topics: |  poetry | diaspora

Review

Of the fifteen poems in this thin volume, a surprisingly high number work for me, but that may be because these poems by my sister (ahem - full disclosure!) cover familiar ground - a grandmother we shared, the hybrid smells of peripatetic lives.

Here is a friend, Molly's age, tall, imperious, chic, full of life - all the boys had a crush on her. And how shell-shocked we all were when she committed suicide during her high school exams:

	The easy sunset evenings on rooftops
	while the skies filled with the clamor of conch shells
	were gone.  ...
	     	    	Gone the afternoons
	for you had taken the child in me
	without goodbye. (from Avanti)

All successful poetry presents an alternate philosophy.  In 
some of these poems, the philosophy weighs a bit heavy:
	Sometimes a mongrel breed living half a life,
	sometimes pickled, sometimes preserved.
	the palimpsest of exile is an afflicted volume,
	pages filled with erasures...

I could also relate to Writing Xanadu, a lament on interruptions in the
process of writing - just "when words trip over themselves to get / down on
the page" (a rare occurrence), the handyman comes.  He rambles about cafes on
distant highways.  In the end, the laptop trumpets into hibernation.  _I
write the memories I hope to have_ broods about death; at her own cremation,

	They will rake in my bones, stir my shattered skull
	and find a way to live.  My spirit will hover
	over sons with shaven heads,

"Foreign passport", where her son is detained at the US immigration, fugues
 into a emotional lament over the poet Reetika Vazirani's death:
	Standing at the serrated edge
	of a Goghian field,
	the stalks, like jagged fingers,
	stabbing obscenely at the sky

Most of all, I could relate to Thakuma; perhaps this image will
resonate in many of us who have connections with the migration from what
became East Pakistan and now Bangladesh:
		Widowed, you were
	shorn of hair, arms bracelet bare, vermilion scraped.
	your color pale white as your widowhood.
	Those were desperate years.  You lost a child
	to illness; another, seeking heat on
	a chill night, crawled into the open fire.

Other poems of note include the autobiographical  These words once danced in
red jooties,
	These words would once burst through that door
	in flaming silk, rustling aquamarine,
	they would raise one hand, thick with silver tinkling
	swish the air and tilt the chin
	to demand attention.  These words once knew the power
	of insousicance.

	These words once danced	in red jooties.

Possibly the most powerful poem here is Scarecrow, which powerfully
captures the adrenalin of a near-death moment.  Although it is perhaps I
who am the uncle, I myself don't remember the episode, which could well be
imagined, though there have been close shaves with my nephews.

Excerpts

On an Ohioan autumn, remembering Reetika p.8

     	(in memory of Reetika Vazirani, 1962-2003)

Standing at the serrated edge
of a Goghian field,
the stalks, like jagged fingers,
stabbing obscenely at the sky
I think of another woman.
A poet
a mother
she killed her child and then herself.

There is the dull gold of decay
corn husks and dying light of day
and one lone blackbird.

I who have traveled
from a place of excess fecundity,
a land so pregnant
that the undergrowth teems.
I stand in this aridity
a dark desiccation,
a foreigner.

Writing Xanadu 12

The handyman always comes
in the middle of the zone
when words trip over themselves to get
down on the page; this rarely happens,
but when it does,
the handyman's at the door.

He sees a woman with a laptop
while something simmers, fresh, on the stove;
he probably thinks
you are downloading a recipe.

He ambles over and points out of the window.
See there, if you take the highway
past the medical centre and on to Haarlem, 
the first exit, eh, 
there's a wonderful cafe' 
run by former clowns, you know, Pipo's? 

You want to ask
if he has ever heard of Coleridge,
to say you are finishing your Xanadu right now,
but the conceit seems appalling.
Besides you don't want to hear
I'd write a book
If I had the time. 

The handyman rattles on regardless.
He spreads some goo over
the leaky faucet and you think
the water's relentless drip
was infinitely preferable.

He talks about his duaghter's
Barbie fixation,
asks whether it's a phase.
You remember he's always there,
even on weekends.

The laptop trumbets
into hibernation.

Thakuma (Paternal Grandmother) 22

Gold anklets are sacriligeous, so your
infant feet tinkled silver.  You were a
cherished child, only daughter.  Coddled and
cocooned, you grew to womanhood, knowing
your worth in gold.  Then shenai strains mingled
with fragrant sandalwood and rosewater,
and you shimmered in red brocade, your face
glowing with jewels, bracelets on glistening
arms.  As you circled the sacred fire
seven times, your father muttered ancient
mantras, giving the gift of a virgin.

Warring nations forced you to flee the land
of your birth. You lost your husband in an
alien land, looked at seven infant mouths
and willed yourself to live.  Widowed, you were
shorn of hair, arms bracelet bare, vermilion scraped.
your color pale white as your widowhood.

Those were desperate years.  You lost a child
to illness; another, seeking heat on
a chill night, crawled into the open fire.
You sifted through the ashes of burnt hopes
and survived; like rice replanted on
alien fields, you gave your children a place
to grow, creating life out of chaos.
Your forthborn became my father.
	 (this poem and Baroma and Prarthana not listed in contents)

Avanti 24

You strung a sari on the ceiling fan,
then kicked a chair to die.
A half-drunk glass of water
an open book rifled by the wind
that's all you left.

I did not go to see you.
I was sixteen, grief-dumb.  I wept,
bartered with the Gods, and lost,
full of my guilt.

They dressed you in flaming red
to burn a hride, virgin garb,
and I remembered all the boys we'd eyed,
sitting on a rock at the Shiv temple,
looking at the world at our feet.

I had felt your magnetism,
for you broke a lot of hearts.

The easy sunset evenings on rooftops
while the skies filled with the clamor of conch shells
were gone.  Gone the afternoons
of lime sherbet and gossip
and hating parents together.
I was full of grief, yet resentment, too,
for you had taken the child in me
without goodbye.

Scarecrow 26

You are stopped in the middle of the road, looking only to your left, and I
hear the scream gurgle up inside my throat, but it is of no use, you stand in
the middle of the Lucknow-Kanpur highway and I see your five years of life
lifting a sneakered foot towards your uncle on the other side and I see the
lorry trundling unstoppable in its aged speed, its wooden slats banging a
warning and the garish "Love is God" sign and the driver leaning on the horn
-- leaning onto it and not letting go -- and you are poised for a run,
unsure of direction, both scary and scared, and I am screaming, STOP, STOP to
you, to the driver, to time, too crazed to make a difference and then you are
there, scooped up in your uncle's arms, a wriggling live miracle, as you were
at birth.  p. 26  

I write the memories I hope to have 28

There must be fire, over the touch of sandalwood.

There will be a ghat with water, corrupted, floating
through mud-swirls, carrying bodies
too poor to be burnt.

There will be the outcastes,
ashes flying on bodies from the flickering
multitudes of corpses like mine;

the darkness will gleam through the moonless night
as they poke the cinders to retrieve a ring...
perhaps a tooth, still melting like honey.

They will rake in my bones, stir my shattered skull
and find a way to live.  My spirit will hover
over sons with shaven heads,

chilly in cotton dhotis, sleeping on cement;
there will be thousands of pleas
on leaf boats floating,

lighting up the Ganges like a watery constellation. p. 28