Rasa theory, part of Indian genre theory and Sanskritic poetics, describes an elaborate typology of nine essences or emotions, ranging from adbhuta (wonder) to raudra (fury) to karuna (sorrow) to santa (serentity). This first collection of poetry by Kuldip Gill is rich with these emotions.
Gill, a Sikh woman who immigrated to Canada in 1939, creates poems that open different worlds as they inform and fascinate. This is a poetics that intertwines English and Punjabi, life in Canada and life in India, past and present, myth and imagination. The reader is invited to accompany Gill as she reads the love letters her father wrote to her mother; travels to British Columbia on the CPR Steamship Empress of Japan; visits the streets of New Dehli and Benares; and relives her family's struggles and challenges as they try to make a home in a new land.
Lush and lyrical, powerful and evocative, Gill's words will sing to you long after you've finished her last poem.
Rasa theory, part of Indian genre theory and Sanskritic poetics, describes an elaborate typology of nine essences or emotions, ranging from adbhuta (wonder) to raudra (fury) to karuna (sorrow) to santa (serentity). This first collection of poetry by Kuldip Gill is rich with these emotions.
Gill, a Sikh woman who immigrated to Canada in 1939, creates poems that open different worlds as they inform and fascinate. This is a poetics that intertwines English and Punjabi, life in Canada and life in India, past and present, myth and imagination. The reader is invited to accompany Gill as she reads the love letters her father wrote to her mother; travels to British Columbia on the CPR Steamship Empress of Japan; visits the streets of New Dehli and Benares; and relives her family's struggles and challenges as they try to make a home in a new land.
Lush and lyrical, powerful and evocative, Gill's words will sing to you long after you've finished her last poem.
PART I
SRINGARA RASA (Eros)
Love Letters - Canada to India, 1930s
Oud Ja Kayla Kauva (Fly Away Black Crow)
My Eyes Hurt When You're Not Here
The Dream Train
Love Song
Kildeer's Dance
KARUNA RASA (Sorrow)
Sumarian
I.Hand to Hand to Hand: Would Theirs Be a Life to Disregard?
II.Death's Messenger
III.After Death - Love Letters
Identities: Heart and Soul
ADBHUTA RASA (Wonder)
Sonja Beti
Travelling Through the Borderlands
Trans-Pacific Ships: The Empress of Japan
Have You Seen the Rain in Kerala?
RAUDRA RASA (Fury)
Attar of Roses and Almonds - Queensborough, 1940
My Mother's Ladner Farmhouse Kitchen
Indian Miniatures: Zenana Lady and Falcon-gentle
BIBHATS RASA (The gruesome)
Village Girls in Rajasthan
The Kashmiri Carpet Weaver's Son
Benares: Two-Wheeled Carts
The Stone-Carrier Woman - New Delhi
Murmurs of Murder: She Crossed the Kala Pani
Your First Mother
A Lobotomy
VIRA RASA (The heroic)
Homelands - India, 1972
The India Chest
Shoes
The Candy Man
Hay Beds and Brick Chulas, 1914-1915
BHAYANKA RASA (The timorous)
My Mother's India and the Queensborough Kitchens
The Old Abbotsford Temple: A Child's Queries About the Pictures
The Old Abbotsford Temple: A Young Woman Reflects on the Bhog
SANTA RASA (Serenity)
The Cart
Sanctuary
Blue Heron - Ruskin, BC
HASYA RASA (The Comic)
ESL Dialogue: Two Voices
Dissembled
Sikh Women's Dress Code - Queensborough, 1941-1947
Sikh Men's Dress Code - Queensborough, 1941-1947
Scorpion
A Very Properly Killed Chicken
PART II
KULDIP KE DIVAN: GHAZALS
Ghazal I
Ghazal II
Ghazal III
Ghazal IV
Ghazal V
Glossary
Notes on the Text
Acknowledgements
Kuldip Gill was born in Faridkot District, Punjab, India. She immigrated to Canada at age five and then attended school in the Fraser Valley. She worked in the forestry and mining industries for twenty years and then obtained her PhD in anthropology from UBC. She has taught at UBC, SFU, and at the Open Learning Agemcy. She taught a creative writing class at the University College of the Fraser Valley. Her poetry has aired on radio and has appeared in periodicals such as Event, BC Studies, Contemporary Verse 2, and AMSSA-Cultures West. She served on the editorial board of Prism International. Gill's first book of poetry, Dharma Rasa (Nightwood Editions), was a winner of a BC 2000 Book Award. Kuldip Gill passed away May 2009.
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