Conversation about Withering

A In the spring of 2015 a chance poeticconversation began between two poets separated bydecades continents languages and literary traditions.Colombian poet Cristina Sánchez López was writingfrom her bed irreversibly ailed by aortic aneurysm andcongestive heart failure leading to multiplecomplications. With reduced mobility breathing roomand daily bouts of bleeding and excruciating painCristina was living a vestige of a life hanging like iciclefrom a sliver of desperate hope. Writing when her bodypermitted became her mechanism of deconstruction.Almost all of her bedridden work assumed an epistolaryform and was directed at Aryanil Mukherjee a bilingualIndian American poet whose work she had found on theweb and began to admire. In response to her poeticinquiry Aryanil began advancing the conversation in theform of a poem taking it to crevices of comfort extrinsicto both the plexus of pain and the refuge of nature. Apart of this ongoing conversation conducted in itsentirety via texting makes the content of this book.