Poetry, Politics and Culture: Essays on Indian Texts and Contexts

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This book maps the journey of the Indian poetic imagination - in Hindi, Panjabi and Indian English - from its original quasi-spiritual longings to its activist interventions in the public domain. As Indian poetry of the post-1990s gravitates towards a non-Orientalised postcolonial nationalism, it seeks to rewrite and disseminate the shifting coordinates of nationalist imagination in terms of the dissent of the subaltern discontents of the nation.This book is interdisciplinary: it studies Indian poetry from the new emerging imperatives of postcolonialism, new historiography (subaltern, dalit and diasporas), nationalism, and cultural studies. Covering the two major north Indian languages - Hindi and Punjabi - along with poetry in Indian English, the book is a close textual study of about 150 poetry collections in these languages. It is path-breaking in its study of secular poetry written in the so-called vernaculars, with critical attention to its participation in the political as well as cultural processes of nation-making. This cutting-edge book should be of interest to scholars of Indian writings in English, Hindi and Panjabi, gender studies, dalit and diaspora studies, postcolonial poetry and to students reading South Asian literature and culture. Contents of the book : 1. "Preface" 2. "Acknowledgement " Part I: Mapping Nation/Post-nation 3. Negotiating Nationalism(s): Hindi Poetry during and after the Colonial Period 4. De-fetishising Home/Homelessness: Nation in Post-1990s Hindi Poetry 5. From Hyphen to High-fun: Towards a Topology of New Indian-English Diaspora Poetry Part II: Re-writing Culture 6. From Nationalist Icon to Subaltern Subject, and Beyond: Latter day Meeras 7. Kissa as the Locus of Cultural History: Kissa Pooran Bhagat in Modern Punjabi Literature 8. Translating Bhakti: Versions of Kabir in the Colonial/Early Nationalist Period 9. Anxieties of Native Decent/Dissent: Bhakti Sub-text of Indian English Verse Part III: Disseminating Dissent 10. Poetry of Incarceration: Punjabi Prison Poetry from Ghadar to Emergency and Beyond 11. From Participation to Protest: Political Conciousness of Modern Indian English Poetry 12. From Confusion to Consolidation: Politics of Counter-aesthetics in Dalit Poetry 13. On the frontiers of the Public Sphere: Indian Women's Poetry from Pre-1947 to Post 9/11 14. "Bibliography" 15. "Index"