The Poem in the Body

Are Tactile Studies, Olfactory Studies, and Gustatory Studies coming down the track? The visual and sonic came first, perhaps because seeing and hearing, more than the other senses, are involved with complex processes of human communication and conceptualization. But all the senses, along with the mind (regarded as a sense organ in Indian analyses of consciousness), are deeply intertwined in human experience and knowledge production. Studying North Indian religious poetry that is both literature and music, I approached it through oral traditions and aural experience, producing two books that contributed to Sound Studies in India. I have come to see Sound Studies as an avenue to Full Body Studies. In this paper, I will present three poems of Kabir, first as literature, then as song, inviting the audience to notice their own experience and to consider the implications of uniting mind and body in their own work.