Poet Tanya Mendonsa speaks about her latest collection ‘Hidden Garden’, the memories behind its poem and her long association with poetry
CHRISTINE MACHADO | NT BUZZ
Tanya Mendonsa believes poetry is something she was born to do. “Poetry comes from my gut. It is my passion,” she says. Her latest collection, ‘Hidden Garden’, published by the Paper Project, will be launched on November 1 at Literati.
Her first work, ‘The Dreaming House’, was published in 2009, followed by ‘All the Answers I Shall Ever Get’ and ‘A Bite in Time’.
‘Hidden Garden’ comprises around 150 short poems, each accompanied by a floral illustration. ,“I have been writing these poems for many years. Many of them were written in a special notebook in my beloved village of Moira, where I lived until 2011,” she shares.
Mendonsa has since moved to the Nilgiris, seeking the peace and quiet she feels Goa has lost. “I have never been back to Moira since and I never will, as I wish to remember it as I knew it,” she says.
Three years ago, she decided to publish the poems and approached Paper Project owners Anita and Mukund Venkataraman, who had published two of her earlier works. Selecting and arranging the poems was relatively easy but finding suitable illustrations took more thought.
Explaining the title, Mendonsa says, “I titled the book ‘Hidden Garden’ because the poems are like secrets waiting to be discovered in a garden. It’s like discovering a treasure that you didn’t expect. Something living, something breathing, something beautiful.”
The collection will also be released as an audiobook, a first for Mendonsa. “I don’t do social media. I expect my work to speak for itself. What I have is a huge number of devoted friends who always promote me,” she says.
Mendonsa has also completed her first fiction novella, ‘A Kiss Is a Kiss Is a Kiss’, which she describes as largely autobiographical. She says, “I’m not a novelist. I’m a memorist. So I can only write about my own experiences.”
Her next poetry collection, ‘A Star, A Stone’, is expected to be released next year and will be her 10th work. “After this, I plan to just write for my pleasure and take my time with whatever poetry I am publishing,” she says.
