Jump to content

In Santa Cruz, Diagnosed Home Sick

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"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

[edit]
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

[edit]

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

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ "Award Winning Poems – AIPC 1997".
  2. ^ Poetry India – Emerging Voices by H K Kaul, Virgo Publications, 1998
  3. ^ Contemporary Indian Poets by Jeet Thayil, Fulcrum, Bloodaxe Books, 1996
  4. ^ "Fourteen Contemporary Indian Poets – Rana Nayar in The Tribune".
  5. ^ "In Cucurcuma, Diagnosed Homesick". 30 May 2012.
[edit]