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Selected Poems by Kamala Das
A major poet in English, Kamala Das’s taboo-breaking work explores themes of love and betrayal, the corporeal and the spiritual, while celebrating female sexuality and remaining deeply rooted in the poet’s ancestral tradition and landscape.A rigorous selection from her oeuvre—six published volumes and other uncollected and previously unpublished poems—this edition offers a unified perspective on her poetic achievement. An illuminating introduction to her poetry by Devindra Kohli traces the sources of its ferment, and showcases its originality of style and its acts of resistance.
Paperback
First published December 1, 2014
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About the author
Kamala Suraiyya Das
97 books814 followersSee also Madhavikutty
Kamala Suraiyya (born Kamala; 31 March 1934 – 31 May 2009), also known by her one-time pen name Madhavikutty and Kamala Das, was an Indian English poet and littérateur and at the same time a leading Malayalam author from Kerala, India. Her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short stories and autobiography, while her oeuvre in English, written under the name Kamala Das, is noted for the poems and explicit autobiography.
Her open and honest treatment of female sexuality, free from any sense of guilt, infused her writing with power, but also marked her as an iconoclast in her generation. On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at a hospital in Pune. Das has earned considerable respect in recent years.
(from Wikipedia)
Kamala Suraiyya (born Kamala; 31 March 1934 – 31 May 2009), also known by her one-time pen name Madhavikutty and Kamala Das, was an Indian English poet and littérateur and at the same time a leading Malayalam author from Kerala, India. Her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short stories and autobiography, while her oeuvre in English, written under the name Kamala Das, is noted for the poems and explicit autobiography.
Her open and honest treatment of female sexuality, free from any sense of guilt, infused her writing with power, but also marked her as an iconoclast in her generation. On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at a hospital in Pune. Das has earned considerable respect in recent years.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 8, 2021
"I shall someday take wings,
Fly around, as often petals do
When free in the air,
And you dear one,
Just the sad reminant of a root,
Must lie behind, sans pride,
On double beds
And grieve."
(Lines from the poem POEM :I SHALL SOME DAY)
Selected poems by Kamala Das, a collection of poem which speaks about women and genuine love which is explained from her own life. The poems speak about her first born, Jayasurya, her husband, her poems speak about love, death, sorrows, illness, lust, politics, about her grandmother, about her favourite lord Krishna and her devotion & love towards krishna.
Her poem speaks about her sorrows, when her father died, what people said about her and how she felt that she never fulfilled her father's wishes. The poem also speaks about the how the society sees her and her own relatives, who consider having her as a shame because of her open mindedness and free style of writing.The book also contains poetry from the time of her life when she converted into Islam and how her lover cheated her. She doesn't fear controversy, she speaks boldly of truth. She expresses powerful concepts about freedom, marriage and female rights.
After reading her book "my story", I felt a connection between that book and this book. I felt that she wrote poems about her life which she mentioned in my story. She is a true inspiration to female Indian writers. This book is suggested for people who are interested in poems, not fancy poems but poems about life and truth.
"I've stretched my two-dimensional nudity
On sheets of weeklies, monthlies,
Quarterlies, a sad sacrifice."
(Lines from the POEM: LOUD POSTERS)
Fly around, as often petals do
When free in the air,
And you dear one,
Just the sad reminant of a root,
Must lie behind, sans pride,
On double beds
And grieve."
(Lines from the poem POEM :I SHALL SOME DAY)
Selected poems by Kamala Das, a collection of poem which speaks about women and genuine love which is explained from her own life. The poems speak about her first born, Jayasurya, her husband, her poems speak about love, death, sorrows, illness, lust, politics, about her grandmother, about her favourite lord Krishna and her devotion & love towards krishna.
Her poem speaks about her sorrows, when her father died, what people said about her and how she felt that she never fulfilled her father's wishes. The poem also speaks about the how the society sees her and her own relatives, who consider having her as a shame because of her open mindedness and free style of writing.The book also contains poetry from the time of her life when she converted into Islam and how her lover cheated her. She doesn't fear controversy, she speaks boldly of truth. She expresses powerful concepts about freedom, marriage and female rights.
After reading her book "my story", I felt a connection between that book and this book. I felt that she wrote poems about her life which she mentioned in my story. She is a true inspiration to female Indian writers. This book is suggested for people who are interested in poems, not fancy poems but poems about life and truth.
"I've stretched my two-dimensional nudity
On sheets of weeklies, monthlies,
Quarterlies, a sad sacrifice."
(Lines from the POEM: LOUD POSTERS)
February 17, 2023
This is the only kind of transcendence I know, have felt and continue to long for over and over. 'Mere air, these words, but delicious to hear.' I'll just share some of the best ones here, to invite you all into the palace of her imagination adorned with the music of words:
DEATH IS SO MEDIOCRE
Life has lost its clear outlines. Or else, I may
Have gone half blind, its ritzy splendours stealing
The light from my eye. The night, forever
A garbage collector, tearing grubbily
The wrappers off many a guilt, remains
A dubious ally. All the rest are lying morgued
With that hazy past. And, yet invitations
Come from strangers who proudly string me between
Starched serviette blooms at their tables. And, after
The drinks are drunk and the food eaten, when asked
To speak I find my poor mouth turn into an
Open cavern, ransacked bare, by burglars
Of thoughts and suddenly wealth and lust seem like
Languages once learnt but now forgotten. Death is
So mediocre, any fool can achieve
It effortlessly. For those such as me the awful
Vulgarities of the final rites are not
Quite right, the slow unwrapping of the carcass,
The many paltry, human details that must disgust
The aesthete, the flabby thigh, the breasts that sag,
The surgery scar, yes, it would indeed be
Of no bloody use believing in my soul’s
Poise when the paid marauders strip me of that
Last unbleached shroud and ready me for the fire.
Like an elephant not bidding goodbye while
Taking off for that secret edge of forests
Where they slope into a sure but invisible
Sea, I shall go too in silence leaving not
Even a finger print on this crowded earth,
Carrying away my bird-in-flight voice and
The hundred misunderstandings that destroyed
My alliances with you and you and you . . .
THE CARETAKERS
Yes, we stopped a step away from love,
Our hearts held back by will, for each knew
Well whom the other did desire
Though the desired were far and away.
There was little difference between us.
Each sought a severance from the past, now
Tightly packed like a valise, with faces
Turned into beloved junk, a short lull,
A kind of rest, but while I stood at
Hotel counters, filling in my name,
He took his trips, leaving body behind,
Laying all of it, neatly on the bed.
That scented, kinky head, that cold, closed face.
That furrowed brow and those poor pale limbs . . .
Our hands were timid in love-play, moving
On the other’s skin, they knew they were but
Humble caretakers, for a short while allowed
To make their homes on another’s lot.
THE MOON
Each night the moon cools the sun-cooked
Goodies of the world, pats and shapes
With weathered hands the dough of grief,
And swathes gently the embarrassed
Loneliness of middle age, so
That again the desired words
Are said on balconies, and faded
Eyes glitter with hope. The leper
Dreams of his own wedding day; with
Unflawed arms and legs he sports on
His bridal bed, and his girl is
So beautiful, her head thrown back
In laughter. Not even the new
Planetarium that smells of
Chrome and rexine can change the moon
And its ancient ways, its measured
Tread. It is a trained circus dog
That shall never miss its hoop.
Endlessly healing, it waits for
The new day’s wounds, just a witch who
Fattens on others’ mishaps, lying in
Wait behind the mountains for its
Appointed hour, then emerging
Round-faced like a female seer to
Seek out the sad and if all else
Fail, prescribing a draught of
Lunacy to remove the pain.
MY GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE
There is a house now far away where once
I received love . . . That woman died,
The house withdrew into silence, snakes moved
Among books I was then too young
To read, and, my blood turned cold like the moon.
How often I think of going
There, to peer through blind eyes of windows or
Just listen to the frozen air,
Or in wild despair, pick an armful of
Darkness to bring it here to lie
Behind my bedroom door like a brooding
Dog . . . you cannot believe, darling,
Can you, that I lived in such a house and
Was proud, and loved . . . I who have lost
My way and beg now at strangers’ doors to
Receive love, at least in small change?
THE FREAKS
He talks, turning a sun-stained
Cheek to me, his mouth, a dark
Cavern, where stalactites of
Uneven teeth gleam, his right
Hand on my knee, while our minds
Are willed to race towards love;
But, they only wander, tripping
Idly over puddles of
Desire . . . Can this man with
Nimble finger-tips unleash
Nothing more alive than the
Skin’s lazy hungers? Who can
Help us who have lived so long
And have failed in love? The heart,
An empty cistern, waiting
Through long hours, fills itself
With coiling snakes of silence.
I am a freak. It’s only
To save my face, I flaunt, at
Times, a grand, flamboyant lust.
JAISURYA
It was again the time of rain and on
Every weeping tree, the lush moss spread like
Eczema, and from beneath the swashy
Earth the fat worms surfaced to explode
Under rain. It rained on the day my son
Was born, a slanting rain that began with
The first labour pain and kept me
Company, sighing, wailing, and roaring
When I groaned so that I smiled and stopped my
Plaints to hear its grief. I felt then that
Only the selfish had fears, that only
The unloving felt pain and then the first
Tinge of blood seemed like another dawn
Breaking. For a while I too was earth.
In me the seed was silent, waiting as
A baby does, for the womb’s quiet
Expulsion. This then was my destiny.
Walk into the waiting room, I had cried,
When once my heart was vacant, fill the
Emptiness, stranger, fill it with a child.
Love is not important, that makes the blood
Carouse, nor the man who brands you with his
Lust, but is shed as slough at end of each
Embrace. Only that matters which forms as
Toadstool under lightning and rain, the soft
Stir in womb, the foetus growing, for,
Only the treasures matter that were washed
Ashore, not the long blue tides that washed them
In. When rain stopped and the light was gay on our
Casuarina leaves, it was early
Afternoon. And, then, wailing into light
He came, so fair, a streak of light thrust
Into the faded light. They raised him
To me then, proud Jaisurya, my son
Separated from darkness that was mine
And in me. The darkness I have known,
Lived with. The darkness of rooms where the old
Sit, sharpening words for future use,
The darkness of sterile wombs and that of
The miser’s pot, with the mildew on his coins.
Out of the mire of a moonless night was
He born, Jaisurya, my son, as out of
The wrong is born the right and out of night
The sun-drenched golden day.
GLASS
I went to him for half an hour
As pure woman, pure misery,
Fragile glass, breaking
Crumbling . . .
The house was silent in the heat
Only the old rafters creaking.
He drew me to him
Rudely
With a lover’s haste, an armful
Of splinters, designed to hurt and
Pregnant with pain. Why
Did I not cry then, broken glass, beware?
Why did I not tell him then that
I no longer care
Whom I
Hurt with love and often without?
With a cheap toy’s indifference
I enter others’
Lives and
Make of every trap of lust
A temporary home. On me, their
Strumming fingers may
Revive
The fond melodies of a past.
I give a wrapping to their dreams,
A woman-voice,
And a woman-smell.
And I do not ever bother to tell,
I have misplaced a father
Somewhere
And I look for him now everywhere.
FLOTSAM
We were the homeless, he and I, the floating ones
Who recognise swiftly another of the tribe
By that certain hunger in the eye, a slight
Narrowing, for, although brimming with a desert sun,
It fancies it sees an oasis; the mirage
Greenly reflected in each lonely cornea,
And, so together we stumbled so clumsily
Into lust. But pushing his urgent limbs away
I fought to regain my body’s poise till he cried
I love you, you’ve no need to be afraid of me.
When at last he left, scolded, sent away, alone
On the white desert of my sheets I wondered if
I should have fought at all to save this dubious
Asset, my aloneness, my terrible aloneness.
REQUIEM FOR A SON
A cold wind blows from the airfield today; the mother trembles
With unease, remembering again the son who
Did not return from his play. He had told her once, the air is
My father, it will not betray me but it wrung out of his
Throat his first cry of terror and scattered him over the trees
Among the white and purple bougainvillea bloom, hurled his innards
With the wantonness of breakers that toss in the messy
Treasures of the sea. The public liked what it saw, the mangled son,
A silenced lion wrapped in a flag, the dry-eyed mother; it
Offered its blurred pity and hurriedly left to print the story.
Her laments were silent, her heart was a throne room locked for years
Where she walked alone with a mirror in her hand. Death is
Ordinary. To live on an earth built upon layers and
Layers of bone requires an extraordinary
Courage, to walk the corridors of this prison and note with
A quiet joy the saplings bursting from the cracks in stone and
Know for certain that life will go on. He was impatient with
Old wisdom’s slow narrations, his dreams had wings to lend them speed,
I must do it, he cried banging a clenched fist against a palm,
I have no time at all to waste. Grass has already grown on
The dirt track that returned him each day to his home, his ears filled with
The drone of planes, his limbs chilled by the morning dew. Can he hear
From where he is, the words of the living? Words are a harvest
Gleaned from granite, they are dry and can give no comfort. I was
The maker of your world, said the mother, but when you died you seemed
To take away mine. Night is a woman in widow’s weeds,
Reminding of wet graves and wreaths and my sleep is the hangman’s
Troubled pre-morning slumber, yes, grief burns coldly like a moon,
I live and wither, you die, but blaze with a wondrous life, for
A mother’s love often fashions a kind of eternity.
DEATH IS SO MEDIOCRE
Life has lost its clear outlines. Or else, I may
Have gone half blind, its ritzy splendours stealing
The light from my eye. The night, forever
A garbage collector, tearing grubbily
The wrappers off many a guilt, remains
A dubious ally. All the rest are lying morgued
With that hazy past. And, yet invitations
Come from strangers who proudly string me between
Starched serviette blooms at their tables. And, after
The drinks are drunk and the food eaten, when asked
To speak I find my poor mouth turn into an
Open cavern, ransacked bare, by burglars
Of thoughts and suddenly wealth and lust seem like
Languages once learnt but now forgotten. Death is
So mediocre, any fool can achieve
It effortlessly. For those such as me the awful
Vulgarities of the final rites are not
Quite right, the slow unwrapping of the carcass,
The many paltry, human details that must disgust
The aesthete, the flabby thigh, the breasts that sag,
The surgery scar, yes, it would indeed be
Of no bloody use believing in my soul’s
Poise when the paid marauders strip me of that
Last unbleached shroud and ready me for the fire.
Like an elephant not bidding goodbye while
Taking off for that secret edge of forests
Where they slope into a sure but invisible
Sea, I shall go too in silence leaving not
Even a finger print on this crowded earth,
Carrying away my bird-in-flight voice and
The hundred misunderstandings that destroyed
My alliances with you and you and you . . .
THE CARETAKERS
Yes, we stopped a step away from love,
Our hearts held back by will, for each knew
Well whom the other did desire
Though the desired were far and away.
There was little difference between us.
Each sought a severance from the past, now
Tightly packed like a valise, with faces
Turned into beloved junk, a short lull,
A kind of rest, but while I stood at
Hotel counters, filling in my name,
He took his trips, leaving body behind,
Laying all of it, neatly on the bed.
That scented, kinky head, that cold, closed face.
That furrowed brow and those poor pale limbs . . .
Our hands were timid in love-play, moving
On the other’s skin, they knew they were but
Humble caretakers, for a short while allowed
To make their homes on another’s lot.
THE MOON
Each night the moon cools the sun-cooked
Goodies of the world, pats and shapes
With weathered hands the dough of grief,
And swathes gently the embarrassed
Loneliness of middle age, so
That again the desired words
Are said on balconies, and faded
Eyes glitter with hope. The leper
Dreams of his own wedding day; with
Unflawed arms and legs he sports on
His bridal bed, and his girl is
So beautiful, her head thrown back
In laughter. Not even the new
Planetarium that smells of
Chrome and rexine can change the moon
And its ancient ways, its measured
Tread. It is a trained circus dog
That shall never miss its hoop.
Endlessly healing, it waits for
The new day’s wounds, just a witch who
Fattens on others’ mishaps, lying in
Wait behind the mountains for its
Appointed hour, then emerging
Round-faced like a female seer to
Seek out the sad and if all else
Fail, prescribing a draught of
Lunacy to remove the pain.
MY GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE
There is a house now far away where once
I received love . . . That woman died,
The house withdrew into silence, snakes moved
Among books I was then too young
To read, and, my blood turned cold like the moon.
How often I think of going
There, to peer through blind eyes of windows or
Just listen to the frozen air,
Or in wild despair, pick an armful of
Darkness to bring it here to lie
Behind my bedroom door like a brooding
Dog . . . you cannot believe, darling,
Can you, that I lived in such a house and
Was proud, and loved . . . I who have lost
My way and beg now at strangers’ doors to
Receive love, at least in small change?
THE FREAKS
He talks, turning a sun-stained
Cheek to me, his mouth, a dark
Cavern, where stalactites of
Uneven teeth gleam, his right
Hand on my knee, while our minds
Are willed to race towards love;
But, they only wander, tripping
Idly over puddles of
Desire . . . Can this man with
Nimble finger-tips unleash
Nothing more alive than the
Skin’s lazy hungers? Who can
Help us who have lived so long
And have failed in love? The heart,
An empty cistern, waiting
Through long hours, fills itself
With coiling snakes of silence.
I am a freak. It’s only
To save my face, I flaunt, at
Times, a grand, flamboyant lust.
JAISURYA
It was again the time of rain and on
Every weeping tree, the lush moss spread like
Eczema, and from beneath the swashy
Earth the fat worms surfaced to explode
Under rain. It rained on the day my son
Was born, a slanting rain that began with
The first labour pain and kept me
Company, sighing, wailing, and roaring
When I groaned so that I smiled and stopped my
Plaints to hear its grief. I felt then that
Only the selfish had fears, that only
The unloving felt pain and then the first
Tinge of blood seemed like another dawn
Breaking. For a while I too was earth.
In me the seed was silent, waiting as
A baby does, for the womb’s quiet
Expulsion. This then was my destiny.
Walk into the waiting room, I had cried,
When once my heart was vacant, fill the
Emptiness, stranger, fill it with a child.
Love is not important, that makes the blood
Carouse, nor the man who brands you with his
Lust, but is shed as slough at end of each
Embrace. Only that matters which forms as
Toadstool under lightning and rain, the soft
Stir in womb, the foetus growing, for,
Only the treasures matter that were washed
Ashore, not the long blue tides that washed them
In. When rain stopped and the light was gay on our
Casuarina leaves, it was early
Afternoon. And, then, wailing into light
He came, so fair, a streak of light thrust
Into the faded light. They raised him
To me then, proud Jaisurya, my son
Separated from darkness that was mine
And in me. The darkness I have known,
Lived with. The darkness of rooms where the old
Sit, sharpening words for future use,
The darkness of sterile wombs and that of
The miser’s pot, with the mildew on his coins.
Out of the mire of a moonless night was
He born, Jaisurya, my son, as out of
The wrong is born the right and out of night
The sun-drenched golden day.
GLASS
I went to him for half an hour
As pure woman, pure misery,
Fragile glass, breaking
Crumbling . . .
The house was silent in the heat
Only the old rafters creaking.
He drew me to him
Rudely
With a lover’s haste, an armful
Of splinters, designed to hurt and
Pregnant with pain. Why
Did I not cry then, broken glass, beware?
Why did I not tell him then that
I no longer care
Whom I
Hurt with love and often without?
With a cheap toy’s indifference
I enter others’
Lives and
Make of every trap of lust
A temporary home. On me, their
Strumming fingers may
Revive
The fond melodies of a past.
I give a wrapping to their dreams,
A woman-voice,
And a woman-smell.
And I do not ever bother to tell,
I have misplaced a father
Somewhere
And I look for him now everywhere.
FLOTSAM
We were the homeless, he and I, the floating ones
Who recognise swiftly another of the tribe
By that certain hunger in the eye, a slight
Narrowing, for, although brimming with a desert sun,
It fancies it sees an oasis; the mirage
Greenly reflected in each lonely cornea,
And, so together we stumbled so clumsily
Into lust. But pushing his urgent limbs away
I fought to regain my body’s poise till he cried
I love you, you’ve no need to be afraid of me.
When at last he left, scolded, sent away, alone
On the white desert of my sheets I wondered if
I should have fought at all to save this dubious
Asset, my aloneness, my terrible aloneness.
REQUIEM FOR A SON
A cold wind blows from the airfield today; the mother trembles
With unease, remembering again the son who
Did not return from his play. He had told her once, the air is
My father, it will not betray me but it wrung out of his
Throat his first cry of terror and scattered him over the trees
Among the white and purple bougainvillea bloom, hurled his innards
With the wantonness of breakers that toss in the messy
Treasures of the sea. The public liked what it saw, the mangled son,
A silenced lion wrapped in a flag, the dry-eyed mother; it
Offered its blurred pity and hurriedly left to print the story.
Her laments were silent, her heart was a throne room locked for years
Where she walked alone with a mirror in her hand. Death is
Ordinary. To live on an earth built upon layers and
Layers of bone requires an extraordinary
Courage, to walk the corridors of this prison and note with
A quiet joy the saplings bursting from the cracks in stone and
Know for certain that life will go on. He was impatient with
Old wisdom’s slow narrations, his dreams had wings to lend them speed,
I must do it, he cried banging a clenched fist against a palm,
I have no time at all to waste. Grass has already grown on
The dirt track that returned him each day to his home, his ears filled with
The drone of planes, his limbs chilled by the morning dew. Can he hear
From where he is, the words of the living? Words are a harvest
Gleaned from granite, they are dry and can give no comfort. I was
The maker of your world, said the mother, but when you died you seemed
To take away mine. Night is a woman in widow’s weeds,
Reminding of wet graves and wreaths and my sleep is the hangman’s
Troubled pre-morning slumber, yes, grief burns coldly like a moon,
I live and wither, you die, but blaze with a wondrous life, for
A mother’s love often fashions a kind of eternity.
May 1, 2019
Don't read much poetry. These were baby steps. I could feel her anguish in her writings about men - her words in some poems cast a spell on me. Look forward to reading more of her work.
November 5, 2024
Excellent poems. 10/10 would recommend to a friend.
January 16, 2022
One of my favorite poets! I consider it a privilege to have come across and read her work!
September 8, 2023
I read "Summer in Calcutta" last year and since then have been interested in reading more of Das's work, and in learning about her life. There's something very honest about these poems: they don't put on airs or try to be overly profound. Instead, I think the seemingly simple language and syntax often brought the meaning across more clearly. Das is renowned for writing openly about women's lust and bodies and wants, their ambitions, lack of opportunities, and loves, and the poems about family, femininity, and place were by far the most powerful for me.
If I had not learned to write how would
I have written away my loneliness
or grief?
December 28, 2018
Good book
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 7, 2021
Immaculate collection of poems. Das pushes boundaries with the queerness of her poetry and themes like love and female sexuality.
August 21, 2023
~3.25
Read
March 15, 2024Начал читать в Керале, на речном трамвайчике. Это было хорошо
А закончил в московской еловой пене, что хорошо, хотя и несколько мрачно
А закончил в московской еловой пене, что хорошо, хотя и несколько мрачно
April 7, 2025
Kamala Das will always be one of my favourite poets love her lucidity, abruptness and courage.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews