December Poems

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Description:

Author: Ranu Uniyal
Pages: 60
Year of Publication: 2012
Price: Rs 100
ISBN: 978-93-5045-028-4 (9789350450284)

About the Author:
Ranu Uniyal was educated in Lucknow, Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi) and Hull University (United Kingdom). She was awarded the Commonwealth Scholarship for a Ph.D. in English. She is Professor of English at Lucknow University. Her main research interests are Indian literature, women’s writing and postcolonial literatures. Her research publications and reviews have appeared in journals like Commonwealth Review, South Asian Review, Journal of Gender Studies (Routledge) and Seminar. Her poems have been featured in publications that include Muse India, Kavya Bharati, Manushi, Sketch Book (USA), Northern Poetry Volume 2 (UK) and Femina. She is Associate Editor of The SPIEL Journal of English Studies (Lucknow). Professor Uniyal co-edited Women in Indian Writing from Difference to Diversity (Prestige Books, 2009) and has written four books including Women and Landscape: The Fiction of Margaret Drabble and Anita Desai. (Creative Books, 2000). She is one of the founding members of Pyssum, a charitable organization for children with special needs in Lucknow. This is her second book of poetry.

Teaser:

Papa at eighty-two

You speak only of death and God
And are constantly reminded of grey men
With dentures that do not fit
And throats that rattle
Forever thirsty
Stomachs with impatient creases
And tongue sick with saliva
The joints lean and fleshless scuffling
The weight of your bones
The only souvenir that you wish to keep
Is your smile
Staring at my face
I try not to get deceived by that earnest scowl.

How often does the living speak of the dead?
How many times do the dead look at the living?
And marvel at their capacity for love?

No matter what we do or say
There is a charm even if you
Call yourself a spent force
Each smile is met with a song
And wherever there is scorn
Coil your hands together as if
It is necessary to evade the collapse.

You can read a review of the book here.

Contents:
43 poems

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