POET OF THE DAY: CHITRA DIVAKARUNI

Two weeks ago I meet novelist and poet Chitra Divakaruni who was here for our WCU literary festival. I had long admired Chitra's work, beginning years ago with her book of poems Black Candle. After her poems, I began to read her beautifully realized novels, among them Sister of My Heart and The Vine of Desire, and knew I had to try to contact her. She generously responded to my blog comments and emails, all of which led to the invitation for her to come to Cullowhee for our festival. Spending time with her was a pleasure! At the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching, she engaged the teachers in a friendly, informative question/answer session, and her reading that night was a marvel of presentation. Born in Calcutta, Chitra now lives in Houston with her family; she teaches in the University of Houston graduate writing program and has just published a new new novel, One Amazing Thing. You can find her online at her website, chitradivakaruni.com, and on facebook.

The New City ( II)

In the old place, the soil was black from earthquakes.

Jacaranda grew in it, and purple iceplant,

things she was not sure would winter here.

At what point does one grow too old

to learn new names? Green ash, water oak. The sounds

soft as a palm pressed over her mouth, her nose.

She prayed for distraction. Felt guilty to say

she missed the roads more than all else,

the way they plunged from hills, not looking back.

On a new freeway there are no landmarks.

Driving, she felt her tires slide as on river-ice.

Blur and wheel. A sound like enormous wings.

The faceless trees were pronged by their unleashing.

Time, white as shredded letters,

rushing laughing past her windows.

from Black Candle, Calyx Books, Rev. Edition 2000)

(Chitra and City Lights Bookstore owner/manager Chris Wilcox at the book table)

SPRING CLEANING: A Poem for Chitra Divakaruni

A couple of months ago I received an invitation to submit some poems, each no longer than 32 lines, to an anthology whose theme was "collecting." I collect words, so why not try to write some poems collecting words I like. I stood in the kitchen, thinking about how badly my house, especially the kitchen, need some elbow grease, as my mother used to call it. On the kitchen counter spread my out of control spice collection. Hmmmm. I was also reading Chitra Divakaruni's novels; Mistress of Spices is perhaps her best known, since it was made into a movie. I like them all, but I have to say that Sister of My Heart and
The Vine of Desire is where to begin if you don't know her work. She's also a poet and it was as a poet that I first came to know of her. As I fiddled around with the names of spices, I kept thinking of Chitra, some of the recipes she'd posted on her blog, and so ended up thinking of this as her poem.


SPRING CLEANING

for Chitra

I take stock of the spices
I've kept for too long--

coriander and cumin,
that catch-all called curry,

and paprika, accent
that's always the first earthy

syllable, rich as Hungarian
sod swirling into the gulasz.

Masala and tandoori powders
a drooping wife might sniff

to kindle her passion
for waking back up again,

turmeric turning her fingertips
golden, a pinch of it

under her lip
like my grandmother's snuff,

balm for aching wrists
after the grinding of nutmeg

and cinnamon. Cayenne
for cleansing the sinuses.

Gesundheit! my grandmother,
framed on the wall by my pantry

exclaims! Dump them
simply because expiration

dates say so? Gourmet
magazine sneering "Off with their

lids, down the drain"?
I won't do it. Just let me

stay here a little while longer,
inhaling their presence. Their names.

This painting by Cindy Davis, one of her Twenty Somethings, captures some of the imagery in Chitra's work. I love the way Cindy works with trees and their roots. I soon will have a house full of her paintings.