G. S. Sharat Chandra
G.S. Sharat Chandra (1935-2000) was an internationally acclaimed author of both poetry and fiction. Much of his work touches on the deep emotions of the Indian/American immigrant.
Indian-born Chandra received a law degree in India but came to the United States in the 1960s to become a writer. He received his Masters of Fine Arts form the Iowa Writers Workshop. For most of his career, Chandra taught at the University of Missouri-Kansas City as a professor of Creative Writing and English (1983-2000). His most famous work, Family of Mirrors, was a 1993 Pulitzer Prize nominee for poetry. Author of ten books, including translations from Sanskrit and English into the Indian language Kannada, a former Fulbright Fellow and recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Creative Writing, Chandra has given readings at the Library of Congress, Oxford, and McDaid's Pub in Dublin.
Chandra traveled the world extensively throughout his life and received international recognition for both his poetry and fiction. His works have appeared in many journals including American Poetry Review, London Magazine, The Nation, and Partisan Review.
Chandra was married to his wife, Jane for 38 years until he died of a brain aneurysm in 2000. He left three children.
Some of his poems
Shortchanged Lives
"You from India? Dreadfully poor place,
I was there for three weeks,
saw a dead boy on the street,"
gasps Mrs. Gentry,
sizing me with squinted eyes
as if to give more lens might tempt me
to dive into her yuppie life.
How can I tell her
I've nursed the starved, the forsaken,
or those on a parched afternoon,
that give up under a thin tree
or the shade of a culvert,
hallucinating a winged charpoy
to whisk them to swarga,
where gods line up
with handfuls of bliss to make up
for their battered mortality.
Brother
Last night I arrived
a few minutes
before the storm,
on the lake the waves slow,
a gray froth cresting.
Again and again the computer voice said
you were disconnected
while the wind rattled
the motel sign outside my room
to gather
its nightlong arctic howl,
like an orphan moaning in sleep
for words in the ceaseless
pelting of sleet,
the night falling
to hold a truce with the dark
In the Botticellian stillness
of a clear dawn I drove
by the backroads to your house,
autumn leaves like a school of yellow tails
hitting the windshield
in a ceremony of bloodletting.
Your doorbell rang hollow,
I peered through the glass door,
for a moment I thought
my reflection was you
on the other side,
staring back,
holding hands to my face.
It was only the blurred hold of memory
escaping through a field of glass.
Under the juniper bush
you planted when your wife died,
I found the discarded sale sign,
and looked for a window
where you'd prove me wrong
signaling to say
it was all a bad joke.
As I head back, I see the new
owners, pale behind car windows
driving to your house,
You're gone who knows where,
sliced into small portions
in the aisles of dust and memory.
Morning Song
To turn the lamp on,
let it capture the cunning back
of the literary thief,
to open the window
so the birds learn their words
instead of muddling them with chirps,
to whistle to the deaf horse grazing
in the windy backyard,
see in its steamy nostrils
the angelic clouds,
to stash the householder's concern
for this world in a trash bag
& applaud its disappearance
as if in an act at a carnival
to forgive those more able
to hold on to their daily pretensions
even as they wake from dreams.
O life, that settles into recesses
of sorrow in the company of others,
forgive this foolish human
who chooses what he doesn't know
of coming deceptions,
then dances with them
in a garage full of leaves.
The Absent
Bells do not ring when our names are called,
we are the no people
who were once the yes people,
we are China in the back closet,
wash left in the rain
with the wind moving our sex.
Our words are awkward
between forks and knives,
between shadows
on the dinner plates,
we're stones fluttering
in your intimate eyes.
Yet you've given us
a place at your table,
it's a tight place
between crowded chairs,
naked we do not know
if you have us here
to keep yourselves separate.
Barbers of Nanjangud
In Nanjangud
there are five hair cutting salons
named after the goddess of India
with the picture of the goddess
inset with circular photos
of Gandhi, Nehru, Subhash. Bhose,
hovering over the curvature
of the globe with India in the middle.
In one hand the goddess holds the national flag,
with the other she blesses
everyone who bows their heads
for hair-cut, shampoo or blow-dry.
But business is slack,
young men have taken to wearing their hair
longer than women or modem saints,
pilgrims are scarce,
there's drought in the air.
The five barbers sit
vacantly in their chairs.
They're bald, wear no dentures,
bet on horses in far away races
after consulting the race guide,
town tout, the astrologer,
finally the goddess on the wall
in whose moving smile
they divine the well groomed horse
that'll make up for their business loss.
Midlife
I want a vacation
where the mind doesn’t stray
from the starry stratosphere
of motel ceilings
to remember it's become a whale
dipping in & out of itself.
I want to bounce on the bed
from the first kiss
to the last hurrah,
to collapse without pit stops
back into the body
without backing into memory.
I want my mouth
not to watch my tongue,
my tongue my words,
my words my brain,
the rage that was relevant
only yesterday
which now makes me say
I'm glad I've lost it.
I want to dream
of youth's cocky impieties,
the inexact ways to your love's certainty,
not this vision of oranges
under the bed,
the world waiting to see
if I get to eat them free.
Waking At Fifty
Show me a man who sleeps to be miserable,
I'll show you myself
the story isn't easy,
grown into my own soliloquy
I've become a face beside a face
waiting for the ferry.
I tell myself it's all right,
all faces become one
in their fall after fifty:
others gone ahead will offer tea
between wakefulness
and a good deal of forgetting.
I wake up to a bed half empty.
My lover of last night
has become mother downstairs
in a conspiracy of children
who think birthdays are fun
for someone who seems undone.
Down the stairs I pretend not to remember
the lantern that flashed red
by the gates of my clear dream,
Charon's hooded whistle,
the silent boat rocking alone,
all hands blossoming into waves,
for those love gathered downstairs
are giggling with ribbons,
ask if I slept well,
do I remember it's May?
My daughters give me candy bars,
my son shaving brush, face mask,
my wife, hair growing treatmentÑ
gifts that a middle aged man
must truly needÑ
sweetness, clear conscience,
the pardonable chance
to believe in miracles.
Stillness The hours,
sullen goats grazing on emptiness
drift mutely to the other side of day.
The sun has cast his mid-day net
but doesn't move
to pull in the catchÑ
a chameleon,
two stink bugs stiff after love,
a towhee dozing over the patch of impatiens.
Stillness is making its point,
knowing this
the wind plays dead.
Sraddha
that give up under a thin tree
or the shade of a culvert,
hallucinating a winged charpoy
to whisk them to swarga,
where gods line up
with handfuls of bliss to make up
for their battered mortality.
Brother
Last night I arrived
a few minutes
before the storm,
on the lake the waves slow,
a gray froth cresting.
Again and again the computer voice said
you were disconnected
while the wind rattled
the motel sign outside my room
to gather
its nightlong arctic howl,
like an orphan moaning in sleep
for words in the ceaseless
pelting of sleet,
the night falling
to hold a truce with the dark
In the Botticellian stillness
of a clear dawn I drove
by the backroads to your house,
autumn leaves like a school of yellow tails
hitting the windshield
in a ceremony of bloodletting.
Your doorbell rang hollow,
I peered through the glass door,
for a moment I thought
my reflection was you
on the other side,
staring back,
holding hands to my face.
It was only the blurred hold of memory
escaping through a field of glass.
Under the juniper bush
you planted when your wife died,
I found the discarded sale sign,
and looked for a window
where you'd prove me wrong
signaling to say
it was all a bad joke.
As I head back, I see the new
owners, pale behind car windows
driving to your house,
You're gone who knows where,
sliced into small portions
in the aisles of dust and memory.
Morning Song
To turn the lamp on,
let it capture the cunning back
of the literary thief,
to open the window
so the birds learn their words
instead of muddling them with chirps,
to whistle to the deaf horse grazing
in the windy backyard,
see in its steamy nostrils
the angelic clouds,
to stash the householder's concern
for this world in a trash bag
& applaud its disappearance
as if in an act at a carnival
to forgive those more able
to hold on to their daily pretensions
even as they wake from dreams.
O life, that settles into recesses
of sorrow in the company of others,
forgive this foolish human
who chooses what he doesn't know
of coming deceptions,
then dances with them
in a garage full of leaves.
The Absent
Bells do not ring when our names are called,
we are the no people
who were once the yes people,
we are China in the back closet,
wash left in the rain
with the wind moving our sex.
Our words are awkward
between forks and knives,
between shadows
on the dinner plates,
we're stones fluttering
in your intimate eyes.
Yet you've given us
a place at your table,
it's a tight place
between crowded chairs,
naked we do not know
if you have us here
to keep yourselves separate.
Barbers of Nanjangud
In Nanjangud
there are five hair cutting salons
named after the goddess of India
with the picture of the goddess
inset with circular photos
of Gandhi, Nehru, Subhash. Bhose,
hovering over the curvature
of the globe with India in the middle.
In one hand the goddess holds the national flag,
with the other she blesses
everyone who bows their heads
for hair-cut, shampoo or blow-dry.
But business is slack,
young men have taken to wearing their hair
longer than women or modem saints,
pilgrims are scarce,
there's drought in the air.
The five barbers sit
vacantly in their chairs.
They're bald, wear no dentures,
bet on horses in far away races
after consulting the race guide,
town tout, the astrologer,
finally the goddess on the wall
in whose moving smile
they divine the well groomed horse
that'll make up for their business loss.
Midlife
I want a vacation
where the mind doesn’t stray
from the starry stratosphere
of motel ceilings
to remember it's become a whale
dipping in & out of itself.
I want to bounce on the bed
from the first kiss
to the last hurrah,
to collapse without pit stops
back into the body
without backing into memory.
I want my mouth
not to watch my tongue,
my tongue my words,
my words my brain,
the rage that was relevant
only yesterday
which now makes me say
I'm glad I've lost it.
I want to dream
of youth's cocky impieties,
the inexact ways to your love's certainty,
not this vision of oranges
under the bed,
the world waiting to see
if I get to eat them free.
Waking At Fifty
Show me a man who sleeps to be miserable,
I'll show you myself
the story isn't easy,
grown into my own soliloquy
I've become a face beside a face
waiting for the ferry.
I tell myself it's all right,
all faces become one
in their fall after fifty:
others gone ahead will offer tea
between wakefulness
and a good deal of forgetting.
I wake up to a bed half empty.
My lover of last night
has become mother downstairs
in a conspiracy of children
who think birthdays are fun
for someone who seems undone.
Down the stairs I pretend not to remember
the lantern that flashed red
by the gates of my clear dream,
Charon's hooded whistle,
the silent boat rocking alone,
all hands blossoming into waves,
for those love gathered downstairs
are giggling with ribbons,
ask if I slept well,
do I remember it's May?
My daughters give me candy bars,
my son shaving brush, face mask,
my wife, hair growing treatmentÑ
gifts that a middle aged man
must truly needÑ
sweetness, clear conscience,
the pardonable chance
to believe in miracles.
Stillness The hours,
sullen goats grazing on emptiness
drift mutely to the other side of day.
The sun has cast his mid-day net
but doesn't move
to pull in the catchÑ
a chameleon,
two stink bugs stiff after love,
a towhee dozing over the patch of impatiens.
Stillness is making its point,
knowing this
the wind plays dead.
Sraddha
A Hindu ceremony where crow
believed to be ancestors are fed
My brothers and sisters are calling
our ancestors from their hideout
in heaven where
they wait dead or denied,
mortally reminiscing
on the good food they ate,
until they grow wings
to sneak back as ravens.
It must be the smell itself
that gives them directions
to homes of relatives
who're cooking the burden.
A fat one eats only rice,
another pecks on pickles,
one grumbles about the cook,
another perches praising a niece
whose recipes came from a book.
A foreign dead asks for knives,
another circles the house
cawing directions
to a flock of frenetic wives.
Fed by the scriptures,
my ancestors
still remain unimpressed:
a burly beak declares flatly
my wife's curry is a sorry mess.
The last one to leave is a lecher,
sighs at my wife's sumptuous look,
signals he'll be back later,
for favors off the hook.
believed to be ancestors are fed
My brothers and sisters are calling
our ancestors from their hideout
in heaven where
they wait dead or denied,
mortally reminiscing
on the good food they ate,
until they grow wings
to sneak back as ravens.
It must be the smell itself
that gives them directions
to homes of relatives
who're cooking the burden.
A fat one eats only rice,
another pecks on pickles,
one grumbles about the cook,
another perches praising a niece
whose recipes came from a book.
A foreign dead asks for knives,
another circles the house
cawing directions
to a flock of frenetic wives.
Fed by the scriptures,
my ancestors
still remain unimpressed:
a burly beak declares flatly
my wife's curry is a sorry mess.
The last one to leave is a lecher,
sighs at my wife's sumptuous look,
signals he'll be back later,
for favors off the hook.
Valley of the Crows, India
At the sudden edge
where the hill gapes into the valley,
a gnarled mimosa leans
away from the sky
to shade a heap of pebbles,
a raven sits cleaning its beak,
its eyes ancient as guilt.
Without much sympathy
boyish waiters tell the story:
a paltry priest, his orthodox wife,
and lonely daughter
took care of the temple nearby.
It was a worthless living
between bosoms of crippled gods.
There was famine,
pilgrims went elsewhere
where gods flourished
under influential care.
The daughter grew like a lush vine
through the crevices of poverty,
a rich man took her,
ashamed, the mother led
the pregnant girl to the valley,
jumped together arms spread,
it was windless,
no one heard a cry or prayer.
When the crows were done,
no one could find the scattered bones,
the priest went deranged,
rang the temple bells for days
as if to ask the ravens.
The hill is now a tourist resort
where week-end revellers
sit drinking cold beer,
listening to the past held
in the gyrating postures
of waiters who are also guides
to the temple kept intact
with its tragedies.
I among them,
and the raven which slaps
its groomed wings in memory.
where the hill gapes into the valley,
a gnarled mimosa leans
away from the sky
to shade a heap of pebbles,
a raven sits cleaning its beak,
its eyes ancient as guilt.
Without much sympathy
boyish waiters tell the story:
a paltry priest, his orthodox wife,
and lonely daughter
took care of the temple nearby.
It was a worthless living
between bosoms of crippled gods.
There was famine,
pilgrims went elsewhere
where gods flourished
under influential care.
The daughter grew like a lush vine
through the crevices of poverty,
a rich man took her,
ashamed, the mother led
the pregnant girl to the valley,
jumped together arms spread,
it was windless,
no one heard a cry or prayer.
When the crows were done,
no one could find the scattered bones,
the priest went deranged,
rang the temple bells for days
as if to ask the ravens.
The hill is now a tourist resort
where week-end revellers
sit drinking cold beer,
listening to the past held
in the gyrating postures
of waiters who are also guides
to the temple kept intact
with its tragedies.
I among them,
and the raven which slaps
its groomed wings in memory.
Exile
We have everything
telephones, TV, schedules for readings,
addresses, invitations,
but we circle our chairs,
ask aimless questions
who was the angel at the airport
singing names on the intercom
as if she were calling us?
Why are we shouting
our names into mirrors,
awake in a dream
where sirens draw near?
Women sit close
all evening under lamps
to read what we wrote
lost in their country.
Our hands are empty,
our words roam in the city.
Even our rooms are shaped
like boats
to make us buoyant,
yet we drift without docks,
our heads are numbers
bobbing on the streets,
in between the lights,
words are raindrops on our fists.
You can throw anything into the sea,
the sea opens,
the sea zips itself back.
In the strange buildings,
hosted by linguists
we seek walls to hold us steady,
let our ghosts converse.
?
After the Earthquake in India
(30 September 1993)
it's a habit by now
head bent
at four a.m., the birds wake
to complain
they do this cackling in
forgotten dialects of the poor
yesterday's count was thirty-one-thousand
as if longing for more
the morning news will bring
more bodies to the surface
counting is one way
of thinning the eye
to a diet of faith
someone says if there's divine justice
it favors solid foundations
mud & rock slip through God's fingers
we can discuss this at length
but if prayers are shouts
pain is the lost argument
After the Earthquake in India
(30 September 1993)
it's a habit by now
head bent
at four a.m., the birds wake
to complain
they do this cackling in
forgotten dialects of the poor
yesterday's count was thirty-one-thousand
as if longing for more
the morning news will bring
more bodies to the surface
counting is one way
of thinning the eye
to a diet of faith
someone says if there's divine justice
it favors solid foundations
mud & rock slip through God's fingers
we can discuss this at length
but if prayers are shouts
pain is the lost argument
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