Hi Surekha (Sue)
It was great meeting and talking with you today. Your stories are very interesting and magical.
Here is the story as best as I remember it (some of the time sequence may be wrong)
Sue was reading India news online in the library when I went in to update some poetry on my flash drive.
We started discussing India a little bit and gradually she told me how she came to be sitting next to me at
VCFA as a campus visitor. Ann Cardinal had kept requesting her to come and visit during a residency and
provided a room and access to lectures and events and finally she decided to come and visit right during
the coldest time in many years. Unfortunately, her train broke down and it took 20 hours to arrive from
Washington DC, but after a day or so of adjusting, she got at and started visiting events.
Sue began by showing me her poetry books online and talking about poetry events she has been part of
on three continents (!) Her story unrolled slowly and the more she talked, the more spellbinding her story
became. She laughed and told me that Ann Cardinal had said that she was afraid she was going to full
off her chair, listening to Sue's story.
Sue is a journalist, a published poet with awards from Nuyorican Poets in NYC, readings and events in
DC and all over the East Coast of the US. She has a weekly television show, numerous reviews on Amazon
and other sites on the internet and a very enviable recent career as a public poet.
By this time she really had my attention, and we were laughing, talking and having a very good time sharing
the late afternoon in the very comfortable library. I shared a copy of some of my current poems with her, not
knowing that her story was just beginning to get good.
Sue is a very good raconteur and storyteller, by the way. I had seen her around campus and we had said hello
several times, but she seemed shy. I can tell you now, she isn't really shy, she just needed someone to strike
up a conversation. Once you get her to talk, she is very jolly and easy to listen to. And, like I said, she's a
little bit magical.
Little by little, details of her life in the UK (Scotland and England) began to come out. She had attended Cambridge
after coming over from England and had published a book of poetry at age 19. (She has also lived in Edinburgh
and has attended all the poetry festivals over there to which I aspire to attend).
This is where it gets interesting.
When she was a girl and just started writing poetry in New Delhi, a poorly-dressed Scottish fellow came up to
her and asked her about what she was writing. She showed him her handwritten poetry and he asked to copy
them. Although the people in the library she was in suggested she shouldn't do this, she didn't mind and allowed
him to copy them. The old fellow seemed nice, but seemed down on his luck.
Some time later, an offer came from him to publish her poems. He was apparently a publisher and had sent her
an official letter and offer to publish. She discussed this with her father and they agreed it was probably okay and
she had signed the letter and sent her poems off to Scotland for publication.
Her father had previously advised her that poetry was no way to make a living, so she went to college in New
Delhi to study journalism. Her father doubted the safety of this profession, but allowed his talented daughter to
make this choice.
When she received her book upon its publication, she was counseled by a family member to send it to the President of India to publish
in India. She and her father doubted this, but decided why not? So she sent it to the President for his consideration.
The President read her book and decided to publish it, calling her to the palace to celebrate the occasion. She was
still a young girl, but now an acclaimed, published international poet.
And so it came, that one day a letter from the publisher's daughter came to her offering to pay for a visit to Scotland
as his guest. Again, she conferred with father, and it was decided that she would go off to the UK for a visit.
She wrote back and soon enough, a letter came from the man's daughter with a ticket for her journey.
Things were about to become even more auspicious for Sue, the young girl with an apparent genius for poetry and a gift for crossing over the threshold into rare literary territory.
In Scotland, she was met by a car and driver and to her surprise was taken to a castle. The publisher turned out to
be the Lord of a Castle and a very rich, titled landowner. She was taken in and greeted by the daughter, who told her how delighted her father (now in poor health) was to have her as a guest in his house. The daughter showed her to her room and asked to rest up, bathe and come down for dinner with the Lord and the family.
The Lord was weak and confined to a wheelchair, but was indeed delighted to see her there. They renewed their
acquaintance and she was asked to stay for a few weeks and enjoy the stay in the Castle and on the grounds. She
was given horseback riding lessons and enjoyed her stay, learning many things and talking to the Lord when he was well enough to visit. The Lord told her he would see her in another place. She understood him to mean by this, the Forever. This did not sadden either of them as they accepted that this was so and these unlikely friends and associates in Art parted for the last time.
Sometime after returning home to father and middle class home in New Delhi, she received notice that the Lord had passed on. His daughter, dismayed, stated that the Lord had left Sue one-fifth of his estate. The daughter expressed her displeasure with this in the letter
Again conferring with her father on matters new and unexpected to them both, Sue decided to decline the generous bequest and request only an artwork (of the daughter's choosing) from the estate. She was bequeathed instead, a work by Pablo Picasso.
After this, Sue went to school in Cambridge, studying with Philip Larkin, whose poetic genius and teaching ability
has stood her in good stead as a poet ever since. Mr Larkin advised her she would be a poet indeed when she was able to remove the use of "I" and "me", from her poetry. Sue now advises that this bit of advice made the difference in her artistic career.
She went on to publish her poetry in 16 languages and traveled all over Europe - to Germany, Norway, Spain and
elsewhere, appearing for readings and talks.
There is much more to Sue's stories after her early literary and life adventures and I have not adequately captured her story, but I am confident that her story is one that many would like to know about. If Ann Cardinal believes it to be a story to knock even her from her chair on the 3rd floor of College Hall at VCFA, my estimation is mere confirmation of its magic.
One final tale: Sue tells me of Hanuman, who was able to fly from Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka after being prompted that he could do so. Hanuman, magical creature that he was, had forgotten this ability that he had. He just needed to be reminded.
Sue, I am reminding you of your story and your ability (you have forgotten) to tell much better than I have. May I prompt you to gift us all with its recounting?
Sincerely
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