Author: Rukmini Bhaya Nair
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 214
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0143028839
Description
Yellow Hibiscus by award-winning poet Rukmini Bhaya Nair brings together some of her best published poetry along with several new verses written over the past few years. If freedom, pain, death and memory are the universal themes that run through Immortals-the first section of the book-animals and insects, places, and passion for language are at the core of the others.
The subtle, ironical insights into the fallibility of human nature that Nair offers us in these poems finely complement her eloquence and lyrical facility. Never afraid to experiment with words and ideas, she explores here the complexities of gender and politics in an unusual and often striking manner. Brilliantly conceived and beautifully executed, the poems in this volume render the anguish and yearning of life in a powerful and original voice.
REVIEWS
When sunlight presses
Upon this verse
The world reverses
Green doves on grey grass
-Insight
Rukmini Bhaya Nair shows how both profoundly serious social issues and intimate personal moments can be imaginatively probed through the disciplined exercise of sensitive intelligence, passionate inquiry and unflinchingly open-minded, readily self-critical discernment, A new pace-setting level of poetic achievement in India.
-John Oliver Perry on The Ayodhya Cantos, in World Literature Today
Miles above the usual run of books of poetry being published today, Rukmini uses words as some folk dancers use sticks, to suggest both confinement and /or open space, depending on how the sticks are angled.
-Adil Jussawalla on The Hyoid Bone, in The Illustrated Weekly
Contents
IMMORTALS
Intimations
Hermaphrodite Longings
Nun
Convent
Soundtrack
Quartet
Genderole
Eight Verses to Bhavani
Kali
The Third Eye
God from Bankura
When the Time Comes
Buddha
Flame
First Light
Gulmohur
Herself
Feasts
Renoir’s Umbrellas
Age
Usage
In Memory of a Schizophrenic Friend
The Autocrats of Memory
Leper Girl
Enemies
Swiftly, Swiftly
Night Sonnet
Bedtime Story
Prophesies 2001
BRUTES
Cockroach
Mayflies
Moth
Tiger
Gomata
Goatsong
Okapi
Arachnidaria
Other Spiders
Urban Pigeon
Wild Bird
Sparrows
Insight
Ganges Dolphins, Bangladesh
Mayamriga, California
TERRITORIES
Assegai, Africa
Hundru Falls, Ranchi
Sumo Wresters, Japan
Moondrop, Java
Enigma, Thailand
Backyard, Singapore
Cambridge Blues
Fear of Flying, Midwest
The Bathers, USA
Journey from Baroda
Miniature Paintings, Upper India
Tibetan Sand Mandala
Sardinian Encounter
Malviya Nagar-Sissinghurst
Digital Delhi: Six Snapshots
LANGUAGES
Yellow Hibiscus
Leela
A Haiku History of the World
The Hyoid Bone
Convers(at)ion
Undeciphered Script
Gargi’s Silence
Cumquat May
The Truth According to Tarski
Language Lessons
To Sleep
Shalagrama
Computer
Computer II
Telescope
Shell Shock!
Letter
Fellow Poet
The US in 2-D: a Play for John Ashbery
A Politically Incorrect Ode to Whitman
Agitprop Verses: The Fundamentals
Love
Love Songs
Five Uneasy Pieces
Making Ends Meet
Why Should a Poem Always Glide?
Reasons, Ltd
Seasons, etc
Ode to Our Languages