In Santa Cruz, Diagnosed Home Sick
"In Santacruz, Diagnosed Home Sick" is a poem by the Indian English poet and novelist K Srilata. The poem won First Prize in the Eighth All India Poetry Competition conducted by The Poetry Society (India) in 1998.[1] This was the first major literary award for Srilata, who subsequently won the Unison British Council Award and Charles Wallace Fellowship for Poetry.
Excerpts from the poem
- At the gift shop by the wharf
- I bought an indigo octopus
- all arms...
- I, a newcomer to this
- out-of-the-way white-hippie town
- settle into the sea.
- *****
- My two-month hostility melts
- even as I see what divides me from home
- more clearly than I did from my airless plane.
- The sea knows ways of connecting too,
- fluidly hugging,
- in long-armed benevolence,
- the puzzle-edges of vast continents.
Comments and criticism
The poem has received critical acclaim since its first publication in 1998 in the book Emerging Voices[2] and has since been widely anthologised.[3] The poem has been frequently quoted in scholarly analysis of contemporary Indian English poetry.[4] The poem has inspired many literary works of similar name.[5]
See also
Notes
- ^ "Award Winning Poems – AIPC 1997".
- ^ Poetry India – Emerging Voices by H K Kaul, Virgo Publications, 1998
- ^ Contemporary Indian Poets by Jeet Thayil, Fulcrum, Bloodaxe Books, 1996
- ^ "Fourteen Contemporary Indian Poets – Rana Nayar in The Tribune".
- ^ "In Cucurcuma, Diagnosed Homesick".