DeSouza, Eunice (ed.);
Nine Indian women poets: an anthology
Oxford University Press, 1997, 95 pages
ISBN 0195640772, 9780195640779
topics: | poetry | india | english | anthology
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 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.
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.
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?
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....
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
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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.