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Jejuri (poem)

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Jejuri is a series of poems written by Indian poet Arun Kolatkar. Consisting of a sequence of 31 poems, Jejuri depicts Kolatkar's visit to Jejuri, a city in Pune, which the poet visited in 1964. It was first published in Opinion Literary Quarterly in 1974, and issued in book-form in 1976. Jejuri won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1977.[1]

The poem is made up of a series of often short fragments which describe the experiences of a secular visitor to the ruins of Jejuri. It is one of the better known poems in modern Indian literature.[citation needed]

Comments and criticism

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Jejuri is a sequence of simple but stunningly beautiful poems and is one of the major work in modern Indian literature.[2] The poems are remarkable for their haunting quality. However, modern critics have analysed the difficulty of readers in interpreting the Jejury poems in their proper context.[3] Kolatkar's use of cross-cultural and trans-historical imagery posits Jejuri within a macrocosmic, global framework which forces the reader to adopt an interpretive position not determined by national or cultural preconceptions.[citation needed]

Bibliography

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  • Chaudhuri, Amit. On Strangeness in Indian Writing. The Hindu, 2005. [1]
  • Kolatkar, Arun. Jejuri. Introduction by Amit Chaudhuri. New York Review Books Classics, 2005. ISBN 1-59017-163-2

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Ramakrishnan, E. V. (1997). "Jejuri". In George, K. M. (ed.). Masterpieces of Indian Literature. Vol. 1. New Delhi: National Book Trust. pp. 228–230. ISBN 81-237-1978-7.
  2. ^ "Review by Amit Chaudhury in New York Book Review".
  3. ^ Bird, Emma (June 2012). "Reading Post Colonial Poetry - Jejury by Kolatkar". The Journal of Commonwealth Literature. 47 (2): 229–243. doi:10.1177/0021989412446018.