The Shock of Arrival: Reflections on Postcolonial ExperienceSouth End Press, 1996 - 223 pages In this book, acclaimed South Asian American poet and novelist Meena Alexander unleashes a fury of prose and poetry to confront the stereotypes and explore the challenges facing postcolonial immigrants in America. Commenting on the history of memory, language, shame, and exile, Alexander poignantly describes the wealth of experiences and imaginings that have shaped her life and writing. Her project: "to make space for what was crossed out in the decorum of femininity, in the high places of classical hierarchy, in the racism of a canonical knowledge, in the obliterations of a national memory ... all this is part of our task, part of the violent, fractured worlds that we must etch into beauty". |
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Page 27
... filled with women . Without madness , without deceit . A house for men . For children , too . A house filled with the hum of thousands of voices , small fires burning in the stoves where green mangoes and the bitter gourd are cooked . A ...
... filled with women . Without madness , without deceit . A house for men . For children , too . A house filled with the hum of thousands of voices , small fires burning in the stoves where green mangoes and the bitter gourd are cooked . A ...
Page 113
... filled with dust . She knows the body is a house . New World Aria see a city filled with women . ' A garden inclosed 113.
... filled with dust . She knows the body is a house . New World Aria see a city filled with women . ' A garden inclosed 113.
Page 165
... filled with light Noguchi understood this emptiness , this discipline his father's blackening heart he turned to sheer stone A circlet for our hands titled Sun at Midnight or Spirit's Flight ... Filled with Light 165 Paper Filled with Light.
... filled with light Noguchi understood this emptiness , this discipline his father's blackening heart he turned to sheer stone A circlet for our hands titled Sun at Midnight or Spirit's Flight ... Filled with Light 165 Paper Filled with Light.
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aesthetic America artist Ashtamudi Lake Asian Asian-American art Balamaniamma bits blood born breath British burning child cloth colonialism cried culture dance dark death decolonization Delhi dharma Draupadi dream earth edge English eyes face feminine fierce figure filled fire flesh forced Frantz Fanon Gandhi garden girl hair hands Hashmi head Hyderabad imagination India Kathakali Kerala Khartoum Lalithambika language light lines living Malayalam maternal Meena Alexander memory mother mouth Native American never painted Parasurama passion poem poet poetry political postcolonial published river rock Safdar Hashmi San Andreas Fault sari Sarojini Naidu sense sexual shock of arrival Sita skin Skin Song snow Song soul space speak speech stone street struggle tell Tethi Thankam things thought tion Tiruvella tongue torn trees turned Vasco da Gama violence voice walking wall window woman words writing young