In a 2017 interview with Scroll.in, poet Arundhathi Subramaniam discusses the subjects she returns to, the freedom she finds in lyric poetry, translation’s gains and losses, and why she wants writing to feel like play. Her answers offer a view of both her poetic concerns and her approach to making poems.
What subjects recur in Subramaniam’s poetry?
Asked whether she keeps returning to particular themes, Subramaniam points to a broad field of experience: city life, relationships, gender, home, love, journeys, myth, and the sacred. Belonging and unbelonging are also central to her account of the work. These interests are not separate compartments; the interview describes poems that move between the intimate and the archetypal, and between contemporary life and mythic reference.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
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Women Who Wear Only Themselves: Four Travelers on Their Sacred Journeys – An Inspiring Portrait of... | $13.87 | Buy on Amazon |
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Love Without a Story | $16.95 | Buy on Amazon |
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When God Is a Traveller | $16.95 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
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The Gallery of Upside Down Women (Bloodaxe Books) | $17.95 | Buy on Amazon |
| 5 |
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Eating God: A Book of Bhakti Poetry | $34.91 | Buy on Amazon |
She discusses When God Is a Traveller in terms of literal and mythic journeys, including encounters between modern life and archetypal figures. Across changes in subject, she says she has retained a “relish of contradiction” and an interest in “the textures of ambivalence.” The interview’s central idea is that a poem can hold more than one meaning or feeling at once, rather than resolving every tension.
Why does she value lyric poetry?
Subramaniam describes lyric as a form that gives language room to move beyond the familiar rhythms of ordinary prose and the expectations of a linear story. In the interview, she calls it language “free of the staid rhythms of everyday prose” and “the tyranny of beginning, middle and end.” These are her terms for the possibilities she finds in lyric: intensity, mobility, and the freedom for a moment to carry several meanings at once.
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That freedom suits her interest in contradiction. Instead of requiring a poem to progress neatly from a starting point to a conclusion, lyric can bring different emotions, images, or perspectives into contact and let their ambiguity remain.
What is her view on translating poetry?
Subramaniam sees translation as essential to the exchange of poetry across languages and contexts. She calls it “a necessity – a desperate necessity, a way by which the world becomes a more intimate and vastly richer place.” Translation, in this view, makes poems and their worlds available to readers who might otherwise be separated from them.
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She does not suggest that a translated poem can reproduce every quality of its original. Asked whether translation can do justice to a poem, she acknowledges both sides: “Much may be lost in translation, but much is also gained.” Her answer leaves room for change as well as loss—the translated poem may not be identical to the original, yet it can create new access and meaning.
Why does she want writing to feel like play?
The interview’s headline comes from Subramaniam’s preference for a process that feels exploratory rather than burdensome: “I like the process of writing poetry to be play rather than work.” The image is of writing as discovery—closer to doodling than penance—rather than a task governed by strain or obligation.
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Scroll.in’s conversation was published on 16 April 2017. Subramaniam’s comments there describe her outlook at that time; the interview’s account of what she was reading or working on should not be taken as an update on her present projects.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Where to begin with her books
For readers who want to follow the themes discussed in the interview, Bloodaxe Books’ descriptions suggest several different entry points. These are publisher descriptions, not a comparative critical assessment.
| Book | What it offers as an entry point | Publication details |
|---|---|---|
| The Gallery of Upside Down Women | The newest collection listed by Bloodaxe; its presentation moves between the mundane and magical, the historical and imaginary, with women and change prominent. | Bloodaxe lists publication on 27 March 2025; paperback ISBN 9781780377438. |
| When God Is a Traveller | A route into journeys, myth, uncertainty, and the intersections of sacred and sensual experience, alongside gender, culture, and urban life. | Bloodaxe lists the collection as published in 2014; paperback ISBN 9781780371160. The publisher notes it was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. |
| Where I Live: New & Selected Poems | A selected-poems overview drawing on earlier work and additional poems. | Paperback ISBN 9781852248246; publication date not stated on the cited Bloodaxe listing. |
| Love Without a Story | A starting point for poems connecting passion, friendship, mythic quest, and modern longing. | Bloodaxe lists the UK paperback edition as published on 12 November 2020; ISBN 9781780375168. |
Explore the original Scroll.in interview with Arundhathi Subramaniam, or see Bloodaxe Books’ pages for The Gallery of Upside Down Women, When God Is a Traveller, and other listed collections.
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