Usha’s poetry has been part of the following national, international and individual projects:
Poetry Projects
• Commissioned by the Royal Literary Fund for their Writers Mosaic Profiles – CLICK HERE
• Isle of Man Arts Council Literary Lockdown Project, Feb 2021
• Reciprocal Readings – With Bashabi Fraser, SETU, USA, Aug 2020
• SETU Readings, USA, July 2020
• Fun Palace, Isle of Man, Oct 2017
• Condé Nast Traveller, India – Poem, “Monsoon Land” commissioned by the journal Condé Nast India. The poem has been illustrated by artists, June/July 2017 CLICK HERE
• Isle of Architecture, Isle of Man Feb 2017
• Exploring Ekphrasis and Text and Image Workshop, Make Market initiative, University College of Man, August and September, 2016
• Translation project with the Indian scholar M Sambasivan, India, 2012 –
• Poems, “In Exile” and “Heather”, part of “Wirral Festival of Firsts Poetry Trail”, June 2015
• “Drinking Dragon” –
• Indian Hill Station Project with the Isle of Man Heritage Railways, October 2014
• Manx Litfest Poetry Workshop –
• Celebrating the centenary of ‘Adlestrop’, commemorative project, The Poetry Society, UK, (Tribute Poems), June 2014
• Nature Erin Arts display, Isle of Man, UK, Spring 2012
• Cyprus Spring Poetry Rain, Spring 2012
• Olympic Relay Poem, London –
• Rochdale Canal Poetry Trail, UK, Summer, 2012
• Manx Litfest Poetry Trail, Isle of Man, UK, September 2012
• City of Philadelphia, Mural Arts Program USA Peace is a Haiku Song, 2011
• Walsall Residency Project, 2006
• Index on Censorship Education Project, UK, 2005
• Seven Stories Project, Newcastle, UK, 2005
• Other Voices, International Poetry Project, USA, 2005
• Moving Stories –
Thirst – © Bharti Dayal
Ekphrastic Projects
• Gendered Yearnings –
• Salt Mother (Sept 2017 , March, June 2018 – Carola Colley interprets Usha’s Poetry in Art Work
• Nine Threads Woven – Usha’s poetry is part of Carola Colley’s project Nine Threads Woven, where Carola has responded to Usha’s poetry in artwork and sculpture. (2015 –
• Prerna (Translated from Hindi as Inspiration) –
• Ekphrasis in collaboration with UK artist Carola Colley, 2012 – 2013 Part of Lindsfield Arts Festival, West Sussex. May 2013.
• C.A.U.S.E. Belgium –
Photo: © Ian Coulson {digitally enhanced by Usha Kishore}
Drinking Dragon
Usha Kishore
You are not a rock, but an allegory frozen in time.
You were no spitfire lizard, no basilisk fable, no reptilian tale.
You were a thunder dragon drinking the sea, quenching your
fiery thirst, when Mac Lir’s mists moulded you into stone.
You were born when first lightning smote molten mountains,
when rocks melted into the fire of creation; when oceans
flowed from the womb of inchoate earth. Living in shadows,
you stirred the mind of spirits in legend and apologue.
Evolving from crawling serpent, you grew wings to blind the sun.
Your roar became language, your wing-beats exploding verse.
Drifting between the sun and the moon, you carried votive
offerings for the gods in flights that bridged life and death.
Wording the sons of men, you map continents with your blood,
only to be slain by insane knights, who misread your sparkling eye
for the sake of glory and song. Armoured in immortal myth,
you swing from some gemmèd branch of the world tree, hiding behind
leaves of centuries that flower in science and logic. Flying across
temporal labyrinths, you lie in space; the milky way stretched
across your back, throwing in wing and prayer in the paths
of wayward moons. Dancing in darkness, your light spills
across the night in auroralensembles. You are cumulus cloud,
dark phase of the moon guarding sacred groves, rivers and lakes
of a monsoon land, where your fire is still thunder, your shimmering
tail, an unsung rainbow refrain, an intergalactic hum of stars.
Beyond the blue ascend of the heavens, beyond the green plunge
of the seas, you claim a kingdom in exile. You are a prisoner
of eternity, camouflaged in rock. On equinox days, when the sky
hangs low, you swallow the sun, spitting it out into the ochred air.