By Megan Cooke
Megan Cooke: Do you have any influences in your life that have really helped with your poetry? Teachers, friends, or family?
Avanti Tulpule: I am unbelievably grateful for the support that my family has shown for my poetry. In a time when more technical fields are prioritized, it is rare to see parents who are genuinely happy that their child is pursuing a less predictable future.
My teachers, especially my English teacher last year and my current English teacher (who is also the supervisor for the literary magazine I contribute to), both exposed me to writing that influenced my own. They taught me how to read to see the soul.
Additionally, my friends are limitless sources of inspiration and encouragement. I believe that poetry is communal. One cannot write poetry in isolation. I would not be the writer that I am today without their presence in my life.
I love my family, friends, and teachers wholeheartedly. I cannot thank them enough.
MC: In your bio, you mentioned that you’re a child of immigrants. Do you think poetry has been a vital method for helping people to understand your experiences? Do you turn to poetry as a way to communicate complex topics?
AT: Poetry has been key to helping myself understand my own experiences. My writing asks questions that I would not dare to speak aloud. Reality is complex and subjective. I am afraid I rewrite my history to contextualize my present existence. I turn to poetry in order to isolate these experiences and make sense of them individually, before examining them as a whole. I want to give my past self the breathing room she deserves, so that she is not defined by who I am today.
I would hope that my writing helps other people understand my story, but that it also helps them understand their own. Although everybody has their own unique life story, the underlying emotions we feel are universal. I hope that my poetry can help others identify similar emotions they have felt, and subsequently identify themselves within me, so that we can both see each other as fully-formed people.
Poetry is able to break through our self-imposed isolation.
MC: How has your poetry evolved from your childhood to today? Have your topical choices or your style changed over time?
AT: In seventh grade, my English teacher taught that rain always symbolized grief. I had written a poem about the world on the brink of monsoon season, when the sky trembled with breathless anticipation. She told me to rewrite it so that it would be more symbolically accurate. For a long time afterwards, I internalized the lesson that poetry was meant to convey a palatable, predetermined message.
Until recently, my poetry was not dishonest, but not true to myself, either. I hid the complicated emotions surrounding my experiences in favor of easily digestible generalizations. I hid my sexual orientation and my race for fear of being “too political.” Although my writing might have been “good,” it was apparent that I was absent from my work.
Once I began unlearning this self-inflicted invisibility, I truly began writing. I started writing about my own experiences and ideas instead of writing what I thought the audience wanted to read. I started playing with structure and syntax, so as to emphasize ideas based on a line break or rhyme scheme, or the shape of the stanzas.
Over time, my poetry has become more truthful. I believe that this has greatly improved both its quality and my self-esteem.
MC: Your poem “Seabird” has some very evocative lines about the desire to move from place to place, and the desire to return (or not return) to where you’re from. Do you think of yourself as somebody who isn’t tied down to any one place? Are you more grounded instead?
AT: Like my parents, I am grounded in my values. Above all, I center my life around compassion towards myself and others. I assume that a majority of immigrants view “home” as a physical place; I believe that my home lies within me. I am grounded within myself.
I think that one’s physical location matters very much. I am trying to find where I will fit in the grand scheme of things. Once I find out where I am most free, I believe I will be tied down to that place.
MC: Is there anything else you want to say about your poetry now, or how you want to grow as a writer in the future?
AT: I would like to make one point clear: the modern narrative of immigrants with rags-to-riches backstories, who are cruel, or at the very least emotionally standoffish, parents is untrue and harmful. First, this narrative normalizes the trauma that these parents and their children endure. Secondly, it erases the humanity from the story.
I fear that those who might read my poetry will not see my parents as people but rather as faceless, generic immigrants. “Immigrant” is not a dirty word. My parents do not represent every immigrant – they are amazing individuals with their own rich stories. I do not represent every brown lesbian – I am my own person, and I speak for myself.
Click here to read Avanti Tulpule’s poem “seabird.”
About the Author:
Avanti Tulpule is a high school senior. She would like to thank her family and friends for their support.
About the Interviewer:
Megan Cooke is a senior at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota. She’s majoring in Computer Animation and minoring in Creative Writing. She was born and raised in Minnesota for twelve years until she moved to Los Angeles, where she lived before moving to Saint Louis after graduation. Her hobbies are playing violin, reading, and having existential crises. She enjoys getting caught in hurricanes and feeding her pet shrimp named Salmon. You can get in contact with Megan by writing your message backwards on a piece of paper and feeding it to the nearest pigeon.