“Diaspora” comes from the Greek word “diasperien”, dia means “across” and sperien means “to sow” or “scatter the seeds”. Diaspora indicates the displaced and dislocated communities who have been uprooted from their native homeland through the movements of migration or exile. The writers of Diaspora are branded for using many of the autobiographical elements in their works. The factors of Diaspora are shown by portraying some real life incidents through their literary texts. Meena Alexander, one of the prolific writers of Indian origin shows this fact through her creative art. The striking memories of motherland are overshadowed in almost all her poems. Like all other poets, Meena Alexander’s poems also deal with the themes of love, war, effects
…show more content…
At present she lives in the United States of America. She is a writer of collections of poetry like “Illiterate Heart”, “Raw Silk” and “Quickly Changing River”. “Quickly Changing River” is a quest for home. It is luminous with all the weather and warmth of childhood days in her homeland. In this collection she journeys down the memory lane to find her roots and establish her identity. She tries to harmonize her fragmented experiences in a colourful collage. Her poems reflect an acute tension between her past and present. “Quickly Changing River” is Meena Alexander’s latest collection of poems published in 2008. The title is significant. The river has the capacity to cut its path through difficulties and obstacles. It keeps the natural rhythmic track. In “Quickly Changing River” the readers are acquainted with so many obstacles and hurdles in Meena’s life. Her experiences in India, Sudan, London and New York are not unhampered by troubles. But she rose confidently through the hazardous journey of her life. The poem “Cosmopolitan” begins thus:
You want a poem on being …show more content…
(Alexander, 2008. 12)
Her memory always beckons her to her past days. Thus she speaks:
And underneath – in memory now –
I heard a darkness, luminous.
Kerala University, first class first. (Alexander, 2008. 12)
The poems “He Speaks: A Former Slave from Southern Sudan” and “She Speaks: A Seventy Four Year Old Woman to her Daughter” depict the sorrows and pains in the life of a slave. A slave is treated as a commodity. The punishment of the runaway slave brings tears to our eyes:
Hands were cut off, arms too,
As punishment for flight. Legs too. (Alexander, 2008. 55)
She loses her emotional roots in a foreign country. She suffers thus in “House of Breath”:
Now I am in a country that has no name. (Alexander, 2008. 108)
She is passionate about her past in India and Sudan: “I am she come from where I crave again to be”. (Alexander, 2008. 21). The sense of “homelessness” is so vivid, so powerful and so permanent in her. Evan Boland complements “Quickly Changing River” that her poems are of rich and satisfying detail of gingko trees and water taxis, the pearly feathers of pilgrims. But the real strength of this book goes far beyond detail, however lyrically rendered. These poems are a sustained elegy for homelessness, for the displacement at the heart of human
At present she lives in the United States of America. She is a writer of collections of poetry like “Illiterate Heart”, “Raw Silk” and “Quickly Changing River”. “Quickly Changing River” is a quest for home. It is luminous with all the weather and warmth of childhood days in her homeland. In this collection she journeys down the memory lane to find her roots and establish her identity. She tries to harmonize her fragmented experiences in a colourful collage. Her poems reflect an acute tension between her past and present. “Quickly Changing River” is Meena Alexander’s latest collection of poems published in 2008. The title is significant. The river has the capacity to cut its path through difficulties and obstacles. It keeps the natural rhythmic track. In “Quickly Changing River” the readers are acquainted with so many obstacles and hurdles in Meena’s life. Her experiences in India, Sudan, London and New York are not unhampered by troubles. But she rose confidently through the hazardous journey of her life. The poem “Cosmopolitan” begins thus:
You want a poem on being …show more content…
(Alexander, 2008. 12)
Her memory always beckons her to her past days. Thus she speaks:
And underneath – in memory now –
I heard a darkness, luminous.
Kerala University, first class first. (Alexander, 2008. 12)
The poems “He Speaks: A Former Slave from Southern Sudan” and “She Speaks: A Seventy Four Year Old Woman to her Daughter” depict the sorrows and pains in the life of a slave. A slave is treated as a commodity. The punishment of the runaway slave brings tears to our eyes:
Hands were cut off, arms too,
As punishment for flight. Legs too. (Alexander, 2008. 55)
She loses her emotional roots in a foreign country. She suffers thus in “House of Breath”:
Now I am in a country that has no name. (Alexander, 2008. 108)
She is passionate about her past in India and Sudan: “I am she come from where I crave again to be”. (Alexander, 2008. 21). The sense of “homelessness” is so vivid, so powerful and so permanent in her. Evan Boland complements “Quickly Changing River” that her poems are of rich and satisfying detail of gingko trees and water taxis, the pearly feathers of pilgrims. But the real strength of this book goes far beyond detail, however lyrically rendered. These poems are a sustained elegy for homelessness, for the displacement at the heart of human