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soham patel

Review of Soham Patel’s to afar from afar
BooksReview

Review of Soham Patel’s to afar from afar

by The Accomplices
written by The Accomplices

A great review of to afar from afar by Soham Patel is up on The Bind.

From “The Apparitions of Language: Reading Soham Patel’s to afar from afar“”

6. Meanwhile, the poem “in airplane” finds chaos and confusion in the presence of violence. Drone patterns interrupt the structural integrity of language. Thoughts form in strata. A triangle breaks the poem into clusters. Lines are arranged in ambiguity. I felt briefly lost. I didn’t know in which direction I was supposed to move, what path my eyes were supposed to follow. “in airplane” evokes this feeling of uncertainty, brought on by the presence of a foreign object. More than that—a drone, a symbol of American intervention, the icon of globalization, of violence committed from a distance.

to afar from afar

Interview with Accomplice Soham Patel
Interview

Interview with Accomplice Soham Patel

by CCM
written by CCM

1. What’s your favorite song to dance to?
Lalji Pandey’s “Jimmy Jimmy Ajaa Ajaa” from Bollywood’s Disco Dancer movie circa the early 1980s.

2. Describe your personal hell.
I am sorry I don’t understand.

3. What’s something that always makes you laugh?
Some of my dog’s innovatively coy begging ways and almost anything Gene from Bob’s Burgers says.

4. You’re sucked into a bad movie and you have to choose a point in history to live out the rest of your years. What time do you choose and why?
I guess I’d just choose this moment and live out the rest of my years from here.

5. What’s a gif that you can relate to?
I don’t know but I like the ones where there’s animals and/or dancing.

6. You’re hit by lightning. What happens?
The Lichtenberg Figures (but I only know that from poetry) or I might die?

7. It’s snowing outside, how do you feel?
Calm.

8. What’s a cat picture you can get behind?
I mean—in-house bias but—the Accomplices’ three cat, ramen hat picture is pretty great.

 

 

 

 

 


9. Where did you write most of your book? Why?
The compositions were mostly written on a Sony Vaio laptop circa 2002 because my parents so very generously purchased it for me as a happy birthday/congratulations and good luck to you in MA school gift. As a revision strategy, I rewrote each poem by hand in a large notebook as well.

10. What are your struggles and strengths as a writer?
One strength is that I always believe in writing but a struggle is that I don’t always believe in my own writing.

11. Tell us a little about your writing process. What works, what doesn’t, what doesn’t but you still try anyway?
My writing process changes but it is most always driven by ritual and revision. Like for example I’ve been blocked, or very very slow, in coming up with new stuff for about fifteen months now; so for the time being what doesn’t work is putting pressure on myself to make something new and hurried, reading and rereading (my stuff and other writing) works.

 

SOHAM PATEL is a Kundiman fellow and an assistant editor at Fence and The Georgia Review. Her chapbooks include and nevermind the storm (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs, 2013) New Weather Drafts (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs, 2016), and in airplane and other poems (oxeye, 2018).