Seven Poems

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01 May, 2013

ABOUT THE POEMS The work of a new generation of female poets in Tamil has been one of the most charged spaces in the literature of that language in the last two decades. But these poets are often judged not by the quality of their language and imagery, or the density and detail with which they pursue their themes, but by the prevailing conventions of the world they live in—even the more liberal sections of that world. As the writer and translator Lakshmi Holmström observes, “For these past years, Tamil women poets have been categorized into ‘Bad Girls’ who write ‘body poetry’ and ‘Good Girls’ who refrain from doing so.”

These poems, by four poets who have each at some point been tagged as “bad girls”, are taken from Holmstrom’s new anthology of translations Wild Girls Wicked Words (Sangam House/Kalachuvadu Publications). Intensely proud, sarcastic, assertive and probing, these poems speak in a voice that distances itself from the world’s encrusted vocabulary and categories—a poetic discourse that thinks of itself variously as a “demon language” (Malathi Maithri) or an “infant language” (Sukirtharani). The poems are unapologetically “body poetry”. Indeed, they must necessarily be so, for they show how the female body itself has all too often served as a kind of text that is subjected to certain oppressive and enfeebling readings—readings that the body itself then must try to overthrow by speaking afresh, in a harsher voice, shorn of euphemisms. Holmström’s deft translations bring across to readers in English the unforgettable sound, blazing with oppositional energy, of some of contemporary Indian literature’s brightest flares.

Salma

New Bride, New Night

The evening breeze

blows towards the bride

as she takes her leave

on her wedding day.

Her elder sister

pushes her face inside

the purdah, and instructs her

on making love, surrounded

sweetly, by the scent of flowers.

She has riffled in haste

through pages of heavy books

she herself had not known before,

in order to tell her little sister

which days are best for sex,

when she would, most likely, conceive,

when things are haraam,

she tells her about prescribed

post-coital ablutions.

Before her small eyes

suiting her short frame

images intervene:

the affliction of her own life

and the empty routine

of tired, worn out sex.

These she hides within herself.

From time to time

the younger girl, disturbed

by the shameful, falling words,

tries to muzzle them

with her own foolish

self-confidence.

That entire night

the new bride

disentangles her sister’s advice

caught in her dangling ear-drops,

and lays them out carefully

upon the marriage bed.

Kutti Revathi

Light Is A Prowling Cat

Opening the door noiselessly,

Light puts out a hand

–  hesitantly –

wondering if it’s still raining.

Seeing that the rain has gone

it spreads out its shadow-shop

upon the clustering trees,

then climbs up the tent-face

to sit and watch the world.

Scattered upon the earth, the beauty of cat-colours.

When its shadow starts to eat itself

Light slithers down the tree and springs

right up to the lamp in its niche.

Now Light perches on Night’s back

which stands erect as a compound wall

and takes for its own

the great shining light of lovers’ union

through the moon’s wide eyes.

Stone Goddesses

The sculpture, peeling away its skin

of stone, and coming to life,

too shy of the light,

becomes a dark shape

lurking within its curtain of shadows.

Time’s nail

hammered to its feet

has cursed the rain and the wind

also

the flung droppings of bats

and the desolate spaces of solitude.

It is possible that

sculptures overflowing with God’s grace

walk about as goddesses

where man’s gaze is unknown,

in ruined halls, perhaps,

or in the recesses of tall temple towers

But, for some reason,

at the merest hint of man’s scent

they decline into lifeless corpses.

Malathi Maithri

Demon language

The demon’s features are all

Woman

Woman’s features are all

demon

Demon language

is poetry

Poetry’s features are  all

saint

become woman

become poet

become demon

Demon language

is liberty

Outside Earth

she stands:

niili, wicked woman.

Observe The Crane

The crane waits

at the verge of the river-bed,

fish swimming in its memory.

In search of its reflection, the moon

wanders, vanishes.

Swirls of roots tear into the earth,

in hunger.

The wind, sweeping up its troubles,

hurls the heat in all directions.

Pulverized, the heart whirls

like dust in a storm.

It isn’t just the earth

that overflows through its cracks

in heat and rage.

The crane

absorbs into itself all that heat

and boils within.

If only the crane would sink into

the whirlpool of its memory

and beat its wings,

the river might gather its form once more

from the scattered drops,

and walk again.

River, watch that crane.

Sukirtharani

Infant Language

I need a language

still afloat in the womb

which no one has spoken so far,

which is not conveyed through signs and gestures.

It will be open and honourable

not hiding in my torn underclothes.

It will contain a thousand words

which won’t stab you in the back

as you pass by.

The late night dreams I memorized –

hoping to share them –

will not be taken for complaints.

Its meanings will be as wide as the skies.

Its gentle words won’t wound

the tender surface of the tongue.

The keys of that unique language

will put an end to sorrow,

make way for a special pride.

You will read there my alphabet, and feel afraid.

You will plead with me in words

that are bitter, sour and putrid

to go back to my shards of darkened glass.

And I shall write about that too, bluntly,

in an infant language, sticky with blood.

I Speak Up Bluntly

I shooed away crows

while flaying dead cows of their skin.

Stood for hours, waiting

to eat the town’s leavings –

then boasted that I ate hot, freshly cooked rice.

When I saw my father in the street

the leather drum strung from his neck,

I turned my face away

and passed him by.

Because I wouldn’t reveal

my father’s job, his income,

the teacher hit me.

Friendless, I sat alone

on the back bench, weeping,

though no one knew.

But now

if anyone asks me

I speak up bluntly:

I am a Paraichi.