Meena kandasamy poems for kids

and may be we will
almost fall in love...
I will look into his eyes,
and he into mine—
...

We’re going to see it in the ways in which our lives unfold. A lot of these big publishers still want template books. That we are from there, we are people who fight, and stand for the good thing. She writes of Dalit women that they are “twice Dalit” since they are oppressed on both counts of caste and gender, an understanding that she developed when she was the editor of The Dalit, a bi-monthly alternative English magazine between 2001 and 2002.

Being a member of the Dalit Panthers of India Meena Kandasamy and Dalit feminist voices consider poetry as a tool of social change because she sees it as a form of expression without academic boundaries, and thus Kandasamy uses poetry for social change, she can release her unprocessed anger and pain.

And is it a preoccupation in literature? Meena’s activism is rooted in the academic rigour of her obtaining a Doctorate of Philosophy in Socio-linguistics, conferred by Anna University, Chennai.

Meena Kandasamy Activism: A Voice for the Marginalized

Meena Kandasamy poet and activist, her work cannot be dissociated from her struggle against caste and gender oppression.

This poem is also idiot-proof.
This poem quotes Dr.Ambedkar.
This poem considers Ramayana a hetero-normative novel.
This poem breaches Section 295A of the Indian Penile Code.
This poem is pure and total blasphemy.
This poem is a voyeur.
This poem gossips about the sex between Sita and Laxman.
This poem is a witness to the rape of Shurpanaka.

Like, how do you look at colours? However, she has become strong-willed in the face of these threats because of her outspokenness, and she says that, “This threat of violence should not influence what you are going to write.”

Books Written by Meena Kandasamy: A Literary Legacy

Kandasamy’s oeuvre—Meena books, poems, and novels— is a marker of her flexibility and her determination towards justice.

Because this is something you don’t encounter. We are reacting, in some way, to that memory that we all carry with us. 

I think ‘memory’ is very interesting from a literary point of view as well because so many of these struggles don’t get into print, they don’t get chronicled, and therefore they are forgotten.

Yes. Even though none of these poems were written from a ‘memory’ standpoint as much as from a ‘helplessness’ standpoint. But I’ve lived with this book for over the last 12 or 10 years. then at last he crushed
the red-hot rebellion of the rainbow border,
never letting May mix with December, or,
the rich with the poor, or the high with the low.
every mismatch was malady.

it was no country for old men or old women.
sugar daddies and cougars were banished and
the hunchbacked and the handicapped found
themselves in this lacklustre blocklove list.
the rulebook forbade poets to patronize them.
no history—no hyperlinks—no tv—no twitter
no news of this love being refused redemption.
this love, for twisted souls; this love, the lost cause.

Straight Talk

Everyone speaks of him.

Hands dancing in air
they gush about the power
of his words his flourishes
of rhetoric his direct approach
his raw reproach his felicity in
ferocious Tamil his three hours in
the sweltering heat rousing
angry young man rally speeches
that make men out of mice and
marauding wildcats out of men
fiery speeches that subvert and
overturn and unseat and revolt
spontaneous speeches that unsettle
states and strongmen and sinister
systems of caste and speeches that
seek to settle scores delivered in
his voice that makes skyscrapers
fall to their knees

He is the greatest orator
in our language today, they say.

I wonder at how easily led people are.

Even I loved his speeches best,
until, one day, seven years ago,
I fell in love with the many registers of his silences.

Screwtiny

For an affair:

Trust any man who is allergic to children,
Carries a civil war in his eyes, travels a lot
And speaks up when you are subjected
To society’s customary stone-throwing—
This hero has a history of scandals.
He keeps secrets like slave-girls.
Trust this man to never let you down,
Or stand you up, even if it involves
Rising from the dead.

So I think that is a huge thing that needs to be done. Post-traumatically, poetically.
You live as if he has never died.

Shell-shocked, spellbound, your third eye
Clamped shut to keep the nightmare away,
Your blood bears the salt of withheld tears.
Never do you mention that your man—so alive
Even when being set alight—was humbled
Into handfuls of ash and defiant bones.

You turn deaf to face this faulty music,
You sacrifice all sleep to live this fragile dream.
You’ve sworn to never let him wander out of sight.
You hold him captive in your shattered,
Unwavering world and he, like a flame,
Ceaselessly flickers, so your eyes too dance,
And your moonglow in his ghostly presence
Makes poets sing of how, once upon a time,
Beauty basked in the light of her undying Love.

Jouissance

An angry philosopher froze
His philandering wife—Passivity
As punishment for promiscuity.
Rendered senseless, set in stone,
She stared in unceasing surprise
As her sagely husband toured
The world with his treatises on
What pleasure meant to women
And a powerpoint presentation
That showed close-up photos
Of her fixed phantom face.

He painstakingly pointed out
The moment of arrival of ecstasy
In the stone-dead statue—
A coming that was a curse.
A coming, he claimed, like that
Of mortified mystics, which
She would never know.

Other women grasped the game.
They knew no man would ever
Let them be, ever set them free.
So, when asked, they answered
With wide-eyed wonder
Yes yes yes o yes yes yes
O yes yes yes yes yes yes

Flesh Finds A Form Of Address

Gathering flowers for another garland,
Anorexic Andal flaunts
Her freshness before Thirumal.

Lying on her back—waiting
To be full, filled and fulfilled—
Mira sings a siren-song
To summon Krishna.

Emerging from the river—
Tying her hair in a top-knot,
Akka Mahadevi rehearses
Crushing Shiva on her pitcher breasts.

The Hindu He-poet too dreams
Of his goddess: Her breasts, to him,
Are golden globes, and
Cone-shaped copper vessels, and
Big as the mount Meru, and
Grown so heavy they threaten
Her slender, creeper-like waist.
Eyes crinkled to a close, he chants
Her praise, he sees lights.

And I’m a mother of small children so it’s really interesting when you take them to bookstores.