G. S. Sharat Chandra

Rating: 4.33
Rating: 4.33

G. S. Sharat Chandra Poems

Last night I arrived
a few minutes
before the storm,
on the lake the waves slow,
...

It's a habit by now
head bent
at four a.m., the birds wake
to complain
...

Bells do not ring
when our names are called,
...

At the sudden edge
where the hill gapes into the valley,
a gnarled mimosa leans
away from the sky
...

To turn the lamp on,
let it capture the cunning back
of the literary thief,
...

In Nanjangud
there are five hair cutting salons
named after the goddess of India
with the picture of the goddess
...

I want a vacation
where the mind doesnt stray
from the starry stratosphere
of motel ceilings
...

Show me a man who sleeps to be miserable,
I'll show you myself
the story isn't easy,
...

The hours,
sullen goats grazing on emptiness
drift mutely to the other side of day.
...

A Hindu ceremony where crow
believed to be ancestors are fed
My brothers and sisters are calling
our ancestors from their hideout
...

'You from India? Dreadfully poor place,
I was there for three weeks,
saw a dead boy on the street,'
...

Praise to thee great Allah,
For carving my beloved
Pure as the sand of Mecca,
Rarer than the rose rarest.
...

At dusk
they come back from their parched fields
dragging their ancient plow.
...

G. S. Sharat Chandra Biography

G.S. Sharat Chandra was an internationally acclaimed author of both poetry and fiction. Much of his work touches on the deep emotions of the Indian/American immigrant. Indian-born Chandra received a law degree in India but came to the United States in the 1960s to become a writer. He received his Masters of Fine Arts form the Iowa Writers Workshop. For most of his career, Chandra taught at the University of Missouri-Kansas City as a professor of Creative Writing and English (1983–2000). His most famous work, Family of Mirrors, was a 1993 Pulitzer Prize nominee for poetry. Author of ten books, including translations from Sanskrit and English into the Indian language Kannada, a former Fulbright Fellow and recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Creative Writing, Chandra has given readings at the Library of Congress, Oxford, and McDaid's Pub in Dublin. Chandra traveled the world extensively throughout his life and received international recognition for both his poetry and fiction. His works have appeared in many journals including American Poetry Review, London Magazine, The Nation, and Partisan Review. Chandra was married to his wife, Jane for 38 years until he died of a brain aneurysm in 2000. He left three children. Work April in Nanjangud, Alan Ross Ltd., London Magazine Editions, 1971; Once or Twice, Hippopotamus Press, UK, 1974; The Ghost of Meaning, Lewis-Clark State College, Confluence Press, Idaho, 1976; Heirloom, Oxford University Press, 1982; Family of Mirrors, BkMk Press, 1993; Immigrants of Loss, Hippopotamus Press, 1993–94, Sari of the Gods, 1998. Sharat was a gifted teacher of creative writing. He encouraged persistence, craft, and imagination. He did so with humor and compassion. As a teacher at the Mark Twain Writer's Workshop, he once read from a stack of rejection letters, which he claimed papered the walls of his writing study. With regard to the writerly imagination, and the importance of craft, he once said: "You can tell me anything, anything at all. Just make me believe!")

The Best Poem Of G. S. Sharat Chandra

Brother

Last night I arrived
a few minutes
before the storm,
on the lake the waves slow,
a gray froth cresting.
Again and again the computer voice said
you were disconnected
while the wind rattled
the motel sign outside my room
to gather
its nightlong arctic howl,
like an orphan moaning in sleep
for words in the ceaseless
pelting of sleet,

the night falling
to hold a truce with the dark

In the Botticellian stillness
of a clear dawn I drove
by the backroads to your house,
autumn leaves like a school of yellow tails
hitting the windshield
in a ceremony of bloodletting.

Your doorbell rang hollow,
I peered through the glass door,
for a moment I thought
my reflection was you
on the otherside,
staring back,
holding hands to my face.

It was only the blurred hold of memory
escaping through a field of glass.

Under the juniper bush
you planted when your wife died,
I found the discarded sale sign,

and looked for a window
where you'd prove me wrong
signaling to say
it was all a bad joke.

As I head back, I see the new
owners, pale behind car windows
driving to your house,

You're gone who knows where,
sliced into small portions

in the aisles of dust and memory.

G. S. Sharat Chandra Comments

Anusuya Yadav 01 August 2012

poemhunter kindly do this favour for me...we have g.s. sharat chandra's REASONS OR STAYING, VENDOR OF FISH & CONSITENTLY IGNORED in our M.A. Syllabus...ive searched thoughout.. couldn't find those poems anywhere...unfortunately its not der in your website too...can u please post them as well? ? ? ?

4 0 Reply

G. S. Sharat Chandra Popularity

G. S. Sharat Chandra Popularity

Close
Error Success