“Before I knew the meaning of the word ‘quilt’, I had known it by what I had heard from my grandmother”, says Zeenat Khan. The poem ‘Quilt’, published in The Penn Review and anthologised in Yaari, has the verses visually stitched onto the image.
‘Quilt’ is a testament to the inter-generational friendship among women in a family— grandmother, mother, aunts — who would come together to make quilts. They would try to bring disparate colours of threads and hues of emotions into union. They would even coordinate between themselves, despite sometimes having personal reasons for discord and tiffs. Quilting is a practice which women excel at, especially during gatherings like weddings. Such family reunions would witness women quilting while sharing stories and memories.
before creation how we began with mess, needles, threads, pilgrimage to
palimpsest—
The poem emphasises the continuity of the practice- how the fabric itself is an effort of union of minds and bodies, and how it is carried down from generation to generation.
like all ages, once made, we lock it inside our chest. this is how we prepare for a gathering / funerals, feasts, friends, at least, a knock on the door /
The image of a quilt is complemented by the poetic images of river, soft white sarees, umbilical cord, seas and oceans. These echo creation and sustenance like Noah’s ark. The poem also incorporates images of other handwoven pieces like a pillowcase, a handkerchief and jacket pockets. The bodies sleep, says the poet, and we unfold this quilt. It turns into a birthbed or deathbed. Like a chrysalis, it opens, and like water from a well, the quilt unlocks life. This is how the poet concludes:
our children leap and piss. our nani shrinks inside chrysalis. a butterfly is what unfurls out of this body – on a deathbed, a birthbed / curled, a voice pleads: open this chest. haul this quilt like water from a well.
The poet hails from Delhi and is currently a doctoral student in the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, U.S.A. Before that, she taught creative writing in colleges in Delhi. In 2020 she was awarded the World Architectural Poetry Award.
The writer is a poet, translator and assistant professor of English at BCM College, Kottayam.