Everyday Flowers - Asok Kalpana
If you've wondered how it must feel to be a stranger in a strange land, Kalpana Asok tells you in these gentle poems. Gentle, but with a hint of irony, as when, in the voice of a new arrival, an Indian woman introduces herself to a new American neighbor, and then, in an almost footnoted last line that lets us know she was never invited into the house: 'Dear Ethel, Thank you for the lemonade
and the visits on your porch.' The feeling of dislocation surfaces sharply in another, when she asks, 'My mother's in my mirror/is she walled in/am I locked out . . . .' Vivid images greet us throughout, as she explores, wide-eyed, this new world, where a 'chatty American' wears a 'different baseball cap every day' and is 'full of information.' The gentle voice rises in indignation in strong, tightly crafted poems about social injustice, as in 'I Can't Breathe,' with a first stanza ending in 'Yes, metoo.' Remembering or perhaps dreaming, she gives us a 'Tiger Preserve,' with a 'Lurching blind-drunk female /in the middle of the day/Slapping holy ground . . . .' The gentle voice returns in this lovely debut collection, ending with a lullaby, 'Tenderly,' in hummed syllables: 'Umhmm,--Irene Willis
hmmm hmm hmm . . . .' Read it with delight and continued discovery.
EAN: 9781732053359
If you've wondered how it must feel to be a stranger in a strange land, Kalpana Asok tells you in these gentle poems. Gentle, but with a hint of irony, as when, in the voice of a new arrival, an Indian woman introduces herself to a new American neighbor, and then, in an almost footnoted last line that lets us know she was never invited into the house: 'Dear Ethel, Thank you for the lemonade
and the visits on your porch.' The feeling of dislocation surfaces sharply in another, when she asks, 'My mother's in my mirror/is she walled in/am I locked out . . . .' Vivid images greet us throughout, as she explores, wide-eyed, this new world, where a 'chatty American' wears a 'different baseball cap every day' and is 'full of information.' The gentle voice rises in indignation in strong, tightly crafted poems about social injustice, as in 'I Can't Breathe,' with a first stanza ending in 'Yes, metoo.' Remembering or perhaps dreaming, she gives us a 'Tiger Preserve,' with a 'Lurching blind-drunk female /in the middle of the day/Slapping holy ground . . . .' The gentle voice returns in this lovely debut collection, ending with a lullaby, 'Tenderly,' in hummed syllables: 'Umhmm,--Irene Willis
hmmm hmm hmm . . . .' Read it with delight and continued discovery.
EAN: 9781732053359