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 149
... light of those women's eyes I saw the death camps at our century's end : A woman in Sarajevo shot to death as she stood pleading for a pot of milk , a scrap of bread , her red scarf swollen with lead hung in a cherry tree . Turks burnt ...
... light of those women's eyes I saw the death camps at our century's end : A woman in Sarajevo shot to death as she stood pleading for a pot of milk , a scrap of bread , her red scarf swollen with lead hung in a cherry tree . Turks burnt ...
Page 160
... light shines . The abstract form of the house , a dwelling in motion , resonates , making for a calm and tranquil repetition . The post - Enlightenment dichotomy between inside and outside , private and public is exploded . Here ...
... light shines . The abstract form of the house , a dwelling in motion , resonates , making for a calm and tranquil repetition . The post - Enlightenment dichotomy between inside and outside , private and public is exploded . Here ...
Page 165
... 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 , cool torsion cut to ... Light 165 Paper Filled with Light.
... 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 , cool torsion cut to ... 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