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**************** RIVER OF GIRLS — Tishani Doshi

on June 29 | in Poetry | by | with No Comments

i.m. India’s missing girls

 

This is not really myth or secret.

This murmur in the mouth

of the mountain where the sound

of rain is born. This surging

past pilgrim town and village well.

This coin-thin vagina

and acid stain of bone.

This doctor with his rusty tools,

this street cleaner, this mother

laying down the bloody offerings

of birth. This is not the cry

of a beginning, or a river

buried in the bowels of the earth.

This is the sound of ten million girls

singing of a time in the universe

when they were born with tigers

breathing between their thighs;

when they set out for battle

with all three eyes on fire,

their golden breasts held high

like weapons to the sky.

 

 

nn, headshot, tishani-doshi_080311031447Tishani Doshi was born in the city formerly known as MADRAS in 1975.She has published five books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Her essays, poems and short stories have been widely anthologized. In 2012 she represented India at a historic gathering of world poets for Poetry Parnassus at the Southbank Centre, London. She is also the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award for Poetry, winner of the All-India Poetry Competition, and her first book, COUNTRIES OF THE BODY, won the prestigious Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Tishani’s debut novel, THE PLEASURE SEEKERS, was shortlisted for the Hindu Literary Prize and long-listed for the Orange Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She currently lives on the beach between two fishing villages in Tamil Nadu with her husband and three dogs.

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