Book Title: What’s Wrong with us Kali Women?
Author: (Author): Anita Nahal
Publisher and Date: Kelsay Books (August 9, 2021)
Reviewer: Megha Sood
This riveting collection of seventy prose poems exposes the artful mastery of lyrical intensity seeded in Nahal’s poetic craft through which she brilliantly brings out the spectrum of human emotions. The poet speaks with razor-sharp clarity and a deep understanding of the topics ranging from feminism, immigrant, motherhood, racial/gender-based discrimination, and sexual violence against women.
The deep exposition of the complex and layered understanding of the human’s emotions is masterfully portrayed in this collection.
The brilliant collection opens with a powerful prose poem “What’s Wrong with Us kali Women” where she debunks the myth of the goddess to be a metaphor of kindness and forgiveness. She also speaks directly to the double standards prevailing in the patriarchal society where the goddess is being worshipped and the women are being violated in the same breath. She calls out the brazen behavior of men in the society worshipping the goddess Kali and abusing the woman in the same breath through her razor-sharp words.
Through her second prose poem, “Homo sapiens and Hindu goddesses in India and America”, Nahal demands the women to be treated with the same request and equality rather than to be put on a pedestal and being worshipped like a deity. This collection is a deep exegesis of the emotion where the woman is put on a pedestal and stripped from worldly desires thus creating a chasm between the desires and reality.
Through her poems like “Spilt milk in native and foreign lands”, “Paying my debts in two lands”,” and There’s a hole in my heart but my heart is whole”, She portrays her journey from India to the United States as a first-generation immigrant that infused the sense of perseverance and resilience in her. The journey that finally made her the embodiment of strength and survival for her son, her inspiration. She poignantly brings out the fecundity of emotions birthing in an immigrant mind.
Nahal also addresses the deeply rooted systemic oppression of the African American communities and other minorities through her poem “How easy for the black Life to be Taken”. She brings out the atrocities and the systemic oppression faced by the African American community for generations under the guise of deep system oppression and brutal police violence.
Through the sharpness in her words, Nahal talks about the insensitivity in bracketing the women ‘s desires as per her age. Through her bold declaration with her poem “A woman’s age is kicking and alive,” “Babylon, my sinful dance muse,” “Finally She showered,” “And then the pundit asked for my son’s father’s family name,” she packs a punch to the naysayers in the society trying to define the cookie-cutter rules she aggressively denies following.
There are many stunning poems in the collection but a few of my favorites are “Holika, Sita, and Sati,” “What’s Wrong with Us Kali Women,” “Sleepless Nights,” Maryada, and modern Draupadi,” and “Bandit Queen, Phoolan Devi. Other favorites from her collection are the “I did not say, “I love you to my mama,” and “Fallacy of a single, immigrant mom,” Another favorite of mine is “Rape”, where Nahal points out the atrocities of gang rapes and mutilation that followed.
Overall, the poems in this collection speak to the readers through their brilliant perspectives and leave the readers with profound questions much after they read. I highly recommended this collection of prose poems and to my readers for a thoughtful read. Nahal brings out the beauty of her diasporic poetry through poetic brilliance and strings her global and local experience as a literary treat for her readers.
–Megha Sood
Reviewer Bio
Megha Sood is a Pushcart-nominated Award-Winning Poet, Editor, and Blogger from New Jersey. An Associate Poetry Editor at journals MookyChick(UK), Life and Legends (USA), and Partner in Literary project “Life in Quarantine” with Stanford University, USA. Over 700+ Works featured including Poetry Society of New York, American Writers Review, Kissing Dynamite, and many more. National Level Winner Spring Mahogany Lit Prize 2020 and Three-Time State-level winner of NJ Poetry Contest 2018/2019/2020. Recipient of Poet Fellloship from Martha Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing (MVICW) 2021.Co-Editor ( “The Medusa Project”, Mookychick) and (“The Kali Project, Indie Blu(e) Press).Author of forthcoming Chapbook ( “My Body is Not an Apology”, Finishing line press, 2021) and Full Length (“My Body Lives Like a Threat”, FlowerSongPress,2021).Blogs at https://meghasworldsite.wordpress.com/ and tweets at @meghasood16
Thank you so much, Megha for this fabulous review of my book! Thank you also, immensely, Kalpna Singh-Chitnis for giving a warm, welcoming space in your journal!