Tishani Doshi and Holly Amos on Shape Poetry and Loving the Process, PLUS a Writing Prompt

For the month of January, we’re focusing on what keeps us writing. How do poets sustain their writing practices? Are there generative tips and tricks we can learn from them? Today, Holly Amos enlists the help of poet, writer, and dancer Tishani Doshi, whose essay in the December 2022 issue of Poetry is about shape or concrete poetry. Doshi lives in Tamil Nadu, India, and is joining us today from Abu Dhabi, where she is a New York University visiting associate professor. Doshi’s latest book of poetry is A God at the Door (Copper Canyon Press, 2021) and her latest novel is Small Days and Nights (W.W. Norton, 2020). Today, she offers listeners a wonderful writing prompt drawn from one of her favorite concrete poems, which, fascinatingly, is not technically a poem but the dedication that E.E. Cummings included in his book No Thanks.