Sharp Blue Search of Flame

Zilka Joseph

• Publisher: Wayne State University Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780814340509
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Stirring, atmospheric poems that journey through memories of growing up in India, and the myth, death, loss, and rebirth that surrounds that experience.

Sharp Blue Search of Flame is an exploration in poetry of a complex network of nuanced journeys into a variety of worlds. The searingly rich poems reflect Zilka Joseph's own history of living in Eastern and Western cultures, as well as the influences of her Jewish Indian roots. Joseph's free verse and forms shift scenes from the real to the imagined landscapes of the mind, and search for fulfillment and solace amidst the terrifying beauty and chaos of the human condition.

Joseph's poems, while dark and brooding in subject matter—bride burnings and infanticide in her native country, the loss of Eden, mourning for a beloved mother—offer a tactile insight into life in India and the United States. Through a flurry of sounds and smells, the reader learns an interpretation of the history of the sari, witnesses the horror of attacks on women, and wrestles with death, whether it be that of an elephant, an extinct frog, honey bees, humans, or goddesses. Her poems dig deep and aspire for something beyond. Colored by fire, blood, ash, and rain, these poems present images of great joy and deep loss in a complex harmony.

Sharp Blue Search of Flame embraces worlds within worlds and worlds between worlds, which is not only intrinsic to the fabric of the poems but to the life of the poet as well. Readers of poetry will savor this sensory collection.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Apples and Oranges
• Consider the Sari,
• Something Falls
• The Blessed
• Where Sparrows Nest
• You, Without Shoes
• Penelope Speaks to the Women
• Prey
• Seeking the Snake
• Dharamsala
• Like Blood
• Night Watchmen
• Harbingers
• Kingdom of Sharks
• Bird in a Blizzard
• The Eye of the Poppy
• Havan
• Fire: For Beginners
• The Bharatnatyam Dancer
• Mudras: Language of Hands
• Turntable
• The Hands That Lit the Shabbat Lamps
• Threshold
• What Burns
• Nature of the Beast
• You Rise from Blue Lotuses
• Life of a Goddess
• Wildcat Love
• Catch
• Lady Lotus Eater
• Glass Bangle Song
• Black-Eyed Susan
• Bus Window in the Sun
• Weep, Willow, Weep,
• The Kitchen Table
• The Albatross’s Call
• Siege
• Warrior Woman
• Rabiya: In Mourning
• Such Shifting
• Strange Landing
• God Bless You
• Hibiscus and Smoking Incense
• How Often on Himalayan Roads
• Chimes
• City of Hibiscus Eyes
• Child of Churning Water
• Death of a Frog
• Borer
• Dark-Bitter-Sweet
• A Gathering
• Bees, Sunday Brunch
• Garuda, King of Birds
• The Magi
• As Birds Do
• Somewhere Deep
• Listen
• Acknowledgments
• Notes