by Meena Alexander postcolonialism
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starts with a memory
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references Heart of Darkness
- references characters from it (she calls herself Marlow and Kurtz)
- how she has learnt the colonizer’s language and education
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her self-doubt, imposter syndrome
- they manifest as a Mahakavi from a temple or a man in white flannels who is unerringly English
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identity crisis
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dichotomy
- violence of language
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books sit between Gandhi’s Experiment with Truth, and a crown of thorns brought by a visiting pastor
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displacement, dislocation
I was Marlowe and Kurtz and still more a black woman just visible at the shore. I thought it’s all happened all happened before
”You think you write poetry! Hey you —” as he sidestepped me dressed neatly in his jurta and dhoti a mahakavi from the temples of right thought.
Or one in white flannels unerringly English lured from Dove Cottage transfixed by carousels of blood
In dreams I was child babbling at the gate splitting into two, three to make herself safe.
Tom and Bess → kids from the book used to teach her English
These lines took decades to etch free, the heart’s illiterate. The map is torn.