Vishudhha — Atramentous
I should have written love letters all along
loath to leave
instead, spelling out what was not wanted in silence.
and so I lost my voice —
content to seek
an accuracy, would want
to speak
or at least understand
within myself
an outline around my form where there should be none
and I am the blank page babbled upon
scrawl rewritten in name of what I have not done
I am the last drop of ink spread thin and desperate.
what were those words that I tried to remember?
the Lexis muttered upon my tongue turns it heavy
It struck hard — a violent chord within my throat.
It made me; it sounded me out like the vowels of a howl.
Atramentous, adjective: black, like ink, or the quality of it.
This poem came out after discovering this old word, Atramentous. I was enamored with it, the thought of something having the quality of ink, being ink-like. What reminds of ink and how it stains? This lead to me thinking about ink’s purpose, making lines and shapes on the page, symbols that hold meaning and the memory of lived experiences. The self is dissected and understood through the process of writing. My parts are separated and laid out and made sense of. Does the ink hold me? Does it carry the weight of my self when I place it upon the page?
Communication through writing has always been the most effective way for my vessel to express itself. Speaking about my thoughts and feelings was always something difficult. Growing up in a house where my parents fought all the time taught me many lessons. It taught me that listening is the most important part of communication. If you’re not listening then you’re not actively engage in the conversation, you’re just waiting for your turn to speak. I learned that yelling over one another is no way to find middle-ground or understanding. There was no resolution, only winning in the end.
Growing up with that level of aggression in regular communication made me a quiet kid growing up. It emotionally matured me, mediating conflicts to stop the screaming, trying to keep the peace. What did it create within me? An example of communication that showed how it can make people suffer, how sharp the tongue becomes once its pointed at someone you love, how harmful hateful words can be. I determined to always communicate and speak from my heart, let myself be known. This value created through “good” communication is something that informs my daily decisions, how I tend to my relationships with family, friends, loved ones.
The last two stanzas of the poem continues the dialogue with the self. Here the ink holds the form of the person, I become the letters and words scrawled out. So that I can better know my mind and moods again, my conditions; how to better live with depression, anxiety, and Bipolar disorder. Endless processing. The page holds me then. I have been explained by my writing, in the hopes that others will understand me and in turn, something within themselves. This leads to some of my favorite last lines that I’ve written. The culmination of the writing process is expressing, saying what was written out loud, the final culmination of the process, vibrating the words and waves into the cosmos, creating ripples in the everlasting pond that we swim in, “sounded me out like the vowels of a howl”.
Vishuddha, the forthcoming first book of poetry by Ian Cook, is available for pre-order through Anam Cara Press LLC, and releases in June 2024 — https://anamcara-press.com/product/vishuddha/
At his core, Ian Cook is a mutt. An amalgamation of many things — differing origins, Swedish/German patronage, Chinese-Indonesian matronage, raised internationally. An in-between, a hybrid being; flowing, swimming, a life in and out of water, amphibious. He is a collection of multitudes, many selves, many-masks, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, sleeplessness, and dreams that don’t end. He receives waves, whispers, and frequencies from The Beyond and translates them into Art, Music, and Poetry.
Ian Cook is the author of Vishuddha, a collection of poetry that deals with communication, what it is, and how the individual does it: by speaking, singing, screaming, writing, drawing, expressing, playing, by communing with All. He has had work featured in online and print journals such as Snarl Journal, KU’s Kiosk Magazine, Avatar Review, and others. Ian lives, writes, draws, sings, and plays in Lawrence, Kansas, with his partner Maddie, pups Mildred, and Cordelia, and rats Remy, Grandpa, Alfie, and Charles.
For the past few years, Ian has been involved in growing mental health communities and the psychedelic-assisted therapy space. He educates about safety, risk reduction, creativity, and self-expression, as well as the importance of preparation and integration practices. He teaches creative writing, advocates for the veteran non-profit Heroic Hearts Project, and forms community through the Lawrence Psychedelic Society.
In an intimate collection of poems, Ian Cook chronicles the journey of one isolated in their thoughts and feelings, and unable to communicate, to a self-expanded — through developing the throat chakra, exploring what it means to use language, words, sounds, symbols, to transfer information and understanding. Can we use our oldest technologies to express our individual experience of reality? How can words express the authentic self, a complex of context and circumstances that over years formed “You”? This collection of poems spans years of growth, self-work, and exploring new ways to express through many mediums.
From navigating the maze of mental health, depression, and bipolar disorder, came a way for the author to process and understand the self through internal dialogues, streams of consciousness, and translating thoughts and emotions through the filter of the self. Communicating is making sounds, drawing shapes, creating symbols, meaning, singing songs, or plucking strings, each expression holding its own meaning and power.
For the author, poetry became a tool for them to translate the amorphous thoughts and feelings into tangible vibrations, frequencies that seek to resonate with the reader. Through sound — rhyming, consonance, assonance, like-sounds — the author explores words and language flow. By playing with line and structure, single ideas stand on their own, lines can read as individual thoughts, or shift in meaning alongside different contexts.
As the methods of communication develop over years of practice and accumulated understanding, Vishuddha is the 16 flowering petals unfolding, the shade of cool blue smoke, which elicit pure cosmic sound, visions of the three periods: past, present and future; freedom from ailment and old age, destruction of dangers, and the ability to move the three worlds.
