Poetry in a time of terror : essays in the postcolonial preternatural

The essays, together with a detailed Introduction and Postscript, broadly focus on the question of poetry. Wide ranging in their references, and written in a lyrical and inviting style, the writings engage with a host of political questions relating to nation, language, translation, borders, gender, sexuality, and more. How can an individual poet define her own voice in the face of the overwhelming presence of earlier, often dead, poets' voices? What connect our 'new' postcolonial, transnational anxieties to the rampant celebrations of cruelty and torture that have always been the subject of poetry from humankind's earliest epics? Is poetry the antithesis of terror or is it terror's very essence? While grappling with these questions, the underlying premise is that poems, even the most apparently everyday ones, are texts of crisis; they are our first language when confronted with the incomprehensible, with sublime joy, or with terror out of the sky. Essays Examine The Poetic Stances Assumed By 'terror' In Relation To Nation, Language, Translation, Borders, Gender, Sexuality, And Other Forms Of 'difference'. Preface : The Death Of Language -- Poetry As Crisis : Heroism Beyond The Human -- Sign Into Meaning : Contemporary Culture And Individual Talent -- The Evil Queen : Women's Voices -- Krishna's Flute : Poetry In Translation -- The Sensuous Conch Of Theory : Postcolonial Mastery -- Colonial Cousins : Modern British Poetry -- Nature's History : Creating A Gandhian Space For Peace -- Strange Meeting : The Man Who Carried Tagore Into The Trenches -- Country Lullabies : The Anthem As A Song Of The Nation -- Across The Border : Pakistani Poetry In English -- When The Sky Falls : Creativity In Poetry -- Postscript : Absolute Freedom And Terror. Rukmini Bhaya Nair. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. These essays, together with a detailed Introduction and Postscript, broadly focus on the question of poetry. Wide ranging in their references, and written in a lyrical and inviting style, the writings engage with a host of political questions relating to nation, language, translation, borders, gender, sexuality, and more.