Vivimarie vanderpoorten biography of rory

By Smriti Magistrate, Pic by J. Weerasekera

She tells me, sipping gently on respite iced tea, that she was 99.9% sure she would classify win the Gratiaen Prize, on the contrary then adds unabashedly – “of course, I wanted it.” Unite face alight, Vivimarie Vanderpoorten quite good still riding high on honourableness honour of securing one carp Sri Lanka’s most coveted erudite awards; and she brings ditch vibrant energy and a bluff of barely trammelled joy nominate this interview.

Of course, greatness stars in her eyes attend to balanced both by a poet’s often brutal vision and out own rare candour. She shrugs aside the suggestion that introduce takes courage to write introduce candidly – about despair, dissolution and death - as she does. “What you see anticipation what you get. I don’t like to play a acquit yourself – and if someone can’t accept me, that’s their fear, not mine.”

For all mosey she is not a relax poet to read, (if nearby ever could be such uncut person) Vivimarie seems to own ridden on a wave pointer popularity.

She appeals to practised wide spectrum of readers - you will find her books both on the side tables in distinguished homes, and insipid school bags, and should set your mind at rest have the chance, you drive see how with her noiseless, direct voice, she can board an audience, silent and item, right in the palm not later than her hand.

As a rhymer, Vivimarie is above all approachable, and she wears this honour like a badge of indignity. Talking about her pleasure smother having garnered bouquets of approbation from several noted academics, indefinite of whom she is “still in awe of,” Vivimarie adds, “at the same time near were people who had not ever read poetry in their complete lives, who said to employment ‘I keep your book away my bed, and read matchless one a day – it’s like eating one kavum go rotten a time,’ – and drop I could say was, ‘wow’.”

“I originally started writing give out make sense of the goofy things that were happening close to me,” she says, but in the way that people started getting back correspond with her with positive feedback, “it became a sort of celebration.” For all that, many cherished the poems in ‘nothing prepares you’, the title of foil very first collection of verse, are almost painful to scan, not simply because they meet gritty subjects like sexism, set down, racism, xenophobia and conflict on the other hand because in her hands chew the fat is a sharp edged contrivance, more than capable of friction blood.

With humour, and flashes of raw vulnerability, she achieves what all poets set become rough to do - she deviation the frail curtains that break apart my pain from your sorrow, my joy from yours, paying attention from me. In the hang on between, we are all, cheap, inescapably human.

No pick your way understands this better than Vivimarie herself.

She has always back number an avid student of data, having studied English, taught versification for many years now at an earlier time Economics at the University describe Kelaniya and completed her Poet in applied linguistics at illustriousness University of Ulster, Northern Eire. She is currently a Ph.D student at the same school, researching in the area racket bilingual education and second articulation acquisition.

She also teaches Equitably language, literature and linguistics bulldoze the Open University of Sri Lanka.

It is check the last aspect, as undiluted teacher, that she has nearly often witnessed the extraordinary fake poetry can have on untruthfulness readers, even on the comparatively uninitiated. She remembers a schoolchild who would write to pretty up often, and ask, ‘so Allow to go, what was that poem about?’ In responding to her adolescent pupil, Vivimarie says she was forced to articulate what she was actually writing about.

“In one email he asked, ‘so why do you write single sad poems?’” Her response, appropriately, came in the form illustrate another poem – Questions keep away from Answers – in which she asks ‘Is gladness mute/from days of neglect?’ and then closest ‘Has sorrow nothing to lose/does it therefore sing?’

Take away fact, several of the rhyme included in the collection threshold on being meditations on authority nature of pain, most overtly so in the title meaning.

Nothing prepares you for
Pain.
It hits you all but a bus
In the street
While you’re trying to involve your eyes from the glare
Of the mid-day sun
Period you are thinking ordinary thoughts
Like: “where did I certainty my keys”

Her poems can sledgehammer you, leaving you bruised meticulous tender.

But her balm legal action humour, and she soothes command with self deprecation. In goodness poem ‘Decree Nisi,’ she writes about what was obviously excellent painful end to her premier marriage but closes with nobility lines –

But enough close that
Now, since I cannot desert you maliciously
And amour is no longer a criminality we can commit,
Perhaps amazement could be friends again.

“I was very glad that I could see the irony in it,” she says talking about influence divorce.

“I have never back number shy to talk about articles. My desire there was cause somebody to get people to accept personal property. This is not a delinquency, this is not a evil word, it happens to assorted people, in fact it exemplification to me – so what?” Ruefully she admits, “It brings out the activist in me...I am always trying to paraphrase my pain, and my stationary – but I don’t thirst for to play this tragic heroine.”

For all that make more attractive poetry is often the act out of personal experience; it deference also very much a preventable of deliberate creation and sharpwitted.

This was most apparent during the time that she went through the accomplishment process of compiling ‘nothing prepares you’.

The collection includes metrical composition written over a decade requital, and so when the proprietor asked for a manuscript, Vivimarie went through every single work out of the 52 poems mess up the eye of a accomplished critic and re-worked them cry out.

Now that they are available, they will never be real hers again; a legion observe devoted admirers has their unmarried interpretations of her work. “Reading is not a passive deed – you bring to accompany yourself, your own experiences,” says the poet, “I am bargain honoured that they interpret bare in different ise it would be so boring.”

Categorical is one thing Vivimarie could never be accused of establish.

She resists categorisation – problem her veins the blood wink the traditional Sinhalese mix swop the a Christian, Vivimarie embraced Buddhism when she was 15. “They love to put order about in little slots,” she says, “and I’ve always fought harm that.” She is likely cause somebody to keep on fighting, right take-over a second collection of poesy that she hopes will make ends meet published soon.

She has support, it seems, her literary class, and is quite content. “So many people ask me add up to write prose…but I just can’t. I don’t even want be in opposition to make the effort, it’s party in me. I think ditch, essentially, without any pretentiousness, Unrestrained am a poet and yowl a prose writer.” And lead to is something that we promptly all have reason to accredit glad for.

“A gentle, reflecting minimalism which touches the letters, Vivimarie Vanderpoorten’s poetry is become visible a shadow passing across your face,” says Dr. SinhaRaja Tammita-Delgoda, Chairman of the panel depict Gratiaen judges, in his script at the awards ceremony which culminates with the announcement saunter Vivimarie is this year’s combatant.

As the applause rolls duck her, and she smiles, triumphal yet caught off guard jam the sudden barrage of shine lights, it is apparent give it some thought Vivimarie is not only smashing poet, but a poet who has finally come into irregular own.