topics: |  poetry | indian-english | gender

This volume collects the majority of Kamala Das' poems - at least her better known ones - but it fails severely in terms of editorial execution.

Poetry, unlike prose, is arrogant. It demands space. By running poems one into another, the thoughts get jumbled up, and the reader is fatigued. Also the number of typos in this work is very high.

In comparison, Summer In Calcutta from the same Kottayam-based publisher (1965), is far better edited.

A rAjmA-can selection

poems are not like beads or rajma kernels - you can't simply put fistfuls of rAjmA into a tin can, shake it to level, add a few more, and cap it with a preface by K Satch1danandan. there is nothing to say who selected them, on what basis, how they are ordered. nor does it have an index of first lines, titles, whatever...

ok, we realize that das was alive then, so she may be the one who did this deed. she was always quite cavalier about form. but then it might just as well have been some admirers... it would be nice to know what went on in the mind while putting this together...

as mentioned, there is an introduction - called a preface - by K Satch1danandan - but this is quite oblivious of the book itself, and is even (in parts) condescending:

	Indian women poets writing in English, to whose
	ever-growing tribe Kamala Das belongs..

at least among the present generation of poets of indian
english, two volumes that stand out, by any canons of poetry,
are from the tribe of women - Anjum Hasan's
Street on the hill (2006), and  Sampurna Chattarji's
Sight may strike you blind (2007).

Hasan's style - direct, earthy, juxtaposed observations, is in many ways
closer to Das; if you buy that "poetry should surprise by a fine excess",
then in both Das and Hasan, the surprise is in the content, the strength
of their observations. Chattarji, on the other hand, is more thoughtful, though
she is capable of very playful constructs as well.  in contrast, i do not see
too many good men poets breaking ground.  In both poets, the form is not a
key aspect of the surprise, though of course, a cadence runs through
them.

our best poets are women.  perhaps we need to have a discourse about why
the tribe of men aren't writing as well.

Excerpts

The Maggots p.52

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?
(From The Descendants)

Summer in Calcutta p.55

	What is this drink but
	The April sun, squeezed
	Like an orange in
	My glass? I sip the
	Fire, I drink and drink
	Again, I am drunk
	Yes, but on the gold
	of suns, What noble
	venom now flows through
	my veins and fills my
	mind with unhurried
	laughter? My worries
	doze. Wee bubbles ring
	my glass, like a brides
	nervous smile, and meet
	my lips. Dear, forgive
	this moments lull in
	wanting you, the blur
	in memory. How
	brief the term of my
	devotion, how brief
	your reign when i with
	glass in hand, drink, drink,
	and drink again this
	Juice of April suns.

The looking glass p.68

Getting a man to love you is easy
Only be honest about your wants as
Woman. Stand nude before the glass with him
So that he sees himself the stronger one
And believes it so, and you so much more
Softer, younger, lovelier. Admit your
Admiration. Notice the perfection
Of his limbs, his eyes reddening under
The shower, the shy walk across the bathroom floor,
Dropping towels, and the jerky way he
Urinates. All the fond details that make
Him male and your only man. Gift him all,
Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of
Long hair, the musk of sweat between the breasts,
The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your
Endless female hungers. Oh yes, getting
A man to love is easy, but living
Without him afterwards may have to be
Faced. A living without life when you move
Around, meeting strangers, with your eyes that
Gave up their search, with ears that hear only
His last voice calling out your name and your
Body which once under his touch had gleamed
Like burnished brass, now drab and destitute.

Convicts p.69

There was a time when our lusts were
Like multicoloured flags of no
Particular country. We lay
On bed, glassy-eyed, fatigued, just
The toys dead children leave behind
And, we asked each other, what is
The use, what is the bloody use?
That was the only kind of love,
This hacking at each other's parts
Like convicts hacking, breaking clods
At noon. We were earth under hot
Sun. There was a burning in our
Veins and the cool mountain nights did
Nothing to lessen heat. When he
And I were one, we were neither
Male nor female. There were no more
Words left, all words lay imprisoned
In the ageing arms of night. In
Darkness we grew, as in silence
We sang, each note rising out of
Sea, out of wind, out of earth and
Out of each sad night like an ache...

The Stone Age p.82

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....

Words are birds p.96

Words are birds.
Where have they gone to roost,
Wings tired,
Hiding from the dusk?
Dusk is on my hair,
Dusk is upon my skin;
When I lie down to sleep
I am not sure
That I shall see
The blessed dawn again.

The prisoner p.128

	As the convict studies
	His prison‟s geography
	I study the trappings
	Of your body, dear love
	For I must some day find
	An escape from its snare.

Sunset, Blue Bird p.129

when i am with my friends and talking i remember him and
suddenly i can no longer talk they ask me what is wrong why have
you turned pale and i weakly shake my head nothing nothing i
was warned not to go near the king but i did go and believe me
he was like a man like any man he clutched me to his breast he
said he loved me and i was happy and thought he was happy too....
after a year two yellow moons waxed and waned without a sign of
blood and i told him lying on his lap i told him and suddenly the
sun set on that beautiful face his breath was heavy in my ear he
said not a word .... he no longer comes to me, no longer stands at the
open window to smile at me but everywhere i look i see him
everywhere i do not look i see him i see him in all i see him in
everything like a blue bird at sunset he flits across my sky....

After the illness p.130

There was then no death, no end, but a re-uniting
The weary body settling into accustomed grooves
And, he said, his soft, suffering face against my knee
I knew you would survive, my darling, I willed it so.
He had noticed the high greens of my illness, the bones
Turning sharp beneath the dry loose skin, the yellowed eyes
The fetid breath and the prayers to unfamiliar Gods
Who seemed to him so much more beloved than he.
Did he feel the neglect while I battled with my pain ?
Did he, waking alone at four, remember? There was
Not much flesh left for the flesh to hunger, the blood had
Weakened too much to lust, and the skin, without health's
Anointments, was numb and unyearning. What lusted then
For him, was it perhaps the deeply hidden soul ?

The Rain p.152

We left that old ungainly house
When my dog died there, after
The burial, after the rose
Flowered twice, pulling it by its
Roots and carting it with our books,
Clothes and chairs in a hurry.
We live in a new house now,
And, the roofs do not leak, but, when
It rains here, I see the rain drench
That empty house, I hear it fall
Where my puppy now lies,
Alone..

Contents

Transcending the body (Preface by K Satch1danandan) 11

Composition 							25
Wood ash 							34
The swamp 							35
The old playhouse 						38
The lunatic asylum 						39
Morning at Apollo Pier 						40
	Welcome me, lying down, dear love,
	And remain so,
	I shall shut the window
	[...]
	     They tell me that your love is
	A morass where I must sink, if not today,
	Tomorrow.  But, hold me, hole me once again
	Kiss the words to death in my mouth, plunder
	Memories.  I hide my defeatin your
	Wearying blood, and all my fears and shame.
	You are the poem to end all poems
	A poem, absolute as the womb.
	Your flawed beauty is my only refuge.
	Love me, love me, love me till I die...

Sleeping in the Moonlight 					41
A Hand Like a Bonsai 						42
Feline 								43
Fath1ma 							44
Delhi 1984 							44
Words 								45
The motif in the Mirror 					45
The dalit Panther 						46
Farewell to bombat 						47
The stranger and I 						48
Too late for Making up 						49
Terror 								50
The gulmohur 							51
The maggots 							52
The seashore 							53
A phone call in the Morning 					54
Weeds 								54
Summer in Calcutta 						55
The Ancient Mango Tree 						56
	 	... why did they cut
	down the ancient mango tree where I
	had hung damp nets of dreams to dry?
	My boat can no more go afishing..

At Chiangi Airport 						56
My Sons 							57
The Anamalai Hills 						58
The Freaks 							59
A Losing Battle 						59
The Wild Bougainvillae 						60
The Flag 							61
Loud Posters 							63
Palam 								63
Death is so Mediocre 						64
Substitute 							65
The Sunshine Cat 						67
The Looking Glass 					68
Convicts 						69
Jaisurya 							70
The house builders 						71
Smoke in colombo 						72
Fear 								72
The Sea at galle fac e green 					73
Per1peurperal insanity 						74
A holiday for me 						75
Tomorrow 							75
I shall not forget 						76
Radha 								77
The inheritance 						77
Ferns 								78
Cerebral thrombosis 						79
The intensive cardiac care unit 				79
The survivor 							80
Luminol 							81
A man a season 							81
The stone age 							82
Krishna 							82
The millionaires at Marine drive 				83
The time of the drought 					84
Herons 								85
The Dance of the eunuchs 					85
Pigeons 							86
The fear of the year 						87
After the party 						88
Blood 								89
Speech 								93
After july 							94
Nani 								95
Grey hound 							96
Words are birds 						96
Requiem for a son 						97
A souvenir of bone 						99
The descendants 						101
A half-day's bewitchment 					102
The sensuous woman, Ill 					103
Life's obscure parallel 					104
A request 							104
Women's shuttles 						105
Old cattle 							105
The last act 							106
The suicide 							107
In love 							111
The first meeting 						112
Summer 1980 							113
Captive 							113
Gino 								114
A phantom lotus 						116
Flotsam 							116
Ghanashyam 							117
An introduction 						119
The bison at the water's edge 					121
A relationship 							123
The siesta 							124
Winter 								125
To a big brother (about to be married) 				125
The end of spring 						126
Ischaema in august 						127
Love 								127
Vrindavan 							128
The prisoner 							128
Autumn leaves 							129
Sunset, blue bird 						129
Cat in the gutter 						130
After the illness 						130
Glass 								131
If death is your wish 						131
Radha krishna 							132
A short trip 							132
Home is a concept 						133
The ferry 							133
The fatalists on stone benches 					134
The word is sin 						134
Kumar gandharva 						135
The ferry hour 							135
Anamala1 poems 							136
Larger than life was he 					141
A requiem for my father 					143
	They did the lumbar puncture
	Folding you like a canvas chair

My father's death 						146
Next to ind1ra gandhi 						148
My grandmother's house						150
The lion in siesta 						150
Stocktaking 							151
Ethics 								152
The rain 							152
The joss-sticks at cadell road 					153
My predecessor 							154
The cobwebs 							154
Note to a destroyer 						154
A faded epaulet on his shoulder 				155
A Widows lament 						157
For cleo pascal 						158
The summing up 							159
A feminist's lament 						160
Ode to quebec 							161
Smudged mirrors 						162
For auntie katie 						163
Daughter of the century 					164
A journey with no return 					167
Mortal love 							167
My dog 								168
The moon 							168
Another birthday 						169
Forest fire 							170
No noon at my village home 					171
The cart horse 							172
Annette 							173
The testing of the sirens 					174
Afterwards 							176
Sepia 								179
The blind walk 							181
The eightysixth birthday					182
Evening at the old nalapat house				183



links: obituary by K. Satchidanandan: frontline