The Poet Says, an original graphic score and musical composition by Deepali Gupta, is an on-going season-long project commissioned by TMT in response to the 1001 Nights. Similar to how silk road people passed stories across various languages + cultures, this project creates room for every person to RESPOND to Deepali’s score and make a new iteration wholly their own. Explore the score and tell your story.
A map for a song*
A lyric placed in time,
With room for silence.
The shape of an unheard melody.
It is made to be read
From the surface
Into the underneath.
From blood to ink to charcoal.
Then to be sung entirely,
In the other direction.
Consider the script,
And its weight.
Most importantly,
Allow for misinterpretation.
Deepali Gupta
Writer and performer, who was a part of the creative team that developed TMT’s 2018 spring production, Pay No Attention to the Girl, based on stories from the 1001 Nights.
*This song is for Scheherazade—In honor of her violent potential and her radical daring.
I (re)constructed the lyric from language I found in the frame story of 1001 Nights:
In which Scheherazade vows to end the legacy of rape and murder by the king Shahriyar.
She goes to the king against her father’s wishes. She does not care at all about her father’s wishes.
She is an agent of her own making. A bride made politic, a living martyr.
A young woman who wields knowledge, both scholar and soldier.
Over the hundreds of years that have passed, we have lost her intention.
A clever girl who postponed the inevitable until it disappeared. As if.
I imagine an ending in which Shahriyar pardons Scheherazade
And she, in turn, executes him. A lot is lost in translation. Mine, and the ones that have come before. The 1001 Nights are a (re)construction, these stories are patchwork.
Sometimes I have the feeling like I’m careening between languages.
I (mis)translated this lyric into Hindi and back again, in and out of Devanagari script—
Trying to find the corners of the song. The shape of the melody lives in its script,
And its weight. Charcoal, ink, and blood.