letter to reetika vazirani re: world hotel
January 8, 2010
08/20/09 World Hotel
dear reetika vazirani,
what works in these poems is the tangibility of your details, the theme of dichotomy of visibility and invisibility, showing the remnants of coloniality and life and consciousness within it, the presence of the body, and the ways you use language and place to dislocate the tongue.
the details are disorienting in their precision; the flowers come alive, embodying a woman’s separation from her homeland, dramatizing the work of mothering children along with the neighbor woman, the “wandering Jew she’d / rooted on her windowsill” (“Gardening: Hollywood Lane”, page 53). there is some pain in these objects, there is a resistance in the telling, a sense of weight and risk involved. the stories within the poetry is more believable for that heft.
the language is a sword with two edges, at once making objects and sentiments visible or shrouding them in subtlety. it is what isn’t said directly that makes the reader work to assemble the poems’ pieces — a woman in exile is written through her actions, rooting a “wandering Jew” where she can keep it close. the feeling of exile is relayed by the crowdedness of objects and by the woman’s busynesss.
“Nikos of Caravy Street” (page 89) is a one-on-one conversation between a speaker and Nikos. the intimacy expressed in this dialogue is awesome; there is a heightened sense of something being at stake. the speaker’s voice is naked, while the exact story is shrouded by the speaker’s tone of exasperation and authority. the body speaks an indirect language, the tongue of object and action and location.
funny, bright, unexpected juxtapositions in this book. Maria Callas and the goddess Radha inhabit “Emigration” (102) and leaving feels lighter than exile. you play with sound and silliness: “I meant to call but lost myself at the mall” (103). what are you doing here? these writings are an intervention into thinking, into quick judgments. there are multiple facets to the stories, each story a facet of the telling.
thank you,
tahminah zaman
© 2010 tahminah zaman
