LIFE OF A POET - SUZY QUE

Happy 2015, fellow poets! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday time, however you celebrate it, and that you enjoyed some nice family time through the season. The cool thing about our world-wide membership at Poets United, is that we get to visit wonderful poets in fabulous locations all over the planet. A big perk for an armchair traveler like me. This week we are flying to New Zealand to meet with Suzy Que, the sunny-natured poet who writes at Reflections of My Soul . She has shared some wonderful photos with us, too. Fasten your seat belt, as it is an express flight, designed to get us home by suppertime.

Sherry: Suzy, I am so happy to be interviewing you! Give us a snapshot of your life today – a Day In the Life of Suzy Que.

Suzy: Sherry, I am so honoured and humbled to be doing this. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity. 

At present I live in New Zealand and I work in the Information Technology Industry as a Project Manager. I have two children, a daughter and a son. My daughter works and my son is studying. My mother also lives with me.

My mother on her 75th birthday,

with me and my kids

My morning ritual consists of a quick prayer, some yoga stretching, and breakfast of tea, toast and a glass of fresh homemade smoothie. If it’s not bucketing down, I also feed the birds with leftover bread or rice. 

Birds in my garden

On weekends I listen to devotional music while I sip my tea and watch the hills. They look so serene and beautiful. Anywhere you go in New Zealand, you see spectacular scenery.

The hills from my window

Some years ago when there was snow

Sherry: I can see that! What a glorious view you have!

Suzy: On weekdays I catch the bus to work.  I love that bus ride, as this is where I catch up on my reading, and the bus ride back home from work is pretty much the same.

On Saturday morning I visit the market for fresh fruits and vegetables. The market is so vibrant and always puts me in a happy mood, and it’s a great opportunity to catch up with my friend.

Saturday morning market

The evenings I set aside for some blogging (as in writing and reading) and some social media interaction or I watch TV or play scrabble or trivial pursuit with the family. Yep, we’re big on board games. And before I fall asleep I meditate.

My children playing board games with my mother 

and their cousins some years ago 

Sherry: It sounds like a peaceful and lovely existence! Where did you grow up, Suzy? 

Suzy: I grew up in India and consider it my spiritual home, as I am sure a part of my soul lives there. India is such a beautiful and spiritual country. 

Palm trees in Mumbai. I love palm trees. They look so elegant.

The Taj Mahal Hotel and Gateway of India, 

one of Mumbai’s iconic landmarks

I was a quiet, timid, chubby, awkward child, but I was always happy. I guess I was surrounded by a lot of love.  I was the studious academic type in school and a complete clown at home.  

We lived with my grandparents, who were gentle, loving people, and our house was always filled with people – extended family and friends were always dropping by. I can’t recall a single day when a visitor did not arrive. There was always music, laughter, happiness and contentment. 

Though I have only one sibling, an older brother, I am also very close to my cousins.  Weekends and holidays were always spent together, and in fact our families also travelled a lot together. 

One of my cherished childhood memories is listening to my grandmother narrate the great historical epics of India, The Ramayana and The Mahabharata and the childhood stories of Lord Krishna, while we grandchildren sat riveted, eating our lunch or dinner.  To date, these stories remain my favourites, and I never tire of reading them.

When I was six years old, my dad bought me a puzzle book. I absolutely loved it and it started my love affair with puzzles.  Each night after dinner, my dad and I would sit together and solve one puzzle. It was my favourite time of day. This was dad's and my time together. He was so patient and he made it all sound so easy and so much fun. Then I would trot off to bed, a skip in my step, a smile on my face, and my little pillow tucked under my arm. This is such a happy memory. 

Dad taking a picture of my brother and me

 

My paternal grandmother and me

My mother and me

                            

Sherry: It sounds adorable! It seems your dad had a significant influence on your writing, and your life. 

Suzy: It’s really hard to pick one single person, as I am blessed to have had so many wonderful people in my life who have influenced me in many ways.  But I was very close to my dad, and he was one of the most beautiful souls I have ever known.

Dad in his younger days

Sometime ago I wrote a poem “Ode to my Dad” that sums him up nicely so here it is:

Quiet and gentle, great strength of character

Peaceful mantle, a true benefactor

Always a good word, seeing goodness in all

Faced life undeterred, through many a squall

Loving and kind, humble and unassuming

Beautiful mind, never complaining

A smile on his face, always encouraging

Filled with grace, ever forgiving

This was my dad, a man amazing and rare

I was truly blessed, to have been in his care.

Sherry: You were indeed blessed, Suzy. What a beautiful man!

Suzy: Puzzles, quotes, photography and tea were some of the things we shared a love for.  Each morning he would make me a cup of tea and some toast. And often we would recite together Rabindranath Tagore’s poem “Where the mind is without fear”.  I miss those moments.

Where The Mind Is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

He lived life simply but with great joy. His “religion” was compassion and he had a great love for all living things. There was an unexplainable goodness about him and he had a great generosity of spirit.

I was shattered when he passed away in 2010, but his death taught me the meaning of life – that life is too short to hold grudges, that when it’s time to go you take nothing with you except the spiritual knowledge you gained and the love you shared. Hence, appreciate all who cross your path, live in joy, trust the Universe, enjoy each moment, be humble and be kind. 

My dad playing chess with my son

Me with my mom and dad - the last birthday

I had with my dad, so this is a very cherished picture

Sherry: I'm so sorry for your loss, Suzy. You have a wonderful family. And a beautiful heart.  When did you begin writing poetry? You write on your blog  “These are the poems of my soul”, which is very beautiful. Tell us how poems come to you. 

Suzy: Though I wasn’t too fond of prose or Shakespeare at school, I loved the poetic side of Literature. I think it was the rhythm and the rhyme that were so appealing. I liked the idea of poetic license where one could twist the grammatical construction to make a rhyming pattern or drive home a point.  I also loved how you could convey so much in fewer words. With poetry I felt my imagination took wings. Reading a poem could take me to places that prose never could.

I guess I grew up surrounded by poetry. Though I was very young when my grandfather died, I have this recollection of him reciting “Oh young Lochinvar is come out of the west” and my brother reciting “Half a league, half a league, half a league onward”. I loved listening to poems.

I feel that poems have so much soul. Whenever I read poems, I try to feel that soul within. 

I never really thought I could write poems and certainly didn’t attempt writing them. I never had the confidence, because I never scored well in school and my poems were never chosen for school magazines.

Then around the year 2004 I remember waking up one morning with a poem in my head. I must have dreamt it because with the words I could also visualise the poem. I woke up feeling amazed and I felt like I had somehow glimpsed the other side and participated in a cosmic dance with someone. It was an amazing experience. Cosmic Dance was the first poem I wrote.

I see you in my dreams

In a cosmic dance that fuses my soul with yours eternally

In perfect symmetry and harmony

Spiralling through space and time, sometimes apart, 

Yet always together and never too far

There is no greater joy

For my dreams are truly my reality 

And loving you is my only destiny

Thereafter I woke up many times with my head full of poems and, unlike dreams that are forgotten soon after waking, these poems stayed with me for hours and I felt a compulsion to pen them down. 

A lot of my poems have been written on the bus on the way to work. And some have just arrived into my head while watching TV or walking or really just anywhere. Once I start, my fingers don’t stop until the last word is written. They are almost effortless, the words just flow. I feel like my poems are given to me from the other side or perhaps my soul dictates them to me, or perhaps Spirit does. I’m only the scribe.  Hence they are the poems of my soul.

Sherry: I love that explanation, and I, too, love the poems that seem to come through us, from a deeper place.

Suzy: Rumi’s words: “When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy” sums up poetry for me. I feel that river move in me and it just brings me so much joy.  It’s like a romance with Spirit.  Perhaps that’s why Rumi is one of my favourite poets – his poems always leave me having romanced with Spirit.

Sherry: I love him too. Do you have another poem or two that you would like to share with us here? Tell us a bit about each?

Views from my window (moon = perigee moon)

Suzy: One of my favourite poems is “The Mirror of My Soul”. There’s an interesting story behind this one I wrote this poem on one of my bus rides. I loved this poem from the moment I wrote the first line and I remember thinking to myself if only a “mirror” prompt would open up. And just a few days later Poet’s United posted the Midweek Motif prompt “Mirror”! 

The poem depicts my belief that our physical self and our soul are two separate entities and that our soul constantly tries to reach out to us. When it finally gets through to us and our physical self surrenders to our soul’s guidance, life begins to get harmonious. This poem was that awakening.  

The mirror of my soul my moments reflect

Not just of this life but of sojourns in time

Somehow I know but ever warily suspect

But like a nurturing mother she repeats the mime

If only I look and heed her care

For she is the essence of His love

And yet I rebel and ignore and dare

And close my eyes to her and above

Gently she coaxes and shows me the way

Patience epitomised love never wavering

Until at last in my life breaks that day

When I finally understand my soul's labouring

The mirror of my soul my moments reflect

Not just of this life but of sojourns in time

My soul I am blessed, for you I have met

Now the journey with you in this life is sublime

Sherry: How very beautiful! I resonate with what you say about aligning oneself with spirit, and life becoming more harmonious. 

Suzy: I believe that there are many ways to reach the Great Spirit. Some reach Him with reverence, some with service to humanity, some with rituals, some through following a religious teacher or Guru, some in connection with Nature, some through meditation, some through religious practice,  some through spiritual practice, etc.

There are of course no wrong ways, for all ways reach Him. For me, the way to reach Him is with prema bhakti (loving devotion) and my poems are my prema bhakti. “The Spirit of Love” was written as a serenade to the Divine.

Lock the door of my heart so I can behold only you

Hold the key in your hands to the end of time

Let my love not waver nor question this bond

Let my soul shine through like a beacon of love

You and I have sailed the tumultuous seas

In millennium after millennium

Locked our hands that none could break apart

And sang together the songs of our souls

Let me hear again the melody that entices my spirit

And binds me ever closer to you

Let me rest awhile in your loving embrace

So my weary soul may dance again; renewed, refreshed, awakened.

Sherry: Sigh. This poem truly dances with love and joy. Beautiful, Suzy. You are also a photographer. When did you begin taking photos?

Sunset from my lounge

Suzy: My dad was an avid photographer so I was very little when I first held the camera. I can’t remember the exact age but I remember my dad trying to explain all the techniques of photography and I think I was about 11 when my maternal grandfather gave me my first camera.

I never quite grasped the techniques but I always remember my dad telling me that photography was all about composition and telling a story. I try to remember that whenever I take pictures. I experiment a lot with different angles and compose my pictures in different ways. Digital cameras are such a blessing for that.

Photography for me is not about taking the perfect picture, but about capturing a moment in time that you can remember forever.

Sherry: Yes! That is it exactly!

Suzy: Here are some of my favourite pictures.

Oriental Parade, Wellington

Rajabai Tower, Mumbai

Sea link, Mumbai

Sherry: You take wonderful photos, Suzy. Thank you for sharing. When did you begin blogging and what impact has blogging had on your work?

Suzy: I started blogging in 2010 when a workmate asked me to join in a "30 days of me" challenge. I had never blogged before so I made this a private blog and invited family and friends to join me in my 30 day journey. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to keep blogging, still private as I wasn't comfortable in a public space.

Then in May 2011 while I was in between jobs, I suddenly had the urge to share my words with the world. It was scary. But I went with the feeling and trusted that the Universe knew what I should do. And so I started and I write as I am guided by it.

Blogging is so therapeutic for me. I think the ability to creatively express myself provides the perfect medium to de-stress. And that helps me to stay focussed and think calmly in difficult situations.

Sherry: Is there anything else you’d like to tell us that I dont know you well enough to ask?

Suzy: My real name is Ila, but I blog under the name of Suzy Que which was a nickname I had in school. It seemed perfect to use as my “pen” name.

Sherry: The name suits your bright spirit! What would you like to say to Poets United?

New York

Suzy: Thank you for showcasing so many wonderful poets, giving us all the opportunity to be featured. And thank you for your encouragement and support.

I’ve really enjoyed this interview, Sherry. You asked some very interesting questions.  Thank you so much for allowing me to present you all with a glimpse into my life today.

Sherry: Thank you, Suzy, for this lovely visit, and for sharing your life and family with us, as well as the beautiful views you have captured through your camera lens.

Wasn't this a heartwarming visit, my friends? So many beautiful places on this planet, and Suzy has one of the best views from her window that we have come across yet! Come back and see who we talk to next. It is a brand new year! I look forward to interviewing many more wonderful poets in 2015.