The longevity of a poem is what counts: An interview with Menka Shivdasani

ABSTRACT

Menka Shivdasani is a distinguished new-generation poet from Mumbai who has profoundly influenced and changed Indian poetry in English by giving it a new direction with her writing craft. In this wide-ranging interview, Shivdasani shares details of her childhood, educational background, and life as a journalist and poet. It touches on the themes of her poetry dealing with urban life, alienation, human anxiety, disillusionment, ecological concerns, love and loss, claustrophobic domesticity, and conflict between tradition and modernity with specific references to some of her major works: Nirvana at Ten Rupees (1990), Stet (2021), Safe House (2015), and Frazil (2018). The interview also explores the role of feisty women in fighting against hostile forces and their ability to define and make themselves heard in male-dominated society. In addition to her suggestions for aspiring poets, the discussion extends to the influences of other literary writers on her and their observation of her poetry.

KEYWORDS:

• Menka Shivdasani
• feisty women
• hostile forces
• new-generation Indian poet
• Partition
• sati

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Sindhi refers to the people from Pakistan’s Sindh province and the Sindhi language spoken in Sindh and western India.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Md Rakibul Islam

M. Rakibul Islam has been working as an assistant professor of English in the Department of Law, Faculty of Law, Aligarh Muslim University, Centre Murshidabad, West Bengal, India, for over seven years. He received his PhD from Aligarh Muslim University in English. He has published research papers in journals such as The Grove – Working Papers on English Studies and Contemporary Voice of Dalit and contributed several chapters in edited books. He has also co-edited books such as Diaspora Poetics in South Asian English Writings, Rewriting Resistance: Caste and Gender in Indian Literature, and War, Violence and Trauma Narratives in Literature. Currently, he is in charge of the Publication Committee at AMU Centre Murshidabad and also a review member of an international journal titled The Criterion: An International Journal in English. He has attended webinars on various academic issues such as teaching, learning, and engaging and motivating students organized by Cambridge Assessment English and Oxford University Press.