Black Candle: Poems about Women from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Book Overview

Poetry. Asian American Studies. A revised edition of this popular book of poetry. Chitra Divakaruni evokes the sounds, smells, tastes, sights of South Asian culture. Told in a woman's voice, these... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0934971749
• ISBN13: 9780934971744
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Calyx Books
• Length: 106 Pages
• Weight: 0.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Searing beauty

Divakaruni's poetry is visceral, breath taking, and haunting. Her images will stay with you. Her other collection of poetry is also impressive. Leaving Yuba City: Poems. I recommend reading anything she has written. Her prose is beautiful: Sister of My Heart: A Novel, Queen of Dreams, The Mistress of Spices: A Novel, The Vine of Desire: A Novel, The Unknown Errors of Our Lives: Stories, Arranged Marriage: Stories... All are excellent.

A supremely impressive collection rich in metaphor.

Black Candle is a supremely impressive collection of poetry rich with metaphor and set on the Indian sub-continent. These poems portray moving, palpable portraits of women's lives that will strike a universal chord of recognition and appreciation with the western reader. The Room: I have walked this corridor so many times/I no longer notice/the gouged floorboards, the brown light/washing the peeling walls, the stale/childhood smell of curried cabbage.//I am looking for the door,/the one whose striated knob/matches perfectly the lines of my palm,/which opens without sound/into a room with milk-blue walls.//On the sill, a brass bowl/of gardenias in water. Peacocks/spread silk feathers against cushions./The white cockatoo on its stand/knows my name. Sun filters/through the sari of a woman/who rises toward me. I am caught/by the lines of her bones, the fine/lighted hairs on her held-out arm,/your eyes, mother, in her mouthless face.

Good thing I joined Amnesty International

I found these poems to reveal a harsh beauty. If I joke that American women should read this before they complain it would be to ease the tension over severity with which women are treated in many of these Asian cultures. Divakaruni has revealed a piece of her soul and raised concerns over the mistreatment of women in Asia (as well as anywhere in the world for that matter) These poems are best read a couple at a time so one can absorb the passion and the reality of the situations described. A few of the poems in this collection moved me close to tears. Hopefully, a better day will dawn. I would like to apend my earlier comment that American women should read this by stating that all the men need to read it, too.