Sporogenesis: Item 3 of Tome of Stars

The third Item of “Tome of Stars” is “Sporogenesis”, a haphazard chronicle of the years 2011–2020. It is a shift from the cataclysm of “Senescence” into a period of withdrawal and emotional hibernation, imagined as the padam of the collection’s Bharatanatyam-inspired structure. This Item is titled from the biological process of spore formation, and is a metaphor for self-preservation.

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The “Item” structure of Tome of Stars is inspired from the recital program of a classical Indian dance called Bharatanatyam. The beloved of this collection was, among her many, many talents spanning arts, languages, and the sciences, a dancer of this tradition. Bharatanatyam became tightly associated with the Stargirl in the author’s mind, and when assembling this collection, he decided to attempt to structure it following the margam, the structured program for performances of this dance form (“margam” translated as “path” or “journey”). He did this in two ways. First, Tome of Stars was divided in six Items (how the different dances in the recital are typically called in English). These six sections are both thematic and chronological, spanning the beginning of the relationship (Item 1: Anthesis, the flowering) through its dissolution to the poet’s final unending, prolonged grief and emotional devotion (Item 6: Scripture). Within each item, the actual elements of a margam show up as individual poems titled by the item name. In these sonnets, the poet tries to meld traditional interpretations of the dance item with elements of their romance, separation, and/or aspects of the writer and/or the Stargirl. More can be found in the video linked in the Background section.