Wet Silence: Poems about Hindu Widows

by Sweta Srivastava Vikram, Shaila Abdullah (Foreword by)

Overview

"Sweta Vikram captures bold raw passion, poignant reality and crafts a powerful voice for the voiceless." --Kate Campbell Stevenson, Actor & Producer

Wet Silence bears moving accounts of Hindu widows in India. The book raises concern about the treatment of widowed women by society; lends their stories a voice; shares their unheard tales about marriage; reveals the heavy hand of patriarchy; and, addresses the lack of companionship and sensuality in their lives. This collection of poems covers a myriad of social evils such as misogyny, infidelity, gender inequality, and celibacy amongst other things. The poems in the collection are bold, unapologetic, and visceral. The collection will haunt you.

"Nothing short of sacred genius, Wet Silence reads with a sensual and dangerous grace. It is a body of work that ushers presence into absence and love into a world that has all but done away with the word." --Slash Coleman, author of The Bohemian Love Diaries and blogger for Psychology Today

."Sweta's poems did a powerful job at highlighting the mental and sexual abuse, violence, loneliness and the pain experienced by millions of widows in India. Why I ask, is being a widow a crime?" --Shruti Kapoor, Founder of Sayfty, an organization that helps women protect themselves against violence

"In a gorgeous choir of reclaimed voices, Sweta Srivastava Vikram tells the stories of women forgotten and passed over, women silenced and without choices, women who 'don't exist'--Hindu widows. Through the magical breath of her poetry Vikram not only animates these women's hopes, sorrows, dreams, and defeats, she lovingly restores them to honor." --Melissa Studdard, award-winning author of I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast

.Learn more at www.SwetaVikram.com

From the World Voices Series at Modern History Press

POE005060 Poetry: American - Asian American SOC028000 Social Science: Women's Studies - General FAM001000 Family & Relationships: Abuse - General

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781615992560
Publisher:	Modern History Press
Publication date:	07/01/2015
Pages:	72
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.17(d)

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

I can hear a white cotton sari weaving at the shop

My husband is leaving

Widowhood is trapping me unwillingly.

I can hear a white cotton sari weaving at the shop,
My husband is leaving.

It's his touch gentle as velvet,
Craving you

In my eyes, a rainstorm gathers,
Your body burning on the pyre lights a fire in my pen.

Your kiss reached my lungs, I lost my heart.

Your touch burned my words in the Indian summer.

How can I fill the vacuum in my life with anything else?

I press my fingers against your memory —
I miss you for years after you are gone.

Spectator

I would like to mourn you for 24 hours before the knives of tradition with tongues thick like that of an ox,
Waters swell in the Ganges.
I hate that the hand upon your chest isn't mine.
Note from a dutiful widow

I have made morning tea for your spinster aunt with vulgar imagination about the milkman.

I have dropped off your brother at school for the past year so he doesn't become a stranger in the dark.

I have taught dancing to your teenage sister so she doesn't hide a random man's face between her thighs.

I have served dinner to your father, although he ignores his family,
I have crocheted shawls for your mother, filled holes in her worn out dreams and family picture.

I'm exhausted from being alone in company,
Weeping

In the dark garage I accept there will be no more sticks for the fire.

Winter blankets my longing arms,
I am not writing this poem so the world can empathize;

why sacrifice my plea for people who lay your naked body on pyre, burn my wishes as if I was toxic waste?

Weeping doesn't rescue a widow.

Never abandoned

Showers of rice and turmeric drowned us as we walked around Agni,
The countless times aunties said you would never touch my ebony skin, I felt like abandoned dust.
How do I tell anyone what you gave me?
Even the rain can't erase the warm memories of our togetherness the cold bones others try to break.

Ghazal

Dear husband: try to leave your scent behind.

Eyes follow me around,
Dear husband: try to leave your scent behind.

I know your Old Spice on my pillowcase will drive me insane.
My tongue will burn from wanting to kiss the Old Monk breath and words of love on your dark lips.

Dear husband: try to leave your scent behind.

Setting sun

Like a sack of rice in the pantry,
But I remember when you rolled and pressed your ear to my cheeks in the mornings,

and when my feet were tired,
How we passionately took each breath,
Our blood

This poem is about our only son who leaves me restless.
Where did we go wrong?
I sold my bones as I worked three jobs so he could become an engineer.
I cross my legs but don't say a word —
Silence sides with my grieving heart.

Holi

An excuse to touch —
Old men with potbellies and baldheads full of stolen poems,
Flesh yearns to converse with flesh on display,
Risqué hip signals on display pores glisten with sweat on mahogany skin.

A rascal hand slithers over a stranger's belly,
Handful of colorful powder and paint unleash the darkness of unexamined life, desire to wake up in an unknown bed.

Each of the men and women present turn into something I don't want to recognize.

People willing to walk on hot coal to prove their chastity and test their lover's loyalty,
Here I am, called a prude for too much consciousness.

Here I am, called a crude metaphor for not wanting to wake up under fouled sheets.

Here I am, called inauspicious for being a widow on Holi and embracing colors of your love.

Without You

I don't want to sleep without you looking at me.

I'm learning to do without your arms soothing my nights.
Black mask

My teeth have dropped,
Nectar

At family gatherings, you would try to steal a kiss, wrap me in your arms,
You are gone.
The rustle in mango leaves

I look for hidden meanings in every folded sari,
I pull out your fragrance from my memories,
With you gone, I'm the rustle in mango leaves,
Nickname

You wore a Tulsi thread around your thin neck,
We secretly met between the ocean and the rocks —
You promised we'd grow old together.
What I wouldn't give just to see you one more time.
Vulnerable

I am afraid to fall asleep because dreams don't promise I will see his dead face with my eyes closed.

CHAPTER 2

I didn't promise to sleep in your shadow

I water my memory of you

Matchsticks and mirror won't burn the poems you wrote while untangling my braid,
The names we recited of our imaginary children.
At dawn, I sit like rust.
Forbidden

I feel the loneliness of the ocean,
Fragrance was forbidden in our marriage unless it meant a younger woman's flesh.
I wasn't a bird,
What does a servant girl know?

I was plucking chillies when you stared at my lips —
I believed you.
You drank from my breasts,
I believed you.
You entered inside me,
I wished you would stay.
As your bones turn to ashes,
Your wife

It was three mornings before Diwali
I wanted to ask so many questions —
Are you trying to turn her into me?

Funny how festivals increase the gap between your touch and my wanting hips,
Other men notice your prints on my breath;
Pretense

When I hear belts unbuckle,
But I admit our secret to no one.
Everybody falls in their own eyes at some point in life.
Hypocrisy

You wanted me full of meat and bones,
I want to cut the brown nipples you licked when your bodies moaned in air.
I see your hypocrisy.
You might have died last month,
Curry

You liked my skin smelling of freshly roasted red chilli mixed with sea salt.

You kissed my braided hair,
You teased: the secret to a good tasting marriage was the curry the woman made in a hurry when her husband dipped inside the sacred vessel. Our whispers infected the kitchen, our bodies fell and rose, spoke in voices only our lips heard.

But when warm blood trickled between my legs three years in a row,
The question

I want to follow Yama,
I would lick your pain if I could.
Death doesn't frighten me.

Yama doesn't listen to me.
Sour milk

There is no woman who goes to bed and doesn't dream but when you asked if you could invite your old lovers in our lives,
I was a good-natured woman.
But you called me a whore,
I sit by the window, away from your shadow and write about broken love,
My sister's husband

Sometimes I wanted to kiss your neck when you came out of the shower,
At family dinners,
You didn't tell me you had plans of your own —
I sit on the kitchen stool wondering how it'll all end.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Wet Silence"
by .
Copyright © 2015 Sweta Srivastava Vikram.
Excerpted by permission of Loving Healing Press, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Foreword by Shaila Abdullah,
Acknowledgments,
Introduction,
I can hear a white cotton sari weaving at the shop,
My husband is leaving,
Craving you,
Spectator,
Note from a dutiful widow,
Weeping,
Never abandoned,
Ghazal,
Setting sun,
Our blood,
Holi,
Without You,
Black mask,
Nectar,
The rustle in mango leaves,
Nickname,
Vulnerable,
I didn't promise to sleep in your shadow,
I water my memory of you,
Forbidden,
What does a servant girl know?,
Your wife,
Pretense,
Hypocrisy,
Curry,
The question,
Sour milk,
My sister's husband,
Misogynist,
Broken,
Hostage,
Silence became my lover, that's why,
Silence became my lover,
Heartbeat,
Fifteen,
Solitude,
Unshared words,
Eulogy,
I'll rise,
You were always nothing,
Secrets in my belly,
Passage of time,
A widow's confession,
Burning,
Forewarned,
Wet silence,
Working girl,
Willpower,
Glossary,
About the Author,