This interview is available to listen to at https://soundcloud.com/palyradio/behind-the-quill-episode-2-simone-batra.

[Ink Magazine]

Hi Vikings! Welcome back to Behind the Quill, a special podcast collaboration between KPLY Radio and Ink, Paly’s literary arts magazine. We interview Paly student writers about their writing, and find out what’s going on as they get their words from the quill to the page. Today, we’re interviewing Simone Batra, a sophomore whose poem “Starry Night” is featured in the December issue of Ink. Welcome to the podcast, Simone!

[Simone Batra]

Hi, everyone! It’s good to be here.

[Ink]

Alright, would you be able to give us a short summary of what the poem is about?

[SB]

Yeah! It’s about living in China —Shanghai, China, I used to live there— and I was just thinking about what it would be like if I were to live there now. I just started painting a scene where there was a main character who had a love interest, and they spent one evening together on a starry night in China. So I just went along with that picture, and I just started writing, and it all just came out.

[Ink]

Yeah, so kind of to follow that, what is your writing process like? How do you get your words out?

[SB]

So, this poem in particular was really interesting because it didn’t start out as a poem itself. I was writing sort of a short novel, and it was meant to be in a prose form. So it was kind of like a poem, but it was a really long poem, if you will. And then I started going through it and started cutting down some parts, and at the end, it really came down to this one passage that I really liked and wanted to put in Ink. So, this one was really interesting like that, but usually what I do is I start to think about something that’s really affected me in my life, and I just start drumming out words, and it comes together when I edit.

[Ink]

So one of my favorite parts of your poem is towards the middle, when you describe a nighttime scene between the narrator and another character. Would you mind reading that section aloud?

[SB]

Yeah, for sure! (excerpt from “Starry Night”)

And the driver expertly maneuvers through the streets of Shanghai

Up on the lit-up highway

Plastic separating you from the front seats

As she stuffs a moon cake into your mouth

And your hands find each other’s once again

You sit underneath the Pearl Tower

And watch the lit up skyline under the full moon

[Ink]

I love the imagery you use in these lines! Can you take us through the more specific line-by-line parts of your writing process? How do you find exactly the right words to use?

[SB]

I don’t. It’s really an experimental process. So what I’ll do is I’ll just read my poem aloud and see what sounds right to me, so that’s kind of subjective, but I guess it just kind of comes together. I just write and write, and then when I’m editing I kind of go through that process of reading aloud and showing it to other people. Then they’ll give me their insight on what they think, and that’s just kind of how the imagery comes together.

[Ink]

This poem feels really emotional to me. Where do you find the ideas or inspiration for your writing? Do they stem from your own emotions, or do you just kind of observe?

[SB]

I think it’s a little bit of both. This poem in particular was definitely more of my experiences, like you can see in some of the references. I reference Jinqiao, which is a subsector of Shanghai where I used to live, and there’s also a mention of the Family Market. It’s a really small market next to where I used to live in Shanghai. There’s also a mention of the Pearl Tower, and the Pearl Tower is a part of the Shanghai skyline, and it’s just really one of my favorite towers— one of my favorite buildings, the way it was built— and I just wanted to incorporate the things I remember most about Shanghai in this particular poem. But yeah, usually it’s a mix between emotion and the experiences I’ve had firsthand that go in my poetry.

[Ink]

Do you have any tips for writing when you’ve got writers’ block?

[SB]

I like to go and read my old journals to see if I have anything there, any raw emotions that I never actually touched in any of my writing, and just start writing about those. If I can’t find that, I’ll look up a word generator and just start finding words that speak to me. For example, last year I wrote a poem about a tree, and that was entirely from a word generator. I was just thinking, “A tree just kind of stands there and lets its life pass by.” That’s kind of how I draw inspiration.

[Ink]

Okay, so our last question: What’s your favorite part of this poem and why would you say that is?

[SB]

I think my favorite part of the poem is when they run through the streets of Jinqiao, as they leave the apartment buildings and they start running. When they’re running through the streets and they’re really unsure, about “Do I trust her?” and there’s just this, sort of, raw tentativeness in their actions. … That’s my favorite part of the poem for sure.

[Ink]

Alright, thanks for coming on the show with us and talking about your poem! That’s it for Behind the Quill, a podcast collaboration between KPLY and Ink magazine where we interview Paly student writers. Be sure to check out Simone’s work in the December 2023 issue of Ink, which is now available in the MAC, or on inkliterarymag.org! Music provided by Alan Jay Reed on Megatrax.