Tetso College
DoT Lecture: Songs of Raengdailu: Rememory (ing) Poetry and Women
Resource Speaker: Dr. Achingliu Kamei, Associate Professor, Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College, DU
Date: 11th March 2023
Time: 11:00 AM
Venue: Lorin Hall
Registration Link: bit.ly/dottalksSR
Brief Bio: A short story writer, and poet, Achingliu Kamei teaches Literature at the University of Delhi. She has published a collection of folktales titled Naga Tales, Dawn (2017), Songs of Raengdailu, a book of poems (2021), and Liangtuang Pu, Illustrated Novella for Children (2021), Headspace, The Mind’s Realm with Aaron Pamei (2022), and Naga Tales Morning Blush (2023). Bluest Water at the River Crossing, a book of poems, and Roots and Wings, a book of Haiku, Senryu and Haibun are forthcoming in 2023. Her works have also been published in several journals and anthologies. She also performed her verses at poetry readings. She is also a passionate Ultra-Trail runner, having participated in official marathons and ultra-running events across India.
Concept Note: Women, too, are keepers of memories, preservers; tellers of history, preservers of a collective memory; and preservers of the hearth, even though they have been conveniently sidelined even in the history-making process. For the Naga women, the writing tool has shown its productivity by allowing women to claim a space that can be called their own. Poetry is a task of constructing and unfolding oneself and redefining oneself. In the current autobiographical and confessional milieu, placing the self as an autobiographical referent in poetry has become crucial. Women’s poetry offers a distinctive prism for analysing history and events traumatic or otherwise, through their viewpoints and voices. They observed the goings-on around them and felt the effects of the choices made by those in authority. In this sense, poetry is capable of transporting us to the wounded psyche of people from violent hit regions, where no historical narrative can reach effectively.
