Two Diaspora Feminist Poets With A Different Approach
Yogesh Patel
THE SINGER OF ALLEPPEY/SHE! THE RESTLESS STREAK by Pramila Venkateswaran and Meena Chopra Shanti Arts Publishing/CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2019, 114 pp., $15.95. CDN$ 29.50
February 2019, volume 43, No 2

Pramila Venkateswaran is ‘one of our finest diaspora poets’, declares Keki Daruwala. This collection enhances that point. The poet laureate of Suffolk County, Long Island from 2013 to 2015, Venkateswaran has already six collections of poems to her credit. The Singer of Alleppey creates a viewpoint on feminism for the readers. It avoids all pitfalls of direct winging and rhetoric in the true discipline of art. However, through Sitala, her late paternal grandmother’s eyes, mind and heart she leaves no doubt about her message on men’s violence against women. The work is not prescriptive or judgemental, but as the title suggests a search for the joy and yogic harmony through a quest for songs. The joy is fragile. When the joy of enjoying the chiku juice is over:

all this despite living with a stone husband.

 

The uncompromising lyricism in the backdrop of violence creates a compelling narrative.

A bird bangs itself against glass and falls.

That’s how I feel when he slaps my face.

 

And that’s how an innocent girl is delivered into a violent drama as a woman. It shocks and at times is painful to comprehend. In ‘Letter to Sarojini’, she dismantles the dream to highlight the reality.

The things I love in your poems:

nightingales, peacocks, bangle sellers, bangles.

I have yet to see a nightingale here in my corner of Kerala.

There is a peacock in the temple but it does not dance, the bangle sellers are morose and show the same dull colours. If only they captured the hues of spring!

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