Poetry at Sangam

Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.

THE MOTHERS by Jeet Thayil

with Shakti Bhatt

Some are sweet and old,
others are foul-mouthed and bold.
Mine is dead and cold.
She judges me with eyes of gold,
and though her eyes cannot hold
mine, they move in search
of me each night. How you lurch
backward in time to fold
me back into your lonely perch
where no new egg will hatch.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Jeet Thayil was born in Mamalasserie, Kerala, in 1959, and educated at Jesuit schools in Bombay, Hongkong, and New York. He worked as a journalist for twenty-three years before writing his first novel, Narcopolis. His five poetry collections include Collected Poems and These Errors Are Correct, which won the 2013 Sahitya Akademi Award (India’s National Academy of Letters). He is the editor of The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets. Narcopolis was awarded the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and was shortlisted for five other prizes, including the Man Booker prize and the Man Asian Literature Prize. His second novel The Book of Chocolate Saints was published in 2017.

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