Collocation—Jai! Jai!—Something Inside: A Playlist for the July/August 2019 Issue

For our July/August 2019 playlist, we asked contributor Hari Alluri, whose poem “Clairvoyance” and whose invocation “Ancestral Memory” appear in the issue, to curate a selection of music for us. You can read about his approach to creating the playlist below. Click here to open the playlist in your Spotify app.

Poems call in music. That much I know. And these poems are ether to me now, like the song on my inner radio on the way to work, the one that might have returned from another ether of mine or arrived from someone else’s ether. Someone else’s ether, though. Poem, song. It’s a gift to share in the ethers of folks who take care with rendering those ethers, who change or invigorate or remind my ether through that care, that work. Care. Work. True as any of the many resonant emotions and images that return across the expanse (and it is an expanse) of this issue. Reading the poems, searching my inner radio for resonance of sonic or lyrical imagery: perhaps adjacent, perhaps opposite; at the very least—to me in the moments of listening’s yes—a slight haunting reminder. I battled myself a little: whether to focus on mixtape flow or on poem-to-song resonance. Because the two features of the issue are Global Anglophone Indian Poems and Invocations (for the 2019 Asian American Literature Festival’s Poets’ Peace Breakfast), to what extent would region or origin of the makers play a part? In these cases, I danced. When it came to resonance, I had to begin with the inner radio of my musical experience. That inner radio is here. As are the inner radios of several, then several more, dear friends who I blatantly asked for help.

Rajiv Mohabir got married right around when I got the email request to put this mix together, and Kazim Ali was his officiant. So, of course I had to get at least one song from the wedding on here. This shaped my approach: one song for each section’s introduction. Two conveners per section, hmm, OK, an outro as well. One song per poet to start. Let’s go. Note down resonant language. Search for songs. Get reminded of artists and songs I forgot. Ask for help: DJs, musicians, poets, beloveds, two tween nieces I’ll blatantly big-up here as DJ Khameleon and DJ Talaportation (watch for them when they come up y’all!). Catch up and match up the playlists and the five-column Excel file. Deal with how much of a nerd I am. Deal with how much of a music nerd I wish I was. Text another friend for songs to add. Ask the beloveds in the room and on the balcony what songs to add. Whittle again.

Realize the two songs called to me by Hoshang Merchant’s poem both refuse to be reduced to one. Realize a question of language raised in a poem might lead me to a song in another language whose singer is part of its survival. Whittle toward that yes that happens when songs in relation traverse an expanse. Without needing to duplicate them, be grateful Taz Ahmed’s Misthi Music and DJ Phatrick’s Asian American Hip Hop for Dummies mixtapes exist. Realize I want at least one full-on mini-set unapologetically for get up, for get moving, for folks to dance to on their feet or in their seat—emotion’s body or mind’s behind. OK, mini-set at the end of each mix: one bonus track per additional poem by a multi-poem poet and one for each of the pieces in the Comment section of the issue, placed into the Invocations mix section before the outro, just because it’s the shorter section. Ooh, even where I drop the flow, these poems are such good guides. This process left me aglow. So, I hope you listen. I hope you find some yes moments that move something inside.