many debates about it but when we have climate conferences, they are very important, but I also sometimes think about the translatability of the agendas that we might write on a page and how much impact you make, because, ultimately, there are so many people who feel strongly about those issues. I feel that we need to protect nature, we need to do things, but then I don’t do anything. So it’s that hypocrisy-

M: Yeah.

S:-of things. It’s like how someone is in this digital world, and then there’s these protests happening, conferences happening, there’s that contrast as well as a bit of an overlap with it.

M: Yeah, it’s so hard to reconcile a lot of those mental states because it isn’t I don’t care and I’m not doing anything, or I do care and I am doing something. There’s all this really big stuff happening but then I’m sat alone on my sofa in front of a screen. It’s very hard to capture those conflicts in one person but I think you do that really well.

S: Oh thank you! And it’s also like, ultimately, most people are in this chaotic state of mind. When there’s a massive earthquake, then there’s debates, like it draws us out like oh no this is what climate change is doing. That’s why we are saying that we need to take steps for it. But then sometimes we also get comfortable and we start taking things for granted. And yeah, so all these topics, mental health, climate change are very key today. And there are meetings happening, people taking steps, but because it is something so huge it will take time, you can’t do everything at once and it’s just sometimes you feel like you are not doing enough. Especially when, yeah, you are staring at a digital screen. Okay, you might share an instagram post or share a Facebook post but then, yeah, how that translates into…

M: Like, how many likes will it take to solve climate change. [Laughs in cynicism]

S: Exactly!

M: In relation to our discussion of climate change, I wanted to talk a bit more about ecopoetry and how (in)action fits into that style, because I know something I really like about ecopoetry is the way some ecopoets use space in their poems, i.e, how it actually looks and where everything is in the poem. So could you tell me a little about your choices with regards to spacing in this poem?

S: Yeah sure, I like playing with the blank spaces honestly, and I have to control myself otherwise I let loose! I find it really interesting how the placement of words can change the meaning, or enhance the meaning, of whatever I am writing. For instance, for this poem I started by using a scattered, random placement, because it was about this chaos and the whole struggle that we feel inside our minds, and also in talking to people about how all this is going on in the world. Like, sometimes, yes, you can do things but sometimes you just can’t because ultimately you think you need to do your job and get money and stuff like that… Basically, I wanted to capture a confused and fractured psyche. So I found it very useful to use this scattered placement of words, random placement of words because it’s just like- when we use a mobile phone, to us the processes we go through are very ordered, but for the computer it’s actually just random: random places with sensors that we are hitting. So, that’s why I was like, yeah I want to try this because ultimately nature and our own psyche and everything are disordered, right now.

M: Unfortunately, that is certainly the case.

S: Unfortunately, it is. I was also thinking about how we say the world is a huge place, but it’s like, people from different parts of the world are doing things. If you read it, there is a logic to the space. If I’m describing the screen or the colours of the screen it will be in an order. Or if it says scattered the letter will be scattered. There are those hidden logics to it, but if you’re just looking without taking in the meaning it’s still quite chaotic, much like the world is.

M: Mmm! Yes, I’m such a big fan of works where the form of the piece reflects the overarching message. Saying that, I don’t know a lot of examples of this in poetry, so I was interested to ask about your influences.

S: So, I was thinking about this because I’m someone who has only started writing poetry recently… to be honest, I’m still finding my poetry influences. I used to read poetry just for coursework but then, during my last two years of school, we had some poems that just hit me. There’s this one poem by Arthur O'Shaughnessy. The version that we read was called We Are The Music Makers, but apparently it’s part of a longer piece called Ode. And basically it’s about artists. About how artists live. And I remember when our teacher taught it, I had goosebumps, and I think I wrote about five-six pages in response, I was in such a state of euphoria. For me poetry meant rules, rhyme, magical patterns. So, for me it was a very restrictive format. Even though I had gotten interested in reading poetry a bit, I never thought of writing it. I used to go around saying ‘oh poetry, is not my cup of tea’. Until my undergrad came, and that’s when I started writing poetry. I give credit for this to many things. First of all, unfortunately, the pandemic. It gave me a lot of time- I finished off a short novel where the characters had been in my head for three, four years, so I got it out of the way.

M: Oh yeah- sometimes you just have to get a project out of your system.

S: And then I think a major poetic influence for me was American poetry. During my undergrad we had this paper on American literature and we were reading Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg and for the first time I realised, oh these poets are people who are experimenting with the form, and that’s when it hit me that- oh- poetry doesn’t need to be just rhymes. You can play around with it! And that was the time that I think I started writing many poems and it was also like, the creative writing society of my undergrad college used to do NaPoWriMo in April, so I participated in that. I was like, I can’t write poetry every day- so I challenged myself and did it in 2021 and 2022 as well. And that gave me a lot of confidence because I was like, yeah, not every poem is good, but I can write more than one poem. Then recently, I’ve been looking at the work of Louise Gluck.

M: Oh yes! I’ve heard of her.

S: She won the Nobel Prize a few years ago, so that was also a big moment where I realised a poet could win those sorts of prizes. And so I started reading her poems and I loved the poems because she writes about hopelessness, despair-

M: All my favourite things to read about!

S: Yeah!

[Laughs]

S: Yeah, and she writes about personal experiences and relationships. And I think- for instance, I love Sylvia Plath poems as well, but I somehow feel myself drifting more towards Louise Gluck because I feel she writes about it in a very subtle way even though it’s all out on the paper. She’s talking about all these huge issues but she does it in a very elegant way, and she plays around with forms. There’s this poetry collection by her: Faithful And Virtuous Night. That was the first poetry collection of hers that I read. It has these poems, these lineated poems and then she has these chunks of prose poetry. And there was a particular poem called Midnight and I was just like- oh, this is me!

M: [Laughs]

S: So, I’m still finding my influences but Louise Gluck is, of course, a person who comes to mind when you think about how she articulates her personal experience. I have found myself very drawn towards personal poetry, Emily Dickinson also for instance. I am still searching for my influences but I’ve realised I do have some…

M: Yeah, it sounds like you’ve got a really firm base of poets to draw from. And I like that it’s been a journey for you. Because I always find with writing a lot of people have a specific thing that they do and they think they couldn’t possibly do anything else but of course they can! And I’m so glad you did because I now want to talk about one of the first pieces I ever heard you read actually which was Magnetic Moment. So in Magnetic Moment you have these beautiful juxtapositions which draw out the characters of these two figures in a relationship and I like to think of them as science and art personified, but I wondered if that was the case or if they are drawn from personal experience or…?

S: You’ve actually summarised the aim of the poem very clearly! 

M: Oh!

S: As I told you I was a science student but then I shifted to humanities in my undergrad and I’ve always seen this division exist between them. But as someone who's done a bit of both, I was interested in exploring the interdisciplinary nature of these fields. So, I wrote this poem as a coming together. And when talking about this poem people always ask if it is based on personal experience, is it about someone…because I know it reads like a love poem and honestly, I did write it as a love poem. But about these two people, one who is into science and one into humanities and I know I did lean into stereotypes in this poem, but I was thinking about these two people who through the world’s eyes are stereotypical science and humanities people. I see it as an embodiment of my science and humanities interests even though it was written as a love poem. But honestly I like that people can relate to it, because I think of it as this very personal piece because I’m very possessive of it. I know a writer should not be attached to something.

M: I mean, I think we’re all guilty of it. Yeah no, but I love that and you’ve kind of answered my next question already which is do you find yourself embodying that marriage of art and science? And I guess you do?

S: Yeah, because when I come across science things I get excited. Like recently- I know this is a huge tangent-

M: No, I love it- let’s go!

S: [Laughs] Well recently, NASA have been releasing images that the James Webb telescope has captured, and with all those images there’s a description of the science behind it, and I read that and half of it goes over my head because I haven’t done science to that level. But I look at those images and I think about the metaphors of it, just like you would look at a painting and write a poem. So I really like experimenting with them. I wrote a sample article which never got released which was about Ada Lovelace who many consider to be the world’s first computer programmer. And I just read this piece about who her parents were- turns out she’s the only legitimate daughter of Byron. 

M: Oh wow!

S: Yeah! Because you think of Byron as this infamous, notorious romantic poet-

M: Byron couldn’t possibly have a descendant who’s a scientist it doesn’t make any sense!

S: Yeah! I came across this article and I was like- what? But yeah, I found her character very interesting. I’d read about her in- we used to have these fun facts in our school computer books- she studied science and maths, but she described herself as a poetic scientist, because she worked with Charles Babbage (the father of the computer) on one of the first prototypes. And there was this journal or diary, and in it she described it in terms of textiles and flowers. I keep coming across these things and my mind just goes woah! I keep trying to find a way to bring such things into my writing. I find it interesting because again it’s this marriage of science and humanities.

M: It is such a weird stereotype because I think that the most successful people in any field are those who recognise that it isn’t such a strong divide and that there is art in science and there is a lot of science in writing.

S: Well even writing a short story you might think about it in elements, and so much thought goes into it!

M: Yes, and it’s like there’s a scientific process to create all those effects.

S: It’s not just random words on a page…

M: Oh, I wish it was…

[Laughs]

M: Okay, so the last thing I want to ask you is what projects are you working on, or what’s next for you?

S: Currently, it’s mostly about my degree! I finished writing a short story which was for one of my modules which is refreshing actually but also challenging, because I haven’t written prose for a while. And initially, I was thinking of it as a novella, and then I was like ‘oh no’. I was very daunted by that, because I haven’t written prose in a long time, so let’s keep it a short story.

M: It’s hard when you’ve got a new idea for something and you don’t have quite enough for a novella or a novel but you have too much for a short story!

S: Yeah, exactly! So that short story is there. And then I did a poetry portfolio for my poetry module. I’m experimenting with prose poetry for the first time and it’s kind of been a very good experience. And I wrote…kind of 30 poems or drafts of poems for this year’s NaPoWriMo April too! So yeah, just that, plus now I’m starting with the dissertation…exciting and daunting…so yeah that’s going to be occupying me…

M: The dissertation is always looming!

S: Yes!

M: Awesome! Well, let’s end it there!