Tishani Doshi
Tishani Doshi Poems
Let us not speak of those days
when coffee beans filled the morning
with hope, when our mothers’ headscarves
hung like white flags on washing lines.
...
The day we went to the sea
mothers in Madras were mining
the Marina for missing children.
...
If we’d lived in another age,
I’d have been the kind of woman
who refused to cast down her eyes.
The kind of woman
...
The body dances in a darkened room
Turning itself inside out
So that skin can face the light in fractures,
Slip like shadow through skeleton walls,
...
It begins with the death
of the childhood pet -
the dog who refuses to eat
for days, the bird or fish
...
In Nairobi, an albino boy followed me everywhere
Peering at me from behind cupboards and trees,
Chortling with glee: Hello fine!
Here is space. Here is space
...
These days men on curbs are curved
Like farm tools or bits of wire,
Like unruly saucers of tea flung
Into the trees, the walls, the breeze.
...
This morning men are returning to the world,
Waiting on the sides of blackened pavements
For a rickshaw to carry them away
On the sharp pins and soles of their dancing feet.
...
Rilke is following me everywhere
With his tailor-made suits
And vegetarian smile.
...
Girls were crying yesterday in their ball gowns;
Holding each other up like poles of wilted beanstalks.
I wanted to carry them into the streets.
To the unused railroad track in the middle of town,
...
I once chased my brother
Down to the edge of the sea.
We ran past sheets and towels
Spread like sky on the beach,
...
I hold my husband in plastic bags.
He’s whispering like a soft, worn thing,
dropp me here, dropp me gently.
...
When I see the houses in this city,
the electric gates and uniformed men
employed to guard the riches of the rich,
...
Ultimately, we will lose each other
to something. I would hope for grand
circumstance — death or disaster.
But it might not be that way at all.
...
Dear Reader,
I agree to turn my skin inside out,
to reinvent every lost word, to burnish,
to steal, to do what I must
...
It happens that I am tired of being a woman.
It happens that I cannot walk past country clubs
or consulates without considering the hags,
skinny as guitar strings, foraging in the rubbish.
...
I arrived in a foreign land yesterday,
a land that has seen troubles,
(who hasn't, you might say?)
...
Girls are coming out of the woods,
wrapped in cloaks and hoods,
carrying iron bars and candles
...
Tishani Doshi Biography
Tishani Doshi is an Indian poet, journalist and dancer based in Chennai. Born in Madras, India, to a Welsh mother and Gujarati father, she received an Eric Gregory Award in 2001. Her first poetry collection, Countries of the Body, won the 2006 Forward Poetry Prize for best first collection.She has been invited to the poetry galas of the Guardian-sponsored Hay Festival of 2006 and the Cartagena Hay Festival of 2007. Her first novel, The Pleasure Seekers, was published by Bloomsbury in 2010 and was long-listed for the Orange Prize in 2011, and shortlisted for The Hindu Best Fiction Award in 2010. She writes a blog titled "Hit or Miss" on Cricinfo, a cricket-related website. In the blog which she started writing in April 2009, Tishani Doshi makes observations and commentaries as a television viewer of the second season of the Indian Premier League. She is also collaborating with cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan on his biography, to be published when he retires. She works as a freelance writer and worked with choreographer Chandralekha until the latter's death in December 2006. She graduated with a Masters degree in creative writing from the Johns Hopkins University. Countries of the Body was launched in 2006 at the Hay-on-Wye festival on a platform with Seamus Heaney, Margaret Atwood, and others. The opening poem, The Day we went to the Sea, won the 2005 British Council supported All India Poetry Competition; she was also a finalist in the Outlook-Picador Non-Fiction Competition. Her short story Lady Cassandra, Spartacus and the dancing man was published in its entirety in the journal The Drawbridge in 2007.)
The Best Poem Of Tishani Doshi
Ode To The Walking Woman
(After Alberto Giacometti )
Sit -
you must be tired
of walking,
of losing yourself
this way:
a bronzed rib
of exhaustion
thinned out
against the dark.
Sit -
there are still things
to believe in;
like civilizations
and birthing
and love.
And ancestors
who move
like silent tributaries
from red-earthed villages
with history cradled
in their mythical arms.
But listen,
what if they swell
through the gates
of your glistening city?
Will you walk down
to the water’s edge,
immerse your feet
so you can feel them
dancing underneath?
Mohenjodaro’s brassy girls
with bangled wrists
and cinnabar lips;
turbaned Harappan mothers
standing wide
on terracotta legs;
egg-breasted Artemis –
Inana, Isthar, Cybele, clutching their bounteous hearts
in the unrepentant dark,
crying: 'Daughter,
where have the granaries
and great baths disappeared?
Won’t you resurrect yourself,
make love to the sky,
reclaim the world.'
Tishani Doshi Comments
Ageless. These have the smell of old books and seasoned lovers about them...here is a glass raised.
this poet has a great deal to say i will follow her with interest
nice poems cool.......i found myself reading some of the poems so fast as if the words would disappear before i could finish them, lovely work, thanks for sharing............... i am love it
Tishani Doshi Popularity
Tishani Doshi Popularity
Delivering Poems Around The World
Poems are the property of their respective owners. All information has been reproduced here for educational and informational purposes to benefit site visitors, and is provided at no charge...
4/25/2024 2:12:55 AM # 1.0.0.1119
an amazing use of words and descriptions, i found myself reading some of the poems so fast as if the words would disappear before i could finish them, lovely work, thanks for sharing.