Post by shayepoet on Jun 4, 2008 23:26:30 GMT 2
Thirtha
Pramila Venkateswaran
"There is a breakthrough in these poems by Pramila Venkateswaran which is at once notable and tantalizing. In the current ascendance of multiculturalism, this fine South Asian poet teaches us that the aesthetics of human investigation -- whether interpersonal, sexual or charged with politics and culture -- may achieve something greater than mere coloration, hue or facile explication. Here we have a poet who eschews the easy statement in her search for subtlety of sensibility."
-- George Wallace
Sample poem:
Thirtha
I taste Cauvery in New York, glinting thinly where it crosses
Karnataka into Tamil Nadu; a clump of cane between
a well and a home marking the border. Does the farmer
transgress by walking under the same sky for a sip?
We are on both shores at once, both or more?
Where the Indian Ocean holds the Atlantic
and the Pacific, waters wed
cobalt and ash; the depths are emerald; tides rise
and fall, storms rage, unconfined by borders.
from "Thirtha"
Reviews for Thirtha:
"With remarkable clarity and dazzling imagery these poems "walk through history, without the heaviness of a camera," bringing us moving and compassionate accounts of displacement, loss, pilgrimage and hope. Whether in her own voice, or through voices from the past, Pramila Venkateswaran speaks to us in a language that is at once deeply lyrical, humble, intense and intelligent. In Thirtha "words thud louder / than hoe hitting stones" -- a poignant sound that resonates long after closing the book.
-- Laure-Anne Bosselaar
In her first volume of poetry, Thirtha (pilgrimage), Pramila Venkateswaran is a poet spinning gold, bringing together many perspectives - Indian, American, immigrant to America, daughter, mother, woman, listener, speaker, and more.
In the foreword, Pramila says the "pilgrimage her family made every summer to various parts of India to visit temples continues to inform her life." "In fording the oceans between India and America," the author says, she "becomes the pilgrim once again· returning renewed." Pramila Venkateswaran's voice is magical - taking me out of myself, and returning me renewed.
-- P. Tadepalli, Desi Journal
"These are works that at once notable and tantalizing for their delicate handling of the aesthetics of human exploration - whether interpersonal, sexual, or charged with politics and culture. We learn through these poems to go beyond mere coloration of multicultural expression to something greater - statements which go beyond facile explication to a higher subtlety of sensibility.
-- George Wallace, Poetry Bay
Video: www.poetryvlog.com/Pramilaven.html
About the Author:
Pramila Venkateswaran is the author of Thirtha (Yuganta Press, 2002) and Women Like Us (Plain View Press, forthcoming). A finalist for the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, she has published in Paterson Literary Review, Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, Atlanta Review, Prairie Schooner, Kavya Bharati, Long Island Quarterly, Calyx: Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Nassau Review, and other print and electronic journals. Recent anthologies, A Chorus for Peace, En(Compass) and Letters to the World, include her voice among poets from around the world. She has participated in multimedia presentations of her poems and has performed her poems nationally, most recently in the Geraldine R. Dodge Festival. Her essays on gender and culture appear in The Women’s Studies Quarterly, Language Crossings, and anthologies of literary criticism. She has a doctorate from George Washington University and teaches English and women’s studies at Nassau Community College, New York. (tinyurl.com/5fsmwu)
ISBN 0-938999-15-X, $11.95
Yuganta Press, 2001
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Yuganta Press: www.yuganta.com/thirtha.html
Powells: tinyurl.com/5hsbfo