Full Description
An exquisite collection from a poet at the peak of her powers, Tishani Doshi's Forward-shortlisted A God at the Door spans time and space, drawing on the extraordinary minutiae of nature and humanity to elevate the marginalised. Extending the territory of her zeitgeist collection Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods, these new poems traverse history, from the cosmic to the quotidian. There is a playful spikiness to be found in poems like 'Why the Brazilian Butt Lift Won't Save Us', while others, such as 'I Found a Village and in it Were All Our Missing Women', are fed by rage. As the collection unfolds, there are gem-like poems such as 'I Carry My Uterus in a Small Suitcase' which sparkles on the page with impeccable precision. Later, there are the sharp shocks delivered by two mirrored poems set side by side, 'Microeconomics' and 'Macroeconomics'.
Tishani Doshi's poetry bestows power on the powerless, deploys beauty to heal trauma, and enables the voices of the oppressed to be heard with piercing clarity. From flightless birds and witches, to black holes and Marilyn Monroe, A God at the Door illuminates with lines and images that surprise, inflame and dazzle.
Contents
11 Mandala
12 Pilgrimage
13 Creation Abecedarian
14 The Stormtroopers of My Country
15 My Loneliness Is Not the Same as Your Loneliness
18 A Blue Mormon Finds Herself Among Common Emigrants
20 Why the Brazilian Butt Lift Won't Save Us
22 Every Unbearable Thing
25 Advice for Pliny the Elder, Big Daddy of Mansplainers
26 Roots
28 In a Dream I Give Birth to a Sumo Wrestler
30 Instructions on Surviving Genocide
37 The Comeback of Speedos
38 Face Exercises for Marionette Lines
39 I Found a Village and in it Were All Our Missing Women
41 Contagion
42 Tree of Life
44 Homage to the Square
46 I Don't Want to be Remembered by My Last Instagram Post
48 Everyone Has a Wilting Point
50 Tigress Hugs Manchurian Fir
51 Poems Lull us into Safety
52 After a Shooting at a Maternity Clinic in Kabul
54 They Killed Cows. I Killed Them.
59 Cell
60 Self
61 Collective
62 Nation
63 Species
64 Cosmos
67 The Coronapocalypse Will Be Televised
69 Variations on Hippo
72 A Dress is Like a Field
74 Postcard to My Mother-in-Law who at 16 is Chasing Brigitte Bardot in St Tropez
75 Together
76 Many Good & Wonderful Things
78 I Carry My Uterus in a Small Suitcase
79 Bacterium
80 A Possible Explanation as to Why We Mutilate Women & Trees, which Tries to End on a Note of Hope
82 What Mr Frog Running Away from Marilyn Monroe Taught Me About #MeToo
84 Tiger Woman
85 We Will Not Kill You. We'll Just Shoot You in the Vagina
89 Microeconomics
91 Macroeconomics
92 This May Reach You Either as a Bird or Flower
93 Petard
94 Rotten Grief
96 October Fugue
97 Do Not Go Out in the Storm
100 Listening to Abida Parveen on Loop I Understand Why I Miss Home and Why It Must Be So
102 End-of-Year Epiphany in the Holiday Inn
104 It Has Taken Many Years to See My Body
107 Hope Is the Thing
109 Survival
113 Notes
118 Acknowledgements
