- Dr.Pragya Suman
Poem of the Week
This untitled poem is taken from the book How to Wash a Heart written by Bhanu Kapil.. Here we see a beautiful example of the lyric-narrative genre.
My grandfather fermented the yoghurt
With rose petals
And sugar then buried it
In the roots of a mango tree.
Come here, he said, extending
The sweetest fruit I have ever tasted
Come June.
On the far side of the orchard
He grew saffron and the mangoes there
Were red and pink.
In the dry well
He planted a pomegranate tree.
This is where they threw
The bodies
Come August
Noon.
Can you find your way home
By smell?
Metallic, the air tilts along a diagonal line.
I smell the pollen of the flowers of the mango tree
Which once concealed
A kill.
Bio:-
Bhanu Kapil was born in England to Indian Parents. In 1990 she moved to the USA.
In March 2020 Kapil was awarded one of eight Windham-Campbell Literature Prizes.
In January 2021, Kapil was awarded the 2020 T.S Eliot Poetry Prize for her book: How to Wash a Heart.
