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 129
... past in art . I think of Walt Whitman's meditations on the organic form he envis- aged : ' From the eyesight proceeds another eyesight and from the hearing proceeds another hearing and from the voice proceeds another voice eternally ...
... past in art . I think of Walt Whitman's meditations on the organic form he envis- aged : ' From the eyesight proceeds another eyesight and from the hearing proceeds another hearing and from the voice proceeds another voice eternally ...
Page 177
... past is drawn into the quest for an equally idealized future : ' Mother , O Mother , wherefore dost thou sleep ? / Arise and answer for thy children's sake ! ... Waken O slumbering Mother and be crowned , / Who once wert empress of the ...
... past is drawn into the quest for an equally idealized future : ' Mother , O Mother , wherefore dost thou sleep ? / Arise and answer for thy children's sake ! ... Waken O slumbering Mother and be crowned , / Who once wert empress of the ...
Page 195
... past caught me by the throat . I feel I am noosed in a lasso , a figure of eight . Does that make sense ? Let me begin again : I came here , Draupadi , to live and write . To face these mountains , the setting sun . To bristle with life ...
... past caught me by the throat . I feel I am noosed in a lasso , a figure of eight . Does that make sense ? Let me begin again : I came here , Draupadi , to live and write . To face these mountains , the setting sun . To bristle with life ...
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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