Talking Heads

Inspiration:

What book, movie, poem, or painting inspires you the most?

Indranil Ghosh:

Growing up, I have always looked up to a book called “Galpa 101” by Satyajit Ray, which literally translates to "101 stories".

This book is originally written in my native tongue, known as “Bengali”. The first time I came across the world of surrealism was through this work by Ray. It helped me escape into a neverland that was otherwise unachievable in the real world.

It has led me to believe that the audience always looks for unpredictability in a piece of art, which Ray never failed to portray through these short stories.

The audience wants to be mesmerized and awestruck by every piece of art they come across.

I, being an art lover, always look for at least a material in a piece that will mess up my neuronal wirings.

I have come across many such art forms, say it be the songs by Nirvana or the surrealist paintings by Remedios Varo, for example.

I try to inculcate what I usually search for in art, in the poetry I write. I am still in the learning process and "Galpa 101" has been my inspiration from day one.

Every time I read this book, I learn newer ways to appreciate art; I get inspired to write poems on the topics that utterly move me; I learn to be happier.

Leslie Cairns:

The book that inspires me most (although I haven't read it in awhile) is Let the Great World Spin by Colum Mccan.

I love the idea that we're all connected or that the same event can be seen so many different ways.

It also inspired me to live in cities (I have lived in New York City & Denver!).

I also get very inspired by Degas' Ballerina Paintings. Just so sad and beautiful.

Mileva Anastasiadou:

I first read The Plague by Albert Camus when I was too young to properly appreciate it but I came back to it a few months before the pandemic broke out.

This book dives deep into the human condition, about how humans cope (or don’t cope) through disasters, it helped me understand myself and others, and see things more clearly through the last couple of years.

It inspired me and helped me realize that pestilences keep recurring, and all we can do is fight them, be there for each other and do our best to stay afloat.

Marija Rakić Mimica:

It's hard for me to choose one book that inspires me because I'm in love with words, and I've been dealing with them all my life.

When I read Mihael Jurjevic Ljermontov's novel "The Hero of Our Time" in the second grade of high school, I decided that I would study literature.

In the next phase of my life, I fell in love with the novels of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Camus, and for a long time I was inspired by the simple prose style of Alice Munro and Raymond Carver.

I am currently reading all the novels written by the French writer Francois Sagan, who delights me with her writing about love, loneliness, dissatisfaction with life, and the style is characterized by the clarity of the narrative method, which I myself would like to learn one day.

I am especially in love with her novels "Good day, sadness" and "The still storm“.

"I will live badly if I don't write, but I will also write badly if I don't live."

Gershom Mabaquiao:

Inspiration comes from various eccentric places.

But if we're talking literary inspiration, most of my works are inspired by my local mythology in the Philippines.

The country has hundreds of pantheons to choose from, some overlapping, some completely different from each other.

But all teeming with ancient truth which persists to this day.

Ryan Keating:

Reading Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem, “The Windhover” was an inspirational turning point for me, and I still go back to it regularly.