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 69
... poet's speech— that heightened , intimate vocalization ; why not ? Surely poetry is as much speech as any other form of address . Both poems draw the hard power of naming , and of being named as Other , into the seams of the present ...
... poet's speech— that heightened , intimate vocalization ; why not ? Surely poetry is as much speech as any other form of address . Both poems draw the hard power of naming , and of being named as Other , into the seams of the present ...
Page 172
... poetry and her political speeches . But there are hard questions to ask of her poetry and poli- tics . Was there an impossible cleft between the intense , if impris- oning passions of her poetry and the political life she espoused ? The ...
... poetry and her political speeches . But there are hard questions to ask of her poetry and poli- tics . Was there an impossible cleft between the intense , if impris- oning passions of her poetry and the political life she espoused ? The ...
Page
... 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 . " As the condition of migration and cultural displacement comes to ...
... 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 . " As the condition of migration and cultural displacement comes to ...
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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