{"id":577,"date":"2019-02-04T21:35:02","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T02:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=577"},"modified":"2019-02-04T21:35:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T02:35:02","slug":"review-of-bountiful-instructions-for-enlightenment-by-minal-hajratwala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=577","title":{"rendered":"Review of Bountiful Instructions for Enlightenment by Minal Hajratwala"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Minal Hajratwala. Bountiful\nInstructions for Enlightenment. <\/em>The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective, 2017.\n120 pgs. $19.99.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most interesting developments in the publication\nof contemporary poetry has been the turn to hybrid forms and hybrid collections.\nOne factor is clearly related to technological developments that now permit\ntext to be located on a page in unusual ways and also permit a mix of image and\ntext that would have been difficult (and more crucially, expensive) just a\ngeneration ago. Another factor, I suspect, is the increasing diversity of\ncultures represented by publishers of contemporary poetry in English. Not every\nculture distinguishes among genres identically to mainstream British and\nAmerican readers, nor does every culture assume that genres should not be mixed\nwithin a single published work. So we\u2019re seeing collections of poetry\nespecially that include pieces typeset as prose (whether we label them prose\npoems, flash, or something else), photographs and drawings, and short dramatic\nscripts. I suspect that one reason many of these collections that are\nchallenging the boundaries of genre are published as poetry is because most\npoetry publishers are small, with limited staff and even less hierarchy, and\nmuch of this work is not sold in conventional bookstores. Such factors could\ndiscourage these publishers from experimentation, but the opposite seems to\nhave occurred: these smaller publishers can do what they wish, and many of them\nare producing the most interesting work being published today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minal Hajratwala\u2019s Bountiful\nInstructions for Enlightenment <\/em>is one such collection. It contains poems\nthat follow conventions in their appearance on the page, poems in columns of\nalternating voices, poems that look like prose, and finally a play. Despite\nthese generic differences, the pieces are linked stylistically as well as\nthematically. Hajratwala juxtaposes classical with popular culture, putting\ncharacters from each in conversation with each other\u2014Lady Gaga and Cassandra of\nTroy, for example. She also references individuals and characters from many\ndifferent historic and geographic locations\u2014Arjuna, Zitkala-\u015ca,\nthe Buddha, Achilles, Margaret Mead. The poems are pleasurable to read because\ntheir content is often surprising, but they are not merely clever. Hajratwala\nencourages her readers to think not only about cultural distinctions and their\nsometimes arbitrary significance, but also about how members of a given culture\nperceive others. The book is playful and also thoughtful, challenging and wry,\nsometimes amusing and often very, very serious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBodies of Water,\u201d the third poem in the collection, plays\non the multiple meanings of both nouns in the title. Describing Lake Victoria,\nit opens with what initially seem like a bizarre series of metaphors, though\nthose metaphors soon make an appalling kind of sense:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shape of brainstem, or ovary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Northwest of the nipples of Kilamanjaro,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

south of the Sudan,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the pale queen\u2019s lake makes a gap in the continent<\/p>\n\n\n\n

where, now, corpses rush\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a torrent of flesh so uniform you would not guess<\/p>\n\n\n\n

they died for their differences<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a hundred miles upstream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One passes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

every three minutes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initial metaphors, describing landscape in\nterms of reproduction and primitive thought, perhaps simply reaction more than\nthought, for it\u2019s the \u201cbrainstem\u201d not the brain that serves as the metaphor\u2019s\nvehicle, prepare us for the subsequent event, the ethnic slaughter of Tutsis by\nHutus in Rwanda. A few stanzas later, a European speaks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have never\nseen such cruelty to man,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

claims the British ambassador, his tongue<\/p>\n\n\n\n

distorting Hutu, Tutsi, Rwanda\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ambassador\u2019s statement is so ironic as to border\non despair, for so many of the 20th<\/sup> and 21st<\/sup> centuries\u2019\nethnic conflicts in Africa are the direct result of European colonialism. Many\nof the poem\u2019s images rely on body parts, as does \u201ctongue\u201d above, as the speaker\ndescribes the bodies\u2019 \u201cdismemberment.\u201d Then, she turns to her own response:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two hand spans across the globe<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wonder whose hands will caress<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the forty thousand, how will they shift<\/p>\n\n\n\n

so many dripping dead to shallow graves &<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in which language will they wail?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poem critiques the British ambassador as well\nas the soldiers who have committed such atrocities. It also reminds the reader\nthat we are all implicated, for one of the most disturbing facts is that there\nare so many events to compete with this atrocity, to debate the ambassador\u2019s\nclaim. This poem is perhaps the most serious in the collection, but many of the\nothers explore history, revealing that history is the continuous story\nmistreatment of one group of humans by another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBodies of Water\u201d is a poem organized into\nconventional lines and stanzas, all the more horrifying because it so resembles\na lyric on the page. The pieces in section three, \u201cArchaeologies of the\nPresent,\u201d are more experimental. They adopt several of the conventions of\nsocial media and electronic search engines, each piece accompanied by a list of\ntags, and each tagged word appearing in bold face. \u201cThe Beautiful\u201d has the\nfollowing tags: \u201cstar, blood, cellular, closet, homo, hegemony,\u201d and begins\nthis way:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luxury at this time in America means white robes\nwith hoods, made of plush terrycloth, a material used in bathing towels in\nfive-star <\/strong>hotels. The stars <\/strong>are a rating system indicating\nquality of accommodations, food, fame & so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be a star\n<\/strong>one must be photogenic, emblematic, blank enough for projection: dreams,\ndesires, even terrors. Homicides are enacted & reenacted for entertainment.\nMany means exist to simulate blood. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As soon as American readers see \u201cwhite robes with\nhoods,\u201d they are thinking KKK. The poem initially seems to suggest this is a\nmisreading, but the second paragraph oddly confirms it. Members of the KKK have\ncommitted hundreds of homicides, to create terror among African Americans and\nothers, and to offer entertainment for some white Americans. (Who can ever\nforget the photographs of mobs at lynchings?) \u201cLuxury\u201d is privilege, the\nability to wear the terry-cloth robe or to wear or decline to wear the other\nrobe with a hood. \u201cThe Beautiful\u201d continues to enumerate daily rituals that\nsignify luxury\u2014varieties of cereal, lipstick, closet organizers, milk. The\npiece ends with a return to its beginning:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Homo <\/strong>fortified\nmilk is sold in dozens of varieties to account for varying needs for fat, all<\/strong>ergens, growth hormones, pesticides,\netc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All <\/strong>varieties,\neven chocolate, are white. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bountiful\nInstructions for Enlightenment <\/em>is worth reading and rereading for both its\nstyle and content. Its hybrid nature entices readers into close attention,\nheightening the effect of the content. We\u2019ve never read about these events, our\nown cultures, or the cultures of others quite this way before. If the\naccomplishment of this collection is representative of The (Great) Indian\nPoetry Collective, I can\u2019t wait to read more of their books. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Minal Hajratwala. Bountiful Instructions for Enlightenment. The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective, 2017. 120 pgs. $19.99. One of the most interesting developments in the publication of contemporary poetry has been the turn to hybrid forms and hybrid collections. One factor is clearly related to technological developments that now permit text to be located on a page […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15,16],"class_list":["post-577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-areviewaweek","tag-hajratwala","tag-poetry-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":579,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions\/579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}