The Cowherd's Son

by Rajiv Mohabir

Broadening the scope of his award-winning debut to consider the wider Indo-Caribbean community in migration across the Americas and Europe, Rajiv Mohabir uses his queer and mixed-caste identities as grace notes to charm alienation into silence. Mohabir's inheritance of myths, folk tales, and multilingual translations make a palimpsest of histories that bleed into one another. A descendant of indentureship survivors, the poet-narrator creates an allegorical chronicle of dislocations and relocations, linking India, Guyana, Trinidad, New York, Orlando, Toronto, and Honolulu, combining the amplitude of mythology with direct witness and sensual reckoning, all the while seeking joy in testimony.

The cowherd's son --
Holi lovesport --
A body of myths --
Touch me not --
Vivah at the Durga temple --
Relief --
Paper lantern --
Coolitude --
Indenture --
Diabetes prayer --
Rum and coca-cola --
Blind man's whilst --
El dorado, 1998 --
Bulbul --
Sita --
Temple in the sea --
Ode to Richmond hill --
Wound --
A prayer at Nauraat --
Deepak raga --
Butchering a hen --
Your mother prays in the Metropolitan Museum of Art --
Mantra --
Holi --
Light the city --
Cow minah: Aji tells a story --
Mynah --
My name is a map --
Mysterious alembics --
Bound coolie --
The river-son's betrayal --
Bismillah --
Fall --
Chamber music --
Malhar raga --
Change --
Henna --
ift from a grandmother --
Tuberculosis --
A letter from nana to nani --
Fade --
Back-home games in Florida --
Standing on a Brampton driveway before the snow --
Haunting --
Emptying in the sea --
Dirge for Kamal --
Orbit of exterior wildfires --
Unwitting pilgrim.

Genres: Poetry, India, Queer, Queer Lit

99 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2017

Reviews

[Shivanee Ramlochan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before I knew the poems of Rajiv Mohabir, I felt very specifically that a part of me was speaking into the darkness. In The Cowherd's Son, I hear clearly the voice of myself, speaking back to me in the voice of another, troubling the darkness. I don't go to these poems because I want to escape the dark. I go to them and find my queer voice, my coolie voice, my indenture-history voice, and the best part of it is, I haven't created this work. It echoes outside of me as well as into me.

There is a very specific holiness in finding yourself where you did not write, explicitly, yourself. It's a radiant, sizzling aha, a signal across kala pani, saying: someone has you. Someone has been reading you right, without knowing your name.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kind of was a first for me to read a contemporary poetry collection, and I really enjoyed the artistry of it. I was surprised as well by how difficult these felt to read, and I had to reread each poem multiple times and take breaks in between readings to reflect on them. But the content on Indo-Guyanese diaspora, queerness, history of indenture, etc. etc. was also right up my alley. There's a lot of birds here, too.

[Brittany Mishra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every single poem hits a nerve. This is a collection that is a tribute to ancestors enslaved and indentured, a tribute to a self that cannot be defined and refuses definition. A tribute to people of diaspora, that live across the world far from a country they are tied to, but were never born in. This is also an F U to empire, that has displaced and continues to displace people from every country it seeks to consume.

[Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems were beautiful. It took me much longer than usual to finish this collection because I sat with many of the poems multiple times.
Rajiv’s background in studying religion shows in his poems, all of which appear deeply personal, tragic, lustful, grateful and kind. I haven’t been this captured by a collection in a while. Very well done, would recommend.

[Adeeba Talukder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rajiv Mohabir's poems are stunning.

[sofia ✴︎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

um changed my life actually. needed that