Notes on Burials
Jayant Kashyap
smith | doorstop
Poetry has a special way of being both emotional and open-ended. It lets us explore feelings in ways that are never fixed, which for me is the most fascinating part. It’s not about pinning down a single answer but about sitting with the mood of a poem, how it feels, and how we respond to it as readers and the images that the poet chooses to convey these ideas. From its title, this pamphlet introduces the idea of burials, which suggests a number of possible themes and feelings.
The first poem, dig, is a bold opener. On the surface, it almost reads like something pulled straight from a textbook, which makes you think. Is this a list of facts? Some kind of stylistic experiment? Or is it setting up a bigger conversation? The answer is that it’s all of these at once. Jayant has the ability to weave together information, style, and feeling without losing the reader. Small glimpses of voice, like the line ‘history, it’s said, is worth some setbacks’ hint at something more human, which makes you lean in.
The second poem throws you off balance in the best way. but dogs don’t want their puppies buried - looks completely different on the page. The lines are long and the breaks are spacious, the mood feels more surreal, and the emotional weight is unmistakable. It’s not a poem that ties everything up neatly - it leaves you with questions, which is part of what makes it so powerful. For me, the best poetry is the kind that makes you think long after you’ve finished reading, and this pamphlet definitely does that.
Another thing that really stands out, is the way Jayant thinks about language itself. He doesn’t just use words, he turns them over in his hands and lets us watch. Etymology, definitions, the nuts and bolts of language become part of the poems. At times the writing is sharp and precise - even scientific. Take this from Oak: ‘Not cruel. Knows axe / adz / the adverbs of barren / war / of rot.’ Elsewhere, the tone shifts and you get lines full of atmosphere and feeling, like in Ruins of a House: ‘the patio always too lonely with only the sun watching over’. This mix of technical precision and emotional openness is one of the poet’s real strengths.
What strikes me most about this collection is how intentional and focused it feels. The themes of burials, digging, and earth appear throughout, and recurring images, like the dog, resurface across different poems. This creates a real sense of cohesion. Each piece stands beautifully on its own, but together they build something layered and resonant, full of echoes and connections.
Notes on Burials is thoughtful, tightly woven, and rich with ideas that keep circling back in new ways. It is the kind of collection that invites rereading, not because it’s obscure but because it rewards reflection. These are poems that stay with you, prompting you to return and search again for meaning in their careful, deliberate lines.
Jayant was kind enough to answer some questions about his pamphlet...
What influenced you to start writing poetry?
My grandfather was an English teacher, and while at school I was a big fan of reading course books with stories (in both English and Hindi) cover to cover in the first few days of the beginning of any year. However, my first serious interaction with poetry happened maybe thirteen or fourteen years ago, having just found one of my father’s old poetry anthologies, from his bachelor’s perhaps, and I began experimenting with words just then.
How did the idea for this pamphlet come about?
I often write about death; it is one of my more common (stable?) topics. Everyone loses someone every now and then, and it has been more visible now than ever, what with all the wars (abuse?) going on. My effort has always been to work with such topics in manners that are sensible. In 2021, my poem Earth, Fire about the death of my grandmother in 2012 — a form of revisiting — won the Young Poets 1st Prize at the Wells Festival of Literature. This wasn’t, however, the beginning of the pamphlet. At least, I didn’t know. Later, I wrote another piece—this one about the death of my grandfather, who died less than a year after Grandma did—titled Styx. It still didn’t imply the beginning of a pamphlet.
In 2024, when I began working on the second or third draft of Notes on Burials though, I realised I had already begun years ago. I suppose this is common with many manuscripts for a number of poets, and it was long ago and much of the manuscript came about as a deliberate sequence of poems only following my desire to enter the Poetry Business New Poets Prize 2024.
What was your experience of winning the New Poets Prize?
It was a dream come true in many ways. I was nearing the age of not being eligible and this was my fourth (and last) try. I had been shortlisted twice before— in 2021 and ’22 — and had failed once, in 2023. In my head, I had it that I had to have a good pamphlet out soon, and winning an award for the same would tell me I had indeed written a good set of poems. Seems I have! Very fortunate, of course, that Holly Hopkins (whose The English Summer is a fantastic collection) selected it as a winner. To put it simply, winning the New Poets Prize was nothing short of a dream.
There's a lot of attention to language itself. How does your interest in language shape your creative process?
I’m afraid I don’t have a very elaborate answer here. I am a researcher at heart. As a kid, I was fascinated by the idea of language—and the fascination has stayed even fifteen years later. So, I use that to my benefit, looking into the pros and cons of meaning, looking at how sounds in languages affect all other things. Plus, etymology allows me to explore topics I might not otherwise.
There must have been lots of research to create this pamphlet! How does this information inspire you to write?
As I said, I am a researcher at heart. I don’t think it’s always about how it inspires me to write. It’s just that myth needs research, and without some of the myths (and rituals, take into account Incarnation) the poems — the sequence, at least — would be incomplete. I am also fortunate that I have this habit of collecting books — I almost have a library now — so I read a lot, and often the poems of the poets I love. I am currently trying to work on long-form prose, and one of the stories borrows a little from a show I’m watching on Netflix.
How do you feel about ambiguity in poetry? Do you aim to leave space for interpretation, or do you have a “right” reading in mind?
I think the answer here would be that it’s a very irregular thing. There are poems where ambiguity benefits the narrative; not so much at other times though. So, I am not opposed to, and do sometimes make use of, ambiguity in poetry, but every now and then there comes a poem for which I have a “right” reading in mind. Moreover, etymology is often very effective here; being able to present a sense of different meanings for any single word helps present a poem in different lights.
What was the hardest poem to write?
Earth, Fire and Incarnation, I think, were poems that were particularly difficult to write. Note that there’s a difference of around three years between the two.
How do you know when a poem is finished?
I don’t really. I am a firm believer of the idea that poetry is this very dynamic (and perhaps even unsatisfactory) thing since it keeps changing, that there is always a shift in position of words and line breaks, if nothing else. Robert Pinsky notes that “poetry’s medium is the individual chest and throat and mouth of whoever undertakes to say the poem”, and often the poem moulds itself according to the said “whoever”. So, I am not worried about having rigid sense in a poem; I am okay to let things be loose — not necessarily ambiguous though — considering it won’t be my poem, as such, while someone else is reading it, that in that moment it will be theirs.
What's a line or idea from the pamphlet that you hope readers don't miss?
There’s this line in the pamphlet that I am a big fan of (although I hope this doesn’t hint towards me being too narcissistic) —“that having a father/ means having the luxury to be an atheist/ – to not believe” from Child, Father — and losing Mum quite a while after having written this poem, on re-reading I came to understand the strength of the line better; the sheer amount of privilege that we live with while we have our parents.
Do you have a piece of advice for writing that you'd like to share?
I don’t think I am that far as to be able to advise people yet, but reading a lot and writing a lot have been of paramount importance, and have always been very helpful. When you do both, it becomes easier to separate bad drafts from good drafts, and it helps to get back to the “bad” drafts years later. So, that’s that!