Everyday Flowers by Kalpana Asok
$15.95
EVERYDAY FLOWERS by Kalpana Asok gives the reader a look into another world. As the best poetry does, it goes inside the emotional world of a person’s experiences to find a truth of her own.
–Arlene Kramer Richards,
If you’ve wondered how it must feel to be a stranger in a strange land, Kalpana Asok tells you in these gentle poems. Gentle, but with a hint of irony, as when, in the voice of a new arrival, an Indian woman introduces herself to a new American neighbor, and then, in an almost footnoted last line that lets us know she was never invited into the house: “Dear Ethel, Thank you for the lemonade and the visits on your porch.” The feeling of dislocation surfaces sharply in another, when she asks, “My mother’s in my mirror/is she walled in/am I locked out . . . .” Vivid images greet us throughout, as she explores, wide-eyed, this new world, where a “chatty American” wears a “different baseball cap every day” and is “full of information.” The gentle voice rises in indignation in strong, tightly crafted poems about social injustice, as in “I Can’t Breathe,” with a first stanza ending in “Yes, metoo.” Remembering or perhaps dreaming, she gives us a “Tiger Preserve,” with a “Lurching blind-drunk female /in the middle of the day/Slapping holy ground . . . .” The gentle voice returns in this lovely debut collection, ending with a lullaby, “Tenderly,” in hummed syllables: “Umhmm, hmmm hmm hmm . . . .” Read it with delight and continued discovery.
— Irene Willis, poet and author
About the Author
Born and raised in Bangalore, India, Kalpana Asok’s mother tongue is Tamil, but English became her primary language in school. She studied for a B.S. in Chemistry and Biology, and then Kalpana Asok moved to the U.S. 31 years ago to marry the man with whom she now has two grown children. She also continued her studies, achieving an M.S. in Biology and M.A. in Counseling Psychology. For over twenty years she has worked as a psychotherapist in the Bay Area’s Silicon Valley, while also writing poetry and prose. Her first book, Whose Baby Is It, Anyway? Inside the Indian Heart (IPBooks, 2018) is a collection of small essays that speak to the Indian culture and how the Indian family system impacts the individual’s psychosocial space within India as well as outside India. Other publications include opinion pieces in journals and newspapers such as India Currents and The San Jose Mercury News.
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