hunger. ritual. belonging.
By ena ganguly
2024 Peseroff Poetry Prize Winner
"The poem was absolutely compelling. The title and style, palindrome, was captivating. This piece resonated deeply. The way ena describes culture, the rituals of their culture, mother earth in comparison to their mother and family is powerful."
— Amanda Shea, 24' Judge
In my language,
red
is a palindrome
laal
no matter which direction I say it
I arrive at the same place:
hunger.
ritual.
belonging.
laal
like back home where I was born
we celebrate each day
with flowers
to the Mother Goddess
Kaali,
her mouth resting
smiling down at me, at no one
at her feet
my hands
blooming with soft red
hibiscus petals
laal
like the red border
of cotton saris
when white conches sang
and our mother
swam back into the pitch-black
comfort of the sea
I remember it all but
the memory is not mine
laal
the color of the earth
in a home
taking its last breath
before the blow
laal
the flat cold floor
on which I laid my body
onto
under the hot summer days
the voices of blood ones,
I am trying to love
rose like waves and swept me to sleep
laal
memories
I held onto
like
red glass bangles,
impossible to keep
from breaking into
dis
join
ted
p ie ce s
laal
the passion
of anger,
which is only just grief
with its guard up,
furiously painting over
those lost pieces
of home
who refuse to be found
over the honesty
of unnamed feelings
over the precise fragility
in confusion
like how home can take centuries
to create on a land that we call our own
for generations
then, on one fine day,
so quickly, packed up
thrown into
a four-letter word
that I return to,
forwards and
backwards,
arriving at,
always arriving at:
hunger, ritual, belonging.
ena ganguly (she/they) is a soft spirited Bengali femme – a storyteller, healer, and lifelong student. Their work focuses on collective memory, storytelling, grief, and sensuality and has been featured in BBC, Buzzfeed, KUT Austin Radio, The Austin Chronicle, COURIER Newsroom, and Prizer Arts and Letters. ena has facilitated countless writing workshops for survivors, queer people of color, students, and healing practitioners. They have edited Home-Making: On Belonging, Transience, and Memory, in collaboration with the City of Austin’s Asian American Resource Center, and Search & Find, an anthology by Roots. Wounds. Words. and Carnegie Hall. Currently, they are focused on learning and subverting form while creating new work.