Two Singaporean authors make it to the Jaipur Literature Festival 2021

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Each photograph-poem pair in Camera & Quill has two separate titles that reflect the distinct viewpoints of the photographer and the poet.

Camera & Quill, a collaborative work of photography and poetry by Anita Thomas (photographer) and Neil Daswani (poet) has been chosen to feature in the ‘Writer’s Shorts’ section of the Festival on its opening day, February 19th.

The book evolved through ekphrastic poems written in response to photo prompts. The photo artworks led to poetry in the form of explored symbolic meaning and imagined stories that were emotional responses to visual images. Each photograph-poem pair in Camera & Quill has two separate titles that reflect the distinct viewpoints of the photographer and the poet.

“Unnoticed moments fascinate me,” said Anita. “A particular conjunction of light and happenstance would spark associations – a last hurrah, fragility but not seduction, coiled communication, helpless submission, mirror-shards of reflection … I would send the photograph to Neil.”

Neil’s reply to the photos that resonated with him were poems, word paintings creating an ‘enargia’.

“For me,” said Neil, “the freeze-frames were a nudge and an invitation to shape-shift into poetry the saga and the song contained in each photograph … to let the patterns drift until the moment of satori arrived”.

Updated: The programme was broadcast on the 19th of February. You can watch the recording here.

Anita Thomas is an author in her own right. Her book Senserly Amako was published in 2018.

Neil Daswani had a prolific debut year in 2020 publishing three volumes of poetry: Seen & Felt, Redshift and Why Now?

All these titles have been published by Kitaab International in Singapore.