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July 25, 2004
Review: Literary melting pot
SOME of the most vibrant English language writing today is coming from writers belonging to migrant communities in the West. They have enriched literature of the land in which they live and have often captured an essence of the homeland they or their forbears have left behind. This is very evident in Feroza Jussawallla’s accomplished poetry collection Chiffon Saris, which explores her experience of North America juxtaposed with her sense of self as a Parsi of Indian origin. The very title of the book suggests adaptation and change. The title poem spins the story of the saree from Draupadi’s garment in ancient Hindu mythology and the magical silks of the Varanasi weavers, to practical Japanese georgette and French chiffon, recommended for North American climes. While in “Garas” she makes a comment on family history through a traditional Parsi heirloom, the bridal saree embroidered by her grandmother, Jussawalla is a university professor in New Mexico, a region with a vibrant Spanish-speaking population.
Several poems revolve around issues of identity, ethnicity and of course — the word ‘Indian” — and her own place, as an immigrant of subcontinental origin in the United States. In “Tierre de Luna” she writes: “it is here I belong, along this stark Chihuahuan border/ of the USA/ I, who have come/’from deserts vast and plenty/’from the land where the lizard and lion/ keep Jamsyd’s court/Via Bharatmata/ Mother India.
Jussawalla’s poetry challenges racial stereotypes and weaves in Spanish phrases and wonderful metaphorical images of the desert and indigenous inhabitants, drawing parallels between the peoples of India and America. While “Meeting the Mayflower” begins with the lines: What would have happened/ if the Mayflower had/ been met by/ immigration/ police?
These poems form an interesting contrast with her poems about London which are embedded with images of English literature and colonial history, but some of her most powerful deal with personal illness, the ravages of cancer and chemotherapy.
The Guyana born Canadian, Cyril Dabydeen, is another skilful poet, who explores immigrant experience in his poetry collection Hemisphere of Love. He writes with great elegance and his work spans, contrasts and links the two vastly different Americas that he has inhabited, North and South. The first part “Being here” begins with poems conjuring up Canada’s pine clad landscape, its lakes and its indigenous inhabitants, but these verses are often quietly interjected with a tropical image, to create contrast and tension. Many such as “Upper Canada village” and “In the creek” are observations of Canadian life or a contemplation of small daily events.
The second part “The beauty of toes” is centred on more southern climes and several such as “South America” and “Acorn’s Third World” are strongly political. The title poem of this section “Beauty of Toes” revolves around themes of unity and history, combines the small details of transitory imprints of bare feet with the grand imprints of rivers cutting across the planet and images of antiquity. In some poems such as “A visit to India” and “A train to Mumbai” the poet looks at his own relationship to the land of his distant ancestors. The third part of this collection “Hemisphere of love” is a celebration of migration of multiculturalism beginning with a prose poem “Entries”, about aspirations, hopes, belonging and unrealized dreams.
There is a strong spiritual dimension to Gamboling with the Divine, the tenth poetry collection by Rienzi Cruz, the Canadian author of Sri Lankan origin. These poems are very different to Dabydeen and Jussawalla and are essentially a contemplation of God and Man. Most of them are imbued with a stong Biblical imagery to make a comment on daily life. Some such as the powerful “He who talks to the raven” have a strong Biblical resonance too, while “The Song of David” is a hymn to nature’s gifts, Other poems are a witty dialogue with God or purely devotional. The standard does vary, but Cruz’s best are powerful, controlled and disciplined.
Chiffon Saris
By Feroza Jussawalla
ISBN 1-894770-13-7
89pp. Canadian $16.95
Hemisphere of Love
By Cyril Dabydeen
ISBN 1-894770-12-9
74pp. Canadian $16.95
Gambolling with the Divine
By Rienzi Cruz
ISBN 1-894770-11-9
95pp. $16.95
Tsar Publications, 39 Woburn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5M 1K5 Tel: 416-483-7191. Fax: 416 486-0706
Email: treview@total.net
Website: www.tsarbooks.com
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