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 74
... hands lavish with paint gripping rubies , lotus , lute a stack of rupee bills Billboards for ceramic toilet bowls lilac and pink posters for the latest True Life Movie — a girl Paper thin , leapt into water as backdrop to her tiny hands ...
... hands lavish with paint gripping rubies , lotus , lute a stack of rupee bills Billboards for ceramic toilet bowls lilac and pink posters for the latest True Life Movie — a girl Paper thin , leapt into water as backdrop to her tiny hands ...
Page 75
Reflections on Postcolonial Experience Meena Alexander. VI . We forget the hands of men and women raising corpses from lakes , stones for a new highway over the flooded paddy field Hands that scoop ash from cooking fires lit by the rim ...
Reflections on Postcolonial Experience Meena Alexander. VI . We forget the hands of men and women raising corpses from lakes , stones for a new highway over the flooded paddy field Hands that scoop ash from cooking fires lit by the rim ...
Page 112
... hands , scrub them , then toss them into the boiling cauldron . The cauldron stands where the bench of the princess stood , by the patch of winter jasmine , in the garden of pheasants . The soldiers are red faced , raw between the ears ...
... hands , scrub them , then toss them into the boiling cauldron . The cauldron stands where the bench of the princess stood , by the patch of winter jasmine , in the garden of pheasants . The soldiers are red faced , raw between the ears ...
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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