Brian Mendonca’s self-published volume of poems—  Last Bus to Vasco: Poems from Goa (2006), comes with an audio CD of the poems. The book received rave reviews and has since been reprinted. 

An ‘India-vidual’, he has been travelling across India and abroad, writing and publishing poetry about the places he visits. His poetry readings have regaled poetry lovers at Kathmandu, students of the University of Kashmir, Srinagar; the Maharajah of Kachchh at his Vijay Vilas Palace in Bhuj; young poetry writers at Jorhat, Assam, and itinerant hippies in Candolim, Goa. A publishing professional, Brian works in Delhi with Oxford University Press.

Tell us about yourself, your poetry and future plans as a poet...
I was born in Mithapur, Gujarat in 1965 and schooled in Mount Carmel High School, Gandhidham and later in Don Bosco High School, Matunga, Mumbai. My college years were in St Xavier's College, Mapusa, Goa. After doing an MPhil on Charlotte Bronte at the University of Pune, I did  my  Doctorate on ‘Insanity in the English Gothic novel’ from CIEFL, Hyderabad.

I have always believed in poetry as having the power to redeem our lives. Life, death, love and grief are all mediated in poetry, transmuted and given a relevance in our lives. Poetry helps me to live and eke out my days.

My poetic oeuvre is a kind of poetic documentation of places. Where poetry is born in the mesh of the past and present, time and space. It is a testament to a particular moment. Mine is a new kind of poetry, in its earthiness, its switching of languages in mid-sentence, its usage of in-situ utterances, and its fidelity to the place and its histories. It is a projection of a textured reality where one language is insufficient to contain lived experience.

I will always continue to write poetry. Poetry gives me a reason to live. The freedom to travel, the prospect of seeing a new place like an old friend is the elixir of life. Having written vastly over the last 20 years, I can find a kind of intertextuality in my poetry, in the themes, the references and the usage of words themselves.

There is a deep sensitivity couched in few 'seemingly' flippant lines. The everyday colloquialism that you use in some of your poems has an intimate quality carrying a meaningful verbal effect. How do you achieve that? Do you pre meditate on your poems?

I think I work on a wide poetic canvas, subsuming the tumult of languages, and the chaos of experience. This is perhaps what appeals. The unsaid, the hinted at, the allusions... these offer trails for the reader/listener to reach into his/ her own truth. I try to record the pathos of existence... of the tea server (‘Indian Delight’ Pondicherry) or through the metonymy of the Papal flag flying at half mast on the death of John Paul II (‘Bangalore Central’). No I don’t premeditate on my poems. A good first line is enough to tease out a poem. I am challenged by words. I am not trying to achieve anything when I am writing. If I am touched by it, it is enough.

As a performing poet do you think the music in you helped you compose better poetry or do you keep music and poetry apart?
I don’t see myself as a performing poet, though it may be convenient to do so. I am not here to perform, but share.  Isn’t poetry music? But most of my poems are in blank verse, even experimental (‘Epsilon’ Goa-Delhi). Being brought up in a Goan musical tradition has certainly enriched my poetry. Also, there are many musical allusions strewn throughout my poems— ‘Lying Eyes’ by Eagles in ‘Indian Delights’, Jim Morrison’s ‘Feathered Night’ at the close of ‘UIMCF’, and the medieval English ballad ‘Greensleeves’ in ‘Epsilon’. ‘G add 9’ takes its cue from DH Lawrence’s poem ‘Piano’ to exemplify the ache for times gone by. Raag Bhairavi suggests the mood in ‘Bhairavi’ (New Delhi) and raag Hamsadhwani in ‘Malwa Express’ (Enroute Malwa Express Jammu-Delhi).

What are you working on now ?
I am now working on my second volume. It’s a  collection of poems entitled, ‘A Peace of India: Poems in Transit’. This one is on poems written in Delhi. After almost 10 years of my working life in the capital I want to give something back. I hope to write poetry in as many places as I can in India, and to travel to any lengths to be able to do this... poetic travelogue of India, its many moods and faces...

What are your other interests ?
I am an advanced student of the Portuguese language at the ‘Instituto Camoes’ in Delhi and I learn classical guitar at the Delhi School of Music. My current interests include reading Jose Saramago in Portuguese and interpreting world music on classical guitar. My repertoire includes Beethoven, Giuliani, Carulli, Ramirez, Nash and Carcassi. I also anchor western classical, jazz and rock music programmes on AIR Delhi.