book excerptise:   a book unexamined is not worth having

Nine Indian women poets: an anthology

Eunice DeSouza (ed.)

DeSouza, Eunice (ed.);

Nine Indian women poets: an anthology

Oxford University Press, 1997, 95 pages

ISBN 0195640772, 9780195640779

topics: |  poetry | india | english | anthology

Excerpts



Mamta Kalia: Tribute to Papa : p.20

Who cares for you, Papa?
Who cares for your clean thoughts, clean words, clean teeth?
Who wants to be an angel like you?
Who wants it?
You are an unsuccessful man, Papa.
Couldn’t wangle a cosy place in the world.
You have always lived a life of limited dreams.

I wish you had guts Papa
To smuggle eighty thousand watches at a stroke,
And I'd proudly say, "My father's in import-export business, you know."
I'd be proud of you then.

But you've always wanted to be a model man,
A sort of an ideal.
When you can't think of doing anything,
You start praying,
SPending useless hours at the temple.

You want me to be like you, Papa,
Or like Rani Lakshmibai.
You're not sure what greatness is,
But you want me to be great.

I give two donkey-claps for greatness.
And three for Rani Lakshmibai.

These days I am seriously thinking of disowning you, Papa,
You and your sacredness.
What if I start calling you Mr. Kapur, Lower
         	Division Clerk, Accounts Section?

Everything about you clashes with nearly everything about me
You suspected I am having a love affair these days
But you're too shy to have it confirmed
What if my tummy starts showing gradually
And I refuse to have it curetted
But I’ll be careful, Papa,
Or I know you’ll at once think of suicide.


After eight years of marriage : Mamta Kalia : p.25


After eight years of marriage
The first time I visited my parents,
They asked, “Are you happy, tell us”.
It was an absurd question
And I should have laughed at it
Instead, I cried,
And in between sobs, nodded yes.
I wanted to tell them
That I was happy on Tuesday
I was unhappy on Wednesday.
I was happy one day at 8 o'clock
I was most unhappy by 8.15.
I wanted to tell them how one day
We all ate a watermelon and laughed.
I wanted to tell them how I wept in bed all night once
And struggled hard from hurting myself.
That it wasn't easy to be happy in a family of twelve,
But they were looking at my two sons,
Hopping around like young goats.
Their wrinkled hands, beaten faces and grey eyelashes
Were all too much too real.
SO I swallowed everything,
And smiled a smile of great content.


The Peacock: Sujata Bhatt : p.73


His loud sharp call
seems to come from nowhere.
Then, a flash of turquoise
in the pipal tree
The slender neck arched away from you
as he descends,
and as he darts away, a glimpse
of the very end of his tail.

I was told
that you have to sit in the veranda
And read a book,
preferably one of your favourites
with great concentration..
The moment you begin to live
inside the book
A blue shadow will fall over you.
The wind will change direction,
The steady hum of bees
In the bushes nearby
will stop.
The cat will awaken and stretch.
Something has broken your attention;
And if you look up in time
You might see the peacock turning away as he gathers
his tail
To shut those dark glowing eyes,
Violet fringed with golden amber.
It is the tail that has to blink
For eyes that are always open.

Kamala Das: The Maggots


At sunset, on the river bank, Krishna
Loved her for the last time and left...

That night in her husband's arms, Radha felt
So dead that he asked, What is wrong,
Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said,
No, not at all, but thought, What is
It to the corpse if the maggots nip?


The Stone Age


Fond husband, ancient settler in the mind,
Old fat spider, weaving webs of bewilderment,
Be kind. You turn me into a bird of stone, a granite
Dove, you build round me a shabby room,
And stroke my pitted face absent-mindedly while
You read. With loud talk you bruise my pre-morning sleep,
You stick a finger into my dreaming eye. And
Yet, on daydreams, strong men cast their shadows, they sink
Like white suns in the swell of my Dravidian blood,
Secretly flow the drains beneath sacred cities.
When you leave, I drive my blue battered car
Along the bluer sea. I run up the forty
Noisy steps to knock at another's door.
Though peep-holes, the neighbours watch,
they watch me come
And go like rain. Ask me, everybody, ask me
What he sees in me, ask me why he is called a lion,
A libertine, ask me why his hand sways like a hooded snake
Before it clasps my pubis. Ask me why like
A great tree, felled, he slumps against my breasts,
And sleeps. Ask me why life is short and love is
Shorter still, ask me what is bliss and what its price....

Contents


INTRODUCTION						1

KAMALA DAS						7
  From Summers in Calcutta
    An Introduction					10
  From The Descendants
    The Descendants					11
    Luminol						12
    The Doubt						12
    The Maggots						13
    Three P. M.						13
    The Joss-sticks at Cadell Road			14
    The Looking Glass					15
  From The Old Playhouse and Other Poems
    The Old Playhouse					15
    The Stone Age					16

MAMTA KALIA						18
  From Tribute to Papa and Other Poems
    Tribute to Papa					20
    Sheer Good Luck					21
    Compulsions						21
    Made for Each Other					22
    Sunday Song						22
    Brat						24
    Dubious Lovers					24
    Positive Thinking					25
  From Poems
    After Eight Years of Marriage			25
  From Hers
    Anonymous						26

MELANIE SILGARDO					27
  From Three Poets
    1956-1976 A Poem					29
    Stationary Stop					29
    Child						30
    For Father on the Shelf				31
    The Earthworm's Story				33
  From Skies of Design
    Do Not Tell the children				33
    Skies of Design					34
    Doris						34
    Cat							35
    Bird Broken						36

EUNICE DE SOUZA						37
  From Fix
    Catholic Mother					39
    Miss Louise						39
    For a Child, Not Clever				40
    Autobiographical					41
  From Women in Dutch Painting
    Pilgrim						42
    The Road						43
  From Ways of Belonging
    Bequest						43
  From Selected and New Poems
    Landscape						44
    Outside Jaisalmer					46
    It's Time to Find a Place				47

IMTIAZ DHARKER					48
  From Purdah
    Purdah I						50
    Battle-line					51
  From Postcards from god
    Words Find Mouths					53
    Living Space					54
    Eggplant						55
    Namesake						55
    8 January 1993					56
    The List						57
    Minority						58

SMITA AGARWAL						60
  From 'Glitch'
    The Lie of the Land: A Letter to Chatwin		62
    The Salesman					63
    The Planetoid					63
    Daywatch in the Scriptorium			64
    The Word-worker					65
    A Grass Widow's Prayer				65
    Mediatrix						66
    'Our foster-nurse of nature is repose'		67
    Discord						67

SUJATA BHATT						69
  From Brunizem
    The Peacock					73
    For Paula Modersohn-Becker 1876-1907		74
    The Women of Leh are such-			75
    A Different History				75
    Something for Plato				76
    Iris						77
  From Monkey Shadows
    White Asparagus					78
    Kankaria Lake					79

CHARMAYNE D'SOUZA					82
  From A Spelling Guide to Woman
    When God First Made a Whore			84
    The White Line Down the Road to Minnesota		85
    I Would Like to Have a Movie Cowboy for a Husband	86
    Strange Bedfellows					86
    God's Will?						87
    Judith						88

TARA PATEL						89
  From Single Woman
    Woman						90
    Request						90
    Calangute Beach, Goa II				91
    In Bombay						92
    In a Working Women's Hostel				93

Index of First Line	95

---
blurb:
This anthology covers nine Indian women poets writing in English. Edited by
the poet and academic Eunice de Souza, it brings together poems which are
witty, ironic, poignant and technically assured. The book includes a general
introduction and critical appraisals of each poet.

This collection of witty, ironic, poignant, and technically assured poems is
an example of some of the best contemporary Indian poetry today. The
intention in bringing together these poems was to represent the growing
maturity evident in the themes and styles of the poetry of Indian
women. While it acquaints the reader with the variety in each poet's work,
the prime consideration of Nine Indian Women Poets is the intrinsic quality
of the poems themselves-their subject, their language, and craftsmanship. The
anthology covers nine Indian women poets writing in English, representing two
generations of post-Independence poets. Included here, with brief
biographical introductions, are Kamala Das, Mamta Kalia, Melanie Silgardo,
Eunice de Souza, Imtiaz Dharker, Smita Agarwal, Sujata Bhatt, Charmayne
D'Souza, and Tara Patel. This book contains a general introduction which
provides an overview of the work of Indian women poets since 1000 BC, and of
relevant anthologies and other critical works. It is a must for those
interested in contemporary poetry, especially by Indian women writing in
English.


amitabha mukerjee (mukerjee [at-symbol] gmail.com) 2011 Jul 02