Bhuchung D Sonam

Bhuchung is a writer based in the US.

 

1. Why is art important?

A: Art is depression cured … anger healed … art is madness repaired. It is a lonely yet crucial voice singing lullabies in the cold nights in strange lands.

 

2. How did you begin your career? What were the defining influences and impulses?

A: Writing came for me as a tool to channel loneliness and dislocation into something that has positive impacts. This will continue.

There is no one huge defining influence or event that drove me into writing. It has been a process. But plenty of great writers and artists such as Pablo Neruda, Garcia Marquez, Gunter Grass, Gendun Choephel, Dhondup Gyal, Vincent Van Gough and Milarepa inspired and influenced my art and the way I look at life.

3. Can you tell us about your evolution as an artist?

A: Anger and frustration were constant and necessary companions. This was followed by trial and desperation to manage these negative emotions. The fight now is to win over passion and dedication. It is difficult to be an artist in the age of click click.

 

4. What is your favorite piece of art by another artist (in any medium)? Why do you like it so much?

A: Three books come to me instantly… The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass, One Hundred years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk.

Why I like them … wow … beyond words, beyond words.

 

5. What is your favorite piece by yourself?

A: Aha … A Song from a Distance.

 

6. Describe your style.

A: Don’t have one yet. Still groping in the dark.

 

7. How do you nurture your skill or talent?

A: Constant fear, instability, confusion and mad passion. These are good medicines, to me at least.

 

8. How can art change the world?

A: Art, I think, is positive creative reactions to life’s harsh realities. It has creative healing power to slow down and to nurture peace and tranquility.

 

9. Tell us about your dream project.

A: To write ten best-selling novels and die penniless in a cave in The Land of Snow.

 

 

Link

• www.tibetwrites.org




 

 

A Song from a Distance

For Woeser

Monday 24 November 2008, by Bhuchung D Sonam

 

My body is trapped in a heated room.
Light shines from the ceiling.
A leather sofa invites me
To let my spine relax,
But my heart runs
To that river by the village
That bridge made of leather thongs
Rocking with the wind,
That dusty yard where
I was tied to a boulder while mama
Worked in the field everyday.

 

Here grey houses stare at me.
The people on the train,
Frozen, edgy, tired, lonely, lost,
Wish for other versions of their lives.
My mind runs to
That village by The Scorpion Hill
Where the willow trees whistle,
Where I once set a farmer’s hut on fire.

 

I am now a hair of a dandelion flying with wind.

 

What about you, my rebel?
I see that you, too, are trapped
In a far corner of a mad city
Under stars shimmering bright yellow –
Does your sofa invite you?
Or is it the eyes on the wall that watch
Every twitch of your muscles?
I see that your heart runs away
To your home in the mountains,
Where under the blue sky
Pointed stars watch.

 

From a distance I sing:
You and I are the fragments of an arrow
Shot forth from Gesar’s bow,
You and I are the ears of barley
Watered by the Yarlung River.

 

Every day when I open the internet
My heart fears that there will be news
Of your disappearance,
Like Dolma Kyab into a cell
Before his Himalayas on Stir
Could be born to a family of books,
Like Jamyang Kyi taken away unseen
Soon after she produced the evening news,
Like that opera master captured in darkness
Before his songs became one with the wind,
Like that old woman from Barkhor
Who disappeared with her prayer wheel.

 

From a distance I sing:
You and I are the pieces of a broken pot
In which Milarepa cooked his nettles,
You and I are the leaves of a juniper tree
Fragrant in the hills of Amnye Machen.

 

Here in exile, my wrinkles deepen.
The leaves fall from the trees.
You will sharpen your pen in that city
Where each of your words is measured,
Each breath checked, each step followed.
But your pen dances with tales
Which come to me in another tongue.

 

From a distance I sing:
You and I are shattered words in a poem
Gendun Choephel wrote in his cell,
You and I are chipped pieces
Of Yurupon’s sword that pierced the April night.

 

One day
You and I will have
A bowl of thukpa
In that dingy Lhasa hotel –
You and I will be
Snow lions roaming
the mountains of Nyenchen Thangla –

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