Cutlish

by Rajiv Mohabir

In Cutlish , a title referencing the rural recasting of the cutlass or machete, Rajiv Mohabir creates a form migrated from Caribbean chutney music in order to verse the precarity of a queer Indo-Caribbean speaker in the newest context of the United States. By joining the disparate threads of his fading, often derided, multilingual Guyanese Creole and Guyanese Bhojpuri linguistic inheritances, Mohabir mingles the ghosts that haunt from the cane fields his ancestors worked with the canonical colonial education of his elders, creating a new syncretic American poetry — pushing through the “post” of postcolonial, the “poet” in the poetic.

Genres: Poetry, Queer

116 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2021

Reviews

[Helena · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Cutlish (the rural Guyanese word for cutlass or machete), Rajiv Mohabir presents a series of poems that are unapologetically Indo-Guyanese and queer. He angrily confronts the horrors of colonialism and indentured labour, as well as xenophobia and homophobia. He focuses on everything we’ve lost and the marks indenture left on us, and describes the loss of our culture with passion and longing. Carried within this anger and passion is resilience, and the desire to do what we can to keep our culture, traditions, and languages alive. His poems about cultural appropriation and dealing with stereotypes are fierce and powerful.

My favourite parts are the more subtle verses, where Mohabir sees a packet of Demerara sugar and contemplates his existence, or writes about the cultural traditions he doesn’t know how to do. He also references all that the cutlish symbolizes, and makes connections to sugarcane and diabetes (which is prevalent in Guyanese people). These were all real and relatable moments for me and I felt seen in ways I’ve never been seen before.

There’s a reader’s guide available online, in which Mohabir says: “The cutlish was a tool of work for indentured labourers as well as a tool of violence: emblematic of forced migration and its racial, ethnic, homophobic and misogynist effects…. It is an object that bears our history surviving the cane field.” I loved this discussion. If you’re Guyanese, your family might own a rusted cutlass (mine does 🙋🏾‍♀️), but have you ever thought about what it means? I never understood why we kept ours. But as Mohabir says, “they represented back home.”

Before I read this book, I’ve always looked at our cutlass as weird and unnecessary. But now, I see our complicated history. And because of Mohabir’s poems, I can see how it has cut down more than sugarcane, and that it is a part of our history & represents survival. I’m grateful to still be learning about my culture & what my ancestors endured, & to authors like Mohabir for leading the way.

[Sam Skold]

Such a strong collection of poetry interwoven with themes of identity, belonging, history, pain, and power.

[Ricky Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cutlish is a vast and visceral collection of poems that challenges and explores the limits of language while expressing the conflicting and confounding experience of being part of the Indian diaspora. Rajiv Mohabir rejects, reworks and reclaims the many languages of his existence. He utilizes all these vocabularies to unpack his queerness, culture, family and spirituality. It's at once playfully engaging and sharply humorous before turning defiantly esoteric and indulgently diverse. Though not an easy reading experience, it's never meant to be. Mohabir has not had any easy journey and neither will the reader. The book is an exercise in enduring a litany of unfamiliar tongues while striving desperately to find meaning.

It is described as "polyglottal" and that is the best way to put it. The poet translates and reinvents himself as he switches fluidly from English to Hindustani to Creole to Sanskrit and even Chutney songs. Do not be put off by the difficulty of reading this but engage with it and allow it to illustrate the feeling of being pulled everywhere at once while not belonging anywhere fully. It's a disorienting feeling but a rewarding and enlightening one.

Mohabir's imagery is luscious and vivid. His wit is cutting and creative. The poems are both tender and acerbic with incredible depth and heart. They are moving and intense in their grounded authenticity. Though sometimes daunting, they are bold and formidable in an impressively assured and artful way. Cutlish is an exceptional collection with a voice that is unparalleled and uniquely its own.

[Amanda Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rajiv Mohabir writes that a folksong "keeps time," and in "Cutlish," he seems to keep every time at once, spanning generations. Doing the work of an archivist and oral historian, Mohabir preserves his Aji's dying Bhojpuri song, which would have otherwise died with her. Mohabir is also a kind of astrologist, looking to the stars to tell and retell their stories in songs for the future, in a new form: the Chutney poem.

"English forgets the fields it clears," Mohabir pronounces. This collection refuses to let English forget.

[Vaidehi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad. Cutlish is a poetry collection - I enjoyed the cultural references and occasional Caribbean accent found throughout. I also appreciated the subtle blows to US imperialism and British empire in an Indo-Caribbean context.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cutlish is a beautiful and fascinating collection that explores the author's queer and Indo-Guyanese identities, and the horrors of colonialism, racism, xenophobia, queerphobia, and white supremacy. The multi-language approach drives these ideas home, and it lays out beautifully on the page. I enjoy the way Mohabir plays with form, and the way his play with language informs the form. I also really appreciated the clarity that the end notes provided in areas that I wasn't knowledgeable about (like historical and musical sources). It isn't completely my typical cup, and I'm definitely not the target audience, but I'm grateful to have had the chance to read it. I hope to read more from the author in the future, and would definitely recommend this.

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chutney poem form is Mohabir’s creation, drawn from mid-20th c chutney music, medley of Guysnese Bhoj Puri and English, in couplet form, translation in the poem. Deals with Indo-Caribbean history of indentured people, kala pani narrative, food as ancestry. Devanagari characters interspersed throughout. Multilingualism present here in a striking way.

[Khepre · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good collection of poems. My favorite includes:
Ok, Cupid
South Asian Art Exhibit, Museum of Art
Indo Queer sections

[Liz Gray · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of twelve finalists for the Massachusetts Center for the Book’s 2022 Poetry Prize. No spoilers until the prize is announced in October 2022!

[Narise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really special collection of poems that tackle a variety of themes and topics simultaneously: biculturalism, Hinduism, brownness, queer love, diaspora, domestic violence, xenophobia, homophobia, immigration, colonialism, alcoholism, and complicity/passiveness (among others). These are topics very relevant to the Caribbean experience, and other marginalized groups broadly, yet seemed to be a rare find for a poetry collection. Transparently, some poems hit me more than others. I appreciated him not translating certain parts of the poems. I interpreted this as not sacrificing the true/intended meaning to be more palatable to others. I think this collection is one I'll need to circle back to in order to fully appreciate.

[Melia Tessel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yup this was great