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Prosper's Book Undrowned:
The Figure of the Book
in Derek Walcott's Another Life (1973)
-- Robert Bensen
If "Language is the perfect instrument of empire," as the Bishop of Avila told Queen
Isabella (Quoted in Hanke, 1959), then the book is a weapon of colonial domination through
colonial narrative, and a means of talking and talking back through counter-narratives of
postcolonial discourse. The figure of domination in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Prospero's book historically proliferated in the form of texts—reports, histories, letters, treaties and treatises—as well as
the books of history, art and poetry instrumental in the growth of the young artist-poet in Another Life (1973). He assumes his place in textual lineage, through his artist's sketchbook and the
journal that becomes Another Life. The poem is a sustained struggle to appropriate the instruments
of empire as primary means of envisioning a new, postcolonial poetry, consistently driven by
forces operating between nationality, locale, and language; that is, by the formation of culture in
the West Indies.
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Playing Safe: Anthony Nazombe's English Language Poetry in MCP Malawi
-- Syned Mthatiwa
Writing under Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda's dictatorial leadership in Malawi, with its
stiff censorship laws and intolerance to dissenting voices, required that Anthony Nazombe, one
of Malawi's leading poets, adopt a private and cryptic mode of writing to outwit the censors
and avoid political persecution. This essay attempts to show that the poetic form, and the
style and technique he adopted as a poet, enabled Anthony Nazombe to express his anger against,
and disillusionment with, the excesses of Kamuzu Banda without attracting reprisals.
Plain writing, with no circumspection, and yet expressing the sentiments we find in his
poetry would have been a sure way of signing his detention order. Nazombe's creative use of language
and his caution in masking his message, proved effective in outwitting the censors. Besides, the
poetic form made it easier for him to express his feelings simply and easily, while the instability of
poetic meaning and the "esoteric character of modern poetry […] render[ed] it peculiarly suitable
to [the] sensitive political climate" (Gérard, 1986, 968).
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
The Vibrant Voices of Contemporary Dalit Poets in Telugu
-- Thummapudi Bharathi
The struggle of Dalits against casteist tradition has a long history. The primary motive of Dalit literature
is the protest and liberation of Dalits. In modern India, Dalit literature got impetus in Maharastra due to
the legacy of Jothirao Phule and Dr. B R Ambedkar. Dr. Ambedkar, who entered the Indian political arena
with a modernist thinking to the outmoded Indian social structure, is the inspiration for Telugu Dalit
writers. During the 1970s, a majority of Telugu Dalit poets, artists and intellectuals used Naxalism as the
weapon to destroy castocracy. Unfortunately, their dream of revolution has not become successful and
castocracy forced them to come out of People's War Group. The atrocities on Dalits during the 1980s gave birth to
many powerful Dalit writers. Undoubtedly, the subalterns are determined to create a new history. Reconstruction
is possible only with deconstruction. Hence, they not only question and protest but also work to achieve power,
as power is necessary for re/new construction. In this process, New Historicism comes to the help of
Dalit writers. It is an established fact that the most significant contemporary Telugu poetry is written by
Dalit poets. Contemporary Dalit literature has authentically acquired its right place in Telugu literature.
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Crime and Deterrence
in an Indigenous Law of Zimbabwe: The Case of
Ngozi Myth
-- Beauty Vambe
In 1899, the settler government in Southern Rhodesia promulgated the Witchcraft
Suppression Act. This Act achieved two main goals, amongst many, that were intended and unintended;
the Act suppressed African cultures, belief systems and the unwritten moral and legal frameworks
as practised by African people. Secondly, the introduction of the Act marked the beginning of
a system of legal dualism in Rhodesia. The customary law and constitutional law applied to
blacks, while only the constitutional law applied to whites. This racialization of the legal system
has remained a permanent feature of Zimbabwean law. The aim of this paper is to explore the
moral unwritten law embodied in the belief of ngozi among most Africans in Zimbabwe. The paper
draws its evidence from a Shona novel in which the conflict between the constitutional law and
the indigenous law is sharply dramatized. Tobias H Goredema's Gwara Reropa (The Path of Blood) (1992), reveals the internal philosophy that informs the moral law of the ngozi myth, and also highlights the internal contradictions of this aspect of Zimbabwe's customary law. The paper
then argues that although the ngozi myth is built on a system of unwritten cultural beliefs, and
customs, its legal standing in the Zimbabwean customary is contested. One aspect explored here is that
the ngozi law is meant to operate as deterrent to crimes such as murder. However, the complex
nature of the ngozi law is such that in seeking to prevent murders, sometimes its moral and legal
assumptions and modes of redress and restorative justice are premised on the violation of individual
human rights, especially if understood through the lenses of modern constitutional law.
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
A Poet's Perspective: On the Nature of
Poetry and the Creative Process
-- Shanta Acharya
There are as many ways of describing poetry and the poetic process as
there are poets. Among the better known definitions of poetry that come
to mind are William Wordsworth's "the spontaneous overflow
of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."
For T S Eliot, "poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape
from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from
personality." In the words of Emily Dickinson: "To see the Summer Sky / Is Poetry,
though never in a Book it lie – / True Poems flee." Wallace Stevens confirms that
"poetry is the supreme fiction," while Gustave Flaubert reckons that "poetry is as
precise as geometry." "Imaginary gardens with real toads in them," is Marianne
Moore's verdict. For Percy Shelley, "poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that
which is distorted." Stephen Mallarme thinks, "It is the job of poetry to clean up
our word-clogged reality by creating silences around things." God is the perfect
poet in the view of Robert Browning; while for Philip Larkin, "Poetry is
nobody's business except the poet's ..."
© 2009 Shanta Acharya. All Rights Reserved.
Poems
Another Country
-- Cyril Dabydeen
Out to Sea
-- Cyril Dabydeen
© 2009 Cyril Dabydeen. All Rights Reserved.
Sulibhajan Temple
Aurangabad
-- Sukrita Paul Kumar
Liberation at Kappad, Calicut
-- Sukrita Paul Kumar
© 2009 Sukrita Paul Kumar. All Rights Reserved.
Mementoes of Tribal Wars
-- Maurice Taonezvi Vambe
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Five Poems by M K Ajay
Into This Day
Ascetic
Why Time Is Not Linear
Higher Truths
Symbiosis
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Short Stories
in Translation
Mamakaram (Attachment)
-- Tripuraneni Gopichand
Copyright permission for the translation has been obtained.
Chesukunna Karma (Performed Karma)
-- G V Krishna Rao
Copyright permission for the translation has been obtained.
Velthuru Chettu (Tree of Light)
-- Syed Saleem
© 2009 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
Bhayamum Thelivum (My Fears Are Stilled)
-- Prema Nandakumar
© 2009 Copyright of the English version rests with the Translator. All Rights Reserved.
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